Best of 2019

Okay, well I know I said I was signing off for a few, but I find myself way ahead of where I thought I would be with our preparations, and so I have time to join in the Best of 2019 linky party hosted by Meadow Mist Designs.

The party has already started, and you know how I hate to be left out, so here's my contribution. I decided to look first at the posts that received the most comments. From those, I tried to pick some that were representative of my favorite things: cats, quilting, embroidery, cooking, photography, travel, and gardening...not necessarily in that order. Here's what I came up with:

1. End of the Hop. Heading way back to January, this post combined travel and quilt shops. I just love a good quilt shop, don't you? I'd visited many quilt shops before getting an idea to start collecting prints from each shop that represented something going on in our travels, or else the place we were traveling to. After collecting them for many years, I sewed them all into a quilt called "Shop Hop." This post was written when I'd finished the last row of shops. The quilt is still in the Quilts-to-be-Quilted pile, but I'm hoping to get it finished sometime in 2020.

2. Every Blooming Thing in the Desert. We were very fortunate to get down to southern California and witness a super bloom in the Anza-Borrego Desert. This post combined travel and photography. The flowers were stunning. Super blooms are somewhat rare, and we timed our trip perfectly for this one.

3. Circling is another travel and photography related post, but there's some kitty action here too. We celebrated our May birthdays with a trip to Bandon, Oregon, to see the Circles in the Sand event. It goes on all summer in Oregon whenever the tide is low. There was so much to see on this trip, and we really enjoyed this little birthday getaway.

4. A Big Finish was perhaps my favorite finish of the year. My son Matthew traveled to Guatemala earlier in 2019 and came home with some beautiful hand-woven fabrics. I worked feverishly to finish this quilt for him. The fabrics were his gift to me, but the joy of fabric is in the making and the giving. When I put it to him that way, he was happy to get this quilt from fabrics he chose himself. It's a nice memento of his trip to Guatemala.

5. Heavy Lifting. This last post got a lot of comments, and so I've included it. It kind of covers the gamut of kitties, cooking, gardening, canning, and flowers. We dug out an overgrown iris bed and then built a new raised bed for some peonies. I've wanted peonies in the garden since two houses ago. This next spring, I'm hoping I will have some. Maybe in my top five for next year, I'll be able to show you some blooming peonies. They've been given a beautiful place to grow, and so fingers crossed for a big bloom in the spring.

So there you go...my top five posts for 2019. I hope you've enjoyed this little slice of our lives here at the Three Cats Ranch.

There is still much to do to get ready for our trip. Now I'm back to not blogging for a day or two. Unless I do.