This quilt doesn't exactly speak to me...

...hey, who are we kidding? It's BLUE and yellow so it isn't even making eye-contact, much less striking up a conversation. And do you think I could have crammed one more flowery fabric into it? But and however, it's not all about me. I made this quilt top for a friend...actually, I have never met her or even spoken with her... or shared correspondance of any kind... BUT she is married to a very dear friend of mine and so, I'll consider her a friend. They have a very sick little girl and he, my friend, just had brain surgery to remove some tumors. I was thinking to make my friend and their daughter a quilt... then it occurred to me- that poor mama needs a quilt packed full of blue skies and sunshine! Whatcha think? Even though I am not the biggest fan of blue, I can't deny that it is a cheery quilt. The pattern is, of course, Bonnie's pineapple blossom. I used the little leftover half-triangle squares for the middle border. And then just sewed my leftover 2" strips for the outer border. I really felt the need to get the blue flowery fabric out of the stash with all due haste! giggle Unfortunately, I don't have enough for the back, so I'll need to wait to quilt it until I can get out and do some shopping. I had some blue, but it was way too serious for this quilt. I do have enough of that inner border blue to bind it in, so I'm almost set.

I did get DH to pick me up some thread, yesterday, on his way home from work. It is just C&C, but beggers certainly won't be choosers. It feels like a good thing to have sewing thread in the house again. I did organize my quilting room and found another spool. I always need to do a fairly major overhaul when I finish a quilt. Do you? I seem to focus so much on the project, no matter how small, that when I finish, I look up and go, "What in the world happened in here?" So then it's time to regroup. I must have thrown out 2 bags of junk- just scraps and stuff. I have a box of magazines to pass on and big bag of patterns to give away. The post card habit has been detrimental to my decluttering efforts. I used to throw away llittle bits of fabric, but now I find myself holding on to every little scrap- it doesn't take much for a post card. Yesterday, I decided to pitch the lot and start all over. One thing time has taught me- there's always more where that came from! So the quilting room is at peace again. There are even some bare shelves. Hard to conceive, I know. It will take me a little bit to start back up again, but worth it to know where things are again and to have found some fun things to work on. I found about 20 UFO's! But to be fair to myself, only half of them are truly UFO's. The other half is remainders of projects- leftovers- that still look rather tasty. Things I might make into a small project. Plenty to play with while we are getting snowed in, again.

I thought you guys might enjoy this picture of one of the many snow forts in our yard. I asked what the laundry baskets are for and I was told they are for toting amunition. Notice the big pile of mortars on the left? The snow added up to about 20", and half way into it, there was some sleet, so it can be picked up in these big bricks. Which are not, under any condition, to be hurled at a child! But it is still, apparently, a lot of fun to hoist them over your battlements at the enemy and have them burst into a shower of snow! I have noticed that this is good exercise and the troops come in starving and sleepy. The little ones just can't play out because the snow is too deep and they can't walk around. We've had many a frustrated try, though. We are enjoying some fresh snow, today. Just a few more inches. Maybe 6, but enough to make everything look new again. Hope you are all having a good weekend. The most amazing thing just happened... But this is already a long post so I'll tell you about it later!