I just love spending Thanksgiving with family!  We've moved to New Mexico and spent our first Thanksgiving here among family.  We had snow to welcome the special day, but it melted by mid-morning.  It was great to spend the afternoon talking with Mom, Dad, my sister and her husband.  What a great way to catch up and spend time thanking and thinking of family events over the past year.

Our children were nestled in their homes celebrating with friends and family, too.  With Friday as a working day, our kids could not make the trek here.  We miss them and love them dearly.

Another year and it's time to open the website to this year's quilt mystery hosted and written by Bonnie Hunter.  This year's theme is lots of blues and fuchsias all to commemorate the Texas wildflowers!  I have yet to gather my fabric (I am still unpacking my quilting stuff), but I have downloaded and saved Bonnie's instructions.  I will be going through my boxes this afternoon to look and locate the various suggested colors.  I love her mysteries; I have participated every year since a quilt friend suggested her website during one of our quilt meetings way back way...2011.  I am an avid fan quilter and have purchased her books.  I am so excited since she will be teaching several quilt classes in Arizona (this is so close to me)!  I need to coordinate my work to the days she will be in Arizona.  I hope I do not have any conflicts.

This year is a first for me...Bonnie would like us to upload our photos of our progress through Instagram.  I just signed up for my account and have started learning how to use this venue.  My account is https://www.instagram.com/badezbah630/  I do not have any photos yet for this mystery.

Follow me and Bonnie....https://quiltville.blogspot.com/  This is her website and blog...you can download your own copies of this year's quilt mystery.

Wow!  I have been busy this past year.  I haven't been sewing and quilting, rather I've been working at school. 
Things began to change....
In March, we set up a weekend to visit New Mexico to see about a possible land purchase.  We walked the property and looked over the house.  We asked about the price and we could not believe our good fortune.  We placed an offer and it happened so quick.  The whole lending process and selling of our current home was done in a flash.  We are the proud owners of a small ranch in New Mexico!

Our first thought was to pay on this new mortgage and plan to move once we retired.  That changed since my husband did not want to leave the ranch vacant for the years before we retire.  We prayed and talked with family and decided to change our plans and move out and enjoy this beautiful, quiet home.  So, we packed and made several trips throughout the summer storing our treasures.  We sold our Nevada home quickly.  So with the help of our grandboys, we slowly unloaded our personal stuff and slowly filled the new home.

It's now official, we've moved!  Whew!  I have a lot of fabric all related to quilting!  My room is packed and I've haven't opened all of my fabric boxes.  It's not a smaller place, just a bit different lay out and it'll take me time to get everything in order.

I haven't been piecing or quilting as of late.  I have been writing and teaching students in my new school.  Oh, things have changed since I was last here.  New and longer forms to fill out as a teacher, soon to be evaluated.  I have been spending a bit of time ironing out the teacher license process; it has taken me close to six months to finally obtain this credential piece!  Such fun sending and re-sending documents, not!  It is finished, I'm waiting on my hard copy as it travels through the mail system.

I sat down last weekend and spent a whole day cutting, piecing and pressing blocks.  I can now say that I have a quilt top.  Indy, my newest grandson, has been patiently waiting for his quilt.
I designed it using my "Electric Quilt" software.  I forget how fun and easy it is to select and color various block combinations.

The previous weekend, I finally pieced together last year's quilt mystery...Good Fortune.  I love the colors and how the blocks finally meshed together.  I love the border, too!  I don't think I'll quilt this one; I'll have to find someone to quilt it for me.

As the days move from fall and temperatures begin to drop, I've used my weekends crocheting afghan blocks and crocheting a vest.  I put aside the afghan to work on the vest.  I thought I was doing fine and realized that my counting was off.  I read the pattern over, but still didn't see how the vest progressed from the back to the front.  I completed the back as instructed and began working on the front.  What?!  After reading again, I figured out how the vest fabric was being constructed.  My numbers would not work, so I ripped and pulled and started over.  It now looks better and will fit as it was designed.  It is one of those times, I thought to alter before actually following as the designer intended.  Silly me!  Follow the pattern, it will work if you read it thoroughly!