Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Favorite Book?

Do any of you have a favorite book from childhood? Mine is A BOOK OF MERMAIDS by Ruth Manning-Sanders. I borrowed that book week after week from the local library and read it over and over and over again. On a whim this morning, I did a search on Amazon and found two old copies for sale. The lesser expensive one was $120. My 12 year old daughter said, "You should buy it since you want it so bad." Knowing that its just not practical right now, I put the book on my wishlist and logged out.

A few minutes later, my 9 year old son asked if he could sell hot chocolate out in the front yard. I thought it was an odd request until I asked him why he wanted to do it. His answer was, "So I can buy you that book."

Both of those responses were worth more to me than the book!

I know I have a mermaid quilt in me somewhere, so I might have to get to work on that soon!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Buy 2 Get 1 Free Pattern

Some days I struggle to find SOMETHING... ANYTHING to blog about because I feel guilty if I don't do it regularly. This is one of those days.

There are a lot of things going on in my life right now, but some of them NO ONE wants to hear about and some I can't talk about yet for fear of jinxing them! I have 2 quilts, so far, that will be published this year in 2 different magazines, but I can't tell you any more about those until they go to print. I have several new designs I am working on for Spring Market, but my friends tell me not to post any pictures of works in progress, because someone else might "steal them". So I am very limited right now in what I can talk about.

I did get a very nice phone call this morning from a lady in Omaha, Nebraska. She said her group decided to use one of my designs for their raffle quilt! What an honor! I told Linda that I would post a picture of their finished quilt in my blog or on my website, as well as information to purchase a ticket, so check back for that. It will be a little while for that though, since I am just sending out the pattern today.

Here's a thought:
How about a pattern sale on my website? http://www.larkspurlanedesigns.com
Market can be a very expensive undertaking and in an effort to NOT run up my credit card balance any higher, I will make a special offer to those that read my blog:

Purchase 2 patterns and I will send you another one of your choice for free. I will charge for the 2 higher priced patterns.

Feel free to tell your friends about this offer!

I will be out of town the first week in February, but will do my best to get out any orders that come in before the end of this month and the first thing I will do when I get back will be to fill any orders that come in while I am away.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Quilting Gallery Contest

The Quilting Gallery is running weekly themed contests. This week's theme is snowmen. This is the quilt that I have entered, but there are a lot of REALLY cute quilts in the contest! Check them out and vote for your favorite. http://www.quiltinggallery.com

Voting starts today and runs through Sunday (I think)

Monday, January 11, 2010

New Experience

Yesterday, I took a break from quilting and did something I have never done before. My daughter's Girl Scout Troop volunteered to serve food in a soup kitchen. Because our girls are young (12 and under), the moms were asked to come along and help. The high temperature yesterday was around 14 degrees here, so the people that came, not only came for a good, hot meal, but to get out of the cold for 45 minutes. They were so appreciative of the girls' effort and were very forthcoming with their praise. It was a great experience and one that I hope to repeat in the near future. Our girls got to see how fortunate they are and how, with a little effort, they can make someone else's life better, at least for a little while. Its a shame we have homeless people at all, but it was a very rewarding experience to have had, and one that I hope others will take advantage of, if the opportunity to serve ever arises.

QUILTY SIDE NOTE: The man at the camera store was right about the type of batteries I was using in my camera. Now that I have the right kind in, my camera is working again, so I will be posting some new pics very soon!