In Your Words - My Turn To Talk

I had so much fun deciding what to do for this blog hop!  In the end I went two different routes.  Or was it three?  Can anyone say "split personality?"  When I was trying to make up my mind what I wanted to make....Christmas Eve was when I started working on it, can you believe it?....the weather folks had predicted snow for Christmas Day for Arkansas.  That never happens.  Never.  But I wanted it to.  Until it did.  Eight inches worth.  No electricity for four days.  And four nights.  But before the snow began I started this "wish" pillow.  When I was wishing for snow.  Before it really did snow.  You got that part, right?

Of course when I wanted to take my pillow out into the snow to take a picture the snow was all gone.  And what I had was eight inches of rain.  Yes, really.  Sigh.  This is wool applique using a hand blanket stitch.  I free motion quilted the front of the pillow using navy thread and trying to follow some of the design of the background but making sure it had lots of motion.

Then I thought, well goodness it's almost Valentine's Day.  Just a month away!  (Have you gotten your SO a card yet?  Me either.)   So I made this small quilt for my 6" Ackenfeld hanger.

This is also wool...wool heart appliqued with a hand blanket stitch onto a wool background.  The stitching is embroidery and the outside also has a hand blanket stitch.

I love to talk and I love to write so putting words into my stitching comes naturally to me.  Here are a couple of word stitcheries that are favorites of mine.

 I keep this pillow on my bed and pretend that I was born on Monday.  Ha!

I made this for Christmas but I love it so much that I just keep it out all year.

But you know none of these really says anything about me, about who I am.  So I'm also going to share with you this little quilt that I have hanging on my office door.  I'm a "wasn't I just retired yesterday?" high school guidance counselor, returning to work after nine years at home.  Returning to retirement in June by the way.  This is me:

Nice really does matter.  Really.

Thanks so much to Linda for coordinating this hop for us - there are a lot of little details that have to work together for this to happen and that takes time.  And thanks to Madame Samm for dreaming up the whole concept and starting us on the right track.  And a double thank you to all our wonderful sponsors - such amazing gifts!

Please be sure you visit everyone on the hop today...you want to miss a one!  blessings, marlene

Tuesday, January 15

BQuiltin Studio  (Beverly K.)

Hill Valley Quilter (Britt-Inger)

Bumbleberry Stitches  (Theresa K.)

Buzzing and Bumbling  (Linda W.)

Outback Crafter (Debra S.)

In Stitches and Seams  (Annette S.)

Englating  (Marica from Sweden)

Stitchin by the Lake  (Marlene B.)  (this is me!)

Selina Quilts  (Selina)

Sheila's Quilt World (Sheila M.)

Words & Stitches (Beth S.)