It's been a bleak and busy winter, but for all of you that keep wondering why I haven't been around... I spent more time than not out and about. I haven't taken any great pictures lately either, the light's just not been the best.

stay tuned for more fun stuff soon... including some awesome color software called GenoPal, quilts, fabrics, dyeing, and faux stained glas....

Well I'm still trying to get back together from Mardi Gras a couple of weeks ago. While most of the country seems to believe that Mardi Gras is solely a New Orleans thing, most of Louisiana celebrates for almost a month before Fat Tuesday.

Here in Baton Rouge, my neighborhood has the largest Mardi Gras festivities in the City. While it's a blast, it in reality is a neighborhood wide block party for the better part of two days with lots of random people, and more food and alcohol that you could imagine. This year the parade was on Groundhog Day and the theme was appropriately "Flamingo Phil Predicts."

The end result is a disaster area of a house and yard, and more beads than you know what to do with!

So a good friend of mine IMed me the other day and was telling me about how I had to check out WOWIO. I've been trying to take a break from signing up for more sites that I don't need... but My excitement at the number of free quilting books quickly overwhelmed any practical sense of "Do you need to sign up for this?"

So from their site:
"What is WOWIO? WOWIO is a new kind of online bookstore that enables readers to download ebooks for free, using commercial sponsorships to compensate authors and publishers. Readers get free ebooks. Sponsors get a powerful new channel to communicate their message to precisely the people they want to reach. Publishers get a new means of distributing their books, expanding their readership, and monetizing their intellectual property."

Really- it means the $30 C&T Publishing or Martingale Press book that I've been wanting at the shop is free with a couple of ad pages attached to the pdf file. The one caveat is that you have to sign up with a "real" email, not with a free service. I used my school email and have downloaded 9 so far. You can get up to three a day, with a maximum of 30 over the course of a month.

Some quilty highlights: search for "quilt".

Reverse Applique with No Brakez
Jan Mullen
82 pages (May 2003)
C&T Publishing; ISBN: 1-57120-200-5

Wheel of Mystery Quilts: Surprising Designs from a Classic Block
Helen Marshall
98 pages (May 2006)
Martingale & Company; ISBN: 978-1-56477-633-4

Spellbinding Quilts: Wizards, Witches, and Magical Characters to Paper Piece
Maaike Bakker
98 pages (October 2006)
Martingale & Company; ISBN: 978-1-56477-674-7

Quilts For Guys: 15 Fun Projects For Your Favorite Fella
Cyndy Lyle Rymer (Ed.)
82 pages (July 2001)
C&T Publishing; ISBN: 1-57120-165-3

It's been way to long since I last wrote. As many of you know I was sick much of last fall, and between work and school but blogging on the back burner. I had surgery the week of Christmas to have my tonsils out... and that is supposed to solve the whole sick and never really getting better part... we'll see. I'm feeling better than I was, but I'm still chalking that up to the two week vacation and having a million and one people stop by to check on me, bring me food, walk the dog, do housework etc.

I'd like to thank those of you that are still reading and finding my blog. There's been lots of traffic even though I've not been writing! So now that it's the new year- there's lots to be written about. As you can imagine, if I didn't have time nor energy to write, there wasn't a lot of time to be crafty either... but I'm starting off the year with a quest to finish works in progress (well those that are easily finished)

1. Katie's Wedding Quilt. It's one of the hardest quilts I've ever made, not because it was a hard pattern but that it was traditional and so not my style. It's a Triple Irish Chain in dark colors. She got married over a year ago (oops), needs borders and to be quilted.

2. Random Baby Quilt, made from the original Moda Robyn Pandolph. I started it for my niece when she was adopted (she's now 8) but they changed their color scheme after they told me what colors they were going to use. It's a nine block log cabin. It will probably end up on etsy when I'm done with it.

3. Quilt my mother left when she came to visit when I had surgery. Gift for my friend from home. She brought the quilt top to work on while she was here, and 'forgot' it when she left, and then called to ask if I'd finish it. It's little tiny octagons and triangles in pastel pinks, purples, and yellows.

4. One Block Wonder in Free Spirit's Marabella. This quilt has been "Almost Done" for months. I half quilted it and then couldn't decide if I liked it and took it off the frame. Needless to say it never made it back.

5. Blooming Nine Patch. This quilt's been in previous posts and was moving smoothly for a while.... not so much any more. I get tired of making 1,587,643,587,324,958,734 little nine patches. I know it's not REALLY that bad but I'm about as ADHD as they come.

6. Moda Blossom Quilt. This was a shop sample for the shop, and needs borders and to be quilted.

7. One Block Wonder- Asian by Alexander Henry. These are all cut, and pinned together in a pile in my "Studio". Notice the word studio in quotes. That's because there have been various people sleeping on the couch in there. I think I need to get rid of my pull out couch some days. This quilt is much farther from being done that the others.