Writing in my happy color today! Finished my Carolina Crossroads quilt except for sewing on the label and hand-stitching the binding to the back side of the quilt. So can't legally post the photo of it till its ALL done, maybe tomorrow? All the time I was quilting it, my thoughts kept turning to one of my sisters-in-law from my first marriage. She and I used to sit around an old wooden frame made up of 1" x 2" strips of lumber and held up by 4 kitchen chairs, hand-quilting queen size quilts. I kept the frame in the basement in a room next to the laundry room, so that in between loads, I could quilt. Those were the days that we used templates cut from Kellogg's Corn Flakes boxes, drew around them with pencils, cut 1/4" beyond the markings and then sewed the pieces together by machine. We hadn't heard of chain-piecing or rotary cutters or all the neat tools that quilters today have.
And I wondered, since we've lost touch with each other after I moved out here to the left coast, if she is still quilting. and wished that she lived near me so we could still quilt together. Her birthday is half the calendar apart from mine (I'm March 24th, she is Oct 24th), and I think she needs a surprise for my birthday. Yes, that's what we do now, when we have a birthday, instead of getting pressies, we SEND them. Won't she be surprised to see how far I've come from those days 40 years ago.

And tomorrow, I can start my other mystery that had only just begun when I got caught up in this Carolina Crossroads madness.........it is by a member of our local guild and I MUST have it finished by guild day, the second Tuesday in Feb. Piece of cake. And must also finish the 3 bags I started in classes in early January. 2 just need the leather handles sewn on by hand, and the 3rd one still has to have the quilted bits assembled. It is the easiest one to do, I think, and I will post the photos of all 3 when they are done.

I would also post a photo of the buns I made this afternoon, but some friends were walking by and looked cold, so I called them in for a cuppa hot chocolate just as the timer went off for the buns. So they are in our tummies now and unavailable for a photo op. Next time, for sure!