Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! 

Later when the turkey is reduced to a bare carcuss and all that's left in the pie pans are crumbs, I will be getting back to working on my friend's heirloom quilt.  I'm hoping to surprise him with it's completion by December 2nd. 

The holidays are upon us and Santa's warming up his sleigh.  Every year for the last 18, I have been writing a letter with our Christmas cards.  This year, however, I am thinking about skipping it.  Do you read your relatives and friends Christmas letters?  How interested are you in their pursuits over the year?  I've tried different formats, from one line sentences, mostly pictures and comic book style, third person perspective, poem styles, regular letter formats, etc.....just trying to make it different and interesting every year.  It's hard to begin with simply because you don't want to bore the readers with your accomplishments or seek their sympathies for all your failures.  What is a happy medium?  Just a simple "Merry Christmas" in my opinion. 

Books and more

I wanted a couple pictures for my post, so I dug through some oldies but goodies for today.

This picture was taken 2 years ago at the Henry Ford museum in Detroit Michigan. On display were the "Stars cars and gitars", it was a memorable show.

There is something so wonderful about buying a new book. Is it the smell of the freshly printed pages, or opening the book for the first time and hearing the faint crack of the spine? Whenever I buy a new book I just have to look through all the pages, not necessarily reading anything, but visually "getting an eyeful" of all the colors, graphs, tables, charts, patterns and finished pictures of the project I could make in the future. I do the same thing with my magazine subscriptions, however, it is a little different. The advertising for drugs between almost ever page or so is extremely distracting and I find it a bit intrusive. Trying to sell me something completely unrelated to the how-to article I am reading about prairie points or how to make the perfect apple pie is just rude. I am convinced that people with emotional problems, insomnia, ED sufferers, and diabetics read Better Homes and Gardens, Redbook and Women's Day. I usually end up ripping these pages from the magazine in disgust. Sometimes my DH will enter the room and see pages strewn all over the floor and wonder if the cat has gotten to my magazines.

Anyway, back to my brand new books!
"Inspired to Quilt"......yes I have high hopes for this one to help me with my stalled creativity at the moment.
"Paper, Metal & Stitch"......this one should be a good one with the multimedia work I want to do.
"1000 Artist Trading Cards"......love the idea of this one. It's like a shot of espresso, isn't it? You get a creative fix from making just one tiny card. These titles and so much more can be found here.