A New Bernina Resides At My House

Oh the joys of a sale at the local quilt/fabric store! I've been eyeing the Bernina 440QE for awhile now but have been put off by the price. Because Berninas are fair traded through authorized dealers, you could never find more than a 25% discount......until last Thursday. One of my LQSs was offering a "very gently" used 440QE for 27% off and it would come with warranty and classes. Husband said do it so I did. I am so NOT an impulse person when it comes to big money expenditures. Buying it within one day of finding out about it was something new for me.

The machine is home and it sat in its box for two days because I was busy. But now it's upstairs in the sewing area and I've even tried it out. BUT I haven't gotten quite brave enough to try the BSR (Basic Stitch Regulator) foot yet. I may wait for the classes for that. In the meantime, I've researched and read many reviews and sewers of all kinds seem to like this machine. I'm sure my husband is wondering how many sewing machines I will end up owning in my lifetime.

I'm having "sew" much fun trying out the decorative stitches with variegated thread and memory. I see lots of possibilities for sewing for the grand-daughters. Don't think I'm interested in the embroidery module at this point but if a sale comes up, who knows what will happen.

Time to get back to sewing.......................

A Day For Catching Up

Mondays seem to be my day for catching up. Of course, I forgot it was the Presidents' Day holiday so my run to the Post Office didn't happen. But I did get to Curves. I'm desperately trying to keep that in my routine.

Thought I should add a picture of our weather conditions. Here's what it looks like from our front door. The ice is treacherous everywhere you go. As it warms up in the daytime, it melts but then it re-freezes into slippery glass overnight.

After spending way too much time on the computer today, I'm wondering if computers really add to the quality of my life. Some tasks can certainly be time-consuming. Today's task was to set up on-line bill paying through our credit union. Yikes! Type the account number. Re-type the account number. Add the address, phone number, etc. Took forever. But it's done and supposedly bill paying will be easier. Well see.

So here's one more picture of the icy conditions at my house.

Another Aspect of Who I Am

Besides being a quilter, a mother, a teacher, a wife, etc., etc., I am a child of God. I'm realizing more and more that my faith is an important part of who I am. Lately I've been thinking about what that means. I have a desire to explore my faith and spirituality. Where will this wandering take me? I don't know but I do know God has a plan for me if I will just listen.

I've found a new church to attend. It's a community church and not a denomination. From my past experiences with other churches, I think this kind of church is the best fit for me. It's casual, contemporary and the people there seem caring and friendly. I find myself anxious to get there on Sunday mornings to the point of actually sort of popping out of bed. Coming home, I feel as if I've been fed by the Word. God is good in leading me to this place. The question before me now is how involved do I become with this church. Hmmmmm....something to pray about.

Still cold but sunny here in Rockville. Today we went out to get our passport pictures taken. Should have listened to my neighbor and taken them ourselves. Two pictures cost $12.00. But they are "professional quality", not that they need to be. It wasn't fun comparing our pictures from 11 years ago. Guess you could say that we have "changed" a bit. So off they will be sent to update our passports in hopes of taking a vacation this summer that will include Canada. We have a goal of seeing as much of the east coast as possible before we make our retirement move back to California.

I spent the afternoon getting back up and running with Amazon and eBay. Little by little, I'm whittling away at the shelves and shelves of books we have. My goals are more to rid myself of stuff rather than make money. It does take time to do all this. I need to get back into the groove and get myself organized like I was last fall.

Haven't done any quilting today but I did take time to check out some of the Quilt Gallery on thequiltshow.com. There is some pretty amazing stuff out there. I even wrote a compliment to someone who did a Ricky Tims convergence quilt. She had added lots of sparkly embellishments that made her choice of fabrics really stand out. I've got the Ricky Tims book but I haven't yet attempted the quilt.

Off and running in the world of blogs

According to some feedback I got on the quilt show.com forum, blogging is easy and fun. So here I am typing my first entry. Thanks QuilterLynn for getting me started. I'm seeing this as a way of journaling and sharing. So with that in mind I'll begin with a picture of me with one of my darling grand-daughters.

Today in Rockville, MD we've had sunny skies and cold, cold weather. There's about 3-4 inches of snow on the ground but it's not soft and fluffy. It's icy cold and hard as rock. We're expecting a few more days of this record cold. Being a native Californian, I can't imagine the kind of snow that the upstate NY folks are experiencing.

This is the kind of weather that's good for staying in and quilting. I've managed to finish a baby quilt. It's only one of about 4 baby gifts that I need to finish. So I don't have a picture of the baby quilt but here's one of another quilt I made. This one for the darling baby pictured above. Her name is Violet...hence the color scheme of the quilt is quite appropriate. Being a grandmother is such fun. I'm looking forward to many more sewing projects for "the girls".

TGIF A Friday tradition around here is to watch Monk. So I'm out of here for now.