First Step

I am starting a new queen sized quilt. This will be my first machine sewn quilt. This is the fabric I picked out:

I spent this morning washing, drying & ironing it all so I can get started. I can't wait!

April Cross-Stitch Update

I haven't done much in the past month. However, I am almost done with the top and side branches, and the end is in sight. Not a moment too soon. I am starting a new project. More on that later.

A Girl's Best Friend

On Xmas morning 1995 I was directed to the biggest box in the room and told to open it first. It was .... a puppy! It took me for ever to pick a name for her, I chose Christy. As best as we could tell she was some sort of Border Collie/Black Lab mix. She was born Oct 18th 1995.

I joined the local 4-H club and began training and showing her. Here we are blue ribbon winners at the city fair, a few weeks prior to the county fair.


She was my best buddy growing up. We went everywhere together. Spent hours walking in the woods & fields behind our house. Most of our family vacations were spent camping, and she always went with us.

Here we are "camping" on the living room floor.



Here she is on one of our camping vacations, hanging by the river.



When I went to college I had to leave her with my parents. Then when I moved to Phoenix it wasn't feasible to take her with us. She was 12 years old, and with her thick heavy coat in the heat, it wouldn't be good. Here is a picture of her about that age when she was getting up in years.


When we moved back to Washington 6 months ago, we stopped by and she got to play with our dog. She was thin and her coat was salt-and-peppered. She had even lost her voice and her barks where hoarse and hollow.

Yesterday my dad took her to the vet. She wasn't eating. Over the past few years she had dropped from a healthy 45 pounds to 21. They think she had cancer. She was 14 years and 6 months old, almost to the day.

My First Sewing Machine

Yesterday I bought this sewing machine. It's a Pfaff Creative 1471 circa 1986.



I spent today playing around with it and finishing a project I was doing by hand. Then the creative juices started flowing and I designed & planned a new quilt. I'll go buy the fabric tomorrow. I was so enthralled I accidentally skipped my run, but I did my pilates video instead.

The dealer I bought the machine from gives free classes for as long as I own the machine. My first class is next Wednesday and I can't wait! I plan to have read the entire manual by then so I can ask specific questions, especially for my new project. Hopefully the single-stitch throat plate I ordered will be in too.