Thank you cards

My DH and I went on a cruise with 6 friends. We used to camp together when we all lived in the Chicago area, but since we moved to Houston that hasn't worked out. Two of the couples have become "winter Texans" and stay in Brownsville Texas from November to April. Unfortunately that is still too far away to camp together as it takes 5 hours to get there. Last year we all decided to cruise together. It has become an "Annual Cruise with Friends" every February.  When you go on a cruise one of the things you do at the end of the cruise is give gratuities to your statesman (cleans your room), your waiter, assistant waiter and the head waiter in the dining room. This year I decided to put the gratuities in Thank You cards, instead of just a plain envelope. I hope they enjoyed the personal touch.

Lace Curtains

We decided to change our bedroom. New comforter, decorative pillows, window valances and paint. I wanted my DH to help pick out the new items as he has great taste and he put up with "pretty"  bedrooms for the past 20 years. We found some wonderful brown suede with barbed wire embroidery. Very Texan. Looks great, but DH thought it needed a little feminine touch. He wanted lace panels behind the suede valances at the window. So off to Joann Fabrics to pick up some off white lace to make the panels. Turned out pretty nice.

I have Finished my 1st Quilt !!

I am sew excited to have finished my first quilt.  I've done 16 blocks toward what I thought would be my first quilt, and planned to make a small quilt once I was finished, for my wheelchair bound Mother-in-Law. I planned to give it to her for her birthday or Christmas this year.  Unfortunately my Father-in -Law passed away this past week and we are flying home Tuesday for the wake and funeral. Fast forward to starting and finishing the small quilt so I can take it with to give to her. I went shopping Saturday to find some charm squares to make disappearing 9 blocks. I purchased fleece as the backing material as my Mother-in -Law really liked a lap quilt my Mom had given me that was backed with fleece.  I want to thank the guest bloggers on Madame Samm's blog SewWeQuilt for the tutorials that helped me with the disappearing 9 block, the sandwiching tutorial and the binding tutorial. I want to thank my sister Dawn for sharing hand applique stitching so I could blind stitch the binding.(quiltingbydawn.blogspot)  I could never have finished my first quilt in a weekend without them.