I'm ba-ack!

The thing about blogging is, if you let yourself get out of the habit, you let yourself get out of the habit. Truth of the matter is, I haven't been sewing. Jewels in the Castle Wall took it all out of me. But, I'm back in the saddle again!

Let me catch up, in reverse chronological order...starting with last night. My next door neighbor invited me to join a group called The Girlfriends. It's a local group of about 14 women, and every month they get together and do a new activity. Each member takes turns hosting the activity, and last night Tomicka and I chose a beading class at Beads by Design in Marietta. Everyone had a great time and walked away with a completed project...except me! While I was walking around the store, I remembered a glass pendant that I bought in Houston 2 years ago that I really wanted to use. So I learned the process and strung the beads when I got home...and take my word for it, it was very pretty. Was, because I hung it up to take a picture, but my phone was upstairs. When I came back, it had fallen and there were beads all over the floor. Drat!  I'll restring it later...(we all know what happens when I come back to something...later...)

And Quilting on the Square has a free Block of the Month Mariner's Compass  - and they also had a contest to get the first block completed. I stayed up until 1 to get it finished and sent in. And I won! Here is the February Block - Which Way is North? 

In December, my colleague Connie retired from Towers Watson. I had shown her a picture of the shoe quilt in progress, and she said she coveted the red and black shoe. So I made her a wall hanging as her retirement gift. I added a lot more buttons after I took this picture...that one little button looked lonely! It's called "Louboutins for Connie's Retirement."

In November I went to the Houston Quilt Show. The Houston Quilt show is indescribable...here is a view of the floor from the second floor:

This is the quilt that won Best of Show...It's called Harmony Within, by Sue McCarty. I wish you could see it in person. Talk about the picture not doing it justice... 

Every where you see the gold and red...that's not patchwork...that's quilting! The border...quilting.  The gold is quilted on a black background. See those meticulously placed pearls?



And finally - here are abbreviated pictures from Ghana! Only 108 photos....it wasn't easy getting that down from over a thousand, but it had to be done. OK - I'm back to blogging! Instead of a quote, here's a picture to close: