Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Happy "Happy Blocks"

I managed to get my February "Anything Goes" Happy Blocks ironed and photographed for ya. I just laid them out on the floor and stood up high on stool. I hope you can see them! It was fun seeing what everyone came up with. I feel like I had an insight into everyone's personality.

(Remember: click on the photos for a larger view.)

I am not sure how I am going to put them together. I am trying to be "creative". So who knows what will come out!! Eeek! It could be scarey! So watch out!

I also managed to finish my "Bug Blocks" for the April Swap. I think they are pretty cute! I had to go and get bug fabric as I did not have any! Imagine that! Fabric I didn't have! It was fun hunting some down.



The May theme is flowers. I am sure I have some of those! So I will dig in my stash and scraps for those.

Happy Day,
Wasie

Saturday, March 24, 2007

To TLU & Back...

Friday, I drove my oldest daughter, who is beginning the fun and somewhat arduous process of choosing a college, all the way down to Seguin, Texas. We did not make it all the way home. I caved in and we stopped at a hotel partway and finished the 6 hour trek on Saturday. She did help with some of the driving; although she is not fond of high traffic situations, her highway driving skills are improving as she gains more experience. Anyhow, we did survive the drive, despite a couple of creative stop-and-go situations on the way home -- where once you finally merge all the way over in stop-and-go traffic and get to your exit only to discover that a fire truck and police car have it blocked and now you get to drive across three lanes the other direction to a totally new route! Or playing stop and go for 30 minutes to move only 2 miles, merge over to the right to try to exit to find out that you are forced to merge all the way back to the left, finally get there, get up to the front, and watch 2 police cars drive off and all the lanes open up! Isn't big city driving an adventure?? sigh...

Well, back to our story... In Seguin, we visited Texas Lutheran University (TLU) and Jess just loved it. We took a tour of the campus given by a senior business major, and met with an admissions counselor. We also were able to visit with a friend of ours who is currently a freshman student there. So she was able to learn alot about what going to school there was like. It is a private school so we will have to see about paying for the tuition. I am not sure how much scholarship money she can garner. But like I told her, if you don't try you will never know or get there. She really was excited about possibly going there. She still wants to visit some other schools though, but she certainly has been bitten by the college bug! She just has to remember that there are 3 more semesters of high school first!

Before we left for TLU, I was able to finish the 3rd Cowboy Quilt top! And get it dropped off at Mary's Quilt Shop for quilting. Here's a photo of the top, held up by my hubby. Hope ya like it. The quilting in this one will have saguaro cacti in it -- it has them in the "map" print -- and stars and longhorns.

Yee haw!
Wasie

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Quilt Quazy!!

Last weekend was the Dallas Quilt Celebration and my hubby and I (yes, he actually went too and is still living) drove down and spent several hours amidst the cotton and wool and carbon-based lifeforms. It was a huge show and we saw the most spectacular quilts! The winners are at the Quilters Guild of Dallas Quilt Celebration Results. BUT all of the quilts were tremendous and I don't know how the judges can pick! Paul and I had a terrible time picking one for our viewer's choice entries. We each chose a different one this year.

Paul's was nontraditional and nongeometric--very different for him.


My choice was a landscape--something I would love to be able to do myself!


I also wanted to post this photo of a stained glass quilt as we have mentioned doing something similar at church to put on the walls since we do not have any stained glass in our sanctuary. Well, gals, are ya getting inspired yet? I have some closeups and a ton more quilt photos too!


Happy Stitchin'
Wasie

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Another Threshold Crossed...

Eeek! It finally happened! My oldest daughter had her first car accident! But don't panic--no blood was spilled, the car was not totalled, and all have lived to tell the tale. I think it can be classified as a "Fender Bender." As far as I can tell, (she doesn't want to talk about it much for some reason), she was on her way home from school -- and she had lost her purse by the way, thought it was stolen, but that's another story -- and was stopped by a red light at the train tracks near the high school. Well, we had taught her to never stop on the tracks, and Jess stopped and felt that she was just over the edge and thought that maybe she shouldn't be. So she put the car in reverse and, well, you guessed it, she didn't look first, she leaped, and drove backwards right into a larger vehicle. So while she was hysterical and hyperventilating, the other driver called the police on his cell phone. Of course, poor Jessica didn't have her cell phone with her, she didn't even ask to borrow one to call dad or me or anyone to come help her. She had to deal with the police all by herself, get two tickets -- her first ones, I might add -- one of which was for an expired inspection sticker that no one had noticed, ooops.... Everyone has calmed down. I don't even think dad yelled. At least the girls said he didn't, which is good for dad! The car has nearly $1800 worth of damages. But, lucky for Jessica, the other vehicle she thought had hardly any! And we have not received any calls from the insurance company so maybe it was not really damaged. We are all hoping that's the case.

Meanwhile on the other side of town....
I have finished my March blocks for the March Happy Block Swap. The theme for March is "Ocean". I ended up doing 8 blocks.
Here they are:


I had lots of fun doing these. I made 2 of each so each winner will receive 4 different blocks from me. In fact, 2 of the centers of those 4 are from the same fabric! It was sooo awesome, I had originally only purchased a fat quarter, but I had to go back and get some yardage of it, it was just too cool.

In the HB swap, everyone does their own thing -- they just have to make this 8.5" block and in the "theme of the month." I believe April's theme is "Bugs."

If you go to blockcentral.com and look in the forum; then swaps & exchanges; then happy block quilt, Louise has posted her quilt top she has been working on from the valentine blocks she won from the January draw. You can definitely pick out my 3 blocks!! [Just look for the turquoise with the pink hearts; somebody had to add some other colors, didn't they?!?]

Drive Carefully,
Wasie

Friday, March 02, 2007

More Hardware!

I think if a magnet came over this house all the loose metal in it would come flying out the windows!! And I ain't talkin' paper clips.

Last weekend was totally Jessica's weekend!
First she went to a UIL academic meet and came home that afternoon lugging 3 trophies! She received a 1st place in Feature Writing, 2nd place in Editorial Writing and a 3rd place in News Writing. We were so excited for her! I took a photo of her with all of her hardware. She couldn't hold them all nicely so she had to sit down!

She has been working on the school newspaper this year and would like to be editor next year. Although she's been told that she's "too nice." According to her sister, "they must not know her well enough!" Maybe Michelle should write a letter of recommendation for her!

Then on Sunday afternoon Jessica was inducted into the National Honor Society. We were very happy that she made it in her Junior year too. She was very excited walking across the stage, and we took many photos of her with her friends. This one is of her on the stage afterwards when she didn't know I was taking photos! (ha ha ha--evil laugh) She is so photogenic, but she doesn't like having her picture taken so you usually have to sneak one.

Hope everyone has a great weekend the first weekend of March. It is coming in like a lion here! We are getting cold weather again. No tornados like Alabama though. Keeping those folks in my prayers.

Michelle has managed to join the track team. (In her spare time...???) The coach called her the other night and asked her if she was interested. And the coach is Michelle's former coach from 5-6th grade who she just adored. So she is very excited to have her as a coach again. Coach Cruce is also going to work around Michelle's other sports aka swimming schedules and band schedules. Michelle also really enjoys running and the triple jump so maybe a change of pace will do her some good and give her a little break from swimming too. Sometimes you worry about her getting burnout.

Stay warm this weekend,
Wasie