I have been ignoring this blog for way too long. Life intervenes, you know!
Notice that I have changed the picture at the top. That is Sascha, curled up asleep on a pile of clothes. Kitty cats need lots of sleep! I'll bet they sleep at least 22 hours a day. Every morning they get me out of bed so I can feed them then they all go right to sleep. Eat, sleep, use the litter box. My cats are too old to play much, and definitely not with each other! They can barely tolerate each other's presence in the house. They used to play together but not for years now.

I baked this raisin pie for Richard today. He loves raisin pie but he never gets any. I found the recipe on the web and it looked pretty easy so there it is! I decided not to make it for Thanksgiving, so I made it today. I won't eat it, I don't like raisins. I hate the texture when you bite into them, although I will eat raisins straight out of the box. I just hate raisins baked in anything. I cringe at the thought of eating muffins or anything with raisins in it. The pie baked up beautifully and smelled really good. Richard said it was a little too sweet, that raisins have their own sugar, so the next time I will cut back a little on the sweetness. It was good to bake again, I used to bake all the time but not recently at all. I am cooking our Thanksgiving meal this week. Richard has decided to work the holiday so I am not going all-out for our meal. I have a turkey and stuffing and all the rest, but I am not really cooking much from scratch.

Bonnie Hunter has started a new mystery quilt on her blog, called Orca Bay. Naturally, I am participating in this mystery. I am doing my quilt in dark blues, medium greens, yellows to golds, with neutral backgrounds. She is going to post a new clue to the mystery every Friday, starting yesterday. I have about half of yesterday's clue made so far. I hope to keep up with Bonnie every week. Will post pictures along the way.

Amish Bus Trip

Yesterday Debbie and I joined Linda's guild members for a trip to Berlin, Ohio on a tour bus. I got up at 4:30am and met the bus at the South Charleston Recreation Center by 5:30. We drove to Teays Valley and picked up another bunch of women and suddenly we were 37 quilters going to quilt shops! Even the bus driver was a woman!
We watched the daylight come up thru the windows of the bus on I-77. Our first stop was at Miller's bakery in Charm. I loved the cinnamon smell in there! But I controlled myself and didn't buy anything. It was raining and pretty chilly. After that we visited Miller's Dry Goods. A wonderful quilt shop! Although I was very tempted I controlled myself once more.
The bus drove back to Berlin and parked in a church lot right on the main street. Debbie and I were starved so we went straight to a crowded little restaurant. After a delightful lunch of beef and noodles with green beans and homemade rolls we hit the shops on the main street. I bought some candies in the bulk foods section of Sol's and some fudge at Coblentz. Debbie got a pumpkin latte and it was time to head back to the bus.
Granny Fanny's Quilt Shop was next. It is in a little village of shops that includes a crafts mall, a pet shop, and more. The shop I liked best is called Tis The Season and is a year-round Christmas store. I have been there before and I really enjoyed it. The hard part was walking back up the hill to the bus afterwards. I am so out of shape! I had to stop a couple of times so my muscles would keep working.
When we left there we stopped at Dutch Valley for dinner. A $12.98 buffet! I knew I couldn't eat enough to justify that so I ordered a turkey sandwich and fries. My dinner was only $7.50. I know that several of the ladies were disappointed with the food, including Debbie. Mine was ok. They had a bakery in the restaurant but I controlled myself there also.
Then it was time to start home. We stopped at a rest stop just inside the West Virginia line, and soon we were back in South Charleston, where we had left our cars. I got home a 10pm, tired but happy.
All in all, I brought most of my money back home with me. I only bought food and candy. I really didn't see any fabric or patterns that I couldn't live without. I still enjoyed my day with Debbie and the ladies from the quilt guild. This morning I was still tired when I got up but I was scheduled to work today. I took a couple of Tylenols and soldiered on. Besides feeling very tired I have sore muscles (the back of my legs!) and I really didn't want to get out of bed this morning. Work wasn't hard and I was able to sit around a lot. The only thing I was disappointed about was no stop at one of the cheese places, especially when we drove right past one. I was looking forward to getting some chocolate cheese.
I want to make another trip to Berlin (maybe next spring) and enjoy all the places we didn't go yesterday. I'm sure it would take several days to do everything I want to do there, like visit Behalt, Heini's cheese, Warther's, Wendell August, and other places I have been before and really enjoyed.

We got an electric fireplace

This is something we have wanted for about a year. We shopped everywhere for an electric fireplace last winter, especially late winter when I figured they might be clearanced. Alas, we did not find one we would pay the money for. We finally decided we wanted this one from Sam's Club and no luck, they didn't have them any more! Richard and I started looking at them again last week and decided we had better get it when we could! This one sold for $629 last year but this year we paid $600. I wrote an ad for our entertainment unit and put it on kanawhacafe.com for $300 and I hope it sells quickly. The fireplace has heat! Wonderful heat! It has a thermostat and a timer and a remote control, which will be quickly lost. The storage on the sides is not to my liking (it is made for cd's) and won't hold much, but we really wanted the shelf for the Wii and cable box. Our TV is small but the next one will be bigger. That is Ace, Richard's cat, in the picture. I am so happy with my fireplace! When we were first married our little house on Edgewood had a fireplace with gas logs and I loved it.

It's been awhile....

since I posted last. I haven't taken any pictures lately so I picked these two out of my files. The orange tabby is Sam, top cat and leader of the pack. The tuxedo cat is Missy. She is my elderly baby, being 16 1/2 years old now. Missy is not in good shape anymore. She is liable to pee just anywhere so I am forever cleaning up after her. Sam rules the roost and lets everyone know it. He is not scared of anything or anyone, except the outdoors. The one time he got outside he nearly scared himself to death. He would love to go out an open door but we don't have to worry that any of our cats will slip out the door. Ace, our other tuxedo, will sometimes slip out the door behind us but then he wants right back inside. Living right here on the street I am extremely glad they stay inside.

Today I fixed some beef stew for dinner, first time since late last winter. I scorched it but it didn't hurt it. Richard and I ate our fill and we are going to have it tomorrow too. Adam was going to come up and have dinner with us but he is under the weather with sore throat. I am working tomorrow.

Halloween Quilt Finished!

Friday I finished adding all the borders and
sandwiched the quilt top, batting and backing on Saturday morning. I did most of the quilting during the WVU game Saturday afternoon. Then during the evening I got the binding on the quilt and ready for the hand stitching. Today I sat on the porch and stitched the border down. I had added tabs on the back to hang the quilt on the wall and then slipped a dowel rod thru the tabs. This quilt is going to hang in the store where I work, Viking Sewing Gallery inside JoAnn Fabrics in Dunbar, WV. This was a fun project to do and I am glad I took it on.

Design Wall Monday

I know, I know, it's Tuesday already. Let's just pretend I am not late this week to make this post. At least I have something to show this week! I have made 40 Bow-Tie blocks from my scraps. I bought five yards of the cheddar dot fabric to use for the background of this quilt. The rest of the fabric is coming from my scrap bins. If I have enough of one fabric to get three 3" blocks then I am making a bow-tie. I laid out the blocks on the floor starting on the lower left with the light colored blocks, then medium, then dark. I see from the picture that I need lots more dark blocks if I want to do this layout. I usually just throw blocks together willy-nilly (totally scrappy) but I am thinking I want to control this one. I am thinking about putting sashing around four blocks, still staying in the light-to-dark idea. I am going to just keep making blocks for a while and see what looks best.

August EQ7 BOM

This is my entry into the August EQ7 Block of the Month contest. Each month they post on their blog a quilt block and they only give us the size pieces to cut, no instructions on how to put the block together. This is a small block - only 6" square. That means really small pieces. I used scraps of the fabric designed for the WV shophop I did in June. I wanted to fussy-cut the shape of WV for the center piece but it was too large and all the edges would have gone into the seam allowance. I am very happy with the block and would love to make a whole quilt out of them, only larger of course. I don't usually fool with pieces this small.