I'm Honored!

Terri at Quilternity's Place recently honored me with this "Beautiful Blogger" award!

And now I need follow the rules:

To accept this award, here are the rules:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award. Thank you, Terri!
2. Paste the award on your blog (see above)
3. Link to the person who nominated you (see above)
4. Tell 7 interesting things about yourself (see below)
5. Nominate 7 or 8 blogs (see below)
6. Post links to those 7 blogs (see below)

Here are 7 things about me that I might regret telling you...

1. I played the bassoon (sort of) when I was in college. The children in the house I was living in at the time thought I had a chronic digestive disorder... and it turns out that my husband ALSO played the bassoon, although we didn't know each other at the time -- a match made in heaven, right?

2. I am a total maniac about grammar, and I'm not afraid to correct people.

3. When I was 24, I spent 6 months hitchhiking (mostly) around Europe by myself. Probably shortened my parents' lives a bit. Further disclosure: that was 1976. The Berlin Wall was still up, and the Soviet Bloc still existed. I went to East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia, along with most of Western Europe... and lived to tell about it!

4. I used to take improvisational acting classes (and I drive my co-workers crazy by preferring to "wing it" in meetings instead of having a firm agenda and notes to stick to)

5. I learned to sew when I was little, making doll clothes. I started making most of my own clothes in junior high, and did dressmaking for others in college. My first sewing job was making a purple wool wedding dress for a woman who was 6-months pregnant! My first quilt was a project for an art-school design class -- it had photos of carousel animals printed on linen (and my instructor said he wanted one with pictures of Marilyn Monroe!) After a long hiatus, I truly became a quilter in about 2001.

6. I'm pretty seriously scared of heights.

7. I'm a puzzle freak -- especially crosswords and jigsaws. But I'm a snob, too -- they have to be hard, but not insane. I do the crosswords in the Sunday New York Times, but I can't do the Saturday ones...

It is really hard for me to pick out a handful of bloggers to steer you to, since I read a lot of blogs and they all offer something I like! Here's an attempt, though -- I would like to share this award with these lovely bloggers.

1) Krista -- PoppyPrints (I just found Krista's blog recently, and love her creativity)
2) Sophie -- Sophie Junction (and Sophie also "runs" the monthly Block Lotto that I love so much)
3) Libby -- The Quilted Craftsman (Libby does amazing quilty art and always has interesting things to say)
4) Karen -- Sew Many Ways (Karen does "tool time Tuesday" every week and comes up with ingenious uses for things you never thought you'd use)
5) Awful Library Books (this has nothing at all to do with sewing, but I'm a huge fan of libraries; this is a series of amusing posts about (mostly older) books culled from library shelves
6) Wanda -- Exuberant Color -- (I know a lot of you already know Wanda's blog, but OMG -- she does such amazing stuff and is so prolific!)
7) Nancy -- Blogging, Near Philadelphia (Nancy and I have been in swap groups together for years, but she also writes a varied and consistently thoughtful blog!)

I hope you find something new and interesting in this list.

Now, back to the taxes...