My November Star is Serena who has wonderful blogs called See Serena Sew and See Serena Serve. She lives in a beautiful part of America called the Appalachia, and she is multi-talented. She just gave birth to a beautiful boy named Nicholas, and I just read on one of her blogs that she is going through some really difficult post birth headaches. Go over and visit her , and you will meet a truly beautiful and inspiring person. I think that what I love about her the most is her lovely smile....It shows her beautiful spirit. I am thrilled to see that she is a hand quilter, and I so admire her patience in what I know to be a very difficult craft.



Enjoy her interview, and thanks so much Serena for being my November Star.

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  A Bit About Me: I am a quilter! I love to read, cook and journal too. I've worked five very different jobs in my life (fast food fry girl, jail file clerk, nursing aide, non profit secretary, and mama) and find parenting to be the most challenging. I started piecing as a wee little girl with my mom. I made little nine patches , doll clothes, and small bags for my baby doll's things. I've had a sewing basket since before I can remember but did not seriously get into quilting until I was in my late teens. I'm almost 25 now and spend my days at home with my two kids.


• What Inspires Me: What doesn't?? I try to maintain a visual openness to the world around me. I find photographs to be extremely fascinating as well as time spent outdoors. I'm greatly inspried by personal experiences, current events, and stories I am told or read. Sometimes, the smallest news clipping has me brainstorming for years. Even if a direct life to fabric correlation can't be seen, I still feel that my choices for color, design elements, and the overall schematic of a piece is greatly influenced by what I've read, seen, felt, and experienced.



• What I Love to Do the Most Creatively: I love to design, select fabrics, and piece but I admit I'm a bit slow on the quilting and terribly slow on the binding.



• My Favorite Fabric and Designer: I adore scraps. I love fabrics from different time periods, abroad, and from clothing. My stash, which is all I use these days, dates from the 1920's to 2009. I like fabric to tell a story. If someone gives me a 2 inch square and tells me it holds meaning for them, and the story behind it then that piece is worth as much to me as six yards of the best selling fabric from the latest line in a local quilt shop.



• UFO I Intend to Finish First: I consider everything a UFO. What I'm working on now? A gift for a friend, quilting my first quilt, which had been tied, piecing anything that strikes my fancy as needing to be pieced and attempting to talk myself into binding something.



• What's on the Design Wall Now: My reproduction courthouse steps and my vintage Christmas Stars. I save the design wall for quilts that I have to know the layout on. I have various others in bags that I can pull out quickly to take with me that I don't necessarily have to know the orientation of the entire quilt in order to piece successfully.



• Who would I Love to Meet: Quilters from previous generations. I'd give anything to have my great grandmother around to talk to about quilting not because she was a master quilter, but because she made quilts and used them up.



• If I had One Wish: Hmmmm unlimited reign at a 24 hour fabric store with good friends and endless coffee! Sadly, most of them are blog land friends. I would love to move them all right next door.



• Plans for the Future: Keep my fingers busy doing a craft that brings me joy and peace!

Here are some of Serena's work, and my are you going to see some wonderful eye candy!

Thanks so much for a great interview Serena! I know that everyone has throughly enjoyed it!

We have been quite busy! Our bathtub was finally installed, and it landed up being much more beautiful than I expected. The plumber put in a real wood siding, and Joe put a clear varnish on it. We are letting the varnish dry...I will be taking my next luxurious bath tomorrow, and I will post a pic tomorrow to show you all my new bath. What can I say, I love it!

I also got three lovely siggies in he mail: One was from Morgun in Norway who sent me a gorgeous siggy made of pink batik fabric and an owl in the centre block. She collects owls, and this one was stiched so nicely! Then I also received a penguin siggy from Ineke, who lives in The Netherlands. What a cute addition that will be to my siggy quilt! Finally, I got a lovely hand stitched block from Illene who lives in Australia. The fabric is a very romantic print. Thanks so much to you both!

This weekend is the Halloween Festival in Dunfanaghy, or as the Irish also call it, All Hallows Eve Festival. The ancient gaelic festival marks the end of the summer harvest ( Samhain), a time where the ancient Celts believed that on October 31st, now known as Halloween, the boundary between the living and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living. In the village of Dunfanaghy, we have traditional All Hallows Eve festivites with a fantastic torch-lit procession which leaves from our Ozanam Centre, a graveyard walk, and a fireworks extravaganza as well, which is held at the pier near the town square. The fireworks is followed by music and food in the square and lots of festivities. Plus, all throughout the weekend, there are many activities for the children and lots of parties at the various hotels and pubs in our village. We will take pics of the procession and fireworks etc, this year and I think that you will enjoy our Celtic celebration! Anways, here is a pic from last year, so it should get you into the mood. I will post this year's post during the weekend.

Oh, check out this site that I found called
Sue Spargo's Folk Art Quilts. I will have to do something of hers one day.

Enjoy your Friday! Joe and I are just beginning our day here and our village is covered with a wonderful mist.

I have had many people recently ask me if I miss Philadelphia, so I felt that I should answer it in a post. I will always be a Philly girl, but my heart is now at home in Donegal.


When Joe and I first got married, he wanted to show me Ireland, so we did tent camping around the country. When we came to Donegal County, we both fell in love with it. Joe had never seen it before, and I thought it was a touch of heaven. I said to Joe, "Gee, I wish that we could live here." We were living in the middle of the country at that time, and Joe said, " Then, we will move here", and by golly we did! We have found a great deal of peace and beauty here in Donegal, and we never take it for granted. Today, we took our usual long walk, met a neighbor down the hill from us that we had never met before, and his friendliness was amazing. I took an instant liking to him. Anyways, I thought you might like to see this video of Donegal. It is a Gaelic song about Donegal and it shows lovely scenes from our county, including our village of Dunfanaghy, which you can see also pictured above.As to whether it was an adjustment living here in Ireland, well, I can honestly say that the hardest thing for me personally was getting used to living in a small village, as I came from Philly, which was huge. Now funny enough, I don't think that I could go back to living in a large city, and I guess that's why I felt so overwhelmed when I visited our capital city of Dublin recently. So, to answer your questions, I would never live anywhere else! Joe and I have found our niche, and we are truly happy. Enjoy the videos!! I am also including Christy Moore's song "City of Chicago", which is about the Irish Great Hunger or Famine, where Irish people were forced to emigrate. This is about someone who went to Chicago and still remembered his beloved Donegal. Christy Moore wrote the song and sings it from his heart, and I think you will love it.He is one of my favorite Irish singers.

Here is a lovely poem about Donegal, and it captures how everyone who has seen and lived here in Donegal feels about this grand ol' county:

My Old Thatched Cottage
Take me back to my old thatched cottageIn far off DonegalWhere the thrushes sing in the eveningBeside the waterfall
I'm tired of the noise of the cityI long for the peace of the plowWhere the sea gulls circle above meAs I wipe the sweat from my brow
I long for the sounds of the horsesThe cows coming down from the hillsThe bleat of the lambs in the springtimeThe song of the lark, how it thrills
I want to go back to the heatherThe roses that cling round the doorTo the hawthorn, the primrose, and daisiesTo my childhood again as of yore
Take me back to my dear old motherIn far off DonegalWhere the thrushes sing in the eveningBeside the waterfall

Hope this post helped to answer some of your questions.Enjoy the videos and the lovely scenery of our county....our beloved Donegal.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I was an English teacher, and I loved finding literature that would stimulate my students' minds and get them excited about reading and learning. One of my most successful weeks of teaching, was when I introduced fairy tales and discussed the meaning and symbolism behind them. The story that has the most meaning I think is "Pinocchio". On the surface, it is just a fairy tale about a marionette carved from wood by the kindly Geppetto, who is a good hearted but lazy puppet who leaves home and has many adventures, finally becoming a real boy. Pinocchio transforms into a real boy after going through many trials and eventually learning some important lessons like: obedience, avoiding temptations, having a conscience, the power of believing in one's dremas, making good choices, and of course staying in school. At the end, Pinnochio shows himself worthy of becoming a real boy by proving himself brave, truthful, and unselfish.

I finally got The Streets of Ireland finished, and boy was I happy! I completed it with my newly serviced Nelly, and I was so glad that she was purring like a kitten, because I had tons of machine quilting to do on the quilt. It does so remind me of a street in Dublin, and I really do love it!

First of all, I want to welcome Nicholas Evans Potter into the world. Serena gave birth to a wonderful boy, and I was thrilled for her. He is a beautiful baby, as you can see by the pic here. Head on over to her blog See Serena Sew and congratulate her.Also, my gift to the baby arrived, which I could not post before as I did not want to spoil the surprise.I was thrilled when she wrote today that it had been the first gift that she received for the baby except for family members. I made Nicholas a bib, and machine embroidered his name and also appliqued Sunbonnet Sam on it.

"Show White and the Seven Dwarves" was such an enchanting story, and I said to myself today, "This has got to be the one that I post about next."

I don't know if you ever knew about this site, but they give free videos on quilting. I love it! There is always something to watch which is really good, and you can't beat anything that is free! Here it is, and enjoy....It is called Quilter's TV.Where it says to browse videos, you will see the list of over 40 videos to currently watch. Also, I have been watching Country Channel Tv, which is also free. There is a ten week program called Talking Threads, which you can watch for free here. Where it has " Search for Videos", just type in "Talking Threads" and it will pop up for you. Right now, the first show is available, which is "Silk Painting with Jill Kennedy", and even though I wouldn't get into that, I enjoyed it very much. Each week a different show will be available to watch, so remember to check in next week.

As for Nelly, the dealer in Waterford said that she is "purring like a kitten"...The courier will pick her up today, but he doesn't expect me to get it till Tuesday or Wednesday. This Irish lassie is going to be happy to see her! I have two UFOs to finish, and the Civil War Bride quilt to begin, plus Christmas presents to work on as surprises for friends.

Finally, I wanted to thank all my quilting friends for their continuous generosity and love, and so I am having an Irish Christmas Giveaway in December, so get ready for lots of holiday fun Irish style. By the way, Merry Christmas in Gaelic is "Nollaig Shona". It's my favorite time of year, so no hints now, but I will start the holiday off with a bang in the month of December, so keep a lookout for it! Oh, this pic of Christmas is not typical of Ireland, as we rarely get snow, especially living near the sea here in Dunfanaghy, but one can dream!!!


I am off to Letterkenny today with Joe in the late afternoon.
Have a great day!

I didn't have to think too long to decide which Disney character I would post about next...I came to the conclusion that it had to be Peter Pan. I took one of my Master's Degrees in Psychology, and I studied about the Peter Pan Syndrome. It is where a man is socially immature, who then has a deep-seated belief that he will never grow up. Of course the syndrome was named after the legendary character who lived in Neverland, called Peter Pan. I found the idea irresistable as a child, and I still love it as an adult. I remember Peter flying into the children's window while they were sleeping, and then bringing them to the magical land of Neverland. Who wouldn't be entranced by that idea? As a child, I often dreamed of Neverland....a place where children could do what they want and have a wonderful time being a child, and when life did get a bit rough as a child, it was lovely to escape everyday life with dreams of Neverland. Then of course there was Tinkerbell, a pixie who was always by Peter's side, who glowed brightest for him. She sang like a tinking bell, and a sprinkle of her fairy dust could make you fly. The thought of flying was so incredible, and I guess that later that's why I enjoyed flying in a plane so much. I am in love with childhood and with Neverland....I am not ashamed to say that! Of course, as an adult, I will never feel the way I did as a child when I thought of Neverland, as it is hard to recreate exactly what we felt as a child...to reclaim those magical feelings of forever being a child. Now, if you are a kid at heart, it doesn't mean you have the Peter Pan Syndrome, but if you can't be a kid at times, you are missing out on something so important....As Peter Pan said, "Fairies only exist if you believe in them, " and isn't it fun to just believe?

I was very busy today sewing. First of all, I read the story about the tsunami that occured in American Samoa on Barb's blog called Bejeweled Quilts. I had heard the story on tv, but reading about it made it so much more poignant. Barb wrote that pillowcases and sheets were needed for the victims, so today, I made pillowcases to send to Barb in Samoa. The positive side to the story is that I wrote Barb, and we have since been in correspondence, and we became fast friends. She is such an interesting and lovely lady. She has told me about Samoa, and if you go to her blog, you will appreciate how beautiful it is. My heart does go out to all the people there!

Then I sewed a surprise gift for Serena's impending baby boy. I can't mention what it is, but I hope that she will like it. Nothing else said....LOL Serena knows that I am sending the baby something, but of course, I will say no more. I will post it later on my blog when I know she got it. I really enjoyed making that gift so much!

Then, I received a wonderful parcel in the mail from my Angel, and it was a drop dead gorgeous pincushion that can also be used for a door hanger. The stitchery was incredible!Well, as you can see, it is so pretty!!! The card was so lovely too!I can't wait to find out who she is....that will be so much fun, and I will enjoy getting to know her.


That was my day...Hope your day was a good one too!