To tell the truth I've never seen this movie. But each time my new-quilter-graphic-artist friend and I take a road trip, this is how my hubby refers to us.

I've been wrestling with something on and off for months now and I've decided to ask your opinion.

You see, my oldest sister Tina has recently started quilting. She had only hand quilted before, taught to her by our paternal grandmother, and that was 12 years ago. So obviously I've been teaching her tons over the past 6 months.

But here's the thing.....I haven't told her about this blog yet!

And I mean?

When she 1st called me and asked whether or not she should have her machine serviced before she got started, it didn't even occur to me to mention it. At some point in the fall she got into Pinterest, saw a picture of a jelly roll race quilt and that got her interested in learning to quilt (at least the tops) with a machine instead of by hand.

Needless to say, there have been a LOT of really long phone calls every since that 1st one. I've been edumacating her all about the "new" things like jelly rolls and layer cakes and charm packs, she's learning the meanings of such phrases as Wonky and Fussy Cutting, and she is quickly growing her stash, no thanks of course to all the great deals and sales that I find and I send her the links to. It totally figures that the instant she saw my Ghastlies fabric stash and projects, she fell in love and had to get some for herself. Me? An enabler? Sure, what are sisters for. LOL!

You can just imagine what the phone call was like when I had to explained how to attach the two end of her binding strips together so that they look like a normally joined strip. And how to cut certain things...again very comical phone conversations. Finding words to convey images and techniques so that she gets it is certainly challenging.

Up until a month or so ago, she didn't even have any quilt stores near her. She came up one weekend in October and we hit a few of my local ones and we are planning on getting to some of the rest the next time she is here. And it will be great to have another person to join me on shop hops and at quilt shows.

So why haven't I told her yet about this blog? Well....my original idea was to wait for her to figure it out. That shouldn't have taken too long knowing her and her curious nature. I send her links to great blogs that I follow all the time and I just assumed that while she was reading the comments left on posts, she'd see my name (though it is only my 1st name) and figure it out by the comments I leave. But guess what? She still hasn't any clue. I keep waiting for the phone call saying "why didn't you tell me sooner" but it hasn't come yet? Whether she'll laugh when I tell her my original plan or if she'll be a tad bit angry at me is totally up in the air at this point.

A couple of times recently I've almost said "by the way..." but I've held off. So that is what I am asking today of you. Should I tell her or should I continue to wait to see if she finds it herself? Once I get enough opinions from all of you, I'll do whatever the majority votes. I'm really curious to see what all of you think about this little quandry I'm in.

This is what my hubby has been working on these past 2 weekends. We almost have the mudroom the way we've always planned it to be.

He built the benches first and then added the bead board and trim. Each section will get a double coat hook and the dividing boards between will get another hook down lower for things such as backpacks, my purse and the like. I'm hunting for wire baskets that fit to corral the shoes to go under the bench.
 It wraps around 2 sides of the room and this is with only 1 coat of paint on it. There will be 2-3 more coats of paint added and then possibly some coats of poly on the seat. Or I'm considering making cushions for them. I've even found a tutorial online that looks pretty easy. But then I'd have to hunt for just the right fabric. Oh the "hard work" that would entail. LOL
We have 9 foot walls on the 1st floor so we have tons of space above. We are going to add cabinets and/or shelves to the upper area which will equate to loads of storage.
 Hubs is thinking putting cabinets on one side and shelves on the other. I'm not so sure of that plan. I think it would look weird, out of balance. There is 36" of wall there so I am considering an 18" high cabinets with an 18" high open shelves underneath. What do you think?

...is 1 charm pack, 1 half yard of Bella Bleached White and a couple of hours and a baby quilt top is started and almost finished. Here is a sneak peak.

I did quite a bit of fabric shopping last week and it has now all arrived. It is one big stack of fabric goodness.

The fabric lines are: Flora by Lauren & Jessie Jung, Coming Home by Deb Strain, Little Black Dress by BasicGrey and Grande Finale by Sandy Gervais.

Thursday night I finally finished my latest WIP. All of the HSTs and the layout were actually completed two weeks earlier and I had thought I would get all the rows sewn together last weekend but then I became under the weather and just wasn't up to it. With two different antibiotics now in my system, I'm finally feeling more like my usual self and felt up to getting this done. I'm calling it:

Crimson Diamonds
I used the charm packs of Moda Love Letters that I won from Sharon at Vrooman's Quilts last May and a pattern that I found over at Samelia's Mum. I wanted something quick and easy and this pattern was just the ticket.

Barbara lived across the street from my Mom on Court Avenue. From the day my mom moved in, she was almost an instant member of our extended family. Her two kids were already grown and moved away. Mom used to make extra and take dinner over more days than not and she was just like another grandma in our family. She really enjoyed attending the special family events. Here she is at my baby shower before we traveled to Vietnam to bring Jammer home in 2007.

I need to find a new blog reader. Now!

I'm fed up with Google Reader. It it again up to it's usual BS.

Many of my subscriptions/follows aren't even showing this morning on my list including Free Motion Quilt Project and SewCalGal and who knows how many others that I can't think of at the moment.

Please, please if you use a different reader and have had good luck with it, let me know. At this point my loyalty with Google Reader has flown right out the window.

What happens when you don't get near your computer to do some blog reading for a couple of days?

You check back in with your Google Reader (or other reader site) and you have literally hundreds of unread blog posts to catch up on!

That is what happened to me again this week.

So what do I do? Why start working my way through them of course.

But that is where exactly how I do this that differs...depending on my mood at that moment.

Sometimes I start at the top of the list.

Sometimes I start at the bottom of the list.

There are days where the numbers geek in me takes over and I start with those with just one unread post, then proceed on to those with 2 posts, and then those with 3 posts...you get the idea.

Other times I start with those with the most posts and work my way down numerically.

Then there are those days when all of the "order" is thrown out the window and I just scroll through the list and see what blog name catches my attention next.

I can get a bit obsessive with this. If I am working in a numerical order, no matter which one that is, I refuse to allow myself to deviate from that course of action until I am all caught up. Weird? I know but I sometimes I just can't help myself.

So today's question is.....how do you read? How is your followed blog list orientated? This curious mind would like to know.

Last May I was lucky enough to win 2 charm packs of Moda's Love Letters from Sharon at Vrooman's Quilts. At the time I was buried deep in completing the teacher quilts so I didn't have time to make something with them. I had an idea but they got put away until now.

Last Friday night I started with this....the 2 charm packs and a pile of 5" squares in Rich Red.
I managed to do a ton of quick chain piecing.

Love, oh the sweet quilters love that has been traveling all around. There isn't much that is better in this world.

This was another great round robin event idea that flew into my brain up last fall, right about the time the Halloween See Saw Swap and the Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin 2012 were winding down.  I'm really glad that the thought came to me as the awesome Valentine's Day themed quilts that have resulted are simply stunning. Overall I declare that the Quilt U Be Mine Mini Mystery Round Robin has been a huge success.

This is it! The day all of us and you have been waiting for. The day we all finally get to solve the mysteries and see what fabulous mini quilts were created by the members of the 6 groups these past 4 months.

A few weeks back one of my readers commented on a post that she has always wondered about my kids' history and I replied that I keep their stories private. Ever since I posted that reply I've worried that perhaps I sounded a bit harsh so I decided that I want to explain a bit further.

I have a personal/family/adoption blog that I started back in 2006 while we were waiting to bring our children home. I had never blogged before but it became a great way to connect with other adoptive parents, those who had already brought their child (ren) home and those still waiting. It was a place for me to get things out during the long months and years and through other adoptive parent bloggers, I learned so, so much. And while I wrote about a lot of things there, one thing I always kept the same was referring to my kids by their nicknames only and never revealing exactly where we live. Some parents are fine with revealing those thing; I never was.

Once Jammer was in our arms, I really enjoyed posting about his adventures. Back then it was still a world of just other adoptive families and since so many others shared with me I wanted to do the same and share back. That blog reveals (to a point) a lot of raw emotions, from the moment Jammer was placed in my arms to the intense struggles we had with our original agency near the end that almost cost us our China adoption to the joy of Sunshine finally being our daughter, our first couple of years with her home and us a family of four.

Honestly I haven't posted there in a long time, almost a year now. I took that blog private a while back when I started to get really involved with the quilt blog community. For a reason that I can't explain, I started becoming uncomfortable with having that blog public and so much of my family life available for anyone and everyone to see. I have no idea where my quilting journey will lead me in the future and I felt the need to not have that blog accessible to the entire world. Besides vast majority of those in the adoption community that I shared my blog with no longer blog themselves. Everyone is over on Facebook and I'm not really a FB fan. Will I ever post there again? I really don't know. I haven't even looked at that blog for a long time. The one thing I do know is that at some point I will print it out into a book for each of my kids to have forever.

The biggest reason for changing my view and practice regarding my personal blog is the fact that while the journey to bring my children home is my story, the details about their beginnings before they became my children are their stories and it should be their decision, not mine, what they choose to share with others. Since they are still very young, it is my job right now to protect their stories and thus the need to take that blog private and be very selective about what I share with the online world.

Every adoptive child has a unique story about their beginnings, before they came to their forever families. As they get older, it is up to them to figure out for themselves how to deal with that information. No one can do that for them. Some of the details can be harsh and difficult and each adoptee has to work through it in a way that works for them. The connected world gets more and more intense and invasive every day and since no one knows what will happen in the future with the information that is posted online, I felt the need to protect their stories and keep the entire world from knowing every minute detail of their lives before we met.

So I hope that you all understand and will forgive me for not being more forthcoming about my kids. Those that don't, oh well. I will always shout from the rooftops that adoption is a wonderful way to build and grow a family. I will never stop believing that every single child deserves a forever family. If someone wants to learn more about adoption and how to go about it, I would be more than happy to share what I know and what I have learned over the years. Will I always be looking to make connections with other adoptive families and especially those with kids from Vietnam and/or China? Absolutely. But will I ever reveal here intimate details about my children, where they come from and how they came to be adopted in the first place? Nope. As I said, those are their stories, for them to tell or not, when they are ready. Until then, it is my job to protect them and to guide them as they travel their own journeys through life.

Lookie what I whipped up yesterday...my first pillowcase! After I shipped Miss M's 100 Good Wishes Quilt to her, her mom asked if there might be enough fabric left over to make her a matching pillowcase. I checked and the answer was Yes, barely but definitely enough. My BFF had recently made some pillowcases so I asked her which tutorial she liked and she directed me to this one by Ashley at Film In the Fridge.

If you haven't tried to make a pillowcase before, you should. It was so simple and the end product is super sweet.

I'm such a creature of habit sometimes.

When I came up with the idea for the 1st Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin, it was partially because I wanted some cool quilty things to adorn the walls in this new house.

For this newest MMMRR, I again wanted to decide where I'd put the finished quilt in order to figure out what sort of color scheme and design I might want to go with. The blank wall to the left of my dresser in our bedroom was an easy conclusion. The colors I would use were naturally derived from the other colors in the room.

But deciding what sort of block to start with was a bit more challenging. I looked through a ton of places for inspiration including books, magazines and websites. Just as I thought I was going to make another Windblown Square block (I do like that block so much), I saw something that caught my attention in the back of the the March/April issue of Quiltmaker.

In the column QM design studio, Carolyn Beam showcased 3 blocks she created by combining the elements of 2 other blocks. One of her new design blocks called out to me and here is my version.

I can finally share a finish with all of you. If you remember, I got an email from a fellow adoptive mom in the late fall asking if I could make her daughter's 100 Good Wishes Quilt in time for Christmas. It was a real rush job but I was able to complete it just in time. As I prepared to send it to her, she asked me to hold onto it for a bit because at the last minute they ended up being out of town for the holidays and would give this quilt to her daughter for her birthday instead. With the weather so nasty lately it has been impossible to get pictures of this quilt but I managed to brave the cold yesterday and got a few decent shots of it.
This quilt is really wild and busy. There are a ton of unusual fabrics in it...a bunch of cool Asian ones of course, a couple to represent the college the parents attended and a lot of ones that she picked up while visiting New Zealand, where she is originally from. I actually had a rough time laying out the squares but I called my graphic artist new quilter friend and she came over and lent a hand and her expert eye. The mom didn't want any sashing between the blocks. She simply wanted them put together and two borders added so that this quilt would be similar in layout to her other daughter's quilt.
 The mom chose all the fabrics for the borders and the backing. It was certainly a bit different visually working with colors and patterns totally selected by someone else. The only choice I made was which fabrics to use for the borders from those that she sent to me. It is tough to see but the watermelon tone on tone is a paisley design which is for her daughter's name.
The mom sent a green with white dot for the backing but there wasn't enough so I added a large strip of a fun multicolored paisley from her other fabric choices.

The finished quilt measures 84" x 90" and contains 110 squares.
It is finally getting boxed up this weekend and will be shipped out on Monday. I truly hope they like it. A 100 Good Wishes Quilt is so special in the fabrics it contains and it was a pure pleasure making this one a reality for this special little girl.