they named her what?

My cousin Gwen called last night....she is a grandma!

this is Zoey Olivia....

I was really surprised by the name.

On the other side of the world another baby was born on Monday.

My cousin Brian had his first baby.

Her name.....

Zoe Genevive.

That doesn't happen very often.

I get two new cousins, both girls & both named Zoe in one week. 

Zoey's quilt is at the quilter right now. The other Zoe has nothing yet.

She was born in Japan.....so I thought I would put some Japanese on her quilt.

I went online and found some Japanese characters....it said they were a family blessing.

That sounded good. I cut these out of foam and stamped them on fabric with paint.

Cool. I sent the picture to one of my favorite bloggers, Tanya, in Japan....she wrote back and said.....

while this was a really neat idea, it wasn't really what I wanted.

It is more of a "household safety" blessing.

If I had read the fine print, I might have figured that out on my own.

Anyway, she gave me a ton of ideas of what will work....and it is back to the drawing board for this baby quilt!

 Maybe I should start with her name in English. 

Levi's quilt....

 My last thing to start in 2010 is the first thing finished this year. I tried something new.....
I used an iron on batting, Fairfield FUSI-BOO. It was on sale and I wondered if it would really work. It did.
After I got home I read the fine print....good for tote bags, wall hangings, garments, table runners & placemats. It didn't mention baby quilts. I gave it a go anyway....and was that ever slick. It was sorta stiff after ironing it all together. It was so easy to sew! It didn't move or shift at all. When I finished it, I threw it in the washer and dryer and it came out so soft and crinkly. Just what I wanted.

A winter baby needs a winter print for the backing.

wildlife....

More than birds are visiting the birdfeeders.
...& those two glowing eyes.....( in the dark picture)
that is a deer in the middle of the night.

Oh yah, I better go fill the feeders.

my future geocaching quilt.....

A whole forest has been arriving....

these are not all the blocks, but a good bunch of them, plus some of my "ooops" blocks...

(all because I won at BLOCK LOTTO last month)

The mail has been so much fun lately. These blocks have come from all over the world.

I love to go geocaching,...

and there are caches hidden all over the world....

and my caching name is joe tulips....

so,

I am going to put a geocaching quote in the trees.

something like.....

geocaching: using multi-million dollar satellites 

to find tupperware in the woods

I made my name so far. I still have a bunch of letters to go!!

a baby quilt....

The baby quilt with it's letters all arranged correctly to make a name!

It measures 42x48

I made a decision. I would quilt this myself. (machine)

I took my biggest chunk of batting and laid it out. 

Then I laid the quilt on top. 

So much for that idea (the batting is peeking out of the bottom)

there wasn't enough. This one is on hold a little longer.

I will move on to other things for now.

snow day sewing...

Hang on.... 

I will get to the sewing in a minute.  This would be Cornelious and his friend Zach, who happens to be Karen's middle son.  They wanted to sit around the fire pit one last time before Zach left for Tennessee. He will be attending school there.

Recently I had told two different people that I didn't think we could have an outdoor fire because it was buried under snow. 

I was wrong......

Yes it was buried under snow that tractor joe had pushed there.

BUT!

It is possible to dig out the snow and build a nice fire.

It was like a snow fireplace. Kinda cozy.

I have to admit, that while I went out there to AHH & OOOhh...that they actually got a fire going, I didn't stay out there that long.

So Karen is off delivering Zach to school, and I have chores.

I am feeding her cats.

Pretty kitties. 

I woke up this morning wanting to start sewing. We had a late start and then they cancelled school. How perfect for me.....

I had a new idea for humbugs that I will send to Tonya.....here are the sections before I started sewing them all together...

and here is what it looks like all sewn up into a block.

I haven't trimmed it down to measurement that are divisible by 2 yet, but other than that it is done.

I love the little fat feet!

blocks....

I filled a bunch of bobbins yesterday and did some sewing.
The baby quilt top I had started at the very end of 2010 is done.
I didn't get a picture of it though.  Next time.

The BLOCK LOTTO has a new block for January. I made 5 so far.
I will make more and donate them to "newbies" so they have more chances to win.

Besides.....

I was a WINNER in last months wonky trees, how lucky is that!!! They have started to arrive.
When more are here, I will take a group picture.

Then I worked on some bugs for Tonya CLICK HERE  (everything is explained there on why she wants bugs or the words Bah Humbug)......there is a whole blog for HUMBUGS too. (actually unruly stuff, but humbugs for now)

This would be like the prototype....I learned things on this one that I can apply to the next one. I am off to work on bugs and maybe some letters!

MOA...what we did on Christmas Vacation

I am experimenting here.....
 There are probably to many pics in the collage....but out of about 3000 I took.....
this is pretty good weeding.

I tried to get a variety of everyone in our family that went to the mall that day!