Hello January!

I’m doing a quick post today to link up the picture of my Good Fortune Mystery Quilt-Along Part 6 pieces to Bonnie Hunter’s linky party.  Come see the amazing participation by quilters worldwide!!

Here are all my neutral string pieces. Not terribly photogenic, I know, LOL!  I actually pieced the whole amount (instead of 1/2 - 2/3 like the other clues) and will spend the next few days hopefully catching up on some of the other clue pieces. This has been so much fun!

I also wanted to take a moment to share my favorite Christmas gifts from this season. 

This first item is a table topper that now resides on the vintage radio in our entryway. It was made by our dear friend Terri W, who was widowed in the early part of last year. Her hubby Mike was Bruce’s lifelong best friend. Notice the three Friendship Stars? That represents their folk group, The Muddy Gutter Boys, which consisted of Mike, Bruce and Rob. I’ve spoken about the Muddy Gutter Boys (MGB) on the blog before. (See This, or this ).

The fabrics of the three stars (and border and backing) came from Mike’s MGB shirts. The three guys wore matching long-sleeved shirts in the winter, usually in colors reminiscent of Christmas - because they did lots and lots of Christmas programs for senior homes, churches and other civic groups. They played together as a group for 53 years (starting as teenagers!!). 

The second item is a photo collage on canvas that my son and DIL Kim made for me. The pictures are from our summer trip to Kenya last July. The pictures show the sunrise, animals and two of us; one with me and DGD Lauren and one of Lauren, Kim and me with the Maasai warriors that we met in the bush. It’s hanging in the library, which I now call The Africa Room. It’s about 16x20”.

Hope you’re staying warm! We woke up this morning to 13-degree (F) temperatures. COLD. It did get up to 25 today, however. A heat wave! LOL.