time to catch up

i'm way behind on my postings here, but the last few months have been extremely busy and crazy - both at work and at home. we've had sick people in the house, sick animals, surgery, visiting MIL, spring break (during which there was sick me, surgery for hubby and visiting MIL), and insanity at the office. i'd like to say it's calming a little, but not really!

since the winter, i've been piecing away at a QOV that is also going to a quilt show. my first show quilt!! it's gorgeous and it was so hard to mail it off to never see it in the show or ever again. i can show you a little sneak peek of the finished quilt...

i'll show you the full quilt later after the show starts in may. i'm not sure if the show coordinators have a rule about it or not, so i don't want to make them upset with me. tia - my online flickr/bloggy world/quilting friend was my partner on this QOV. she did the beautiful longarm quilting and i couldn't be more thankful for the work she did on it. her quilting style only increased the beauty of the quilt that much more.

i also joined in the current round of the doll quilt swap on flickr. this is my second round to participate in and it's fun. the swap is a secret one - only our swap mamas know who are partners are after telling each one of us who we have. then we're all kept guessing over the 2 months of design and sewing and posting pictures. i sent my little quilt off to it's new owner earlier this week and she should receive it any day.

our rules for this round were to choose one of five block patterns (or more if you wanted) and that we had to use a solid fabric other than white/cream/ecru. i chose the churn dash block and you can see that i've got six different solids for a lovely rainbow of color. they even match the striped binding. :) usually, you see a solid black fabric to set off brightly colored prints, so i enjoyed doing the reverse idea. this little quilt is also loved in my house and was difficult to say goodbye to. maybe i'll make a bigger one for me later.

and lastly, i'm making the effort to get my rear in gear and join the art community again. it's been too long since i've done a proper show and completed one of my illustrations. in the next week, my submission package for a show in quebec will be done and off to the museum. it's all highlighting drawing - pencil, graphite, charcoal, conte - just as long as it's a drawing. right up my alley! here's crossing my fingers that they select one of my pieces to hang in their show this summer.

1940 census is here!!

i'm a bit of a nut when it comes to geneaology... i love digging into my family's past and finding out more about my ancestors. as a kid, my parents would take us to the local geneaology library and try to find out more about my mom's side of the family. specifically, the bauer side and we tried to find the connection between our direct lineage to the artists ferdinand and franz bauer. there were some stories... no one knew for sure and we still don't.

but in a day where we didn't have desktop computers and the internet, it was time consuming and difficult. it was books and microfiche only. and even then, we were limited. what an amazing journey we've come on with the internet and all our family history coming out at our fingertips. i know i use it constantly.

last year while i was recovering from shoulder surgery, i couldn't do much. but i COULD use a mouse. so lots of clicking and i started my ancestry.com subscription up again and started digging around there, the LDS online library, rootsweb, lots and lots of searches for city information and history, asking family members still alive who might know things, etc. it was an obsession. it still is. so much, that i've started a tree for my husband and one for my son and his dad's side of the family included. i have 3 trees i work on weekly (if not daily).

on monday, the 1940 census was released! 72 years of waiting has past and we're able to look at the images and find our family if we know where they were that year. i know parts of mine, but i have to wait until it's searchable to find others. by tomorrow, ancestry.com will have all pages uploaded so you can view it and they're clearer than what's put out for a limited-time free release from the national archives.

how amazing is it that we've come so far in the search and discovery of our roots? it's still really difficult for families such as mine, where our family has only been in the united states for about 100-150 years and finding the german records from here is not quite as easy. my husband's family has been since the early early days of our country and he's got an amazing history so far. senators and governors and people whom cities were named after. all things he had no idea about.

are you going to look for your family on the new census? i am.