St. Patrick's Day Luncheon and Cross Stitch

One of the ladies from my quilt group held a luncheon today for St. Patrick's Day.  It was great fun and the food was incredible!  We had a white elephant gift exchange and the competition was fierce.  I originally took a great handbag from one of the other ladies but it was quickly taken from me as well.  So my next gift to open had my name all over it and I told the ladies before I showed the contents that St. Patrick's Day is my wedding anniversary and we have rescued basset hounds in the past so it had to be mine.  Luckily, they all agreed and this cute little guy came home with me.

A friend of mine, Suzanna is a big embroidery person and when I saw the gift she placed on the pile I hoped that it would be something homemade but I never thought it would be this cute! 

And yesterday Andrew and I went to pick up a couple of things we had taken for framing.  I have been working on this cross stitch for about a year off and on.  I wish I had thought to take a picture before we had it framed.  Even though they use that non-reflective glass you still can't get a very good picture once it is behind the glass.  I am hoping that this lady will grace our foyer in the house in France one day soon.  I had a lot of fun sewing it and have already begun the next pattern. 

And last but not least...I have been playing around with some new quilting designs in my head and took this one for a spin on my sketch pad this morning.  It took some time to get used to the motion of drawing this one but once I got it, the result is pretty good I think.

Our quilt group is having it's annual exhibition in mid-May and I really don't have a quilt to enter this time other then the one I put in the Dubai show.  All the quilts I am working on at the moment are gifts for people we will be visiting in the next month.  I can enter my french braid from the Dubai show for exhibition purposes only but not for judging as that is our group's rule.  I would really love to create a top that would let me do some nice quilting on it.  My problem is that at the moment I just have no idea what pattern to go with for that purpose.  It would have to be something in a wall hanging size I think in order for me to complete it in time as I will be away from my machine for the entire month of April.  I could probably use my sister's machine to piece the top while I am visiting but would want to wait until I got back to my machine before I quilted it.  And if it just doesn't come together this time then I will have a whole year before the next show to work on something spectacular!