A big thank you to Jane for the beautiful gift I received in the mail while I was away in Colorado. As a winner of her Pay It Forward Award, she sent me a beautiful Temari Ball. She has made many of them and each one is different. On her blog she has just recently posted directions for making the core of the Temari Balls. It is very interesting. Stop in and take a look at World Embroideries to see how it is done. Thank you so MUCH Jane for the lovely gift. I am still working on the gifts for the two who won my Pay It Forward.
Thank you too for all of you who sent well wishes and prayers for my son. He is recovering slowly and making excellent progress. In another three to five months or so he will be back to normal. I was so fortunate to have been able to spend this week or so with him and see for myself how he is doing. This trip to Colorado was a very special time for us.
Here is one of their lovely sunsets.
On our return trip we did a little detour and did some middle-of-the-winter touristy things. We stopped in Custer State Park to see the free roaming buffalo and other animals. 
The buffalo amaze us.
Then the beauty of the Pronghorn antelope is so refined.
We did a quick visit to Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills and saw a wooly mountain goat grazing.
On the way home, I did manage to find the quilt shop that Jill from Cottonwood Quilts in Niwot, Colorado told me about. It was not hard to find and it certainly was well worth the trip. The owner, Debbie, has done a fantastic job of having a LARGE variety of fabrics, patterns, threads, etc. for her customers. It is a delightful shop and it seems to be busy with lots of things going on all the time. They do quite a bit of internet business as well. So stop in to see them at The Quilted Moose in Gretna, Nebraska. It is a lovely town just west of Omaha, Nebraska. It was difficult to walk out of the store without spending a fortune. I could have bought one of this and one of those and some of these….etc. etc. Since my sewing room is shamedly stuffed already with things I haven’t finished…I refrained and just picked up some small pieces of fabric I had been seaching for.
One special find of this trip to Colorado came from The Stitcher’s Garden in Longmont, Colorado. Nancy showed me a delightful tool called a “Fiber Hider.” It is super for all kinds of thread or yarn. One can just slip the looped end under your threads and pull the tail through with the other hooked end. It is a bit pricey ($30…would make a delicious gift), but once I had it…well I can’t imagine not having one now!! And I love the little silver turtles. In the past week, I have used it over and over again! Don’t know what I did without it.
Averyclaire 