My kitchen has needed redoing for a long time. So this Fall we painted it-- the cabinets are now a deep New England Red and the walls are blue denim color. James and Josh have done a great deal of it and I just love it. In the Spring we are planning to get new counters. Last year we moved the fridge into the breakfast area and this past weekend James built me shelves and a temp counter where the fridge used to be. He also built me a cute shelf to put pretty things on and made a scalloped apron for the shelf.

Bob and Lori and the kids were here on Sunday for dinner and the afternoon. We had a great time and it was wonderful to have them here for a visit. They fly back to Vermont tomorrow.

OOPs I forgot to brag about Josh and his soccer team. They were undefeated all season and in the playoffs and brought home the Championship Trophy. We are so proud of all the boys.

How can it be October 16 already? I keep meaning to write and have been so busy that it somehow never gets done.

James has his mission call! He is going to Puerto Rico, San Juan West Mission. He leaves on Jan 2, 2008. He is sooo excited about this. He will spend 3 weeks in the Provo, Utah Mission Training Center and then go to the MTC in the Dominican Republic for his language training and to learn about the culture -- he will be there 6 weeks. We have applied for his passport and he has been to the Temple-- what a wonderful day that was. We have purchased his shirts and still have socks, shoes and slacks to go. He will only need one suit and he already has that as it is too hot to wear a suit all the time there. He will travel in his suit to and from his mission and will wear it while in the Prov MTC. He got his luggage for a Christmas present last year. All his immunizations are finished and he is busy working to earn the last of his money to pay for this wonderful adventure.

I am busy making t shirt quilts for four of my grandkids for their Dad to give them for Christmas. T shirt quilts are a new adventure and I am enjoying learning about this method of quilting. Bob has saved all their tshirts from track and ski meets for years now and brought them to me before they moved back East and asked me if I could make quilts from them.

My kitchen has needed redecorating for a few years now and we have started on that. I never think I have enough kitchen cabinets but when I started painting them I may have changed my mind-- 23 cabinet doors and 14 drawer fronts is ALOT of painting. I am doing them a few at a time-- one section at a time. The cabinets are a deep reddish brown color and so far I just love them. They were white and 12 years has made a toll on them. We won't do the new counters until after the first of the first of the year-- maybe in Feb or March.

It will soon be time to start putting up the Christmas Villages for the Holidays. It takes several weeks. James built me cupboards with wide counters around three sides of our family room. During the Holidays we display our Christmas Villages on the counters and during the remainer of the year they and all our Christmas decorations are stored under the counters. My husband started the Villages and we have continued them over the years.

It has been awhile since I have written on this blog. I have been very busy with many things. I am working on five quilts right now. One is the quilt that I make each year for the Collie Health Foundation that will be auctioned off at the annual auction that takes place at the Collie CLub of AMerica National in March.

The other four are quilts for 4 of my grandkids. Their dad has saved all their t shirts from every meet for cross country skiing and track they have ever gotten and has asked me to make quilts for all four of them. I have cut out all the things on the jerseys now and have most of them reinforced with iron on sizing. Next I will have to lay them out and decide how to make them look the most attractive. I will use different fabric for the sashings on each quilt. Michael is working on a farm near where they now live-- helping with the cows and haying etc. I have some fabulous fabric with holstein cows on it for the sashing on his quilt. I have not decided what I am going to use for the others but one of them will be navy blue with little tulips on it. So when I am finished with this project, I will have blended my grandchildren garden with my quilt garden.

This is a quilt I made from a kit I purchased a few years ago. I love all the various colors in this quilt. It will be a bedspread for my daughters bed.

Liza is grown. She is careering while she waits for Mr Right to come along. When she comes home at the end of a long day at work she likes to collapse on her bed and spend time with her collie Corrie. At one time she had a lovely white duvet cover that had embroidered flowers on it. It turned out to be VERY impractical. This will be much more servicable and won't show smudges like the white one did. And at the same time be pretty. She and Corie will be much happier with this.

My Garden of Grandkids

I have been blessed with 20 grandkids. They are all wonderful people. Here are some snaps of some of them cross country skiing.

Josh & his quilts

Josh and his quilts. Josh loves the quilts and especially his. He takes his quillow everywhere he goes and loves to rollin his big quilt. Josh did all the photography of my quilts for me. He is a wonderful young man who excells in school and in the many things he undertakes.

Christmas Quilts

CHRISTMAS is an exciting time of year at our house. We are all Christmas fanatics. I have made many quilted items for our home to use during the Christmas Season. Several years ago I decided to make a Christmas Quilt each year. Here are some of them.

This is the 2006 quilt-- I havenot quiltedit as yet.

The quilt to the right I made two of. One for my sister and one for myself for Christmas 2000.

Beautiful Table Runners

Here are three table runners I have made-- they are all the same pattern but different fabrics.

James & his quilt

This is James and the quilt I made him. I am raising James and his younger brother Josh. James has turned in his papers to serve a mission for our Church. We will be excited to find out where he is going. He will be gone 2 years.

Fat Quarters Abounding

This is another lap quilt that I made entirely from Fat Quarters-- except the background. I had to be careful to cut the fat quarters carefully to ensure that I would have enough fabric. You may have noticed that all my quilts have rounded corners. I do this because I wanted a trademark and because I really don't enjoy making mitered corners. Sometimes I make fans for the corners like in this quilt. I have been machine quilting for several years now and really like the results.

Grandkids & Quilts

My grandkids and my quilts are all tangled in my heart. Our oldest grandchild is a girl-- Carrie-- she is grown now and married. When she was on the way I attended a quilt class back East where we were living . This was supposed to be a wall hanging but when class started three of the four students were expecting our first grandchildren so we added borders and made baby quilts. This was an applique and reverse applique class and I had such fun making this. The quilt is hand quilted except for the navy border which is tied with cotton thread. Here are some pictures of Carrie then and now with her husband Joseph.

Fat Quarters & Mysteries!

The quilt above is a Fat Quarter Quilt.I found a few fat quarters in a print that I absolutely loved. Unfortunately I couldn't find enough to do a big quilt with. So I found some fabrics with two of the colors of the print and made this quilt. It is lap sized and soo pretty. I used the blue for the backing.

The quilt on the right is a quilt that I made in an all night mystery quilt class at our local quilt shop. We chose a print and then two other colors to go with it. I chose blue and off white. We did the quilt one page at a time and couldn't go on to the next page until all in the class had finished the instructions on a page. The backing is the blue in the quilt.

Labor of Love

This is a variation of a block called Salt Lake City. I made this quilt for my husband to have in the hospital when he went for his chemo treatments.

Jacob's Ladder Variation

This is a variation of a Jacobs Ladder. All three fabrics are the same print. You can see this in the lower photo. I made this top before we left the East to move West. I call it our Pioneer Quilt. Our "covered wagon" was a Ryder truck that we moved our collie kennel west in.

My Husband's favorite

This was one of my husbands favorites. The 9 patches were done from odds and ends that I had and the blue back ground was what was left from making a quilt for my oldest grandson, Robert.

My Gardens

Gardens have been a part of my life since I was tiny. My mom would put my carriage out in the garden for nap time and soon I was toddling around in the gardens of my Grandmothers and my Mom. I love the smell of the garden and loved to follow my Dad around in his veggie garden when I was growing up. I loved to pick peas and beans andpull carrotts and eat hem right there in the garden. No matter where we have lived I have always grown at least tomatoes and cucumbers.

There are many kinds of gardens and as I grew older I planted some of them in my life.

My religion is of utmost importance as a garden in my life. Wothout it I would not be who I am and I would not appreciate all the things this world has offered me.

My husband, children and grandchildren are my most important garden. No work that we ever do on this earth is more important than the work that we will do within our families. Nothing is more important than my 5 children and 20 grandchildren.

M y veggie and flower gardens are a big part of my life and I love the early morning hours that I spend in the different areas of my gardens.

One of the gardens of my life that I thoroughly enjoy are the quilts that I make-- they are a garden of their own. I live to quilt and spend many hours piecing and then quilting quilts. Interestingly enough I have peiced more quilt tops than I have quilted. So this year has been dedicated to quilting the tops I already have. i still have a ways to go but so far this year I have quilted 5 big quilts.

Another kind of garden is the garden of genealogy. I have been wandering down the paths searching for my ancestors since I was 16. I love this pass time and wile away many hours in this endevour.

Another is my garden of animals. We raise collies and they are such a joy in many ways.