Cedar Ridge Park

This US Army Corps of Engineers park, located near Temple, Tx at Lake Belton is very nice.

 It is very quiet and has a lot of deer roaming thru the park all the time. They come right up close to the RV. There are also turkeys roaming the park.

   I even got a picture out the window of our 5th wheel. It's a bit cloudy 'cause of the dirty window!

The view is very nice across the lake. We really enjoyed our stay there for a couple of days, and the price, with our Senior Pass was great!

Connell Embroidered Blocks Quilt Series

My Sister - The Quilter

It's all her fault ! She got me hooked started on quilting. Now I am addicted but seem to have quilter's ADD. I have too many projects going at one time.

I greatly admire my quilting sister, Faith. She has put together and quilted some beautiful quilts. Her choice of quality fabrics and color matches are amazing and her tiny quilting stitches as well.

When I see her quilts, it makes me work harder to make mine better with perfectly matched corners and small stitches.

When I worried about a quilt, she always said "It's your quilt -make it any way you want it!"

Connell Chain Quilts

Mom decided it would be nice to try to make a quilt for all the girls in the family with her handwork on it. That was the start of the Connell Chain idea. She embroidered a number of quilt blocks for use in them.

Connell Chain #1

This green and purple floral quilt was started many years ago, worked on off and on by Mom and sister Faith and finally completed in 1988. The embroidery work on the blocks was done by Mom and pieced by Faith. Mom and Faith learned to quilt with this quilt and sister Teresa also learned some basic quilting. 

Mom originally had this one but gave it to Faith since she had worked on it so much. During the holidays this year, Faith passed it on to our sister Marge.

Connell Chain #2

This quilt was started with leftover blocks from #1 but embroidered in brighter colors of pink, lavender and teal by Teresa and Mom. Faith designed the quilt, Teresa chose her colors, then she and Mom embroidered the blocks. Mom was nursing a broken ankle when she embroidered these. Teresa pieced and quilted the top with Mom's help. This is Teresa's quilt.

Connell Chain #3

My sister, Faith, “the quilter” did a lot of work on the quilts. Mom embroidered these blocks in 1995. Faith pieced them and did most of the quilting with help from Mom and sisters; June and Teresa; sister-in-law, Dee Dee and myself. This one was made sister Barbara and husband John.

Connell Chain #4

For this last one, Faith asked me if I would put it together and quilt it, as her battle with cancer would not allow her to work on it. It is a beautiful quilt and I hope I have done it justice even though my quilting is not as fine as Faith's.

The embroidery pattern is a flower basket done by Mom in pink, rose and yellow with the basket in brown. The outer corners have a quarter floral pattern and when joined together form almost a rounded pattern.

Faith picked out the perfect sashing to go around the blocks, with dark brown floral along the sides and dark green floral for the corner blocks. The borders are green floral stripe, pale yellow floral and pink floral on the outer edges.

I found a striped greenish teal fabric in my stash that I felt would add to the quilt so I added two borders of it as well. The narrow binding is brown floral. Faith had one block pieced to get me started and I have did the remainder of the piecing and the hand quilting . This one was give to our sister, Kathy and husband Gus at Christmas this year.

This is some of the quilting pattern on the quilt. The block quilting and the border quilting.

  Now to tell you the error I made when I first put the top together. . .

look at the stripe corners!

But I went back and fixed them!

Family Christmas Part Two

Christmas in Amarillo

I am so glad we went to Amarillo a few days early, with the winter storm that arrived just in time for Christmas. Thank goodness, DD and family didn't try to make the trip there on Christmas Eve from the metroplex. The snow was beautiful but the temperature was very cold. 

We stayed in our lot beside Mom's house and were pleased with the performance of our 5^th wheel heater when it got down to 8 degrees one night.

Mom couldn't neglect her birds. She went out when the snow let up a bit and filled their feeders. She takes good care of them.

We took our baby Dora with us and she was rather put out by having to stay in a "jail" playpen but had some problems recently so we kept her confined. Although she still got her nap out with HD!

It was great to see everyone on Christmas Eve at my sister, Barbara's for our family gathering and gift exchange. Three of my four brothers were there and all six of my sisters made it. Since DD and her family didn't make it, we hooked up the computer using Skype and visited with them. We wanted to do the same on Christmas Day for our son and daughter-in-law in Bulgaria but with the time difference, it was not possible.

I am so glad that my sister Faith was feeling well enough to come and stay for the evening and again Christmas Day. I had been working on a special gift for our sister Kathy and husband Gus since July. It is the Connell Chain #4 quilt so I was especially glad they could make the trip from south Texas to receive it. It was a good surprise for them.

   
Barbara's home was filled with people enjoying each other's company. There were 57 family members present. The kids opened gifts, then we did the Chinese gift exchange for the women, then the men. That was so much fun!

There was a much smaller crowd there for Christmas Day but we all enjoyed wonderful food and company. Barbara & John are terrific hosts!

Brave souls, Teresa, Gus and Kathy built an igloo in Barbara's front yard and did a really good job.

For more pictures, visit my son's picture site:
 http://services.mercuryws.biz/public/photos/index.php?folder=/Users/jpbiggerstaff/Amarillo%20Christmas%202009/

When we got home, we discovered we had even more snow than Amarillo got!