Holiday Greetings!

I seem to have gone AWOL!  Actually, we went away for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and had a great time.

At last check I had been working on getting a king-sized quilt ready for sandwiching... 

I did successfully get the borders on this fun, playful quilt before we left for Texas.  

With five days away from my sewing room, you can rest assured that I did not miss any quilting opportunities!  I grabbed one of the projects from my "To-do This Year" list to work on while on the road.  It is a throw-sized quilt made from Quiltmaker's Bitty Blocks that I am hand quilting.  I hadn't done much with it over the summer, as it was just too warm to have on my lap.  We enjoyed listing to an audio reading of the Chronicles of Narnia as Dave drove and I stitched.

The Log Cabin blocks were my favorite to quilt... 

and the Flying Geese - even though there seemed to be thousands of them.

I made great progress on the quilting and have only four Bears Paw blocks left.  Of course, why wouldn't I make progress??? It was a 7+ hour trip each way.

Our friends have a lovely piece of property where they are raising goats... And I got to meet my namesake - Melva (she is the patchwork faced goat below)- and her baby girl, Amy Grant.  The goats were great fun to watch and listen to...

This is Hank (the Goat Dog) - head of ranch security... if you get the reference to this you know about the children's books that feature Hank the Cowdog.  If you don't you need to check them out!  Especially if you have children or grandchildren that you want to read entertaining bedtime stories to. (My dad loved these books... and when his Alzheimers progressed and he was no longer able to read them himself, my mom would read them to him.  He would laugh and laugh at the antics of Hank and the situations he would find himself in.)

The dogs had fun running and playing.  Well Hank would try to herd our dog, Shelby, who was only concerned with retrieving the tennis ball.  And inside Hank was only concerned about getting the squeakers out of the squeaky toys...  











While the rest of the gang were off seeking wildlife I enjoyed some quiet quilty time as Shelby rested from her playtime with Hank.



And what a sunset!  It seemed to go on forever... The longer I watched, the the colors became more brilliant and bright and it grew wider and broader, taking up the entire horizon. Even the Eastern sky was pink... I stopped stitching and enjoyed my glass of wine on the patio in reverent silence. 

The evenings were spent playing a rousing game of Golf - the card game - and filled with laughter and fun as well as some angst and frustration at the luck of the draw...

      

 

     

Somebody was hoarding all of the jokers!  

In the end it was all fun & games and no got hurt... LOL!

On the final afternoon I joined in on the fun at "The Ranch" and went shooting... One just cannot resist the silliness of plinking at marshmallows on a pond!

Thanks for joining me on our "Holiday". As we enter the Christmas season I will be a busy little elf in my studio preparing an assortment of gifts... **code for I may not be sharing much here for a few weeks**

May you be blessed in this Holy Season,

Melva

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