Congratulations to Lynn, whose blog you can see here! Her number was chosen randomly by my MIL, Edith. I hope you enjoy making your own wonderful North Pole quilt :-). 

I want to thank all of you who commented and wrote such nice things! These designs have always made me smile and it's nice to know that they make you all smile too. If you are looking for a copy of the book, you can find it here on the Piece O' Cake website.

There are two other small projects in the book. They are cute and give you an idea of other ways to use the designs. 

Guess what came in the mail today? A package from That Patchwork Place to let me know that Welcome to the North Pole has been reprinted. Yay!

This is a happy book! The blocks are easy to personalize and make your own which must be why this book is still well-received even though it was first published in 1997. I am both happy and proud that these designs are as relevant now as they were then. 

That Patchwork Place sent me a new copy of this book and I think that one of you should have it! Leave a comment below and a winner will be chosen randomly on Saturday (9/21/13). Be sure that you either leave your email as part of your comment or check back to see if you won. If I can't find you, I can't contact you to get your shipping address.

In other news, Christmas is coming and I'm not ready :-). More on that as time goes by.

I have always been told that quilters buy more blue fabric than any other color. I never did – I always bought more green. I bought red, and then blue. 

Over the last several years, that changed for me and I attribute that to the introduction of the first, colored iMacs. Do you remember when desktop computers were uniformly gray and hideous? I do. And then Apple gave us this…

(Photo by Heather Robinson, taken especially for me! Thank you, Heather!)

Oh happy, happy day! Not long after its introduction, the blueberry iMac was followed by other candy-colored iMacs.

I lusted after the aqua iMac but never bought it because I already had a higher-powered mac and did not need this new one. Our son, Chris, did end up with a green iMac (because I could not make him want the aqua one that was, by far, the best color) when he went to college. Boy, that dates us both :-).

I did not get over aqua-iMac-lust and aqua started turning up in my quilts. Over time, aqua has become my go-to color. That said, I have had trouble combining some shades of blue. Specifically blue-jean blue with aqua. The periwinkle-ish blue jean color always felt off when I tried to wear (or pair) it with aqua.

But I am getting over that because I have been paying attention to the way these shades of blue live happily together in the real world:

Whether natural colors (above) or man-made colors (below), these different shades of blue are happy together.

It's funny how one thing leads to another, isn't it? And how, over time, you can look back and see what sticks with you. (Who remembers what doesn't stick :-)?)

I try to focus on work on travel days. I'm away from home with fewer distractions and I can often get something done on the computer. Unless I get distracted :-).

I just got an email from TED and this talk was at the top of the page. I've read about Apollo Robbins and seen a video of him before and he is always entertaining. This talk was especially interesting to me because he's talking about what we notice (and don't notice) and how easily distracted we are.

I gave the same color lecture three times in Canada. It changes a bit each time but the core information remains the same. One thing I emphasize is that we notice contrast, what is different. I give ideas about how that works in quilts. I need to think about how to add what I just learned in this TED talk – there is so very much that we don't notice, even when we think we are being observant.

FYI – The weather turned lovely, cool and crisp again, on my last day in Canada and it is the same in Detroit. I hope it's cooler in Texas as well – but I'm not holding my breath. It's likely to be October before we see weather this cool and clear. But – we don't get feet of snow either so I am not going to complain.

I tried to post last night but the wireless connection would not let me upload photos. It happens.

Some of you know that I like to take pictures of my feet and manhole covers. I especially like 'sewer' covers because I see 'sew-er'. This may be my favorite: Danger Sewer! 

There are a surprising number of big interesting signs in Ontario. I was able to snap this one. What's funny to me is that the ladies I was with did not see this as an unusual sign – where to me it would be a landmark (for example, 'turn left at the paint can').

I have seen a lot of well-preserved old cars. They look like they are used all the time, not brought out for show. It's nice to see them on the road!

I have finally realized that I am in the breadbasket of Canada. So many large, fertile farms. These look different from the farms in Texas and Oklahoma. It's the structures – they remind so much of Pennsylvania. Every one is photogenic.

The bright yellow fields are soy, nearly ready for harvest.

A farm, dwarfed by the sky…

This may be the prettiest group of farm buildings… 

I love the reds against the grays. It was lovelier on the other side. The short silos had walls of red. I couldn't stop soon enough to take that picture. How cool is it that the pipes above are painted in the same red. That has to be hard work, to keep them painted. I hope they know that strangers appreciate the effort.

I was in Goderich Sunday and Monday, yesterday and today I was in Kirkton, now I'm in London. These places are not far apart and I am driving myself in a rental car. I'm enjoying the driving.

Tonight has been mildly exciting. I got to my hotel in London at 5:15. I went to my room and had just started to unpack when I heard sirens. Tornado sirens. We are under a 'dangerous storms watch' so I took note. I got my purse, computer, iPad, and phone and went downstairs. The very nice manager said that yes, those were the tornado sirens and that he was checking out the situation.

I grew up in Oklahoma and live in Texas. I don't panic over tornados, nor do I ignore them. I asked where one would go for shelter in case it came to that and, luckily, that space was next to the bar. Yay! I got a glass of wine and not long after I, and everyone else, was ushered into a nearby dining room. We spent some time there while the storm blew past. Big thunderstorm, no tornado that I know of. 

I ate dinner while I was downstairs and before I headed up the nice manager let me know that more storms could come this way later tonight. I asked if they would knock on doors he said that, no, if it came to that, the alarms would go off. Good to know! I would much rather be mentally prepared. If nothing happens, great! If alarms go off, I won't be surprised. I may, in fact, keep the weather on for a while. Right now I'm enjoying the lightning and thunder out my window.

I got up at 4:20 AM this morning to catch a 7:00 flight to Detroit. Early! Once in Detroit I rented a car to drive north to Goderich, Ontario. The drive through Detroit and on to the border was fine – nice even. Traffic stacked up at the Blue Water bridge into Canada and I was glad it did. It gave me the opportunity to admire the very blue water and the amazing sky above.

The blue water below the bridge looks just like that! Deep aqua in the center of the channel – lighter toward the banks of the river. I took a lot of pictures as we inched along…

As I went through the photos I noticed how amazingly blue the sky was!

The drive to Goderich, via Sarnia, skirt the east shore of Lake Huron. The weather is cool and crisp now – so different from Texas. It looks to me a whole lot like Pennsylvania, but not. I pulled out my iPhone and started to take pictures as I drove along. I looked forward and pointed my camera  out the window. I would not do this in traffic but there were long areas where I was it on the rode and I drove slowly…

I'd see something interesting ahead and snap snap snap as I drove by. The sky is still the most amazing blue…

The next photo was taken through the windshield – you can almost see the bugs. Isn't the sky a beautiful aqua?

I stopped and went back to take the striped room on the silo. And then as I drove on I realized that there are many that look just like this:

And then I drove past a clothesline that made me turn around and go back for a photo. Look close and you'll see colors on a line behind the house. This is Mennonite country so I assumed this was a Mennonite household.

I got closer and it wasn't until I downloaded the photos that I noticed the above-ground pool behind the colorful clothes… and the Dish antennas on the side of the house. Is Dish Mennonite or are these just folks who appreciate solid colors and like to dry clothes outside?

I got to my motel in Goderich. There aren't many choices in Goderich and this one was not awful – nor was it wonderful.

Judy met me and she told me that she had a space that would probably be better than the motel. She was right :-). Quilters are so nice!

We went for a walk after I unpacked and it is lovely here. Judy lives close enough to the lake to get a wonderful breeze. We walked to the water. The sun was in the wrong spot to take photos out over the water but I did get these birds…

…and the view uphill was lovely.

As I look back over the photos of the day what I see are shades of blue. So very many shades of blue! I don't think I look up often enough – or is it that I take my own sky for granted? Maybe it takes seeing the sky in a new place to make it seem so special.