Enter Donna's Giveaway!

If you like to enter blog giveaways, you will want to visit Donna's blog Brynwood Needleworks . She is having a giveaway to celebrate her second blog anniversary! She is offering some really nice prizes. Donna's blog is certainly a favorite of mine because she offers so much help to girls like me that need help with my quilting techniques. Be sure and check out her tutorials.

Interesting Hometown Sights

I thought today I would share with you, an interesting place near my home. The largest basket in the world is just five minutes from my home! The famous Longaberger baskets are handcrafted in my area and the home office is located in the "big basket" ! Here are some interesting facts about the LONGABERGER HOME OFFICE basket;

Outstanding Features

• Offices are situated around a seven-story, 30,000 sq. ft atrium where employees and guests can enjoy the natural daylight from the skylight.
• Two basket handles are attached to the building with replica copper and wooden rivets.
• The handles are heated to prevent ice from forming.
• Two Longaberger tags are attached to the sides of the building. The gold leaf painted tags are 725 lbs each and measure 25' long x 7' tall x 3" thick.
• A majority of the cherry woodwork in the building was harvested from Longaberger Golf Club® in Hanover, dried and milled in our facility, sawed and shaped at our Construction Woodshop, finished and installed by our Construction Division.

Points of Interest

• The Longaberger Company designed the exterior and interior of the building. NBBJ and Korda Nemeth Engineering administered the construction process.
• The building is a trademark of The Longaberger Company.
• Groundbreaking began on October 23, 1995 and employees moved in December 9, 1997.
• The building has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, People magazine, Time magazine and U.S. News & World Report.
• Longaberger has received numerous landscaping and construction awards for this building.
• Product displays in the lobby feature new products and the Longaberger sales kit for the independent sales consultant business opportunity.

Building Facts

• Property size: 25 acres
• Building capacity: 500 employees
• Building footage: 180,000 square feet
• Total weight of building: Approximately 9,000 tons
• Total weight of handles: Approximately 150 tons
• Number of windows: 84
• Seven stories in height
• 192' long x 126' wide at grade, widening to 208' long x 142' wide at roof
• 160 times longer, wider and taller than the Medium Market Basket

Along The Garden Path

I have cabin fever. I am day dreaming about warm sunny days. I'm thinking about my lilacs....

I simply adore the sweet smell of spring lilacs.

Lilacs  buds are one of the first signs on spring around my home. One of my favorites!

Another favorite of mine is my honeysuckle. The sweet fragrance always takes me back to my childhood.

We also have a lovely bleeding heart plant. It is so beautiful and graceful to see.

Tulips in the springtime in so many shades of color.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at all the pretty spring flowers that grace my area of the country!

Favorite Fabric Designers

I was just wondering who your favorite fabric designer is? That's kind of a hard question for those of you who are like me and simply adore fabric!! I beleive my very favorite designer is Tanya Whelan. I love the palate of colors she uses in her fabrics. Lots of pale pink, blue, yellow, green, and reds! Lots of florals, dots, and stripes. I always favor softer colors when choosing my fabrics.
These designs are from Tanya's Delilah line..you can see all of them here
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I love the quality of Amy Butler's fabrics. This is a photo of Amy in her studio.

Amy actually lives about 15 miles from my home! No, I have never had the pleaseure of meeting her in person. She designs bright and bold fabrics. I love the quality and I like a few of her designs but they are a little bolder then what I tend to like.

I like quite a few of Michael Miller's fabrics too. Who is your favorite fabric designers?

Look what I made!

I just added several new items to my Etsy Shop. I hope to get busy and get more items made. Please check out my new items by clicking on the link above or you can always click on the Etsy button to the right and it will take you to my shop..

What I Do.......

I thought I would share a little about what I do with some of my spare time! One of the items I create is handcrafted purses. I make each purse one at a time. I have never made two purses alike. When someone orders a purse from me it truly is one of a kind. It has taken me quite a while to create the purse that I am really pleased with. My purses have a consider amount of body so they hold up well and do not "flop over". I am happy to say that my purses are scattered all over the United States and I have shipped across the sea!

A little sunshine today!

The sun is shining brightly here in Ohio but it is still quite cold. My little granddaughter loves the outdoors so I let her go out for just a couple minutes to enjoy some fresh air. Addyson will be 15 months this week. Hard to imagine life without this sweet little girl. Jennie, a friend of Addyson's mommy made the sweet hat for her. Addyson loves the hat as you can tell in the pictures! Jennie's Etsy Shop can be found here. She also has a nice FaceBook Page that showcases her lovely items.

Quilting Buddies

On Saturday I had the pleasure of watching all my grandchildren while their parents had a few things to do. So, I had a couple quilt tops that I had made for them to help me knot rather then sew. The oldest two, Benji and Vanessa are old enough to help. Their brother Beau and cousin Addyson are not quite old enough to help with the quilting but Addyson did her best to get in with the action. We worked on the kitchen table with large needles and a couple pairs of plyers to pull the yarn through the layers. We finished one blue baby boy quilt. Vanessa is just seven years old but is really enjoying her first lessons in sewing. Thus making her grandma quite proud of her.