It's been too long!

My goodness, it's been a busy month.  Work has been intense and I've been away on a couple of business trips.  I haven't been able to get in much stitching and my poor blog and blog reading have fallen WAY behind.  : (

I'll catch you up and show a couple of fun things.

My first block for the Civil War Bride Quilt is ~almost!~ done... just need to stitch the butterfly's antenna ... and give it a wash and press.  I'm loving applique! 

Last weekend I brought it with me to a local quilt shop to pick out fabric for the bottom of the block and was humbled and touched by the nice compliments. 

This little stitchery is from a free pattern, First Snow, I found in this post from chez Elisa's blog.  Her blog is in French... and no, I don't read French.  I right clicked on the pattern and saved the JPG.  Check out the gallery of pics... lovely.

Okay, I had intended on steering clear of the whole wool craft thing.  You know how it goes... I've got plenty of projects lined up already... and then Paulette-the-temptress :-) went a showed a snowman penny rug pattern by Cath's Pennies and it was instant love.  (I've told Paulette I need to keep my credit card far away when I read her blog, lol... she's always showing great projects.)

So here's another project on my to-do list, which I'm planning to get done before Christmas.  Aren't those snowmen cute? 

Since I'm mentioning projects on my to-do list, I'll show you a couple more.  These next two are projects that I designed back when I decided to do quilting.  Both are wall hangings.  I drew up the patterns and purchased fabrics... and they've been locked away in plastic for a long time (don't ask)... waiting their turn.

This is the first one I did.  I call it Basket and Stars.  I want it to have applique in the middle strips. 

I call this Winter Dusk.  Here, with our snowy winters, dusk takes on these wonderful shades of blue that I've always loved.  I wanted something that was reminiscent of those colors and had a wintery "feel". 

Do you realize I've never made a whole quilt? I do. I think about it a lot.  I'm feeling the need to get one finished. Up until now everything I've done on my quilting adventure has been done by hand, and the ambitious projects I started with (CWB quilt and Nearly Insane) will take a long time before they're done.  I think it's time I dust off my sewing machine, but it might need to wait until after Christmas. 

We decorated last weekend.  Our Christmas tree makes me smile every time I look at it. 

Google Reader has been giving me problems, which has made keeping up with blog reading more difficult.  Slowly I'm working on catching up.  I've been missing seeing everyone in blog-land.  I wish everyone joy and many smiles.  I'll try not to be gone so long.