Oh have you seen her? She is so beautiful and I'm in love.

And I wasn't even looking for a girlfuurrriend.  My mom was on the computer reading about some place called the Three Cats Ranch and there she was on the screen.  My tummy did a flip, my eyes got all googly and I instantly fell, and fell hard, head over heals for this purrfectly stunning gal.

(Mom borrowed her photos from her mom's blog and knows that she won't mind.)

I mean, how could I resist I tell ya.  Just looks at her...that sweet face just drew me in and I love her little folded ear tip. Plus she's got lots of orange furs like me, though mine are a bit more subtle.

She looks very fit, like she's been getting lots of exercise and I'm betting she'd be fun to race around the house with.  I'm good at that.

And she's curious, just like me.  Oh what a grand time we'd have together snooping into all the cool places there are at our houses to check out and inspect.

See my orange fur bits.  We match. Kinda.

I love to find comfy places to take a nap too.  This one is in my mom's sewing room, though fur some reason I can't furigure out, she calls it her studio.  The afurternoon sun that shines in the windows in this room is wonderfurly warm.

My mom seems to have some sort of purblem when I lay on her sewing chair when she is in here. I just don't get it. I mean, just look how purfectly shaped it is for my body.

I haven't seen any pictures of the smaller type of purreople in your house so I'm guessing that you don't have any there but I do and these are them.  The bigger one, the boy, is in constant motion and sometimes makes me nervous but the smaller girl one loves me to no end, to the puroint that many times she over does it.  I mean, a fella needs some peace and quiet sometimes, ya know.  Mom and Dad try to keep her in line but let me tell ya, it ain't easy (as I hear it).  She hunts me down all day. 

Don't get me wrong.  She is sweet and gives me lots of cuddles but sometimes too much and she has a Restraining Order thrown at her. And I get lots of breaks from her when she is at school or is sleeping at night but I know when I hear the door open, that my kid break is over.

Here's my Mom and Dad.  He's big.  Really big.  I get a crook in my neck just looking up at him.  But he's purfectly ok and lets me sleep on his side of the bed sometimes.  I even crawl up in his lap some evenings while he watches tv.  He has long legs and that, my furiend, means a big lap.  That is a good thing.
Mom is great too. She feeds me in the morning (very impurtant task, I mean the most impurtant task of all) though sometimes she tries to sleep later and I have to wake her up.  A purring and nudging usually does the trick though once or twice I've given her a little bite when the 1st method isn't working.  She doesn't like that. 

In the 9 months since I've been in my new home, I've learned a lot.  Like this quilt inspectpur job thing.  It's serious.  I mean, REALLY SERIOUS and IMPURTANT.  You have to be on the constant watch to make sure mom is doing it purfectly correctly.

Plus the sewing machine a thingy has all these bright lights on it.  I like bright lights.  They bedazzle me, just like you do dear Maggie.

As fur as that guy Smitty, don't mind him none.  I guess he is just someone you're going to have to puurt up with.  But he is your new brother after all and in time you might find that you actually like him.  Just don't tell him I said that. And he'd better not get in the way of our romance like he's gunna try to be some sort of sibling purtector or he's gunna have trouble.  Big trouble. No cat is going to stand in the way of me and my true love.
Maggie please say you will be mine now and furever and I promise that I will be true to you. How many other furrlows out there would be brave enough to profess their love on the interwebs fur all to see.

Love, Juno

Last year didn't turn out quite as I had thought it would once I looked back on what I thought I was going to accomplish quilty wise, even though I never wrote a post about it. For the most part, Girl Scouts ate up most of my otherwise free time and I wouldn't trade that for the world.  Now though I'm a more "seasoned" leader, having one year of Cookie Season sales under my belt and the rest of my meetings for this year already planned out so 2016 isn't going to be as intense Girl Scout wise and I'll definitely have more time to sew.

So onto recent happenings here. My Christmas gifts didn't include a lot of quilt related things as there weren't really a lot on my Wish List but I did find a couple under the tree this year with my name on them.

Santa brought me Amanda Murphy's Free-motion Quilting Idea Book.

 This will come in handy later this year as I work my way through actually quilting some of my UFOs, something I really want to accomplish this year.

I also received the coloring Book of Quilt Blocks & Designs.

I know that adult coloring books are the biggest rage right now but I wanted a quilty related one and I can already tell that it has refired my designers brain.  New quilt pattern ideas are a-forming.

Though constantly getting up to go to the ironing board is healthier for me, sometimes it takes too long when I'm working on blocks with a lot of steps so last year I bought a pair of tv trays off someone from Craigslist with the plans to turn one of them into a portable ironing station.  Because I wanted to leave my big iron on the board I researched the mini iron options and asked Santa to bring me this 

which he so kindly did. The portable ironing station will have to wait though for now as one of the tv trays is housing my herbs indoors for the winter and the other one is otherwise occupied temporarily (details below).

I received this adorable figurine from my sister Tina this year (she also bought one for herself) and it now resides on my bookshelf close where I can see it. I love it!

And my last quilty gift isn't really a quilty gift at all per say but they are just as precious to me.  BIL's girlfriend crocheted everyone in the house wonderful wool socks and they are absolutely perfect for keeping my forever cold feet warm and toasty while still allowing me to use the foot pedal for my machine.  I just can't wear my hard soled slippers when I sew.

The most exciting quilty gift of all wasn't actually for me.  It was a gift for Sunshine and No I didn't buy it for her.  Aunt Tina called me about a month ago asking if it was OK if she bought Sunshine her first sewing machine or was I planning on doing that.  I decided that I was fine with her buying it though when I researched the one she was looking at and read the reviews, I wasn't thrilled with it.  Tina was perfectly acceptable with me making another suggestion so after a bunch more research and looking at included features, I suggested this one.

 It is a Brother LX2763. The fact that it is made by Brother is pure coincidence, it is the one I liked the most based on the included features, reviews and price, but it is a bonus that it all my presser feet will work on it.

The look on Sunshine's face when she opened it was priceless and she absolutely loves it! She couldn't wait for me to get it set up so she could try it out. I had to finagle a table for it (one of my other tv trays) and since she is really petite and couldn't reach the pedal, pulled out one of her step stools to put that on.  

She has been getting used to it every day, digging into my basket of scraps to play with, practicing making straight-ish lines and trying the other stitches it has built in.  It didn't come with a 1/4 inch foot with the guide bar like I have so I will be getting her one of those very soon.

A more permanent set up is in the works in her room which is right down the hall from my studio so she'll still be close as we work together.  It is just too crowded in my studio for her to be there long term.

She did immediately as for scissors and pins all her own so after we shopped for a birthday gift for her BFF a couple of days ago, we went to Joanns where we picked out a pretty sewing box for her to put everything into.

 She also picked out her own pin cushion (yippee that it now comes in colors and of course she picked Pink), a seam ripper and some pins. I already had a brand new tape measure and small scissors that were extras to give her.

I'm sure this year will be an adventurous one with her sewing wise as she is eager to learn and if this is anything like her other pursuits, she is an extremely motivated child and will be itching to make quilts all on her own before I know it.

May your new year be filled with all the sewing time you want and tons of great finishes.