Favorite Halloween Costume

My quilting friend, Gretchen at Stella Bella Quilts is celebrating her birthday this Friday. To celebrate she is having a birthday give-away. Gretchen shared a picture of her favorite Halloween costume, ISIS,  from her childhood. We didn't have "real" costumes at my house growing-up. We also didn't have many photographs. My favorite costume was in 1991. My school celebrated by dressing as  book characters. Most of the staff dressed in white with black dots. We were "101 Dalmatians."  which was first a book before it was made into a movie.  My son, Michael, was born in 1991. For his first Halloween, he was a dalmatian, too. Here we are together for his first "Trick or Treat."

Quilting At Mulberry

Well, I made it. I've been back at school/work for a week. It is wonderful to be back with our students and actually teaching. It's a bit of a stretch for me to teach several groups in a row, but I made it. Yesterday, one of our teachers of the gifted and talented students asked me to speak to her second graders on quilting. It was a blast! These seven year old boys and girls were "psyched about quilt blocks". They had chosen blocks from the endpages in The Quiltmaker's Gift. They made blocks with paper on graph paper and are doing research on their blocks. I did my class on comparing Quilting in the Past to Quilting today. I brought digital pictures to show them of old treadle machines, quilts, our Stitch-ins today, my computerized sewing machine and my sewing room. I brought my Featherweight so they could see a real sewing machine.  I brought a stack of quilts for them to look at and touch. They loved finding blocks they knew in the real quilts. I felt it was important for them to know that quilters read patterns to make quilts. It's important for us to follow directions. I brought a work in progress with the pattern so they could see I had directions for the blocks.  I dug through some of my scraps and strings. I left a bag of fabric scraps and batting for the students to "play with." Even if they just fondle the fabric and enjoy the colors it will be fun.

I always like to have a picture on a blog post. Of course, I didn't think to take a picture yesterday. Here is a picture of the quilt that I made for our school Media Center. The pattern is called Mulberry Bush which is fitting since our school is Mulberry Elementary.

I'm off to Athens, Georgia tomorrow for our State Media/Library Conference. It will be two wonderful days spent with many media specialists from my County and around the state of Georgia. Lots of books and good friends! Even a couple of quilting librarian friends like Brenda at Quilting Cowgirl and Kristie, M.S.Doolittle Quilter. I'll check back later in the weekend.

Elm Creek Quilts

A new book for the weekend! I just picked up the new title in the Elm Creek Quilt series The Quilter's Kitchen from my public library. I went back to work on Wednesday after being home for six weeks recuperating from my hip surgery. I paced myself Wednesday and Thursday, but today was "too much fun" and I'm beat. My husband just left for his weekly high school football game (one of his passions). I'm going to eat left-overs, then head upstairs to read Quilter's Kitchen. This is one of my favorite ways to begin the weekend. I'll report back later this weekend. Take care!