Quilting Chatter

It's Me Again!

2012-01-28T12:16:00.000-06:00

I've had a string of busy weeks, today I'll be cooking for a family birthday dinner tomorrow. I'm making a fajita bar, which will have 3 kinds of meat with sauteed mushrooms and onions, peppers, beer battered onion rings, 2 side salads, and dessert. I'll do as much as possible today to minimize time in the kitchen tomorrow and maximize time with the family!

No day is complete without some needlework, though, and even on my busiest days I can usually find a few minutes somewhere. My current project is a quilting job and I hope to be on the borders later today in spite of all the time I'll need in the kitchen. One more simple block after the one in the hoop and I'll be on the borders, there are three.

Knitting is here to stay and I'm really happy about that. While quilting has been my obssession for the last 20 years, and still is to a large extent, the ease of making quick gifts has brought knitting back out of hiding. This is the color of the next pair of socks I'll have on my needles.

This picture was taken the evening of Ruthie's birthday dinner day back in November, she's sporting new jammies, a new hat and shoes and posing with her new dolly.

My cooking day is well under way, the roast chicken is about to come out of the oven, pasta salad is made, meat is sliced and ready for cooking, and the vegetables are cut and ready to cook as well. All that is left is to make the cake, which will go in the oven when the chicken comes out. I didn't expect to be so far along at noon, and am looking forward to spending the rest of my day quilting and sprucing up the house.

Happy Quilting!

Sue

I'm Back....

2012-01-26T20:58:00.001-06:00

and hopefully can keep up with plan B.

I got myself in a rut with this blog, not updating for too long then having so much to say that it took forever to do.

So I'll be trying to do short little updates every 2-3 days in hopes of keeping up...and keeping motivated.

Today's post would fit better on a blog called "Knitting Chatter." For the first time in many years, I didn't quilt a thing for Christmas. I did sew a few bags, but other than those, I knitted.

I started knitting at 10 years old, making mostly purses/bags for a long time. Whenever I had new yarn on the needles, my Dad would ask me what I was making, knowing full well it was a purse...it's all I knew how to make! I didn't follow patterns in those days, but made bags of all sizes, long handled and short, until I felt ready to learn to read a pattern.

From there, I went on to blankets and sweaters and that launched me into all sorts of needlework. Once I picked up a quilting needle, though, most of those other things went by the wayside.

For the first time in many years, I didn't do any quilting. I did do a bit of sewing, making several of these bags in different fabrics, a few for myself and some for gifts. They have a really long handle, which can be knotted up to be shorter or worn cross body. They are small, big enough to hold a few essentials needed close at hand.

I was inspired to pick up knitting needles by some online friends, starting with a couple of easy cowl scarves. Rachel loves unusual accessories and I'd heard a lot of talk of fingerless gloves so searched for patterns. This is a really simple one, I made a few pair for gifts and a pair for myself.

I also tried my hand at some more involved patterns, I love these and Rachel does, too. Several other pairs of wristwarmers also got knitted for gifts and my foray back into knitting had my mind racing. In the past, everything I made was big, these smaller things are quick and fun to knit and had me looking for more.

I have various pairs of knitting needles around, but hardly any double pointed ones. I made do with what I had, but talk of sock making, along with other projects, had me searching for sets of them. I found this online and Mike bought it for me for Christmas, it has 14 sets of various sizes of double pointed needles, which really open up the possibilities.

With leftover yarn from a wristwarmer and scarf set, I made these little socks for Ruthie. I was hooked.

I bought sock yarn and made this pair for me. They are slightly too big, so I may save them for my son's girlfriend for Christmas next year.

I found an easy hat pattern, Lucas was in need of one, so I asked him what colors he wanted. Ruthie was NOT happy when that hat wasn't for her, so she got one out of leftover fingerless glove yarn.

Currently on my needles is another pair for me, this one is made from baby yarn and the first one is made. It fits perfectly so sock number two is well under way. I've been buying skeins of yarn here and there for various things and will probably be doing nearly as much knitting as quilting for a while. More about that in later posts!

No post is complete without a Ruthie picture. She got that Santa hat from a nice woman at church who knows she loves hats. She tried it on her new birthday dolly as soon as she got it home.

There is so much more going on here, but that will wait for another day. Though this post was all about knitting, I have a quilt I'm hoping to finish by next Tuesday so I'd better get to it!

Happy Quilting...and other pastimes!
Sue

Home Retreat

2011-09-10T02:56:00.000-05:00

I love quilting retreats but they don't really fit into the budget or the calendar these days. I have a local friend who quilts, we plan late night sewing nights a few times a year, starting usually lunchtime or mid-afternoon and going as late as we can both stand.

She had some extra vacation days to use, so we planned a two day "home sewing retreat," two days put aside to sew as much as possible. It's usually much easier for me to be home, this time it was easier for her to be home so we have been meeting at her house. The upside of not being at your own house is that your family is not there wanting/needing you to do something, I've been pretty steadily sewing the whole time.

We planned this some weeks ago, so I planned a new quilt top and actually bought fabric for it....the bigger pieces in my stash are becoming fewer and further between and while I love the challenge of making quilts from what I have, sometimes it's fun to buy all the fabric for a new project. I pinned triangle paper and got it all ready to begin sewing as soon as we got set up.

While on a roll, I had fabric for another project that I hadn't prepared, yet, so that got pinned as well on the not likely at all chance that I finished my project and needed more to do.

We got together at 10:00 Thursday morning, with sewing late into the evening in mind. We got our machines an cutting areas set up, an ironing board is set up over by the other window. After some prelimary sewing we picked up Chinese food and brought it back, a rare treat for us both. We bought enough to have some for Friday dinner if we were still sewing. With lunch over, we resumed sewing.

Before too long, blocks turned into a row. I'm sewing this one a block at time and putting it into rows as the blocks are done so the tedious pinning of those long rows is spread out.

Ruthie joined us for the evening on Thursday, all her siblings had somewhere to go. She was happier than this picture would indicate, she spent some time drawing on this couch having a snack, and also spent some time interacting with my friend's oldest daughter, who is also our oldest son's girlfriend.

I love blocks of time set aside for sewing projects, I'd nearly forgotten how much in the last few months. I have my little corner set up with my Featherweight and my computer (the pattern is on it and it allowed me to check email, look up a few things we were wondering about along the way, and just have a few minutes of diversion every so often.)

A steady stream of snacks and caffeinated beverages kept us going and we worked until midnight before calling it a night.

We resumed at 10:00 Friday morning after a good nights sleep and, other than a break just before dinner time for an appointment, we sewed until midnight again.

I packed up and came home, my project well under way.

Jonathan and Rachel kept the home fires burning, Lucas and Ruthie were well fed and entertained. Lucas poked his head out when I got home, sheepishly saying they had just gone to bed, having played games for candy the entire evening.

I'm looking forward to seeing this face tomorrow, she was sleeping when I got home and I just saw her briefly this morning.

After what I hope is another good night of sleep I'll set up my sewing area and continue on. My plan is to sew most of Saturday as well, and I'm hoping these 3 days will have set me up for continued productivity as we head into the fall and winter months.

Until next time,

Sweet dreams and Happy Quilting!

Sue

Bits and Pieces

2011-08-29T18:10:00.012-05:00

As usual, there is a lot going on in our house. School for our college kids has begun, one doesn't live at home but with the "playdates" he makes with his brothers and family dinners, he's around a fair amount.

Since we homeschool, we can choose our start date, we have always started the day after labor day and will again this year. We have one more week of summer before schooling begins.

Jonathan had a busy summer, with occasional lawnwork jobs and some work for our cleaning company. He also took on the task of maintaining and sprucing up the yard, which included trimming trees and bushes, fixing up the edges on a couple of bush beds and cutting out an area for the swings, which will soon be filled with pea gravel. This way we don't wear out the grass and he doesn't have to move them all the time to mow under them. Here is the "before" picture, I guess since the pea gravel isn't in I haven't yet taken an "after" picture!

Lucas and Mike have enjoyed a few fishing outings this year, one of them in the canoe. He caught 5 small fish on one outing but threw them all back. This one was a keeper, a 2 1/2 pound bass. The week before Mike got one that was just a bit bigger, I'll be making them a fish fry lunch one day soon.

The wedding plans are in full swing, we found her dress last weekend, she bought invitations today, she's been gathering bits and pieces of things. Rebekah made her own veil last summer and offered to make Rachel's for her, so we got beads to get her started on that as well. Things are well in hand at the moment, we'll enjoy that and hope it continues.

Ruthie and Mike have bonded over books of late, she'll bring him books to read to her and they will stay happily settled in this spot for quite some time.

Today was a rough day, one of those where nothing seems to go right. We were out running errands, Ruthie, while mostly cooperative, was also just not in a very social mood and she ignored or grunted at most people who talked to her...and there were many today. We found a hat on the dish soap shelf at Walmart, it was on a shelf at Ruthie's eye level, and looked at me, pointed that tiny finger at it and said "hat? Tootie have it?" She pulled it out and oh my, she loved it (she loves hats anyway, but oh my) so we used some of her allowance money to buy it. I think I will be trying to find some plain, child sized fedoras that we can decorate for her to wear.

And, the quilting. It's not been a good summer for that, it seems. I did do quite a bit of piecing earlier in the summer, but have not done nearly as much as usual since. The upside of that is I really felt like I had a summer vacation. The downside is I feel like I have to really be focused the next few months to accomplish what I need to. The wedding quilt is underway (pattern picture on the right,) I have a quilt in the hoop that is nearly done, and a couple more tops that I have fabric for and just need to get the ball rolling on. Rebekah got her Tablecloth Quilt for their anniversary, which was fun.

Rachel bought a laptop for school and we needed to make the house a wi-fi hotspot. I guess "NEED" isn't quite right but it would most certainly make it much more enjoyable for everyone not having to share one wireless modem. Brian had told us about a place in town that buys old gold and broken jewelry so I figured I'd see what I could get for mine. I had accumulated quite a bit over the years, and hoped to get a couple hundred dollars for it...enough to buy the hotspot adapter that I needed and fabric for a couple of quilt tops.

I got much more than expected and was also able to get this:

I'm beyond thrilled, I've wanted a laptop since they first came out and were so much more expensive than desktops. I've dreamed for a long time about a work space that included my own computer so I could easily switch between tasks and it is even more wonderful than I imagined. I escaped from my not-so-great day by coming outside at about 3:30 with my hand applique and my computer and sitting outside with the fire going watching day turn to night has done much to improve my mood.

Tomorrow, I tackle the printer problem, tonight, I work some more on the wedding quilt. I'm still in the early stages of it and hope to have a lot more to show for my time in a couple of weeks.

Until then,

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Downsizing

2011-07-08T17:11:00.020-05:00

It seems we're doing a lot of this these days. We are not downsizing our house, it's not that big to begin with, but we are able to start purging some unneeded things, and replace some well worn ones.

I had 2 sets of dishes, a stoneware set that could be microwaved, but were rather cumbersome, and a set of second hand china which was pretty and not as heavy, but could not be microwaved because of the gold edge.

Neither made my heart flutter, they were just functional. We also had a bunch of plastic plates which were getting shabby so I thought that if we switched to Corelle that I could get rid of all but a bit of the plastic and have dishes that I didn't have to worry so much about breaking.

I found the set at right, which perfectly match my kitchen/dining area, and knew I had to have them. My plan was to buy them a set at a time (each set was a place setting for four) until I had 6 sets. While our household is shrinking, our family is growing.

Being a want and not a need, collecting these sets was a long term plan, but my kids had other ideas. I bought one set early in the year, and my Mother's Day gift was another set. I opened the box and while exclaiming over them, heard Rebekah quietly say "the rest are coming."

They had ordered the remaining 5 sets of dishes but the order was split into shipments and only one box had arrived. She said the others would be showing up over the next couple of days.

In actuality, the rest arrived the next day. I had spent Mother's Day evening boxing up my old dishes and cleaning out cabinets. The old dishes took up the better part of two cabinets, I was able to get rid of some other things, too. The cabinets are much less cluttered now. I still feel a little giddy every time I open this door.

The car saga has finally (at least we hope finally) come to a close. It's been over 3 1/2 years since it began, when our van was in need of major work. We got it back just about a year later only to have my husband's work van break down just one week later, leaving him in need of our family van for work.

Our older kids all had cars and we shared and traded as needed, but now two have moved out and the last is away for most of the summer. I'd been pretty down about the whole thing and beyond tired of having to find rides everywhere. I found myself looking at used car sites, trying to figure out how little I could spend and still have a decently reliable vehicle and finally decided that I was toturing myself. The only way I'd be getting a car any time soon was if one fell from the sky.

Two days later, one did.

Some family friends came into possession of an extra vehicle, they shuffled their cars around and the "leftover" one was going to be donated, to us if we wanted it, to a charity if we didn't. For the price of licensing and title transfer (and the obligatory $1 to make it legal), I am now the very proud owner of a 13 year old Plymouth Neon. My husband teasingly refers to it as the Mercedes and I don't mind. To me, it might as well be! Since my vehicle used to be the van, I guess my vehicle has been downsized, too!

The body has a few bumps and dings, the inside is almost like new. Best of all, it runs great, is fun to drive and gives me my life back. Initially when we accepted it (sight unseen) my hope was that it would keep going until such time as we could get my husband a needed work vehicle and figure out what was next for me. I now hope that we can keep it going for a LONG time. It not only is a fun little car, but I feel like it is a reminder that there is an end to trials and difficulties and no matter how dark things seem, at some point the light works its way back in.

Ruthie LOVES the new car and will even come along for the ride if all I'm doing it going through the drive through at the bank.

She's also starting to enjoy a bit of independence. She's tall enough to open the screen door to go out by herself and figured out how to get back in on her own, too. She will often go out and sit on the porch and blow bubbles while watching the world go by.

She uses this little chair to open the door, or reach further on this table. In the kitchen she will stand in my basket of towels to reach on the counters. She's a resourceful little thing, and thankfully not too mischievous!

You may have noticed no mention of quilting so far. That isn't because I've not been doing any, in fact, I've been quite busy. The problem is my camera batteries have died and I can't get pictures of what I've been working on. Grocery day will find me with new batteries and quilting updates will soon follow.

Rachel is home for a few days, she leaves for camp again Sunday morning. Tonight she is at Marshall's parents' house for dinner and some of the evening, but we'll be watching Say Yes to the Dress shows and scoping out both wedding and bridesmaids dresses while being entertained. Until then, I'm watching baseball and hand quilting, tonight or tomorrow I should be finished with the current project.

More to come soon! I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer.

Happy Quilting!

Sue

A Happy Surprise, and Updates

2011-06-08T08:26:00.009-05:00

We found out just a couple of weeks ago that the house was still a possibility for Rebekah and Brian. Our determined son-in-law wasn't ready to give up on their dream house. He figured there had to be a way and continued communications with the mortgage company, unbeknownst to our daughter. After the intense disappointment, he didn't want to get her hopes up for nothing, but a couple of weeks in when he needed some paperwork, he had to tell her.

The rest of us were kept in the dark, they didn't want to tell us all, only to have to tell us, yet again, that it was a no go.

They quite happily signed MOST of the paperwork yesterday. As these things usually go, something was missing and it's not officially official, but they were given the keys and the lockbox was removed. I got to see it yesterday and it's WONDERFUL. (The house is not on this lake, this was actually taken during their wedding rehearsal.)

Joshua is quite happily settled into his new home. If the landlords had any qualms about renting to two young men, I'm sure they will be quite happy as time goes on. When they are not busy with their friends and girlfriends, Joshua and his roommate are caring for their home. Mostly Joshua cooks (he starts culinary classes next week) and Steve cleans, but they both work in the yard and it seems like they are keeping up with everything pretty well. (Joshua is the young man all the way on the right, catching the garter, his roommate is the young man in black in the front and center of the group.)

Rachel leaves on Friday to be a camp counselor for about 8 weeks. She will be gone from Sunday morning until Saturday afternoon during that time. She can hardly wait and I'm sure she'll enjoy it very much. Once she comes back, the wedding planning will begin in earnest. The date is set, June 9, 2011, the hall is picked (same as Rebekah's, though will have a totally different feel for this wedding) and quite a few things have been decided. The picture at right is Joshua and his girlfriend, Kayla, Rachel, and Joshua's roommate, Steve. Rachel made a cake in honor of her sponsor child's birthday, and we took pictures so she could send them to him.

Rachel's leaving means I will have little, if any, car access for the summer. It's something that I'm really struggling with, but there really isn't anything we can do about it right now. It may not be much better in the fall, with her working and going to school full time.

I've been hand quilting quite a bit, I have so many tops here and I need to quilt them. Some are pattern samples, others are just tops that have been waiting for me to have either time to work on them or money for batting and backing. This one was made from the tablecloths at Rebekah's wedding, It's nearly done so will be a housewarming gift.

I'll have more pictures of this one and the quilting on it soon!

I'm not nearly as good as multi-tasking as I used to be. I find that somewhat disconcerting as I have so many different things that need to be done. It used to be I could have several quilting projects going at once, but I'm not so good at that anymore. I'm trying to figure out how to balance it all and I think I'm starting to settle into a routine.

I also have learned to move on if I'm not feeling very motivated. It does no good to sit with hand quilting in my lap because I've designated this hand quilting time if I sit and stare at it because I don't feel like doing it. I used to be able to push through and do things anyway, but whether it be getting older or just a shift in mindset, that doesn't work so well unless something absolutely has to be done.

So today is computer day...until I'm tired of staring at the screen. I'll quit by dinner time and switch to hand quilting tonight. If it's earlier than that, I'll switch to a piecing project or start my hand quilting early.

Ruthie is doing great, she has multiple little dolls and stuffed animals that receive her attention. Right now, Spongebob is dancing across the top of our couch. She is a constant stream of chatter. A favorite thing is lining up various little objects and chattering away while she walks them around, then lines them up, then walks them around again. This particular lineup is a snowman pepper shaker, a clear glass teddy bear, and two s'mores ornaments.

We had a few lovely days a week or so ago and the kids were all out back. I looked out to see Ruthie, gently swinging back and forth and grabbed my camera. I love this picture, I may have to have a print of it!

Now it's time to get to work. I'm learning the ins and outs of EQ and I feel like I'm taking a computer class! I'll enjoy my computer time (with one computer for 6 of us, it's sometimes at a premium!) though am already looking forward to hand quilting later one.

I hope everyone is having a happy, healthy summer, and, as always,

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Time Flies

2011-05-07T22:30:00.016-05:00

This surely seems to be a recurring theme for me. I need to find a way to do short posts more often so I don't feel like I'm totally rambling when I do post.

After much waiting and jumping through way too many hoops, the house was not to be after all. Rebekah and Brian were intensely disappointed for a couple of days, but then regrouped and came up with a new plan. They are still leaving their apartment at the end of the month, hoping to find a townhouse or house to rent between here and his job...which will put them very close to her job. The emotional adjustment has been made and we know that when they do get a house of their own it will be just the right one for them.

Their change in plans meant a change for Joshua, too. His friend's parents' house sold quickly, they moved into a house about a mile or so from here in the adjacent neighborhood. They are having a great time. Today Joshua came and picked up Lucas to spend the day at his new house, and next weekend we'll go there for dinner. He's clearly thrilled with this new phase in his life.

Rachel had a big month, too, she got engaged Easter weekend, on their 3rd anniversary together. We are planning another wedding but have more time this time, the target being June 2012. Along with the wedding will be a move, Marshall will be going to grad school, very likely in another state.

How did we get from the top picture, taken when Ruthie was just a few months old, to the bottom, Rachel so happy to be starting her new grown up life?

Our summer will be interesting, Rachel is spending most of it working as a camp counselor and will only be home for a few hours each weekend. We have a lot of the wedding plans figured out, the actual working of the plan will happen starting in August.

Ruthie continues to do very well and still loves to be photographed. Here she is ready to pretend shop. For a while she had to wear that hat every time we left the house. She often had it pulled so low that she had to tip her head to see. She loves to go to the store and comes along whenever I have the time to bring her and she wants to go along.

She loves the computer and used to mostly watch youtube videos that we'd find for her. She got tired of waiting for us to click another for her one day and she did it herself. She's since learned to play a couple of games, too. I find myself "competing" for computer time with her some afternoons...it's so good for her, though, I try to let her go for as long as she'd like.

I've been busy with my quilting, getting quite a bit done while waiting to buy EQ6. I have several patterns designed, planned another quilt I need to make, and worked on several of my "sample" tops. The one on the right is in the hoop and should be done before long, the one below will probably be next in line.

Just this week I got the program and have spent the last several days learning to use it and putting a couple of patterns into the software. I'm hoping to have a very productive summer, and have a quilt top I need to quilt to add in the mix! Quilt above: Ring around the Stars©2011 Quilt in Piece

Life sure does seem to be speeding along at a breakneck pace these days, but it's quite enjoyable, too. I do wish it would slow down just a bit!

Happy, Healthy spring to all, and Happy Quilting!

Sue

Scheduling and Updates

2011-03-15T10:25:00.007-05:00

Sometimes I really feel like things are getting away from me. Trying to fit all I need to do and all I want to do in a day is a challenge.

It always surprises me when I come back to post and find it's been a month since the last one. I would like to change that, I suppose it needs to be a line item in my planner each week.

I also feel boring. My life is unremarkable, there is little drama or excitement by others' standards so I think I feel like I can't post unless there is a bunch new to say.

Still, there is something satisfying about putting words on a page and seeing bits of one's life in some semblance of order.

Not that things feel orderly at the moment. On the surface, I suppose it would certainly look like we have things well in hand and are sailing along a ripple-less sea. We know any moment, though, that the ripples are coming, we hope they are made by a pebble and not a boulder. What are we waiting on? The Big Move. It still has not happened. Brian and Rebekah are in it for the long haul, they want the house and are jumping through the hoops set before them. They are in no hurry and can ride it out until they move, or for some reason the deal falls through.

While they wait, so do we. Joshua is ready to move out, but the planned move is into their old apartment. If it goes much longer, he'll go somewhere else and has a promising plan B already in mind.

Jonathan is looking forward to making their shared room his own and has paint colors picked out and new furniture placement in mind.

Also floating along is my quilting business. I've got several patterns well under way, but am lacking the program I need. Very soon I will have enough for that and hopefully that will give me a needed jump start. I'm enjoying this process immensely and it's a win/win. If I can help my family budget, that will be great. If it doesn't really go anywhere, I haven't lost anything and have tapped into a part of me I didn't know existed. As I play with, and get lost in, patterns and colors, this all seems possible.

When I look at the work of putting it all together and getting "out there" it seems decidedly less possible.

Through it all, Ruthie is like a little anchor. For her, all of this doesn't really exist. We all may feel on pins and needles waiting for things to happen, but her days are pretty consistent. Even on the most scattered feeling of days, her smile can calm us all. Here she is getting a haircut from big sister, Rebekah.

She loves grocery day. Putting away groceries takes twice as long when she decides she wants to help, but it sure is fun. She pulls everything out of the bags, one by one, and names the item. If she doesn't know, she asks "wha' zis?" and I say what it is and she repeats it. It's good exercise for me, too, I normally pick the bags up and put them on the counter, but when Ruthie empties them I have to bend down to the floor to pick up each item. We're taking advantage of her desire to help and let her do so whenever we can.

Her sense of pretend is ramping up which is really fun to see. She combines all her different toys to play and it's quite amusing. We have to pretend we aren't listening/watching or she'll stop. She also loves anything remotely like a cell phone and will have long conversations on them complete with pauses to "listen" to the person on the other end and laughter at their "responses."

Joshua's girlfriend is an art major and wants to be a photographer. Ruthie tends to stay shy with people for a long time, but Kayla figured out how to tap into Ruthie's love of being photographed and can get her to pose and follow directions to get the picture she wants. She was in the middle of taking pictures of her when Ruthie pulled her foot up to her chin, and she was able to capture it. The coloring was part of an art project for school.

So, generally, we're sailing along pretty smoothly right now, waiting for waves we hope are only ripples as we settle into a new normal with one more of our kids moved out of the house.

And through it all, I quilt. Sometimes it helps me think, sometimes it helps me NOT think, and always at the end I have something made with my own hands and heart.

Life is good.

Sue

Blizzard 2011 and Other Musings

2011-02-15T09:53:00.013-06:00

They predicted, and they predicted correctly. I think the official total for our area was 18", we haven't seen that much snow at one time for about 12 years.

Of course, I don't want my loved ones stranded out in it, but with the predictions as they were, many businesses in the area were shutting down early on Tuesday and already shut down for Wednesday as the storm moved in late Tuesday afternoon.

My family was no exception...my husband was sent home after half of his shift (he works 2nd shift, so was home early evening,) my son was sent home a bit early as the work they needed to do for the day was finished anyway, our married daughter (she's a nanny) was also sent home by late afternoon and was safely tucked in her apartment around the corner from us, her husband already on his way, too.

The only one in our family hugely affected by the storm was Rachel. She was due home on a flight from Paris Wednesday afternoon, which was pre-emptively cancelled Monday evening.

She had no way of knowing and no way to get in touch with us to let us know what was going on.

So she flew from Ouagadougou to Paris, her group all separated to catch flights on other airlines or to go explore Paris, and she went to her airline check-in only to find that her flight had been cancelled. (At right, she is with part of her group, in Africa.)

She arrived in Paris early Wednesday morning (Paris time, Tuesday night our time), with no way home. She tried to find people from her group, to no avail, and then went to book her new flight home. We found out Wednesday morning, through the organization she toured with, that she was on a flight from Paris to Dallas and would have to spend the night there as no flights were expected to fly into Chicago on Wednesday.

I stayed up until 3am Wednesday morning, partly hoping she could find a way to contact us, but mostly to enjoy the storm. I love these kind of storms and watched as the snow fell and drifted.

When she called Wednesday around dinner time, she had gotten her luggage, gone through customs, reserved a hotel room and was waiting on the shuttle bus. My baby is all grown up!

She didn't know until she arrived in Dallas why her flights had been cancelled (her Thursday morning flight had been cancelled while she was in the air, she had to re-book that as well.) We took pictures so she could see how everything looked before we dug out.

Rachel's car was all but buried in it and drifts left huge piles in some areas, but not so much in others.

I was intrigued by the snow that curled over the railing and hung there for days. It shrunk some a few days later as the weather warmed and some melting began, and Jonathan cleared it all off just this past weekend.

Mike and Jonathan spent 3 hours shoveling on Wednesday morning, we were thankful the storm had ended by then, it was predicted initially to continue on into Wednesday afternoon.

Ruthie and Lucas very much enjoyed the snowstorm, Ruthie watched as the snow slowly buried our table and flowers on the porch (first picture) and periodically would call someone to the window to look with her.

I spent quite a bit of time working on the Posies and Celtic in the last few weeks, as well as working on some of my patterns.

We have a busy weekend coming up, we hope, the newlyweds are supposed to be closing on a house on Friday so the weekend will be spent helping them move.

Joshua (oldest son) will sublet the apartment they are vacating and spend those few months looking for a place to go to after that, probably with a friend. That means he will be moving this weekend, too, so it will be a crazy one!

Ruthie continues to do well and has most definitely come into her own. Still still loves to have her picture taken, which has worked out nicely for Joshua's girlfriend who is an art major with an emphasis on photography. She has taken many, many pictures of Ruthie, who is even starting to take some direction for more specific photos. It's really fun to watch. And really, who can resist that face?

The days now are busy ones, and even those that I plan to be quiet seem to fill themselves up pretty easily. It's a nice kind of busy, though, mostly low stress and enjoyable.

Once these moves for the kids are over, I hope to settle into a good routine for my quilting and pattern work. Hopefully there won't be anything else big in the works for a while!

Hope this finds you keeping warm and happily busy!

Sue

Flying

2011-01-24T09:46:00.010-06:00

The days seem to fly by. There never seems to be enough time to get in the things that I want to finish each day. I'm getting more diligent about making daily lists and bought a planner book for that purpose. It also holds the many schedules and events that need to be worked around. My book shows a week at a time, with nice lined sections for each day, it seems like I turn to a new page far too quickly.

Rachel is doing a different flying, she left yesterday for Paris to meet up with her group and is, as I post, on her flight from Paris to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Africa. At left is her visa picture, she was not thrilled with it but the smile tells it all. This is a much anticipated and planned for trip and my hope for her is that she finds it all she expected and more. She'll be gone for 10 days, I doubt those days fly by for me, though I'm sure they will for her!

Quilt ideas are flying from my brain to my fingers these days. Each time I wonder if I will be able to come up with anything new, I sit down with my pad and colored pencils and start to draw and one or two more ideas come flowing out. I feel like my brain flies a mile a minute while I try to put all the different pieces of this venture into some semblance of order. At left is a peek at one of the new designs.

In addition to working on new patterns and tops, I'm hand quilting on the Celtic and Posies. Not only do I want to finish this one, hand quilting time is really good thinking, praying, and meditation time for me. It's so relaxing for me to hand quilt that my jumbled thoughts have time to sort themselves out. I lot of ideas and solutions to problems have come to fruition while hand quilting.

Ruthie continues to "fly" as well. She strings more and more words together, is nearly always able to easily communicate what she wants and can be quite bossy at times. Where words used to be great effort for her, they come much more easily now. She used to never react verbally, the words didn't come quickly enough, but now we hear "oh my" or "donnit!" (darn it) and other various comments on things happening around her. She loves to sing, though it's still very rudimentary, few words, mostly vowels and not really in tune, but she clearly has the idea of her voice moving up and down for notes. This is a skill we'll work on as it will provide her much pleasure. Very few activities these days don't include a lot of chatter and she'll call out to anyone passing by her to tell them what she's doing. She likes hiding and will climb into boxes, the pantry, under blankets and then call out for someone to come see while she pops out.

She's doing more counting, identifying colors, starting to identify letters, and her problem solving skills continue to improve. Her smile lights up the room and she still garners attention everywhere we go.

Life is good! And I hope the same for you.

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Updates and New Beginnings

2011-01-10T19:11:00.013-06:00

Happy After Holidays! I LOVE the holidays and this past holiday season was a particularly joyous one for us. After many years of financial struggle, things seem to be looking up and we had our least stressful holiday in a very long time. We still have a ways to go, but feeling like we're making progress, and not peddling in vain, sure helps a lot!

The newlyweds are doing very well and are hoping to close on their first house early next month. Brian was able to find a job in his field so reluctantly left a job he enjoyed, but didn't pay very well, for one with better pay and a brighter future.

With the lease not being up on their apartment, an opportunity presented itself for Joshua, our oldest, and he is going to sublet and spend the next few months looking for a place he can afford with a friend who will be needing a place to live. It will be a big change, but one he is ready for and quite excited about. It's a little easier to see your kids leave the nest when they are staying in the same tree! Both the new house and the apartment are within a couple of miles of our house.

Rachel took some classes at the Community College last semester and is taking a full load during the one coming up. Before she starts that, she'll be taking a 10 day trip to Africa with an organization through which she's sponsored a child for almost 3 years. She will get to meet the little boy who calls her his "Jesus mother" and spend a day with him. She can hardly wait. My little town girl is flying on her own to Paris to meet up with the group that will leave from there to go to Africa. She's well prepared and so looking forward to this adventure.

Jonathan and Lucas are also doing well, they are keeping busy with schoolwork and friends. Jonathan and Joshua went winter camping this past weekend, on one of the coldest weekends we've had this winter, and enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Lucas will often don shoes and coat and run around outside all by himself, tossing a ball around, practicing his juggling, looking for ice patches to break up and generally just wiggling off some energy.

Ruthie is doing wonderfully. She loved "mismas", is getting more and more verbal, and has found her sense of pretend, which is a hoot and is also developing a sense of humor. She keeps herself busy from the time she gets up until she goes to bed at night and we are all excited and entertained watching her learn.

As usual, it's rare for me to go a day without quilting. I worked on Rachel's quilt (pictured at right) up until 3:50pm on Dec 23rd, she got home from work at 4:00. She had no idea I was making the quilt and was so very surprised when she opened the box. The kids were most excited to see that gift opened, I think, they were all in on it.

The Christmas quilting was followed by a quilting job that I got a few weeks before the holidays, which just went out in the mail this morning.

I also got a baby shower invitation just after Christmas, the shower is this Saturday so I've been hard at work finishing a quilt for that, it's pictured at left, still in the hoop and on track to be finished for the shower.

Once the baby quilt is finished, finally, after a couple of months of delays, I can get back to work on my new venture. A series of events, many of them precipitated and/or encouraged by Bren have led me to designing patterns and also taking in quilting work. A new venture means a new blog to focus on it, this one will remain predominantly about my family and personal quilting...though I'm sure there will be some crossover!

Visit me at Quilt in Piece Designs and hopefully watch me grow from the ground up. And I do mean ground, it's quite empty over there!

It's rare for me to be without something in my hoop, so once the baby quilt is done, the Celtic and Posies will be getting some attention.

I also have to quilt the "Tablecloth Quilt", but have decided that will make a better anniversary gift than birthday one, so I have some time. I do plan to mark and baste that one in the next few weeks.

So that is my very long update. There is a lot going on right now and I look forward to each day!
Happy Quilting!
Sue

Happy Between the Holidays!

2010-12-06T18:27:00.004-06:00

We've been a whirlwind of busy-ness here. It seems like the days go by before I even know what hit me. I've been working on some new patterns and have the sample top ready for the first one, I hope to have the first one written and ready by sometime in January and, hopefully, getting through the nuts and bolts of writing/publishing the first one will make the others much easier.

We had a lovely, though quiet, Thanksgiving. Rebekah was with her husband's family, and Rachel was with her boyfriend's family. Joshua's girlfriend did join us after dinner and spent the evening and Rachel and Marshall came back here for dessert, so we had a bit larger group for the evening.

We just got done with hunting weekend. I didn't get my usual long weekend of sewing (which usually happens the weekend before Thanksgiving) because only Jonathan went to Wisconsin this year. Their group of 3 only got one and were a little disappointed.

This past weekend was the Illinois hunt, 4 days and my husband and both older boys were out as much of those four days as possible. My husband got one on the morning of day one and another just about quitting time of day 3. His tags were full and his hunt over.

The boys saw a few each day, but didn't really get any good shots until just minutes before the season was over for the year, Jonathan got two, one right after the other, we'll have a full freezer with 4 to process.

Ruthie had her 6th birthday in the middle of November. She knows birthdays mean presents and was quite excited. Rebekah and her husband came for the afternoon, we set up a soup and snack bar on the breakfast bar and then it was present time. She sure did enjoy it!

The highlight ended up being this digital camera. We showed her how to take pictures and she took 119 of them in the first 20 minutes! I uploaded them to the computer and weeded through them and ended up with 20 that were pretty good. By the end of that night, she'd taken 500 more. Most of these were too close to the object and just blank, but by the next day she let me show her how to use the screen to see what she was photographing.

It doesn't take the best pictures, but we figure if she takes care of it and enjoys being able to take her own pictures that we might upgrade to one that is better in a couple of years. Here she is taking pictures of the computer screen...she took them of everything and everyone. As of late, she uses the game mode more than anything, but is still taking pictures.

Soon pictures she takes will find their way here, too.

Mostly, I've been quilting. Working on Rachel's quilt without her knowing has proven a challenge. I have a couple more table runners to round out Rebekah's set of holiday runners, and I'm going to sew together a precut set of fleece squares for a new blanket for Ruthie. The holiday baking starts soon, as do play practices for Christmas Eve and my many lists of menus, needed ingredients, items to bake, etc., are under way.

Part of me is longing for the New Year, when I can jump head first into designing and making samples along with working on commissioned work...well..once the Wedding Tablecloth quilt is done!

Never a dull moment!

For now, I'm enjoying the fact that this is the least stressful holiday we've had, financially, in a very, very long time. We've been truly blessed, and hope the same for you!

Happy Quilting...if you have time!

Sue

Where Do the Days Go?

2010-11-03T11:30:00.002-05:00

It's been an interesting few weeks here. The time goes so quickly, I couldn't believe that I checked when I last posted and it was more than two weeks ago.

We've been milking along our old computer since our daughter's wedding 2 1/2 months ago. A friend took it and got it to boot up again, but the fix was temporary and it started shutting down again. He tried again and couldn't really find anything, and it seemed like maybe whatever it was had resolved itself with the tweaking that had been done.

Until it didn't and it wouldn't boot up at all again. We need our computer for our business, the parent company requires one as all reporting is done via computer now. It's also our way of communicating with much of our family, Rachel needs it for school work , and having one has become almost a necessity. We can do without one for a while, Rachel can do her computer work at school, we can use the library for some of the business work, if need be, but not having one does make some things quite cumbersome.

So we headed off to Best Buy, checkbook in hand, to check out their latest (and cheapest) bundle deal. After much agonizing, we went with a little better system, which came with a free printer, and hopefully we are good for some time.

We have our first flat panel monitor, and it's amazing how much less crowded the desk seems without that huge monitor on it.
We also were able to order the new window for our bedroom, a much needed item as ours has been falling apart for quite some time. All this last summer we were unable to open it, but it didn't seal right anymore either, making last winter a chilly one. Even this fall before it was in, we had some chilly mornings, it's been much more pleasant in our room with a proper window!

The quilting has been moving along and a big part of the reason that so much time goes between posts right now. I'm not as good at multi-tasking as I used to be, so multiple quilt projects in the works along with new patterns and a blog to write has left me floundering some. I am finally starting to get a handle on "scheduling" myself.

One of the most difficult projects right now is Rachel's quilt for Christmas. I'm really trying to finish it without her ever seeing it. That has turned out to be not so easy a task as she often gets home early from school, or let go a bit early from work. I have to really pay attention to the time when I'm working on it. It was out one day when she got home quite a bit earlier than expected, but she either didn't notice it, or it never occurred to her that it was for her. I've been much more diligent since then, but that also means less time to work on it.

I wasn't sure about this one when putting it together, but ended up liking it very much...and even more when I draped it over her bed to see how it would look in her room. My matchy matchy girl will be very happy.
With a lot of sewing going on, and many small pieces to press, I really needed a better setup. Getting up and crossing the room every few minutes was not a good use of time and it got old quickly. I'd not had room to do this before, but since switching out my tables this became more feasible. I love having the ironing board where it is now, and it also serves as an extra work space when laying things out or working on written work as well.

It doesn't prevent a messy table, though, when working I need all my stuff close at hand!
In a previous post I showed the drawing of my new project, here is a bit of it done. I'm working through the project and writing the pattern, hoping to have it ready by shortly after the holidays. Here is a bit of it in progress.
I really enjoy having so much to work on. It seems that no matter what I feel like doing, I have some project in the works that fits the bill. In addition to all the sewing, Rachel and I have been baking quite a lot. She is enjoying learning the process and is getting to be quite a cook and baker.

And I have to wonder if Ruthie is about to have a growth spurt. It seems like she's eating all the time! She got out her own plate, found the baggie with the cut bread in it and sat in this storage box to have a snack.

I actually have a couple of hours here alone tonight so I'm going to take advantage of it and get some work done! I hope you all are well and...

Happy Quilting!

Sue

So Much to Do, So Little Time

2010-10-13T10:33:00.017-05:00

It seems there just aren't enough hours in the day. And for me, there are definitely not enough quiet ones. I find myself staying up until the wee hours as often as possible to find some uninterruped time to sew, work on new quilt patterns, watch a TV show, or just gather my thoughts on things.

I also have to find time to work on projects that are surprises. The first is the quilt for Rachel's new room. When Rebekah married and moved out, that left Rachel with her own room for the first time since she was a toddler. She and Rebekah had painted the room bright yellow and orange a few years ago, it was fun and cheerful and they had such fun working on it (having done all of the work themselves), but Rachel was ready for a change and to make the room her own.

The week after the wedding, she enlisted the help of a couple of friends, who came and went as they needed to, and she painted the room in colors she chose in the weeks prior. They did a wonderful job and the room looks more grown up and sophisticated.

The orange, yellow, and green quilt from the old room just won't do. I told her I'd make her a new quilt as soon as I could. I decided to get it done for Christmas, without her knowing. A tricky proposition when she is in and out often. I've been using her time at school and work to work on her quilt as much as I can. I had to quickly hide it a few times when I tried to work on it when she was out and about, so I will have to be more careful once it's in the hoop and more difficult to hide quickly.

Here is one of the blocks from her quilt. It is a combination of blocks and I got the pattern out of a Quilting Pattern-a-Day calendar. I've made quite a few tops from this collection. The blocks are nearly done and I'll be starting to assemble it soon, hopefully the finished top will make an appearance here within the next week.

Another set of projects that I'm doing on the sly is a set of table runners for Rebekah. These are easier since she doesn't live here, but they do live right around the corner and stop in occasionally either to ask us something or borrow something they can't keep (or don't have) in their small apartment.

Here is the first one, just the thing for those patriotic holidays.

And Halloween. This one has a cute pumpkin quilted into the center black block.

A cheery message to start the new year.

And one for Valentine's Day.

Still to come are a floral one for spring/summer, one with leaves for fall, Happy Birthday, and Christmas. There will possibly be a snowman one for general winter, too.

Rachel is in her first year of college, taking courses for certificates this semester and contemplating going full time next semester. In one of her classes, they had to do a "bigger and better" trade. The teacher gave each of them a little 9 cent clip and they had to make at least 3 trades, each one for something bigger and better than what they were giving away.

Rachel ended up with this desk, which is wonderful. She didn't want it in her room, and other than using the computer doesn't really work at a desk, so this has become my alternate work space...I love it. I was afraid it would crowd my sewing table too much, and it does crowd the area some, but leaves more space between the desk and stairs than there was before. It's also much easier to keep neat than the old one was.

Things are beginning to fall into place for a new venture. I've always wanted to be able to earn some money with my quilting and over the years have taught classes at quilt shops, done hand quilting for people and have even basted and bound quilts for people who didn't like those tasks.

Recently Bren asked me if I'd be willing to make a topper for her Mom's table. Her Mom really wanted one and she didn't have time to make one. I asked a few questions and came up with this. She has an octagonal table and wanted a round topper to go on it. I couldn't find a pattern with a sunflower on it, so I drew out this one.

When I told Bren that I drew it, she told me I really should be trying to sell my patterns. That got the wheels turning and she's been encouraging me and letting me bounce idea off of her since then.

When I posted a picture on my blog and someone else asked for one. Bren also plugged my hand quilting services on her blog and I've received a request to quilt a top, and one to make a quilt in it's entirety as well.

Perhaps this time, the timing is right. I have more time than in many years, my family is becoming more and more self sufficient (as they should be!) and how I would like to be able to add to the family income! We re-evaluate our situation often, but without a second car and still having younger children at home, me working outside the home causes more stress than help for my husband.

I came up with an idea for a quilt and quickly realized this one had to be drawn all the way out to make sure I could place the units correctly. I also wanted to get an idea what it would really look like. While I'd love to have some quilting software, for now, I do things the old fashioned way. I needed some colored pencils and even with this 50 pack, I had trouble finding the right ones.

I came up with this idea late in the evening and stayed up until the wee hours figuring and refiguring to come up with just what I wanted. I spent all my available time yesterday drawing it all out. I can hardly wait to start on it, and I'll work on it in bits here and there until the Christmas work and quilting job are done.

In the meantime, I'd love to figure out how to not need any sleep! LOL. I've always said I'd love to not need sleep, but I'd want the rest of my household to need it!

As for Ruthie, she's doing great. With her speech improving daily, it seems, she's also starting to make more general comments on things, which is a hoot. She's wanting to do more and more for herself, and shows interest in many things.

She was quite thrilled with the rolling pin as I was making pizza so I gave it to her and her whole face lit up. She rolled a bit on her own, and then I helped her push out to the edges of the pan. She helped spread sauce....

She put on some mushrooms and pepperoni and even wanted to try her hand at the microplane. She was quite proud of herself.

Her sense of humor comes out more and more. Here she is with stickers all over herself. She was quite amused.

I love her in this outfit. She looks like a little school girl, and did even moreso on Sunday when Rekekah had french braided her hair, which fell into pigtails. It still takes me off guard that she is so grown up!

So there is a lot going on here, but it's a fun kind of busy. It's time for me to get to work, with so many enjoyable things waiting for my attention, I have to be sure to prioritize!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Catching up

2010-09-17T17:35:00.011-05:00

There has been a lot going on here, as usual! The second week after the wedding was wonderfully quiet but then we ramped back up into real life.

Rachel is going to Africa in January. She has been sponsoring a child for 2 1/2 years and has the opportunity to travel to see how the organization works, visit some of the centers to see how they operate and spend time with the children. The most exciting thing is she will get to spend the day with the child she's been sponsoring. She's been raising the money with various fundraisers and last week, we had a bake sale at church. Here is our table at home, all decked out with the bake sale wares. She had a few people offer to donate baked goods as well. Her "sale" (items are not priced, rather people donate what they want to give) went quite well, we only had two plates left when we came home.

The bake sale fell on the same day as opening day of football season. We had one of our snack days that day and I made several different substantial snacks that got put out throughout the afternoon and early evening. Here is a bowl of my potstickers, these are always a big hit and show up more and more at our house.

Lucas requested crab rangoon, so we fired up the deep fryer and had some of those, too.

My son-in-law called and asked if we could use some little bags of chips. He works as a mechanic at an amusement park and the season is just about over. Anything that will go out of date before the park reopens next spring is given to the employees...just another fun perk he's found out about in the months he's been there.

I'm enjoying my quilting very much these days. With the cooler weather settling in, I'm gearing up for my winter quilting. I have several things in the works right now, and my table shows it! In the upper right corner of the table you can see my stack of Carpenter's Wheel fabric pinned to triangle paper and waiting for a few minutes of sewing time.

While working on the Carpenter's Wheel quilt, I had and idea for another in a different color palette. The next one will have these dark prints in it, each coupled with a color from within the print. I'm hoping to start pulling the companion fabric tonight.

I need a bigger design board! This one is over full, holding the finished Carpenter's Wheel blocks and also a table topper made and sold to a friend. Looking at the blocks on the board gave me yet another idea for a Carpenter's Wheel quilt, so I may have 3 by the time I'm finished making these fun blocks.

Here is a closer view of the table topper.

It's a quiet day here today. Rachel took both Ruthie and Lucas to Milwaukee with her to visit her boyfriend. Lucas has been there before, but Ruthie has not. This is the first time she's been away from home all day without me, I'm anxious to hear how she did! She's been much more sociable lately, giving her Cubbie leader a hug and running up to Brian when he stopped by to say hi to him. Usually she just quietly slips away when someone comes here, but that is happening less and less.

Jonathan wanted to build a fire, so Lucas and Ruthie had to be out there, too. Jonathan is our yard maintenance guy, he loves it and has all kinds of ideas for the yard. He did do some work out there this year, trimming trees, planting and caring for the garden, taking down the swingset, and moving the woodpile at the side of the house to the back by the fence. He really wants to do some work with the swings and firepit, cutting out an area for them and putting sand in under the swings and also having the firepit on set in cement blocks. Mike gives him free reign for these projects as we can afford to do them.

And Ruthie, more and more grown up, flashing that sweet smile so very often. She seems to turn the head of everyone who sees her.

Hopefully posts to come will have a lot more quilting pictures on them!

Until then,

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Sewing Frenzy

2010-08-30T08:49:00.013-05:00

I've been spending quite a lot of time sewing and as the weeks go on, there should continue to be a lot of time for it. We don't start schooling here until the day after Labor Day and both Jonathan and Lucas can work pretty independently. This year I'm adding Ruthie, so some time will be spent working one on one with her. As the cooler, Autumn temperatures set in, there will be more time and inclination for soups and stews and other hearty meals, so I'll be spending more time on that as well. I haven't taken the time to make pizza for a while, everyone here loves it, so that was one of Saturday's "jobs." Here is one before going into the oven. And a picture of a different one coming out. I used to dread pizza making, but now that I've done it so many times, it's not as daunting a process.

The Carpenter's Wheel blocks are going together pretty quickly now. I found that once all the pieces are ready (I sew them on triangle paper) and pressed, that laying the block out next to my machine is the most efficient way to get them sewn together. I've been sewing one block at a time on this one and that's still working for me so I'll continue to do that. It breaks up the steps nicely.

Here is the light and medium blue block.

The light and medium green block.

And the red block.

Last night, when the house was quiet, I pulled fabric for the rest of the blocks for the first Carpenter's Wheel quilt. The only one I haven't found the right fabrics for is the yellow block, but I thought of another spot I might find a few pieces that might fit the bill.

Today I'll pin all those pulled fabrics to triangle paper and I'll start working my way through them.

The more pressing project was Rebekah's wedding fabric quilt. I had a lot of flying geese to make, so looked for my "Angler" to save the step of drawing the line on the squares. I couldn't find it, but found these. Bought years ago and never used, this package of grids made the size geese I needed so I gave it a try.

After meticulously following the slightly daunting directions for a process that was a bit confusing at first, I ended up with this. I flipped the paper over and cut on the lines as directed, but you can see from this side that cut apart they didn't quite end up perfect size. There shouldn't have been any gaps between the rows.

Thankfully, they weren't too "off" to use and I had only done this one page of them. I switched to my usual method for the rest of the geese.

Putting this top together gave me FITS. I did more ripping on this one top than I've done over the last few years. I was thinking of appliqueing in the "filler" spaces, but have decided it would be too busy. I'm going to quilt some nice feathered motif in red thread in those spaces instead.

I have another of these tops in the works for me, and will get back to it after a few Carpenter's Wheel blocks. Hopefully I've learned from all the ripping on the first top and don't make those same mistakes again!

This picture of Ruthie was taken on Lucas' birthday. We roasted giant marshmallows to make s'mores and she had a good time. I don't think she ate much of that marshmallow, but she had fun trying!

I love this next picture. While she has her crabby moments, this is more often how she is. Quietly busy and quick to smile, though she is becoming more of a chatterbox!

It's going to be a pretty quiet day here. My husband works this morning, will be home for lunch, a shower, and a quick nap (he worked a LOT of hours this weekend) before leaving for his second shift job this afternoon. Jonathan is leaving to go camping for a few days with Rachel's boyfriend and his Dad, Rachel has school all day and then work (she's taking a few classes at the local community college), and Joshua works all day, too.

That means another good sewing day for me and I plan to take advantage of it!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Quilting!

2010-08-24T18:05:00.013-05:00

The Ruthie picture is up top this time because I forgot to put it at the bottom! When I'm using the "large" and "center" options to load pictures, I can't move them around within the post, which means I have to plan ahead and load them last one first.

Ah well. This one was supposed to be in the last post, but I accidentally erased it while backspacing. I love this picture and am considering enlarging this one and framing it.
Last week didn't end up nearly as unscheduled and relaxing as planned. I considered it an extension of the wedding since a lot of what I had left to do was finding places for the no longer needed wedding paraphernalia. There were also more errands and other odds and ends to do than I'd planned.

This week, however, has been my "off" week. While I'm back to having to cook with the wedding leftovers all finished, other than my errands today I have little on my schedule.

The wedding tablecloths were all washed and there weren't any stains to be found on them. That left me with about 21 yards of red fabric and 6 yards of white fabric for making quilt tops. After some playing around on graph paper, I came up with a top that I liked. I'll be showing the blocks as I go and the end result will be a surprise.

I'm making two of these quilts, one for Rebekah and one for me. I'm using the white head table fabric for hers, but just some plain white that I had here for mine. The reds all came from the table cloths.

These are split nine patch blocks. There are a dozen of these 9 inch blocks for each quilt.

These are Anvil blocks. There is also a dozen of these 12 inch blocks for each quilt. Next up will be some flying geese.
Along with the red and white quilts, I've been working on Carpenter's Wheel blocks. Years ago I made one giant one for a lap quilt for my brother in law. I love this block, and am making 16 of them, each different colors, for a nice sized lap quilt. Here is the pink one.
And the purple block.
I pulled fabric for a few more and will pin it to triangle paper. Here is a dark blue and medium blue.
The fabric for a medium blue and light blue block.
I pulled greens, too, the light and medium will be one block and the medium and dark, another. I'm having so much fun with these that I have another top in mind for the Carpenter's Wheel block. It will have darker colors and more predominant prints, I think.
Not all the thoughts are on quilting. I got a $10 off coupon in the mail for Penney's. I love these coupons, there is no minimum to spend so I head to the clearance racks to find one or two items that total $11-15. I found this blouse and had to have it, $14.40, which means I spent under $5 to get it. I have quite a few things in my wardrobe that would go with this blouse. With the basic pieces covered (neutral skirts, slacks, and jackets) I'm having great fun adding some color to my wardrobe when I get these really good coupons to use. With the wedding over, I'm hoping to hit the clearance racks once or twice a month to slowly add to my closet. I usually only buy one piece at a time, but it's starting to look like a wardrobe!
My really nice coffee pot died a few weeks ago. I pulled an old one out of the closet to use for a while. Unfortunately, that one started leaking badly. I make a pot of coffee and it lasts two to three mornings. I drank the last of it this morning and was hoping we could swing a new, inexpensive pot this week. This is now gracing my counter, the first pot made and ready for morning (I don't drink my coffee hot except on rare occasions, so usually make it the night before.)
The quilting/sewing is well under way and I'm enjoying it immensely. I don't have anything but church Sunday morning that will take me out of the house, and then I have errands and music work to do on Tuesday. That means most of the next week can be spent working on quilt tops. I'm hoping for a break in the heat and humidity so I can hand quilt some, too, but for now, watching these blocks come together is giving me a thrill!

Happy quilting!

Sue

I'm Officially a Mother-in-Law

2010-08-16T18:17:00.038-05:00

What a day it was. This is long, a pictorial recap of our wonderful day. I think we all actually slept well the night before. I was concerned about Rebekah being too tired since she didn't sleep well Friday night. I woke up in the night to find her packing her suitcase and some of her clothes that were still left, to the light of the TV so she wouldn't wake her sister. Perhaps that ended up being a good thing, she was well rested and all smiles for her big day.

I forgot to bring my camera to the rehearsal, though the photographer was there and I should be able to get some pictures from her. We also have 5 disposable cameras full so if I find some good pictures on them I may just do an additional wedding post.

After the rehearsal, we came back here for a pizza party, our house was quite full with 30 people in it, but we sure had fun. I heard one of Rebekah's friends tell someone that she didn't think anything could wipe the smile off her face, and that was true for the entire day. I think that morning she woke up knowing that rehearsal day was the beginning of her whirlwind weekend.

We woke up around 7am on Sunday, Rebekah started doing the girls' hair, I packed up many boxes and bags to bring to the reception hall. After a couple of trips, and a lot of running around, it was time for me to come home and get ready. When I came out with my dress on, Ruthie's eyes lit up and she exclaimed "Ruthie dress!" Yes, it was finally time. Here she is admiring herself in the mirror.

She was all smiles and didn't hide out in her room in spite of the bridesmaids and photographer all around the house.

Once ready, it was picture time. Here are the girls having some fun while taking pictures. The photographer was trying to get a picture of them jumping and catch it with them all in the air. She succeeded after a few tries. My camera didn't respond quickly enough, I got a cute "in progress" picture.

Time to settle down for some serious pictures. I was trying to stay out of the way, so some of mine weren't as close as I'd like, I'm looking forward to seeing the photographers pictures. She was doing a marvelous job.

Here is Mike with Rebekah. He looked so good in his tux!

I hate pictures of me, I almost didn't include one. Here we are with our beautiful daughter, so ready to be married and starting her new life.

Here's one of Rebekah and Rachel. Rachel was maid of honor and a lot of help to her sister. They've shared a room almost their whole lives, there were tearful hugs near the end of the reception. Though Rachel is looking forward to having her own room, and, of course, Rebekah is thrilled to be finally marrying her love, I know they will have fond memories of the late night conversations and giggles long into the night in the little room they shared for so long.

I love this next picture, I might have to enlarge and frame this one.

After a few hours of running around, the plans we spent so many hours on were coming to fruition. Here is the hall, decorated and ready for the reception. The head table has a white tablecloth, the rest are red tone on tone type fabrics. These will be washed and made into a quilt for Rebekah for her birthday next January. With how much fabric I needed for tablecloths, I should have enough left for a wedding memory quilt for me, too!

After a final check of the hall, we headed out to the beach. They were determined to have a beach wedding, in spite of the odds of a horribly hot and humid day in mid-August. When the 15th first showed up on the 10 day forecast, there was a 60% chance of rain and 87 muggy degrees. That changed as the days went on and what we got was about 84 degrees, low humidity and a nice breeze (almost too strong) right off of the lake. We arrived about 45 minutes before the wedding time, to be here to greet the guests as they were shuttled over from a nearby church parking lot. Ruthie was checking it all out. The arch in the background was made by Jonathan and framed the lake nicely for the ceremony.

Here is a picture of the girls in their places. Rebekah did all of their hair, including her own!

And another of the guys. Why are they facing the lake??

Because the preacher had just told us all to rise and prepare for the nautical entrance of the bride. There they are just having come around the bend.

Here they are, a little closer, I'm sure the photographer got better pictures. The pontoon boat went past us and docked just past where the violinist was playing.

Here they are, Rebekah, Mike, and Rachel, who is holding her dress so it didn't drag along the cement boat launch ramp.

I didn't realize until later that I'd not taken any pictures during the ceremony. I was taking it all in and didn't want to miss a thing. Here are some from after the ceremony.

Brian, with the bridesmaids.

Rebekah, and the groomsmen. Someone yelled out "are you going to wear shades?" The guys all had them in their pockets, one of the groomsmen's wives lent Rebekah a pair.

Rebekah and her new husband...and her new inlaws.

There was quite a bit of picture taking and we were the last group to leave the beach. We had asked Rachel's boyfriend's parents if they would go on ahead and open up, fix the punch and put out appetizers so that the guests weren't stuck waiting around while the shuttles returned guests to their cars.

We arrived to this scene, our guests clearly cared for and visiting among themselves. Brian and Rebekah saved their entrance until we had arrived.

A view of the head table. Brian is talking to his friend, who drove 8 hours on Saturday, making it just in time for the rehearsal. After the wedding, he and his wife left to drive home again as he had a meeting he couldn't miss on Monday morning. That's a GOOD friend!

We moved the arch from the beach to the hall, it found it's place behind the bride and groom.

Here they are cutting their cake. It was a giant cupcake (I hope the photographer took one, I think I forgot though am hoping there is one on the disposable camera), with red icing for the "cupcake paper" and white icing on top. It had a linking heart topper and Rebekah loved it.

Here they are feeding it to each other. I'm so glad they didn't smash it, I hate when people do that!

Rebekah made her bouquet and an adorable little version of it to toss. Rachel caught the bouquet.

Next came the garter toss, look at that group of young men! Somehow our oldest son managed to get the garter. I thought I had a picture of Rachel and Joshua together with their prizes, maybe it's on the disposable as well. There's another I'll be looking for among the photographer prints.

At 8:00, this showed up outside the hall. It would be taking them to Milwaukee, where they had a morning flight out. Now that's going in style!

Here is the happy couple, on their way out. She hated to change out of her dress, but didn't want to smash it in a suitcase. The veil folds small, so it made the trip. There were many happy tears and shortly after the other guests began to leave as well.

There was still a lot to do once it was all over. Marshall's mom and another friend took over the kitchen during the reception and wouldn't let me work, and there was much help when it was over as well. Some fun music went in the CD player, and Rachel worked on getting Ruthie to dance. She did pretty good at mimicking Rachel's moves.

Lucas danced with her a bit, too, but I was too slow to get a picture. This one is almost as good.

There was still much to do when we arrived home, the cars had to be unloaded, the leftover food put away, and flatware and serving bowls to be washed. I took my time, and enjoyed a mental recap of the day.

Today was a pretty lazy day. I planned for doing as little work as possible for the week. I started reading a book, I plan to do some sewing, but mostly I'll enjoy the lack of scheduling for a while.

After a day full of posed pictures, Ruthie planned this one. I was taking her picture and she pulled Lucas over, showed him where to stand and pulled his arm around her.

These balloons were left at the hall from a party the night before, so Mike brought them home for Ruthie after he did the last of the cleaning there. She loves these, we put long ribbons on them so she can reach them even if she lets them float up into the cathedral ceiling. She's quite thrilled with her "bwoons."

Tomorrow is errand day, but I'm hoping to make quick work of them so I can do something enjoyable for the afternoon.

Quilting/sewing will be big on my list once I get rested and recouped. I haven't had much time for it lately, other than finishing their wedding quilt, so I'm looking forward to getting back to some set aside projects....and a couple of new ones!

Sue

The Home Stretch

2010-08-13T14:12:00.014-05:00

What a few weeks it's been! This will be a mish mash of things that hopefully will make some sense.

Two weeks ago was Rebekah's bridal shower. It was lovely and she had such a good time. My wallflower is embracing her day and enjoying all the festivities surrounding it. I pulled out my veil to see if she'd wear it and she quite willing did.

We played a few games, had appetizers and cake, and of course, opened gifts. On the left in the picture below is Rachel, who kept track of the gifts for Thank You notes, and on the right is a good friend of both of theirs (and she's Rachel's boyfriend's sister), she made a bouquet from all the ribbons and bows. Ruthie joined us and was very quiet, though didn't hide her face at all. She sat my feet most of the time and started getting comfortable about the time it all was winding down.

I was able to finish her quilt for the shower, finishing the binding about 1/2 hour before it began. I can't believe it, though, I didn't even get a picture! I'll have to take one or have her take one for me.

With that big event out of the way, I was knee deep in the rest of the preparations. In the last two weeks I spent a few days making cakes (pictures of which are in my previous post) and have a total of 12 dozen individual sized cakes. There should be plenty of cake left as we'll have 144 cakes and only 65 guests! My family will be glad to have the extra treats floating around, between squeezing all the wedding paraphernalia into the budget and my lack of time, they've been missing some of the homemade treats that are often around.

I also made bows....lots of bows. They are hanging on my design board, pinned to my quilt hanging on the wall and even pinned to my dining room curtains. These will decorate the walls and corners of the windows of the hall.

I also made ribbon bows. The picture doesn't do these justice. Hopefully the day of the wedding I'll be able to get a better one. For now, the bows reside on my sewing room valance. There were a lot of little jobs to be done, too. Rachel's dress needed a seam repaired, Rebekah's veil needed to be secured more firmly to the barrette, and I decorated some flip flops for Ruthie to wear. She LOVES these and every so often will take them and wear them a bit. After the wedding she'll be free to wear them whenever she wants, for now, I want them kept clean and neat.

Her toenails will be painted red to match the girls' dresses and her hair will be curled and put up with a pretty silver clip.

While all of this wedding craziness was going on, we had other big things happening as well. The company my husband works his second job for got outbid for the custodial contract and he was laid off for the first time ever in his life. We need that job, it carries our insurance and provides the extra income we need to make ends meet. It was not clear if the old staff would be hired on by the new company or not, and for four weeks we've been hanging, wondering, and I've been searching out jobs for him to apply for. Online applications take about an hour and he's not really computer literate so the bulk of that fell to me. The last couple I found I let him sit and fill out, he has a new appreciation for the time it takes!

As of mid week we heard that a new company was hired (one was, but reneged when they realized they had way underbid) but they were mostly bringing in their own people. I've been feeling a bit resentful that all this has to happen during what should be a really fun and special time. Thankfully, just today he got a call that he is being rehired, starting Monday, as the lead person, which means a little more money than the other crew members, though it's still a pay cut. At this point, we're thrilled to have it and it's a BIG load off of our minds.

Of course, we cannot have one good thing happen without something bad happening the same day (quite literally, unfortunately) and within an hour of that phone call my son got home from work and his truck broke down in the driveway. I feel so badly for him, but at least there will be vehicles available next week with the honeymooners gone and that gives him time to take care of business with his.

Tomorrow night is a pizza party at our house after the rehearsal and then as soon as everyone leaves I'll be starting to gather up all that needs to be taken to the hall on Sunday.

Also since the last update, Lucas had a birthday. He and Ruthie have been champs about keeping busy with all that has been going on. Lucas chose s'mores and rootbeer floats as his dessert this year. Bless his heart, he doesn't realize how much easier that made things for me!

We spent an enjoyable evening outside, the firepit going, with Lucas and Ruthie running around and playing. Every so often, Lucas would lay down in the grass, and Ruthie would lay down beside him. I could hear them laughing from across the yard, they have such a good time out there. Ruthie loves to be outside and runs out whenever anyone else goes out. If the screen door closes too quickly, she'll go out the back slider and run around to the front.

Ruthie has also really enjoyed her Daddy being home evenings for the last month. She's got him wrapped around her little finger. She brings him books to read and they sit/lay on this little couch while they read, play, or just chatter.

I think that's everything! I have a busy couple of days, but after that I'm on "vacation" for a few days, hoping there is enough food left that I don't have to cook, and not too much post wedding clean up to deal with. In any case, I can take my time and with my husband back to work as of Monday evening, a big burden has been lifted.

Hopefully I'll be back Monday with a big wedding update and lots of pictures!

Sue

Testing, Testing...

2010-07-18T14:59:00.011-05:00

We've had a busy few days. While thinking about wedding favors (not wanting to spend too much, nor wanting to buy something for each place setting that would be of little use and tossed before long anyway) I had kicked around the idea of mini banana breads at each place setting. They would be wrapped in tulle (over the cellophane) tied with a ribbon, which would also hold the place card.

I found bananas half price early last week because they were quickly ripening. I had planned to just make some banana bread for here at the house, but once I saw the HUGE bowl full of batter those bananas made, I decided to see just how far it would go. If she decided that she didn't want to use them, they freeze well and would make a nice little snack or quick breakfast for some time to come.

My big bowl o' batter made 32 mini loaves of banana bread, almost exactly half of what I'd need if everyone comes who we've invited. I wrapped them well and put them in the freezer to be brought out the day before for wrapping. In the next week or so I'll buy the rest of the needed bananas and make the rest of these little loaves.

The last couple of days have been test days. Rebekah decided to do the trial run of how she wants to wear her hair on her wedding day. It came out beautifully, though she did decide she'd like it to sit a bit higher on her head. She's glad she took the time to try it out!

She beaded her veil, my part of the job being attaching it to the barrette. We were thrilled with how it came out.

Here is a closer view of her hair and the veil. The beads are in a zig zag design all the way around, the gathering made a beautiful little sparkly bunch right under her curls.

Since we are making all of the cake, and are using recipes unfamiliar to us, we decided we needed to do a trial run of those as well. Friday I made this chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. The sides will be a little less rough when we make them for the wedding, I started out not having the baking spray so improvised. The roughness sure didn't mar the taste, these are a little square of chocolate heaven.

Once I did those on Friday, I started really wanting to work on the others. I had most of the ingredients but was short a few things to make all of the different cakes. While running other wedding related errands, we picked up the additional groceries and I started baking.

These are chocolate cupcakes with white icing. I tried a new icing recipe that was supposed to be a stable whipped cream icing, but it didn't work. It never did get stiff enough, then turned to butter. Thank goodness we decided to try it out early! As I was making it, I realized that it was quite close to the icing recipe I use for pumpkin bars, so I made that one instead.

It went without a hitch and I piped it onto the cupcakes.

Next up was strawberry shortcake. The cake is angel food cake and we made homemade strawberry sauce. I used the same icing, took some out of the bowl and added a bit of lemon extract. These only have a bit of icing, we wanted something that would appeal to those who don't like their cake bathed in icing.

Finally, the tiramisu. This is a sponge cake recipe. I cut them in half and "painted" both cut edges with coffee. I added some coffee flavor (instant coffee with just enough water for it to dissolve into a thick liquid) to the remaining icing and piped it between the cake layers and added a little dollop on top. Then I sprinkled a mixture of cocoa, sugar, and cinnamon on top.

Our table was full of these little cakes, and my family has quite enjoyed testing them all out. I know that I've been walking 5 days a week and really trying to watch what I eat in hopes of my dress looking as good as possible....hopefully all this taste testing won't thwart my efforts! I sent a plate with a couple of each with Rebekah when she went to see Brian, so they could taste test them together.

I also put a plate full of the tiramisu in the freezer, hoping they would freeze and thaw well so I could take them to a friend's house on Wednesday. That gave me the idea to try freezing one of each so we can test them all. Anything that freezes (and thaws) well can be made earlier in the wedding week, those that did better waiting will have to be baked on Thursday and Friday.

In the midst of it all, Ruthie is coming out of her shell more and more. We're hoping this bodes well for the wedding and she will really enjoy herself. There will be a few other small kids, which will also help, I'm sure. We hope that she loses sight of the fact that people will probably be watching her and just has fun. I tried to get this picture without her knowing, but she knows when the camera is around. I had to tell her to look at the TV to get it.

The work of the day is done now. I'm going to spend the rest of my day working on the wedding quilt. I hope to get it done by the bridal shower in two weeks so I can give it to her there.

Tomorrow we head to Joann Fabrics to look for fabric for tablecloths. We're going to use quilting cotton so I can save them for later use. What Rebekah doesn't know is that I plan to make her a quilt from them for her next birthday (there should be plenty of fabric so I may be able to make one for me, too!)

For now I'd better go, that quilt won't quilt itself!

Stay tuned!

Sue

Mostly Wedding Chatter

2010-07-15T14:30:00.010-05:00

We are in a very strange mode right now. The weeks themselves seem to go quite slowly, but each Sunday as we tick off another week before the wedding, I wonder where the time has gone.

All the "big" things have been cared for. The reception venue is chosen, reserved and paid for, the beach has been reserved for the ceremony itself. The invitations came this week and were in the mail the next day, and the shower invitations haven been sent as well.

The menu is planned (with much of the food being made by us, only the main dishes are being catered), decorations are planned and we've begun to purchase what we need, and except for some final tweaking as the RSVPs come back, the seating arrangements have been figured out.

A BIG stress was the dresses. Rebekah has had hers for several months, and went in for a fitting on the morning of the day she got engaged (that being the actual engagement day was unbeknownst to her) and we're just waiting on the call saying it's ready.

We are making her veil, she has finished the beading and all that is left is for me to attach it to a barrette that will be clipped underneath her updo.

That left, me, Ruthie, and the bridesmaids needing dresses. With the time available, we knew we'd have to find something off the rack or that had really quick delivery. My three girls and I headed out dress shopping a couple of Saturdays ago, with a date set for the following Saturday for the bridesmaids to shop. While shopping for dresses for Ruthie and me, we stumbled across the bridesmaids dresses. Rachel tried it on and liked it and knew one of the other girls was her size so we asked that they hold those dresses and they called around to find out that they had the other girl's size in another store but would not hold it for them.

The next day, the bride and her bridesmaids took off right after church to pick up all of the dresses. They got to the store with the single dress and it not only fit, but they had two dresses in the other girls' sizes as well. They all donned their dresses and looked them over...only to find that each dress had minor flaws....snags in the fabric, seams coming apart, etc. With two the correct size already on hold at the other store, the sales girl checks her computer and finds another of the size they need....at the store with the other two dresses!

So they head to that store, deciding on the way those are meant to be the dresses since two stores each had 3 dresses in the exact sizes they needed. They arrived at the other store to find the clerks there knew nothing of dresses on hold, they had been placed back in the racks, but were easily found, tried on and looked over. Since the dresses were on clearance, and they had a special coupon offer that day, the $159 dresses cost $52.50!
I was very concerned about finding a dress that I liked, that looked good on me, and fell within my price range. I was not wanting a frumpy dress, and really afraid I'd be settling for something because I needed something quickly.

The first store we entered had a formal wear section and we began scouring the sale racks. We came up with 3 dresses that seemed to fit the bill, were in my price range, and had my size. Of the three, one I didn't like at all, but the other two would each fit the bill. We hid them behind some other dresses and headed out into the mall. The shopping trip became much more fun when I knew I had a dress I liked waiting and I was just out there to see if I could top it. Nothing came close, and I can hardly wait to wear this dress.
We also had in mind to keep an eye out for a flower girl dress for Ruthie. While we're not really expecting that she will actually walk the aisle, she was still in need of a pretty dress. We found a children's formal wear shop and Miss Ruthie was thrilled with her turn in the dressing room trying on pretty dresses. Rather than buy her fancy white shoes which she doesn't really have much other need for, we decided on white flip flops (it IS a beach wedding after all) that I will decorate with ribbon and or tulle. We'll paint her toenails red to match the girls' dresses. She has been quite excited to show off her new dress.
Things are really falling into place and we're a bit awed by the fact that we ended up with the first dress tried on for all of us. My sewing room is an array of dress bags and spaces are filling up with all of the things we're collecting for use in just a few weeks.

That last week will be quite busy, making tulle bows (60 at last count!), baking and decorating about 80 individual sized little cakes, making the cutting cake, readying appetizers, and getting everything organized in hopes of the big day running smoothly. I have a notebook with quite a few pages of notes and reminders, and at the end is a page for each day of that last week where we can start listing what happens on which day.

Through it all, Ruthie seems to be coming out of her shy shell more and more. She still has her moments, but more and more people are getting to see the real her. She still loves the camera and we're hoping that works in our favor on the wedding day!
I'm well on my way quilting the wedding quilt, but am about to run out of the navy blue thread I'm using. I ordered some today from a place that usual gets orders to me in a couple of days. I'm hoping to have the quilt done for the shower two weeks from Sunday, so time is of the essence!

I'm hiding in my air conditioned house to escape the heat and humidity, working on the quilt and baking mini banana breads that may serve as the place card holders (wrapped in tulle, with a name card attached with a red ribbon.) From the looks of it, this big batch of batter should make about half of the needed goodies. Also on the agenda in the next few days is trying out a couple of the other cake recipes for the dessert cakes. More on those to come!

Happy Quilting, and keep cool!

Sue

Challenge Change, More Wedding, and Birthday Fun

2010-06-29T08:31:00.002-05:00

Most of my quilting has been put aside for the wedding quilt. I knew when I set the challenge that it would pretty difficult to actually get all of that done and started to think of it more as a priority list or working list...meaning those quilts that I want "in my face" so they get finished.

The wedding plans are ramping up, which is good because it is coming up fast. Sunday, August 15th....6 1/2 weeks away. We're making lists like crazy and figuring out what we want to make and what we can/need to buy. It's so much fun, but rather all consuming! It's probably just as well they picked the date they did as I think if we had a few more weeks, we'd just be this busy/crazy for a few more weeks.

Rebekah's wedding quilt is in the hoop and underway...though with all of the other wedding planning it's been hard for me to really sit and focus on it. I hope to change that very soon. The plan is to have it done in time for the wedding, and I don't have that much time!

My birthday was yesterday and it was a lovely day. A bit cooler than it's been and not so humid, so I felt better than I have in a while. It was a quiet day overall, which was so nice. We went out for dinner to this nice little Italian place. We've lived here for 24 1/2 years and it's been here the whole time. We thought it was this little hole in the wall diner....boy were we wrong! We had a gift certificate to go there (Rachel's boyfriend gave us a bunch of different ones for Christmas that he got for really cheap off restaurants.com, thinking if we even used a couple he got more than his money's worth) and we are so glad we tried it. I had lobster ravioli and it was truly one of the best tasting things I'd ever eaten.

I had some birthday money to spend so we went shopping after dinner. I had been using an old keyboard because my cordless died (we've not had good luck at all with cordless keyboards) and I really wanted to replace it.

Much better! I'm still getting used to the slightly curved design, but it's quiet and wonderful to type on so I'm sure it will be old hat soon.

I also got a new pair of shoes for the wedding. Silver will go with any dress I choose and these are nice enough for the wedding but not so fancy they can't be used for other things.
Another thing I'd planned on getting for the wedding, but wanted also for myself to use here at home, is a nice water/drink dispenser. We were at a party last summer that had a water dispenser with fruit and herbs floating in the ice water. It was delicious and I would love to do that here occasionally. It will also be great for when we have friends over, just us and one other family can be quite a crowd so this 4 gallon container will allow me to make as much lemonade or punch as I think I need! The kids all pitched in and got this for me.
And Ruthie. She's in discovery mode...finding what things she fits in, how things work and what she is and isn't capable of doing. She's getting to be quite the chatterbox, though some of it is still hard to understand.
All that learning makes a girl tired! Her feet are 6 inches off the floor, how one sleeps in that position I'll never know!

So off I go, with errands to run and quilting to do, the day will be a busy one.

Happy Quilting!

Sue

A Busy Summer

2010-06-21T20:03:00.009-05:00

Quilting...and other busy-ness

2010-05-29T23:04:00.007-05:00

I've been really enjoying quilting on the Celtic and Posies. Two blocks are quilted and the sashing surrounding them is done as well. Block 3 is in the hoop and ready to go, possibly a few stitches will be taken yet tonight. I could have more done except there is A LOT going on here these days. One of the biggest things is the ramping up of the wedding plans for our oldest daughter. They aren't officially engaged, yet, but that is really just a formality. They are figuring out exactly what they want and the engagement will likely bring with it an announcement of the date, most likely some time this fall.

It will be very much a homemade wedding. After seeing veils at the bridal store we visited, we decided we certainly could make one. We bought a piece of tulle and some beads and we picked a zig zag formation for the beads and she's been practicing getting them on without pulling too tightly.

I'm sure there will be much more to tell as the weeks go on.
In the midst of it all, my husband is job hunting. The company he works for now has been underbid and it's likely the current employees will lose their jobs. We need that income, and our insurance is there, so we're in a bit of a mad scramble to find a way to replace that job. We're sure all will work out for the best in the end, but in the meantime, it's quite nerve wracking!

Thankfully we have our own personal hair stylist! Ruthie wants her hair cut whenever the haircutting supplies are out. Since Rebekah does hair out of our house, poor Ruthie would be bald if we obliged. She did need a trim, though, so she got that last week.

Here she is, discovering the wonders of Easter chocolate. She's not much of a candy eater, usually we give her a small toy and some snack crackers or something in her Christmas stocking and Easter Basket. She does enjoy an occasional piece of "chokuck" so had a few among her Easter goodies this year.

Lucas was practicing roller blading with a helmet and pads, so Ruthie had to have some, too. She wore these for quite a while and grinned the whole time.

The quilting updates will be slow in coming these days, all the projects are big and have a lot of handwork, though I will have a wedding quilt in the works before too long.

Hopefully we don't get too much terribly hot weather or it will be hard to keep a big quilt in the quilting process!

Keep cool and Happy Quilting!

Sue

Long Update

2010-05-21T13:37:00.015-05:00

It's been a while! I'm still not used to being able to post more quickly and tend to put it off longer than I should. I'm hoping to change that with more frequent updates so they aren't as crazy long as this one is!

Rebekah came to me a couple of weeks before Mother's Day and asked what I wanted...though before I could answer said they had an idea. The "they" was she and her boyfriend and their plan was to replace my favorite tree, which was dying, with a new one. We planted this tree when it was barely more than a stick. It started out green in the spring, then was covered with beautiful white flowers (though they stunk!) and then the leaves turned purple for the remainder of the summer, new growth coming out green and then also turning purple.

It got a fungus several years ago and we didn't realize what it was until it was too late. My husband wanted to milk it along for a while, since the fungus wouldn't spread to other trees and the tree was still looking passable, but I thought he might go for this new plan. He did, and the next day the cutting began.

Here the main lower branches had already been cut off. Brian (Rebekah's boyfriend) enlisted the help of a couple of our boys to help him take down the tree.

Here more of the branches are down, they are nearing the end of what can be done with it still standing.

Lucas was thrilled to be included and spent his time taking any branches he could carry to the garden, where they stayed until Jonathan was able to move them to the woodpile up by the back of our house.

Brian and Rebekah got a dog last summer. She occasionally comes for a visit when they are here so they can stay longer. She loved the activity that day, watching all of the neighbor dogs and giving kisses to the kids when they would get close enough.

The trunk was cut into usable sized pieces and branches all hauled to the garden. Lucas continued to pick up smaller pieces so the mower wouldn't run them over.

He came back a couple of days later to work on getting the stump out and took me to pick out my new tree. They had picked out a few different ones, the final choice was mine. It's a flowering cherry and should have beautiful white flowers in the spring. I can hardly wait. It seems to have "taken" well and there is some new growth at the top. It's supposed to be a fast growing tree so hopefully it won't look so little and lost among the rest of the trees and shrubs!

Mother's Day was great. It doubled as Rachel's birthday dinner day. We made dinner together and afterward went to do her birthday shopping. She wanted me to be able to shop, too, so got everyone together to chip in instead of picking out gifts. Ruthie and Rebekah came along, too, and we had a wonderful time, ending our shopping trip with ice cream at Oberweis.

During the course of those few busy weeks, I finished up the border of the celtic and posies. This past Monday I got the muslin needed for backing and started basting that evening.

Here it is in the hoop. This one will take me a while, but that's ok, I'm really enjoying quilting on it, even the difficult middle section where there is so much quilt to move around.

Here it is during the basting process. Every so often I go on a baking binge. I love to keep baked goods around, which is no easy feat with my hungry group. Sometimes rather than baking every couple of days I bake several different things in a day.

This time is was a Swedish Flop. The cake is a rather stiff, yeast cake. The lemon filling is the same as that in lemon pie. The white layer is a cream filling. So good!

Even better are the Kringles. There is a bakery in Racine, Wisconsin that makes these and I found a recipe online. I was amazed at how close this recipe comes to the original and it has quickly become a family favorite.

They are oval shaped, the recipe makes two and I halved them to fit them on the platter. The filling is butter, brown sugar, and walnuts. I've also tried apple, peach, and chocolate chip and nut, but this one is far and away the favorite. The pastry is soft and light and the powdered sugar icing just finishes it off beautifully.

Ruthie continues to do wonderfully. She loves the camera and we've decided that she needs to have her own for her birthday (which isn't until November.) There are a couple of disposables floating around here and she seems to lose some of her shyness when she has one in her hand. This may be just the thing to bring her out of her shell some when other people are around.

In the meantime, she'll enjoy getting her picture taken. She can be in the worst of moods, but mention taking her picture and she's all smiles. Here she is sitting on the back of the little couch in my sewing area.

This one was taken with my phone camera, so the quality isn't really good. She asked to ride the horse at Meijer, which was a first and was thrilled to have her picture taken on it. They have it rigged so no money has to be put into it, but she didn't like when it moved so we won't be pushing that button again for a while.

She can still be found sleeping sometime in the afternoon or early evening a few days a week. She loves that little spongebob, I used a bit of my Mother's Day money to buy it, she entertained herself for quite a while with it in the store while Rachel tried on clothing, so I didn't have the heart to leave it there. Notice her painted toes, too. Rachel and I both bought new sandals on Mother's day, so we painted our toes that evening. Ruthie was not to be left out. She comments on her pretty toes daily.

So there it is, the very long update. I'm spending a lot of time sewing and quilting these days, but all of the projects are big so there really isn't that much to report. The warmer weather is slowly making it's way here and I've enjoyed the extended cooler spring weather that we've had.

All in all, it's been a good spring. I hope the same for all of you!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Over the Tops - Another Finish

2010-04-15T17:00:00.006-05:00

I've been quilting like crazy lately and enjoying every minute. I really didn't think this quilt would go so quickly, but am glad to be able to cross another project off of my challenge list. This quilt is 85 x 85, even our 16 year old with his long wingspan couldn't hold it out all of the way. Here is a close up picture of the center motif. Each of the plain triangles has half of this motif in red and all of the quilting is in red except for the crosshatching, which is ecru.

Here is a picture of the back of the quilt. It sometimes a toss up which I like better, the front or the back!

With the Oriental Railroads quilt done, I don't have any of my challenge projects ready for the hoop. I found an old project to pull out and put in the hoop until I can finish the posies and celtic, which will be my next project to be quilted. It will take a long time to quilt as each posy block has 3/4 inch crosshatching in it in addition to outlining all the applique pieces.

I have 6 more posy sets and 30 more leaves to sew onto the border vine, then the same braid as in the sashing (in the picture below) will be appliqued all around the outside of the posy and vine border. Still quite a bit of applique to go, but the celtic bias tape is made and a few of the pieces are sewn on as I took it to a friend's house one day to sew on. I'm hoping to be quilting on it in 2 to 3 weeks, but have no idea if that's realistic or not.

Ruthie has gone from hating her bath to not minding it much, even sometimes enjoying it. She gets her hair washed at the sink a lot of the time, which used to be accompanied by "top it!" (stop it) but is now at least tolerated most of the time. This time she wanted her head wrapped in a towel like the big girls do it.

We are enjoying our foray into the 21st century, the new cellphones are working great, as is the new wireless broadband connection. It's all in the timing, I guess, we now have better services for less money...a win win!

The last couple of days have been warm, reminding me what I don't like about summer. It's going to cool off again for the next few, which I'll enjoy.

I used to get less quilting done in the summer, but that hasn't been the case the last few years and for that I'm glad. I feel the need to finish up as many old projects as possible so I'm not left with a pile of UFOs when my eyes and hands are too old to finish them!

The next few days should bring a lot of sewing time and I hope to get a lot done on the celtic and posies, with a bit of hand quilting when I need a break. Happy Spring to you and yours!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Welcome Changes...and Quilting Update

2010-03-27T09:55:00.007-05:00

It's been an interesting couple of weeks around here. In an attempt to cut some expenses, or at least get more for the money we're spending, we're making some changes to our wireless services and launching ourselves into the 21st century...well at least taking some baby steps in.

The biggest changes for me are a cellphone plan that allows me to actually talk on it, LOL, (I had one that I only used when absolutely needed) and a wireless internet connection rather than the archaic dialup. Don't get me wrong, I was content with the dialup service, but being able to shift expenses to include wireless internet is wonderful.

With the change to wireless, my computer desk became movable. I was limited to where I could put it when it needed to be near a phone line, but now that it doesn't, I did some furniture moving as well. The computer desk used to be where the bookshelf is and vice versa. I also swapped the tables, putting my sewing table in our dining room and bringing the dining room table into my sewing room. This opened up quite a bit of floor space and, so far, seems like a really good change. I took the leaves out of the table to fit it nicely in my sewing room and can put them in when needed, for now, I'm adjusting to less table space and hoping this makes it easier to keep it cleared off.

I took a short break from my challenge to make this baby quilt, which Bren's mom bought from me and gave to a neighbor. These are so fun much to make, I've done a few of them now in various sizes. Tone on tone fabrics with quilting motifs done in colored thread, they are easy to get to the quilting stage and quilt up quite quickly in spite of the amount of hand quilting on them.

I'm getting anxious to get back to the posies and celtic quilt. I haven't done anything on it in quite a while, and the plan is for it to be the next one in the hoop. I'm appliquing on the border, have the posy sets chosen and ready to applique along with more bias made and ready to sew on.

The Oriental Roads quilt is moving along well. I'm on the outer row of blocks and hope to be quilting on the borders by Easter weekend. I don't know how realistic that is with all else that is going on here this week, but that is the plan.

Ruthie loves to have her picture taken and this one was taken just after her bath. Her hair is still wet and she's all snuggly and quite mellow.

I have mixed feelings about the warm weather coming, I do love when the windows can be opened, we can take walks, and sit outside. I'm not a warm weather person, though. The hand quilting may have to take a back seat on the warmest days, but I have plenty of hand piecing waiting to keep me busy! I'm already starting my list for next year, which will start off with whatever doesn't get done this year (I really think I've bitten off more than I can chew this time.)

Nothing will get finished if I don't get to it, so it's time to go!

Happy quilting!

Sue

Olympic Quilting Wrapup

2010-03-04T09:56:00.015-06:00

I never know what to expect when I plan these heavy quilting times. All kinds of things can come up to thwart them, and that first week of the Olympics I ended up having a bunch of things to do that I didn't expect. In spite of that, I was able to get quite a bit of quilting done. Thankfully the second week was not as busy and that was a good way to end, had the busy week been second, I would have definitely felt that my Olympic quilting experience was tainted some.

I finished the shade on Thursday of the second week, which means I spent most of the Olympic days working on it. I'm really pleased with how it came out and, though I had hoped to finish it during the Olympics, I wasn't sure if it was really possible. Here is a closeup view.

Here is a view from a little further back. The next step is to turn it into a Roman Shade, something I'm still trying to figure out. I found what looks to be some good directions online and hope to get it strung and hung before too long. It will replace the blue checked curtains you can sit a bit of in this picture. I'm hoping that I can figure this out without too much trouble as I have one to make for our bedroom, too!

When I was nearing the end of the shade, I took some time out to baste the baby quilt that I made on my sewing night and I also basted the Oriental Roads. I started quilting on the baby quilt on Thursday and finished the quilting on Sunday. I don't think I've ever quilted a baby quilt that quickly. I put binding on both the shade and baby quilt a couple of days later.

I was still watching Olympic coverage when the quilting was finished on the baby quilt so I picked up the Oriental Roads and started quilting on that one. Here it is in the hoop, with a view of part of one of the Jacob's Ladder blocks.
Here is the center block. The middle and squaring up triangles have this feather motif, in red, with off white crosshatching. The rest of the quilting is in red.

This one will take at least a few weeks to quilt, and I will probably take days off to work on the Posies and Celtic so it is ready for the hoop when the Oriental Roads is finished.

Looking over my challenge list, I realized everything left (except for the sewing together of blocks) is hand work....hand piecing, hand applique and hand quilting. Though I prefer handwork, I actually do enjoy machine piecing when I'm in the mood for it and am thinking ahead for when my challenge year is over. I printed paper for the next strip quilt. I did one where the whole block was strips, one where half the block was strips and the other half background (the shade) so this one will have strips on both sides of the center line with a background triangle at each corner. The pages are printed and I played with the lines, now all 256 have to be marked like this one.

I'll be working on this project when I have a hankering for machine piecing, and on my late night sewing nights, which lend themselves better to machine work than handwork most of the time.

And finally, Ruthie. Here she is, bed head and all. It was around Christmas time and our oldest had just come back from the youth Christmas party (he is a leader) where they all brought white elephant gifts. He received a Barney video, which he gave to Ruthie when he got home. She had just woke up from a short nap and was THRILLED to get this video. She has since "bought" a couple more of them in the Awana store (where they trade earned shares for various trinkets.)

Hopefully this is a big quilting day for me. I have nowhere to go, a few daily household chores to do, but mostly a day that is wide open. I'll quilt on the Oriental Roads and if I need a break will work on drawing more lines on the strip quilt and/or cutting some more strips for scraps. With the successful mastering of the curved piecing foot, some Drunkard's Path pieces will also be cut from scrap and a new "when I feel like sewing" box will be started.

But nothing will happen if I don't scoot!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Friday Night Sew-In Wrap Up

2010-02-21T13:13:00.012-06:00

My Friday Night Sew-In was actually a Friday and Saturday Night Sew-In. Because of a committment on Saturday, I couldn't stay up as late as I normally would for something like this and at the end of my sewing time on Friday night I still had work to do.

I spent Friday afternoon with a friend, but before I left I set up my room for sewing. My sewing room has other functions, in addition to serving as a sewing studio/office for me, my family tends to hang out in there with me and we also use the room for a second dining area when there are more people to feed than our table holds.

I cleared the table and set up my sewing machine, a cutting mat and a design area.

I also set up my ironing board. I usually use a small table top one, but when I know I'll be doing more sewing I prefer a regular board. I also cleared off my design board so I had somewhere to put the finished blocks.

I spent the day Thursday choosing fabric, rotary cutting squares and using templates to mark curves and cut the pie shaped piece.

Several years back I started cutting binding when I cut the pieces for a quilt top so that later on I didn't accidentally use the fabric for something else. Once the cutting is finished, I sew the binding strips together and press them so it is ready when the quilting is done.

You can see a hanger full of binding behind the pink one I just made, that visible binding reminds me how much quilting I have yet to do!

The reason I was making the Drunkard's Path block is so that I could make friends with my curved piecing foot. I bought it several years back and tried it out, but never took the time to get proficient with it. When I found out a friend was having a baby, it gave me a deadline more pressing than the challenge deadline.

I sewed a couple of practice pieces without a hitch, then picked up the first pieces of the baby quilt. I was pretty happy! While the one side didn't match perfectly, it was close enough to go together well. It looked funny to me. There wasn't the contrast I expected when I picked the fabrics.

That was because one piece was facing the wrong way. OOPS. Thankfully I just had to see what the blocks looked like before sewing all 64 of them! I ripped those two out, and proceeded on.

I alternated sewing and pressing and pinned the finished blocks on my design board. The curved sewing foot meant sewing curves with NO PINNING. Really. No pinning at all. Those little Drunkard Path blocks went together in no time and will be a new addition to my scrap quilting projects.

I admired the blocks and tried a couple different placements of the green ones, but this is what I landed on.

By the end of the evening I had sewn together the top half of the quilt and by Saturday night, the top was together, borders and all. I was quite pleased with the result and and looking forward to basting in the next couple of days.

I continued marking on the Oriental Roads quilt once the baby top was done and am still working on that today, though I think I'm finally nearing the end. I have the backing sewn together and will baste both the Oriental Roads and the baby quilt as soon as the marking is finished. The shade is nearly done, it should be finished by the end of the week.

And, of course, Ruthie. A friend gave us some dress up clothing that her daughter had outgrown and Ruthie found this in the bag. Our little princess has her own crown now. She spent quite a bit of time admiring herself in the mirror.

My next several days of sewing are planned out and I'm very excited. We're enjoying the Olympics and it seems a lot has gotten done in the first week of them, I hope that I can be just as productive during the second!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Settling In and Gearing Up

2010-02-12T09:45:00.013-06:00

We haven't had much in the way of snowfall since early December, though until recently there has been snow on the ground. A couple of warmish days and the grass was peeking through again, but no more. We didn't get as much as predicted, but probably got about 8 inches. I loved it. It's the first good snow that came down during the daylight hours in a long time. One of my favorite things is to sit with some handwork and watch the snow fall. All this snow got me even more in the mood for the winter Olympics. We've been practically counting the days since the new year began and they are finally here. I will be watching as much as possible during the 17 days of Olympic coverage, starting with the opening ceremonies tonight. Our Olympic tradition includes popcorn. We call them the running bowls of popcorn because they always have something in them. Yesterday, I made the caramel corn as it will keep without getting stale. The picture doesn't do it justice.
I also make plain, cinnamon sugar, and parmesan pepper and at least two flavors will be out each evening. I'm hoping my plan to quilt through them keeps me from eating TOO much because I'll need to keep my fingers clean!

The main project for during the Olympics is to finish quilting the shade. I'm getting close to only the outer blocks needing to be quilted, still a lot of work, but quite doable. Each square of strips is a four block unit (with the attached background pieces, which have a motif in them) and I can quilt a 4 block unit in an afternoon (or evening) if I'm mostly quilting. The binding for this one is made, so I should easily be able to do the machine sewing part during an Olympic break should I get that far.

Next Friday night, I'll be participating in the Friday Night Sew-In over at "Handmade by Heidi" . I have a committment Saturday morning, so can't stay up as late as I'd like, but I like those kinds of evenings for machine work. Part of my Over the Tops challenge is to learn to use my curved piecing foot and making a baby quilt top with Drunkard's Path blocks. I'll have the pieces cut before then and hope to finish the night with the top well under way. I would SO love to stay up until the wee hours that night, but can't this time. To join in the fun, click the link and sign up!

Also during the course of the next week or so I plan to mark the Oriental Roads quilt. I ordered some red thread for the quilting and plan to pick up the batting next week so this one will be ready to quilt as soon as the shade is done. I've realized that my challenge probably is more than I can really do, but I'm going to give it a good go!

Ruthie can still be found sleeping in the afternoon on occasion.

More often, the picture below is what we find. She's rarely upset or angry and when she is, it's pretty short lived. She usually looks a little disheveled, but is almost always sporting a smile.

Her speech continues to improve both in clarity and functionality. She's stringing words more often and can most definitely let you know what she wants! We're hoping she gets into the Olympics. I watched some tapes of the 2008 summer games this week, to get in the mood (and there was NOTHING else on TV that I wanted to see) and she would come running when she heard the theme.

I still have a few things to do before the "big night" tonight. We're meeting with friends tomorrow so I have a couple of cakes to make along with a few odds and ends to finish today so I can park myself tonight to quilt...and watch the world come together.

While the athletes are competing at sports, I hope to get an Olympic amount of quilting done in the next 16 days!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Over the Tops - First Finish!

2010-01-27T19:34:00.006-06:00

The flying geese quilt is done! The first on my challenge list to be completed all the way to the binding. I'm so excited to see this long term project finished. I started this about 10 years ago with an internet friend. I don't know that she ever finished hers, but we spent hours and hours talking about them and planning them, trading fabrics and she designed and printed the foundation paper pattern we made them on. This is a close up picture of the some of the quilting. Here is a view of the whole thing. It's funny, this was one that I thought I would love, but along the way I thought "eh, it's ok" but I absolutely love how it came out and am so glad that it's finished and didn't remain a UFO forever.

My plan was to have something in the quilting stage all of the time, with so many big projects to quilt, I needed to keep the hand quilting train on the tracks. Since the cornice box cover top was done, I quickly basted it and put it in the hoop. This one quilted up so quickly, I couldn't believe it. Here is a closeup view.

Here is a picture of a little more of it, this is just over half, there are 7 full diamond shapes across this cornice cover. The bottom is bound with the same fabric as the background, but the other 3 sides are bound with a print. The reason for this is so that a colored bottom binding doesn't "draw a line" across the shade when the shade is down.

With that one quilting up so quickly, I was again left with nothing in the hoop. A 10% off coupon for the grocery store in addition to some careful planning meant I could buy a package of batting today. I already had the backing, so the shade is now on the table for basting. I'm nearly done and it should be ready quilt in less than an hour. I'll spend the rest of the evening hand quilting.

My plan for the next few days is to applique during the day and hand quilt at night. I'm really anxious to be done with the celtic and posies top and it's getting close now.

We're also counting down the days until the start of the winter Olympics. I should be able to get a huge amount of hand work done during that 16 days. My girls and I will be total couch potatoes as much of that time as possible. I'm not sure which project(s) will get a lot of attention during those days, but I'm gearing up for many happy hours of handwork.

Until next time,

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Unexpected Blessing

2010-01-12T17:21:00.004-06:00

It's been a busy few days! I've made some progress on the flying geese quilt though I doubt it will really be done by the end of the weekend. I plan to spend this evening quilting on it, as well as a good part of the next several days.

A couple of my kids were gone for the weekend and met up with an email friend of mine, who said she had fabric for me if the kids would swing by her way. They did, and I received 2 shopping bags full of fabric that already have my mind a-whirling. Thanks, Kimberly! Among the pieces was 9 yards of 60" wide home fashions fabric.

My little couch has been in dire need of re-covering for a long time. It's been well used and just wouldn't come clean anymore. Some of the fabric was even tearing (in it's defense, it really wasn't made to be upholstery fabric!)

Part of me SO wanted to do it right away last night, but that meant moving a lot of stuff around, making a huge mess and needing to finish because we had friends coming in the morning to meet up with us for breakfast out. But that little couch kept calling to me. So at about 8:00, I decided to go for it and get it done.

I'm so glad I did! Really, I should probably pull some of it off, when I did the bottom part some things didn't really line up right and I just stapled the heck out of it, but, for now, it's done and looks ok. It will mostly be covered with a sheet or blanket, at least for a while, to keep it as nice as possible for as long as possible. The covers will come off when we have friends come over.

I finally finished around midnight and it took a while to clean up and wind down, but it was very worth it.

Our friends came today and we had a lovely visit. Tonight I'll be quilting and cleaning up the bit of kitchen mess still left to care for.

I got the book Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Christmas and I'm having a ball with it. I've actually made a few things from it already and have plans to try many more. A lot of them are a bit pricey for my budget, but I will collect the ingredients that are not perishable and those that I can freeze and will buy the perishables when I plan to cook.

I made a chocolate cake from the book that was fabulous. My friend, who LOVES chocolate, said she thinks it is the best chocolate dessert I've made for her, which is high praise because I've made a lot of them and many were really, really good.

Hopefully I'll be spending the rest of the winter doing a lot of quilting...and cooking!

Keep Warm!

Sue

Over the Tops - This is the Year

2010-01-09T10:18:00.009-06:00

My biggest quilting year ever has begun. What I'm hoping is that this is the beginning of a few more years like it. I really want to get some old projects done and looking through my storage compartment I saw how many tops there are under there to quilt. The plan will be to quilt most of them simply but often once I get them out and start to really look at them the quilting plan gets bigger.

I'm excited to have made quite a bit of progress on the flying geese quilt. It's over half quilted now, and I have one more double row of geese like the one below, a sashing piece (not too wide, it's the size of the border shown at the left in the photo), a single row of geese and then the outer border. The binding is already made and ready to sew on to the quilt. I really hope to be binding by next weekend.
This morning I basted the cornice cover for the roman shade in my sewing room. It will go into the hoop as soon as the geese are done, and buys me a bit of time to get the batting for the shade. I had planned to quilt Oriental Roads next, but I'm on a roll with this shade so that one will get bumped. The plan is to get the batting and backing for that one as soon as possible so that I can have it marked and ready to quilt as soon as the shade is finished.

I finished the top for the shade last night and am really happy with how it came out. Rebekah and I played with it several weeks back to find the best way to place the blocks. I will be making another strip block quilt for the couch by the window, that one will have smaller blocks, but it probably won't get any attention until next year.

Ruthie continues to do very well. When she's tired she'll settle herself wherever she is and nod off. The older kids laugh at how little space she still takes up a lot of the time (though when she snuggles down with us at night for a bit before moving to her own bed, she sure can manage to take a lot of space in our queen sized bed!)

Below she is showing off her Christmas pajamas. She LOVES pajamas and I brought these out for her on Christmas Eve, she was thrilled.

I have big quilting plans for today, hoping to make a serious dent in what is left on the flying geese quilt. It's quiet here today, two of the older kids are out of town, the other two have plans starting about 4:00 and I've been keeping up around here so a quick run of the vacuum and putting away some dishes leaves the house in pretty good stead. That leaves this afternoon and evening wide open for quilting, I plan to take advantage of it!

Happy Quilting, keep warm!

Sue

Ho! Ho! Ho!

2009-12-21T18:10:00.008-06:00

Has it really been nearly a month? It has flown by. I have been so busy that many days I didn't know if I was coming or going.

The stockings are hung. No mantle here, this has been their home every Christmas since our oldest was born in 1987. They are kind of a mishmash, now. A family friend made beautiful embroidered ones for our first four kids, but then stopped doing them after she retired and moved away. I made new ones out of fabric that fit each child's personality, but some of those have gone AWOL. A friend made stockings for all the kids one year and their gift from them was in it. This year a couple of each adorn our railing.
The decorations are on display. I love this little fiber optic tree. The penguin I bought a few years ago, it sings "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (I love that song) and there is an echo that is sung by a baby penguin that pops up. The snowmen were given to me by a friend last year. Ruthie loves these and one space or the other is often empty as she takes them down to play with them.

The cookies are all baked. 8 kinds this year (2-4 batches of each), plus homemade marshmallows for hot chocolate. I'm often scrambling at the end to finish them, but this year I started late Thursday morning and finished Saturday by dinner time. I still don't know how I got them done in that amount of time.

The tree has been bought and decorated. We get a real tree each year. Sometimes we cut them down, but lately it has been more economical, both in time and money, to get an already cut tree. The kids have all bought their gifts for one another (and for us) and have them wrapped and waiting under the tree.

Our gifts to them are still hidden in our closet. Though we don't have any Santa believers anymore, the gifts still won't go under the tree until they are all in bed Christmas Eve night.

I was in charge of the Christmas Eve program at church this year and it turned out to be quite a task. It is a 3 part play (which I wrote) with Christmas carols sung between acts by all in attendance (led by a team) while the scenery changes behind a curtain. All is in place for this and I'm surprisingly calm about it all.

Yesterday I made my lists of things that need to be done each day. Today I had a sheet of directions to type up for my curtain guys, who will be raising and lowing a curtain in front of the platform. My goal today was to do as little as possible having a family of 8 and I succeeded nicely, LOL. A load of laundry, my curtain guy directions, a couple of sink loads of dishes and some general picking up. Mostly, I quilted :)

The flying geese have come out of hiding and got all of my attention today. I want to also get back to the posies and celtic, but that will wait until Christmas is over and I can give it my full attention. Hand quilting is perfect relaxing work and that is what I did today. I'm looking forward to getting back to my quilting challenge.

And, Miss Ruth. We occasionally find her sitting or laying on the back of the couch, this time it was on the arm. She got off before I could get back with the camera, but happily climbed back on when I said I wanted to take her picture. Last year she was rather out of sorts on Christmas, perhaps just overwhelmed. I don't think she really gets it, but loves all the "pretty" around the house and she knows what to do with presents, I'm sure she'll have a wonderful time.

I don't know who is more excited for the day to come and for what reasons. The kids are more excited about what they picked out for each other, I think, than opening their own gifts. We are all looking forward to Christmas dinner, which we get to have twice, because our oldest daughter and her boyfriend will be with his family on Christmas. We'll do a repeat of Christmas dinner on Sunday and exchange our gifts with them.

I look forward to each of the next several days, and hate for it all to go too quickly, though I will surely enjoy next week, with NOTHING that needs to be done!

For now, I don't want to wish away all the fun and excitement of the next 6 days and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Healthy, Prosperous, Blessed New Year!

Sue

Hunting Weekend Wrap Up 2009

2009-11-25T22:02:00.009-06:00

Well, it wasn't the weekend I had planned earlier in the year, but it turned out to be a good one. Friday my husband emptied our small walk in closet, fixed all the shelves, we each went through our things and tossed a lot of junk and we again have a usable closet. He also put some shelving over his dresser to more easily store some things.

In cleaning it out, I found this. A nice bag of yarn, all rolled and ready to use. That gave me an idea. I had a couple of small gifts I needed to make and hadn't yet decided what to do. I pulled out some knitting needles and have been knitting like crazy.

The pictures don't really capture the color just right, it's a bit deeper pink and has a sparkly pink thread running through it. I decided scarves would be quick and easy. I'm making at least 3, maybe 4. One is done and will be given away this weekend. The next two have to be done by the 11th and then I have until Christmas to make the 4th. These knit up really quickly and are a nice diversion, though I really want to get them finished and get back to my quilting.

This next picture was taken in our backyard, but it shows so well Jonathan's dedication and ingenuity when he decides to do something. This is a big chunk of a tree trunk someone brought to us for our firepit, only we didn't have a great way to cut it up. He decided he wanted to use it as a firepit, chipped out an area in the middle it so wasn't flat on top and would contain the fire, drilled holes for air and so that it would burn into the trunk some and placed the wood around the bottom for extra safety as far as sparks.

Though he got it started easily, he had more trouble than usual keeping it going and restarted the fire several times. He spent a few hours out there and really enjoyed it. He and our oldest, Joshua, really like camping and spend a lot of time just sitting by the fire when they do.

And of course, Ruthie. She loves blankets of any kind and will often bring one to be wrapped up in. She is talking so much these days and comes out with things that really surprise us sometimes.

Here she is with her little Cubbie Bear. She loves this little couch and settles there for at least a little while a couple of times a day. Usually covered up with a quilt and often accompanied by a dolly or stuffed animal.

Our hunter's (Joshua and Jonathan) did well, each getting a deer. This group they went with party hunts (shares what they get) so they came home with 3 leg quarters and a backstrap (to cut into steaks) so they were pretty pleased. They hunt again in two weeks here in Illinois and my husband will be able to hunt then, also. They generally do well here and are counting on at least two, but hoping for 4 or 5.

They've processed what they brought home and it's in the freezer. It's a big help to the grocery budget when they fill the freezer each fall!

Today I baked 3 pumpkin pies, a pecan pie and a pan of bakery style apple slices. Tomorrow I'll be prepping from the time I get up, though once all the chopping and prepping is done, there should be some time to relax before I really have to start cooking and getting it all together.

We have a really busy 4 days coming up, with Thanksgiving tomorrow, friends coming on Friday (her dishwasher broke and flooded her house, there is major repair work going on at the moment and Friday is her birthday), Saturday some of the kids' friends are coming for my annual making of turkey soup and we have other friends coming on Sunday for dinner and football. Is it Monday, yet?? LOL.

I hope you all have a Happy, Healthy Thanksgiving!

Sue

Hunting Weekend....sort of. And a Challenge Update

2009-11-19T15:00:00.013-06:00

My husband and two older sons are on their way to where they meet up with a few other guys for their 6 hour drive north.

Unfortunately, my husband isn't able to go with them and is dropping off our sons and coming home. He decided quite some time ago that going this year is probably not going to be possible (not enough money, nor enough people to cover his work while he's gone) and, though he's disappointed and I'm sure wishes he was going with them, he is excited about the list of projects he has in mind to do because, you see, though he is unable to make the trip, he took the usual days off his second job anyway. His last evening (he works second shift) was last night and he doesn't go back until the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Which means *I* don't get hunting weekend either. I think I'm taking it worse than he is, LOL.

Hunting weekend for me means as little cooking, dishes, and cleaning as possible, combined with as much sewing time as possible. It means stretching out in our big bed instead of being scrunched on one side (my husband is tall and restless when he sleeps) and it usually means staying up until all hours of the night sewing and watching movies.

This year, it means projects that my husband decided to do that he will inevitably need me to help out with, cooking regular meals, and not really getting a break. I told him that, while I'm really sorry for him that he can't go, I'm a little bit sorry for me, too. He told me I should sew as much as I want to :) So we'll see how the weekend goes. I'm glad to have him home more for the next week and a half, that's for sure, but launching into the holiday season without my little 5 day respite makes me sad.

BUT, I'm a cup half full kind of girl, the emotional adjustments have been made and I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time (except when he's frustrated when a project isn't going just as he planned *snort*) We're going out to breakfast tomorrow morning with Ruthie and Lucas so that should be a good start to our day.

Amvets is coming tomorrow so we cleaned out a bunch of closets and drawers. The big project of the weekend is redoing our closet. The organizer is falling apart (it's 25 years old) and he's basically pulling everything out, repairing or replacing what he needs to and then putting it all back together again. I actually went through a lot of my stuff already and hopefully by the end of the weekend we'll have a more functional closet (I've barely been using it for some time now.)

I did try to plan easy-ish meals which will buy me some quilting time and I don't sing this weekend which means no practice Saturday and not getting up extra early (I'm NOT a morning person) on Sunday.

As for quilting, Debbie's quilt is done. It's actually been done for a couple of weeks already and, though it wasn't really fun to work on, I do love how it came out. I'm thrilled to have all the big Christmas projects done before Thankgiving!

Here is a closeup of the quilting.

With Debbie's quilt done, the Flying Geese quilt is in the hoop. This one is really enjoyable to quilt on and I love how it's coming out. So far a single geese strip is quilted, as is a double and the connecting border strips. I'm on another double geese strip now. This one will go quite quickly, it seems.

Usually I plan a special project or two for hunting weekend, so decided to abandon quilting on the flying geese quilt for a few days and to focus on the posy and celtic quilt. I may spend a little time on other challenge quilts, too, but I don't multitask with my quilting as well as I used to and do better working on one thing for at least several days at a time.

After sewing some of the posies onto the border vine several weeks back, I decided to match up the rest to make sure I didn't end up stuck with too many of the same color at the end.

Here is the posy basket, holding all the matches, some of the leaves (there are still more to be cut), and the threads needed for sewing.

I've finished sewing on a posy set and now am on a set of leaves and hope to settle in after dinner for an evening of hand applique.

Here are Rachel and Ruthie, camped out watching a TV show. See the grin? She knows the camera is out, the little ham. She loves this little couch, and often settles on it later in the evening when she's getting tired. She also goes running to it whenever Say Yes to the Dress or So You Think You Can Dance are on the TV.

Ruthie turned 5 this past Monday. We had her family dinner on Sunday (though some of the family had previous plans, they gave her due attention on Monday) and we decided on ice cream instead of a birthday cake as she's not a big cake eater. At first she was hiding her face until we said we wanted a picture, then the smile came out.

All in all, life is good. Everyone is happy and healthy, we're headed into this holiday season much less stressed than the last couple of years and for that I'm very thankful!

And now it's time to run, my sewing is calling me and I need to take advantage of every minute I can find.

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Over the Tops - Moving Along

2009-10-11T19:47:00.012-05:00

My intention was to update more often than I have been of late, but I've been so busy that it's been easy to put it off. Fortunately, even among the busy-ness, I've been able to spend some time on my challenge projects.

I'm also thrilled to have finished the purple paper pieced quilt, I put the last stitches into the binding yesterday afternoon.

Here is a closeup of some of the quilting.

With this one finished, my sister-in-law's quilt is next to quilt. I had to mark the blocks and border and then baste the quilt. The basting gave me fits this time. I try to be frugal with my batting and backing because scraps of each can be used for other projects. Sometimes that comes back to bite me as I get far enough to shift the quilt on my table only to find that either the batting or backing doesn't reach as far as I thought. This happened TWICE this time. I was NOT a happy camper, but knew that I really wanted to get it basted that night so kept at it. Of course, once I've finally got the basting done, I'm not happy until those first stitches go in. I've been quilting on it for a couple of days now.

It seems as if this one is going to go pretty quickly and I love the border design so am anxious to get to it.

Sometime in the next week or two I'll be marking the flying geese quilt, it will go into the hoop next. I'll also be having a few small Christmas gift projectsto do along the way, but I'm determined to keep a big project in a hoop as much as possible.

The challenge project that has gotten quite a bit of attention in the last few weeks is the posy and celtic quilt. I'm really, really happy with how this is coming out. Here are the last of the flowers and leaves to be added along with the yo-yo maker I've been using and the stack of fabrics that are being used for the yo-yos.

I'm anxious to get back to this one, but want to pace myself. I have a lot of hand quilting to do before the challenge is over and I don't want to end up with all the tops done and waiting for quilting. I'm enjoying this one so much that it's hard to put it down. Here you can see a bit of the vine border up against the sashing and a block.

I hope to spend quite a bit of time quilting this week and plan to get a good bit of Debbie's quilt done and I would like to also get a fair portion of the vine/leaf/posy part of the border done. I should also do something on another challenge project, I haven't decided which it will be, yet.

I came out of the kitchen one day to find Ruthie laying on her belly watching the TV downstairs, which is a half flight down.

She is talking more and more, which we are really loving. She still has a long way to go, but is making good progress. She'll be 5 next month but is very small for her age. Combined with the speech delay it's easy to forget how old she is, but she really is more like a little girl than a toddler these days. I think that's it for this update. I'm watching playoff baseball and quilting, but took a break to write this post. The current game is nearly over and there is another yet to come, I've stoked up on coffee so I can stay up late and sew and will enjoy sleeping in tomorrow. We're keeping our heat at about 60, so the house is chilly in the morning. It's so nice to be snuggled under a few quilts while I lazily wake up in the morning.

My family is pretty busy tomorrow, so I should have a lot of sewing time. I'm making one of our favorite meals for dinner, boiled spareribs with sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and rolls cooked on top of the boiling pot. They will all be outside for a good part of the day and this is a perfect cold weather meal. Thankfully it's also a rather low maintenance meal while cooking, so it should leave me plenty of down time.
Happy Quilting!
Sue

Over the Tops - First Update

2009-09-21T09:55:00.008-05:00

These last couple of weeks have been much busier than I ever expected, but in spite of that I've been able to make some progress on a couple of my challenge projects.

To complicate things, I badly cut my left index finger on Saturday, while preparing for our Football and Food Fest day yesterday, rendering it pretty much useless for at least the next several days. Typing while watching the keys and substituting fingers REALLY slows one down when one is used to not looking at all! This was supposed to be a decidedly less busy week, but I'm now babysitting 3 afternoons and Rachel's algebra is taking us a couple of hours a day...add that to a gimpy left hand and I won't get nearly as much accomplished as I'd hoped, then again, just not having to leave the house except to grocery shop sounds pretty darn good in and of itself.

While the Purple Paper Pieced quilt isn't on my challenge list, I still want it to be finished before putting anything else in the hoop. I was on a roll until I hit the outer border, which is more tedious to quilt than I expected. I'm still going to quilt at least a little bit on it each day and will get back to it full force when my finger is more useful, for now having to do everything altering the position of my hand is really slowing me down.

I've spent a fair amount of time on two of the projects. The first is the Posy and Celtic quilt (which probably needs a new name, while the applique is done in the way celtic applique is done, it turns out that none of the designs are really celtic style designs.) I finished sewing the second side down to all the pieces in the sashing. I was still stumped as to what to do in the outer border.

I thought about and discarded several ideas. I felt like it needed some kind of braid in that outer border to "complete" the sashing braid. Just the braid didn't seem like enough, though. I finally drew out a design and laid it along the edge.

I had planned to put the braid in closer and then a vine and posy border outside of that. When I first planned this quilt, the outer border was to be a vine and posy border, but as I worked on the quilt, that idea changed. I laid this paper pattern up next to the top and it didn't seem to work. The braid alone wasn't enough, the vine seemed superfluous when on the outside.

In moving the top and border pattern around, one time it ended up with the vine border inside and the braid border outside. That was it! It looked complete with that braided border on the outside. I added the border strip and marked it all, and started to sew on the vine.

The other project that got a lot of attention is Radiating Rainbows. I cut 13 sets of blocks, and set up my applique box with all the thread needed, spare needles and a pair of scissors. If I need a takealong project, I can just pick up this box and go.

Each baggie has all the pieces to make 4 blocks as there are 4 of each color combination. This should keep me going for a while and once they are done I can lay them out and see what combinations are needed to balance out the colors in this top. Here is a finished block.

And of course, no post is complete without a Ruthie picture. Drawing is SO exhausting!

So now it's time to get to the quilting. Laundry is going, algebra is done, a bit of kitchen cleaning and picking up will fill in the times when I need to get up and move around a bit. Hopefully I'll et more sewing done than it seemed I would first thing this morning!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

"Over the Tops"....a quilting challenge

2009-09-08T18:25:00.014-05:00

I've been able to think of little else but my quilting challenge since my last post and have spent much of that time planning it out.

I decided that it needed several facets. Part of the challenge is the amount of projects I'd like to see completed by the end. My official start date is today, September 8, 2009, and the official ending date is December 31, 2010.

I guess the easiest way to do this is to just list off the projects and include any "why they are included" information in their description. The projects aren't listed in any particular order, and won't be completed in any particular order.

1. This is a very old project. Started for my husband's 40th birthday, this got side-lined for many different reasons. I started thinking about it again when two different things happened. The first was that I found the poem I wrote to go on the back of the quilt. The other was my husband's innocent "you don't have a need for an overhead projector, do you?" Many times over the years, I had wished I had one, when I had a pattern that needed to be enlarged. I told him that most definitely yes, I could use one and he's watching out for one (he works at the local high school and they often throw out equipment when it's been replaced with something better, even if it's still in working order.) This is a hand pieced project, it's a castle with a moat and surrounding grounds. Hanging out one of the "windows" will be the damsel (me) and coming up on a white horse will be a knight in armor (my dh). The plan will be to get this top done, quilted, and bound.

2. Posies and Celtic Quilt.
This is one that I really didn't want to end up as a "UFO." I need to finish the applique in the sashings (this is nearly finished), design and add the borders, and quilt it.

3. This project has two pieces. It's a roman shade and cornice cover. The top of the cornice cover is done, it needs to be quilted.

The shade has these same blocks, in a similar configuration but offset, hard to explain, but you'll see as I go! The individual blocks are all finished, the top needs to be assembled and quilted and then I have to learn how to string it and hang it so it is a working shade.

4. Another roman shade and cornice cover, this one is for our bedroom. The center pattern has been drawn but that is all that is done on this one so far.

I need to finish designing the shade itself (it needs a vine up the sides or something) and the cornice cover, applique them and quilt them, along with hanging them. This is one of the scarier things on my list.

5. I'm really feeling the need to quilt some of the tops that I've made that haven't had a particular reason for their creation.

Even though this top was finished just recently, the blocks were several years in the making. I'm really looking forward to this quilt, and it will be the first in the hoop once Debbie's Christmas quilt is finished.

6. Another I'm feeling the need to finish I call Oriental Roads. This is my version of Bren's Pink and Brown.

We made several tops one year where we used the same pattern, with our fabrics of choice. I couldn't figure out how to quilt this one, but an idea came to me and now I'm ready to get this one finished.

7. Drunkard's Path. This project has no real purpose but to force me to learn to use my curved piecing foot. A few years ago I spent $30 to get this little doodad, but never really took the time to get proficient with it. I've wanted to be able to do patterns with curves for a long time, now is the time to learn. This will probably be set in the traditional way, and I've not made any plans for it, yet, other than it will exist.

8. This is probably the most daunting of the projects for me. It will be called Radiating Rainbows. I haven't hand pieced in a long time and this one will have a lot of small pieces that will need to be carefully pieced. It will be made from Marti Mitchell's templates and will have 110 six inch hand pieced blocks.

The blocks will be 1/4 of a sunburst block, so 1/4 of a circle and will be set to radiate out from the center and then frame the outer edge. I'll be using the fabric I got for my birthday, to which I added a pink and a purple.

I've been looking at this pretty basket full of fabric for a few weeks now, and part of me hates to cut into it...part of me can't wait.

So there it is. Eight projects officially in my challenge, though I know that I also have to finish the purple quilt, quilt Debbie's quilt, make a few other small Christmas gifts, and of course there will be at least one Christmas gift quilt for next year and possibly a wedding quilt. Yikes.

For now, I'm focusing on what's in front of me. The purple one is a big priority, as nothing else will go into the hoop until it's finished. I'm not quite sure how I'll "schedule" the others, at first I'll be picking what I feel like doing each day. At some point, I'll likely settle into a couple at a time to focus on.

It's already late today and after a busy weekend and a much busier day today than I had planned, I still have dishes to do. Once they are done, though, I will have actually accomplished just about everything I needed to in order to make tomorrow a mostly sewing day. I'm looking forward to spending some time on at least a couple of these projects!

Happy Quilting!

Wish me luck!

Sue

Musings, Updates, and Ruthie

2009-09-06T22:06:00.016-05:00

I saw the movie "Julie & Julia" yesterday. My husband surprised me the night before, asking what was going on the next day. He often asks, to find out what's up with all of the kids for the weekend, but I could tell there was something different. When I finished the rundown of who would be where, I asked why. He said he wanted to take me to a movie. We haven't been to a movie together since "Sleepless in Seattle" came out. Generally, if we have the time and money to go out, we go out to dinner so we can talk, but he knew I really wanted to see this movie.

It will be on my Christmas list if it's out on video by then, I LOVED it. I also plan to get Julia's first book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." I love to cook nearly as much as I love to quilt and was completely mesmerized by some of the dishes made, and some of the exerpts read in the movie.

I was enthralled in the movie theater, I think perhaps because I see some of each Julie and Julia in myself.

Quilting is to me as cooking is to Julia. Julia tried several things before learning to cook, because she needed something to fill her time. I learned to knit at 10 years old, and have done some form or other of needlework since then. I knitted in study halls at school, at home in front of the TV, I added stamped cross stitch, needlepoint, crewel, and counted cross stitch to my repertoire as the years went on. I can remember bringing cross stitch projects to stitch during my break time at work.

Then one day, I got an advertisement in the mail for a quilting book. I was intrigued. I was intimidated. I WANTED that book. Eventually I bought a quilting book. Little by little, I read my way through, studying it, learning the steps, daring myself to try it. Pregnant with Rachel, baby number 3, I decided it was time to try. What better trial project than a baby quilt? I bought supplies, carefully made my templates, and spent afternoons hand sewing those attic window blocks with the fussy cut inset squares. I made a baby quilt and changing table pad, hand pieced and hand quilted, in just 3 weeks. I WAS HOOKED and I was off and running. Much like Julia was with her cooking.

Julie, on the other hand, was trying to find her way. She took on a big project, something to keep her busy, something to focus on, and something to finish. She was obssessed.

I understand that obssession. I feel that way often because quilting is so much more to me than just making a blanket. Along with being a creative outlet, time spent quilting is also spent praying, meditating on God, and thinking through problems. I reminisce and daydream, plot and plan, all the while the machine humming while I piece, or the needle gently gliding in and out while hand quilting or appliquing. It brings me peace and it's such a gift.

I'm planning a "Julie" project. I haven't decided what it is, yet. Maybe it will be multiple things, a list of techniques I want to try, and projects I want to finish, a list that hold me accountable for the rambling "someday" things that run through my mind.

In the meantime, I've got quite a few projects in the works!

Debbie's quilt remains on my design board.The main reason is that I got on a roll with the purple paper pieced quilt and decided I wanted to finish it before moving on. Often in the past, I've needed to set aside quilts to take on deadline projects, or have put projects aside because they were tedious to work on, only to have them sit for a very long time before getting picked up again. I'm attempting to break that habit.

I've also learned how to play mind games with myself to make less enjoyable parts of things more palatable. I decided to quilt all the purple blocks first, because those were more difficult. I had two different motifs in the alternating blocks, and one of those was much easier than the other.

The little heart wreath is adorable, but there is LOTS of turning the hoop involved. I decided all these needed to be finished first. I then moved onto the other motif and those worked up quite quickly. I'm now doing the white border (also being quilted in purple thread) and it won't be long at all now until this quilt is finished. Though I really wanted to finish it before moving on, in the back of my mind I was pretty sure it would get set aside yet again. The fact that I've plowed through the most difficult part and now find myself just a week or so away from finishing this has given my motivation a big push. I've been more diligent about using my time wisely, and hope that I'm setting myself up for good habits come fall.

I also spent some time on the triangle paper project.

I still have quite a few sheets of triangle paper left to find fabric for, and I may work on this some tomorrow. The 1/2 square triangle units in the box are all sewn together and waiting for pressing, which will be done a few at a time. Quite a few of these will be made into Pinwheel blocks, the rest are left as 1/2 square triangle units.

Soon to be in the forefront is the posies and celtic quilt. I spent a couple of days last week making more bias tape for the outer border.

I still haven't decided for sure what will go into that outer border. I'm pretty sure there will be a vine, leaves and posies. I might also need to do a smaller braid type thing between the blocks and the vine border to finish it out properly since there is so much applique in the sashing. I plan to concentrate on this more as soon as the purple quilt is finished.

I'm pretty sure I've decided on a project for the fabric I got for my birthday, and it might be part of my Julie project. While typing this post, I already thought of a few things I'd LOVE to finish as part of this challenge. I guess part of the challenge will be naming it!

And now for Miss Ruthie. She's been in rare form of late. Because of her limited vocabulary, it's easy to forget how much she really understands. She still catches us off guard sometimes when she answers questions. Today, Rachel was asking her a bunch of questions, all to which she said "no." Rachel asked if no was her favorite word and Ruthie paused and looked at her and said "Yes!" Rachel was quite amused, "most little kids would say 'no' again!" she said.

She was playing in the kitchen one day and called me to take her picture.

She had some rearranging to do.

She then smiled big and said "picture" in her own inimitable way.
I can't get away with pretending anymore, she demands to see the picture in the back of the camera once it's taken.

She likes to dress up. She will often find a hat, then find me and ask for a picture. Really, though, who wouldn't want to capture this for posterity?

Or this? This is her current "shopping" getup, she'll put on shoes, the hat, and the purse and push her little cart around the house. The other day, she stopped, reached into the purse, pretended to put something in her mouth, grinned and said "gum!"
And now, believe it or not, my update is finished. I hope to post more often now that we're starting our school work and, in general, things are less busy here. In the meantime, I'll be thinking about the currently nameless self challenge and what it will entail.

Until then,

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Summer is Winding Down

2009-08-17T09:36:00.011-05:00

Our first day of school is the day after Labor Day. Our local schools start today, but we home school so can pick our start date. We enjoy these last couple of weeks of summer very much and this year it's much cooler than usual for the middle/end of August and that is just adding to the pleasure of these days.

I have even surprised myself with how much quilting/sewing I've done this summer. Usually I'm more than ready for Fall to arrive so I can ramp up the quilting, and in spite of what I've accomplished, I actually could do more if the computer didn't call my name so often.

The table runner went far faster than I thought possible and the quilting and binding were finished just 3 days after I started.

The completed table runner gave me a boost to finish the last of the blocks for Debbie's quilt. I assembled this one as each row was finished as there is applique where the blocks connect and that would be easier without so much bulk. I'm looking forward to beginning the quilting on this one. I plan to mark it in the next couple of days and baste in the next week or so. We had a few warm and muggy days, today isn't so warm but is very damp because of rain, so hand quilting isn't appealing today. It's to be in the lower 70s by the end of the week, though, which is very cool for this time of year here, so if the basting isn't done the purple paper pieced quilt may get some more attention. Here is Debbie's top.

I trimmed down the triangle paper I printed off so I may ready and sew a few pieces of that to get the next scrap quilt started. I also need to mark and trim the blocks for the next strip pieced quilt, which is good muggy weather work.

I couldn't resist this pose. Sometimes Ruthie will ham it up for the camera, other times I try to catch something she's doing and she'll move before I can get it. She got passed down a bunch of princess dress up, she loves it. Yesterday she spent most of the day running around in this dress. Princess Ruthie had finally worn herself out. Hopefully my next post will find Debbie's quilt well under way and a couple of new projects under way as well. Remember this one? I LOVE this top and came across it straightening up the growing pile of quilts in my sewing room. I've promised myself I'd finish the purple paper pieced top before moving onto the flying geese top, I'm hoping that will be the incentive I need to forge ahead with the purple one. I love it, but the blocks are tedious to quilt and it's sucking the fun out of it some. I know that I'll be very glad to have it finished, so it stays out where I can see it. I'm going to try to quilt at least a block a day on it (not a huge feat, the blocks are only 6 inches) and hopefully quilting one will lead to another. If not, one a day will eventually get it done!

I've also pulled out the Posies and Celtic top. I finished sewing one side of all the sashing pieces down some time ago, that's the most tedious part because it's where the placement and trimming of pieces happens, so now I just have to sew down the second side of it all. I spent a good part of the last couple of days doing that and am now getting to where there isn't much left. The big problem is I still haven't figured out what to do with the outer border. I haven't even sewn it on, yet, because I didn't want to limit what I could do there. I want to put another celtic design but decided using the same green as the sashing would be way too much green. I had hoped to find a floral that incorporated a similar green and at least a few of the other colors, but so far no luck.

I have a book of celtic borders and I figure if I peruse it enough, and keep checking out my stash that something might come to me. This one will have a huge amount of quilting on it, it's being quilted like the table toppers I made last year and will also have all the celtic that needs to be quilted around. I'm looking forward to this one, but know it will probably be a long term quilting project as it will be quite tedious to do.

In the meantime, it can't be quilted until it's done, and nothing will get done with me sitting here! So off I go, to sew down some celtic, pin a few triangle paper fabrics for sewing and to do a bit of quilting on the purple quilt. My inlaws are here for the day tomorrow, so a bit of straightening needs to be done as well. That will happen later in the day as, with all the coming and going here, anything done this early will surely be undone by later!

Happy quilting!

Sue

Flying Along

2009-08-03T13:19:00.006-05:00

Much to my surprise, Emma's quilt is done! I really didn't expect it to go quite this quickly, though I did get an inkling early on. I'm really happy with the results and hope she will be, too.Debbie's is not anymore ready for the hoop than it was last time I mentioned it as I've been solely working on Emma's quilt. I hope to rectify this in short order but first I have one more project that needs to be finished.

It's a sobering thought when your children's friends start getting married. Our daughters went to a bridal shower yesterday and only had a week notice so I pitched in for the gift. Our 4 older kids will all be going to the wedding and are all chipping in and buying them something off of their registry. I told them I would add a table runner to the gift if they wanted me to, and they did.

Interestingly, I had pulled this project so I had something to quilt on between Emma's and Debbie's, if need be, and we decided last week it would make a perfect gift for their friends. As it turns out, the dishes they got are brown and green, so this should be a really nice compliment to them. This pattern was designed by my friend, Tyanne, you can find this pattern and many others on her website. This is also quilting up much more quickly than I thought, I started last night and everything to the right of the hoop (except the border) is already quilted. The printed section at right edge of the hoop is the center point, so I'm more than half done. I expect to be working on the border this evening and hopefully binding (it's already made) in the next couple of days.

Keeping to my promise to myself to have something in the hoop at all times, I pulled out another basted, unfinished quilt. These blocks were made as part of an internet swap several years back. A few of the blocks are quilted, but at the time I started the quilting it seemed really tedious and I probably had to set it aside for a gift project. On this one, I'm quilting in the ditch on the paper pieced blocks to give the blocks texture. Since with paper piecing the pieces are often small (these are 6 inch blocks) this seemed the best way to quilt this one. The alternating blocks have continuous line motifs in them, which are fast and fun to quilt. I'm not sure how much of this will get done before Debbie's top is finished. I suspect that knowing this is what it is in the hoop will have me appliquing more, LOL, but we'll see. I really love to hand quilt and I'm more determined than ever to finish up some of the tops I have waiting around here. With the hangers of made binding on them, I have a visual reminder of the work that is waiting for me. I'll feel much better about working on new things if those hangers start to empty out a bit.

I have a few projects that are really starting to call my name, but I'm trying to not get too involved in anything else until these "must do" projects are finished.

Of course, any time the camera is out, Miss Ruthie insists that her picture be taken, too. And now it's time to wrap this up and get to work.

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Lucas' Day and, of course, Some Quilting

2009-07-25T10:20:00.013-05:00

Lucas turned 9 yesterday. He's been looking forward to his birthday for weeks now, as he knew he would ge to go to his favorite Chinese buffet for lunch and choose his dinner. He likes to eat! My husband was able to take the evening off, so once he finished his morning work, we headed out for lunch, just the 3 of us.

After lunch, we took him shopping for his gifts. This became the birthday tradition for the girls a while ago because they usually wanted clothing and it was more practical, and more fun, to take them out and let them pick what they want and try it on so they weren't disappointed with ill-fitting clothing.

Lucas had a few specific things in mind, so off we went. He had money from us, some from his grandma and some that he had saved from his allowance. His brothers and sisters gave him the PS2 memory card that he wanted and he was able to find the video game, the board game, and the nerf gun he wanted.

He had enough left to get a small wall mount CD player for his room, and an inexpensive CD. He thought he'd be saving for a long time for that, so was quite happy with his treasures as we arrived back home.

His chosen dinner was deep fried calzones. I got a deep fryer a couple of Christmases ago and it's the hit of all the kids' friends. Last fall, Rachel's boyfriend wanted to try making calzones in it and they came out great. Shortly after that, Lucas decided that he'd found his birthday dinner choice.

They are a LOT of work! Only a couple at a time fit in the fryer, thankfully Rachel's boyfriend manned the fryer while I made the calzones and we were able to keep it moving pretty well, but couldn't really all sit together and eat. No matter, though, they had fun playing video games while eating with occasional ambushes from the nerf gun and a good time was had by all. Rebekah and her boyfriend found a couple of video games for him as well, so he has a lot to keep him occupied on gloomy days.

His "cake" choice was an ice cream cake. When the kids were small, they liked the boxed cakes because they could pick the cake flavor and icing flavor quite easily, but several years ago now we started making all different things for birthday desserts. Trifles are one of the favorites, and we've done cheesecake, various homebaked cakes, giant frosted cookies and a myriad of other things as birthday cakes.

This is the second time that Lucas has chosen ice cream cake. The bottom layer is crushed chocolate filled chocolate sandwich cookies, then vanilla ice cream with chocolate swirl, followed by a drizzle of both caramel and chocolate syrup, a layer of whipped topping, and another drizzle of caramel and chocolate sauces. It really looked good! And tasted even better.

What a busy day it was! Rachel's boyfriend left at about 11 and everyone went to bed but me. I settled down in my quiet house for a while to just relax.

After a jam packed day of activity here yesterday, today is remarkably quiet. Joshua left a while ago to help out with "Family Faith Night." It's a yearly event here tied to our city's Fiesta Days where they get a Christian artist to come perform in the park for a reasonable entry fee. There is a lot of set up and tear down work, done mostly by volunteers from local churches. He won't likely be home until it's all over, late tonight.

Rachel is babysitting all day and into the evening, and Rebekah is working and then going with her boyfriend, it's his birthday today, to his parents' house for their second birthday dinner in two days. Rachel's boyfriend had promised Lucas they would roam the small woods near his house and make dinner in the woods. Jonathan and a couple of other guys were going as well. They've already left and are going food shopping, then preparing what they need to for their forage in the woods and will cap their day by cooking chili over a fire. Lucas has been looking forward to this for weeks.

I don't expect any of them back until later this evening, which leaves me and Ruthie here alone for the moment. My husband is out working but should be home soon. I'll spend my day mostly sewing, I hope, and taking my time with dinner (chicken wings) and kitchen clean up.

Emma's quilt is moving along, I'm on block 24 of 80 (6 inch blocks.) I will spend a good part of my day working on it.

I've also started the next block of Debbie's quilt, and will alternate hand quilting and applique as time and motivation allow. Ruthie is hanging out in my sewing room with me. My husband will probably spend some time out in the yard and I'm sure she'll take that chance to go outside. For now, she's happy in the big chair, with her newly painted pink toes, playing with whatever odds and ends happen to be within her reach.

Sundays tend to be quiet here as well, the kids usually have activities planned for after church, though there is a bit of coming and going and friends popping in to meet up with them, which is fun, too.

Of course, since I started writing, things have already changed a bit, Joshua is back and will probably be here all afternoon, though that could change if one of his friend's shows up. What that means is my nice quiet quilting and Cubs game afternoon has gone out the window as my husband, who just got home, and Joshua will chatter through the whole thing! They'll be happy, and that's what important, and I can always sit in another room :)

For now, I'm going to sign off and get to my quilting. I should be able to get a lot done today. With several new project waiting for me, and the hope of quilting the flying geese this year after all, I'm feeling pretty motivated to get these Christmas quilts done as soon as possible!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Some Quilting and Some Ruthie

2009-07-23T10:36:00.016-05:00

Our cooler-than-normal-for-northeastern-Illinois summer has been GREAT for quilting. There have been very few days that are too warm to hand quilt, and on those I was able to applique.

This week, I finished Katie's quilt. Simple and warm, I hope that she likes it and it keeps her cozy through their Montana winter.

Here is a picture of the border, the design is more easily seen since since I haven't washed out the marking, yet. I've been really enjoying these all over type designs in my borders lately. As much as I love fancy motifs, these all over ones fill the space and frame out the quilt nicely.

I now have 3 rows of Debbie's assembled, with 8 more blocks (2 more rows) to make. This one made me nervous at first, I wasn't sure of the colors but I'm really happy with how it's coming out, so far. It's a pretty simple design and I'm trying to decide how to quilt it. I think that I'll be outlining the applique (as I do on all of my applique) and then freehanding stippling in the spaces.

Just minutes after putting the last stitch in the binding of Katie's quilt, I was clearing my table to baste Emma's. Thinking ahead, I pieced the back of hers when I sewed the binding to the front of Katie's quilt so as soon as the binding was done I could begin the basting process. Emma's is now in the hoop and progressing nicely.

If I continue at this pace, I could be just about done with my Christmas quilting by the time we hit Labor Day, which would be thrilling! With other projects waiting in the wings, the thought of finishing early and working on other projects, projects that can be put aside to do various other small Christmas gifts, is almost hard for me to comprehend as I usually spend from September or October through December working like a madwoman to finish for Christmas.

Waiting for "time" are several projects. One is the shade and cornice box cover for my sewing room window. The blocks are finished and need to be assembled. I may assemble and baste the cornice box cover soon as I have scraps of batting that should be just the right size.

Also waiting are two new paper foundation projects. One is a strip quilt for the couch by the sewing room window, this one has two different sized strips and more background for nice quilting spaces. The blocks are also a bit smaller. These are printed and ready for me, I need to draw on the sewing lines and trim them before I begin. I also need to cut up some more scraps. I have a lot of various light background scraps that are hard to use up, so I should be able to use up quite a bit of that as well.

The other paper foundation project is being made with triangle paper. This one has 3 different sizes of half square triangles and will be another great scrap quilt. One nice thing about these quilts is I can sew for as little or long a time as I feel like on my machine and make some progress. While our weather has been wonderful, I imagine a hot spell will come at some point and machine sewing is a really good activity for hot weather. I can sit still with a fan blowing on me and still be productive!

There is also the shade for our bedroom, that for sure will be waiting until after the holidays, it will take quite a bit of concentration and planning and winter will be a great time for that.

Of course, there is also the posy and celtic quilt, which has been calling me of late. I still have to sew down the second side of some of the appliqued braid. I'm also searching for just the right fabric to make a celtic design in the outer border, and am hoping to find one that incorporates most, if not all, of the colors in the quilt.

There are not really enough hours in the day to do all I want to do. I've often said I wish that I didn't have to sleep, but my family did because that would mean many uninterrupted hours every night!

And now for Ruthie. She is doing just great. Her language skills and vocabulary seem to be improving daily. She used to be more quiet when other people were around, but has gotten more used to some of the kids' friends and will engage them by showing them her toys or one of her new skills. Here she is with Lucas, who will be 9 tomorrow, on the swing in our backyard. Unfortunately, poor Lucas has the same trouble with brightness as I do, and all the pictures I took of him out with Ruthie that day he has the same scrunched up face.Here she is eating ice cream. She LOVES ice cream and we have to make sure she's finished her meal before we mention the word or she's DONE and ready for ice cream!

Ruthie has been wearing this scarf around her neck quite often these days, it makes me hot to just look at her. This day, she wanted Jonathan to put it on her like a hat.

When I know she's tired, settling her in on my little couch will usually mean she'll sleep pretty quickly. She will often ask for a "pilolow" and a "banket."

And finally, whenever Rebekah is cutting anyone's hair, Ruthie wants hers done, too. Usually we trim bangs or a bit off of the back, but last time I told Rebekah she could do whatever she wanted and to think about it. It was getting quite long and really needed something, whether just some taken off the bottom, or a "style." Here is what she did.

She had about 7 inches cut off of it, I nearly cried! I love the ponytails and will miss them, but this cut sure is cute on her. It's stacked a bit in the back and the bit of curl is because Rebekah curled Rachel's hair that day, so she had to have some curls, too. I'm hoping she'll start to let me use a blow dryer and curling iron on her occasionally.

That same day, we took her to Olive Garden with a gift card we'd gotten a few months ago. The other kids were all busy, so she got to go on a date with us. She was the hit of the wait staff, the cheese girl especially was just enamored with her. When our dinner came, she came back to ask if we wanted cheese on our entrees. I hadn't even put food on Ruthie's plate, yet, but the girl asked her if she wanted cheese and she smiled really big and said "yes!" and the girl happily obliged, making a little pile of grated cheese on her plate.

All in all, it's been a busy summer, but mostly the kind of busy I enjoy. Keeping it all together here, with lots of time for quilting. I hope that you all are having the same!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

My Wonderful Weekend

2009-06-29T19:14:00.014-05:00

I had a BIG birthday this past weekend. As the birthday maker in our house, I had decided to tell my family what I wanted for the BIG birthday was to not cook or do dishes on the day.

They had better plans than that :) About 10 days prior, my husband told me that I'd have two days off for my birthday. So Saturday and Sunday, I didn't have to cook, clean or do dishes. He took me to lunch Saturday and then to the mall to walk around for a while. He knew that I couldn't just sit while my family cleaned around me. Their plan, he told me, was to have the cleaning done and the food prep done before we got back (he was doing the grilling when we returned.)

What he didn't tell me was our good friends and their family would be here when we got back, for dinner and to spend the evening. This is what my friend brought me for my birthday. I was very excited, it's been a long time since I had all new fabric to work from for a quilt. There is a yard and a half each of the colors, 5 yards of muslin. The batting is 81" x 96". My plan is to buy a yard and a half of pink and purple to add to them, and I should then be able to make two quilt tops. The first is planned, I hope to do a block in the next couple of days to show. This one will be hand pieced...and take a long time in all likelihood.

I have a friend who calls me her adopted daughter and she will often give me money for Christmas and my birthday. My daughters decided that since I take them shopping for new clothes and out to lunch for their birthdays that this time they would take me. I got all those nice clothes at Christmas time, but my summer wardrobe was just as sad as my winter one was before. The girls told their brothers and my dh about their idea and they also chipped in what they would have spent on a gift. My mother in law also sent me money for my birthday so we pooled it all and hit the stores.

I was a little discouraged at first, finding things that really didn't look all that good on me. I had an idea what I wanted, and really needed to concentrate on "bottoms." Tops are easy to pick up here and there and easy to fit, not so much so for the bottom half.

We got on a roll, though, and this is what I came home with today. The skirt on the right is a blue/black denim.

The skirt on the right in this one is denim, also. I love wearing skirts and dresses, the denim ones are for when I'm out and about doing errands, practices, etc. They can also be dressed up a bit with nice shoes and a nicer top for Sunday wear.
Next up are the shirts, there are 4 of them along with 2 camis, one cream, one brown. I have a black one and will start to collect other colors, along with some solid color tops to make all of this more usable. These are both florals (obviously) the one on the right has long sleeves and the background color is brown. It will actually work for all seasons since it's light enough for a cool summer night, yet with a shirt under will be cute as well.
The shirt on the left is a bit gauzy and more casual. I loved this one on and was a little disappointed that the only other color of this one was out of my size. The shirt on the right is a little more dressy, with the rhinestone pin on a ruffly thing on the front, the outer layer being a floral sheer fabric.
Next up are a dress and jacket. The jacket is black and when buttoned fits really nicely. The dress is brown and cream, and is really comfortable.
Next we hit the shoe store. I have a few pair of black shoes, and a couple of pair of brown that are good for winter, but not so much for summer. I just had to have the yellow shoes, they will go great with the skirt with yellow in it or pretty much whenever I want to add a pop of color to my outfit. The brown sandals are for every day wear and the peep toe brown wedges ( they look black in the picture) for when I want to dress up the every day look a bit. They also go with the dress.
Lastly the accessories. The yellow blouse that I really liked to go with the yellow skirt was too big, so we didn't get it. I'm going to wear a black cami and the jacket for now and keep an eye out for something yellow to wear instead. Rachel decided I needed something else with yellow and she was thrilled to find the necklace and earring set. Since the jewelry was buy one, get one half off, I also got a set of bangles. I love bangle bracelets, but they usually won't fit over my hands. I've always had broad hands with short fingers. These fit nicely and I was so excited to find them!
Everything but the denim skirts were on sale, so I was able to get much more than I dared hope to get.

Of course, good Old Murphy, how dare we have a good day without having something bad happen. My husband had to stop quickly with our van and a piece of equipment fell forward and broke the gear shift. He had his wits about him enough to not get himself in a position where he had to back up since he couldn't shift at all.

I work hard to be a cup half full kind of gal so I'm focusing on the good and trying not to cry over spilled milk. While we certainly didn't need that expense right now, it is what it is.

In spite of my busy last few days, I did get a bit of sewing done. I now have 4 blocks together on my sister in law's quilt. I plan to applique a bit more tonight.

It is a lovely, cool evening here, so I'm going to do some more sewing tonight. Tomorrow the high is only 69 here, which is rare for the end of June. I'm going to take full advantage since my house is still clean from the weekend. I'll be doing some laundry, but other than that I hope to mostly quilt. It will be cool enough to hand quilt, so I may spend a good part of my day on that. I also hope to get the first block of the new quilt going since the Christmas quilts are moving along so well.

And lastly, Ruthie.

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Time Flies When You're Having (mostly) Fun....or How I Spent My Last 3 Weeks

2009-06-23T10:16:00.011-05:00

I've gotten a lot done in the past few weeks. I've been hunkering down and trying to work my way through some things, I have a BIG birthday coming and it's brought up feelings for me that I didn't expect. What better way to work through some emotional baggage than with busy fingers! So I've been working like a madwoman and am really excited about how much I've gotten done.

Arnie's quilt is done. I'm thrilled with how it came out, it's bound and ready to be sent in early December.

Here is a closeup of the quilting.

Katie's quilt is in the hoop and I've begun the quilting. The last several days have been warm and humid here, so not good for a quilt in the lap. I avoid the a/c whenever possible because of the expense, so I've been working on applique these last few days. The a/c is on today, though, and I'll hand quilt some of today and tomorrow while I'm holed up inside, hiding from the heat and humidity. Emma's top is done, too. I'm really pleased with this one. I'll be basting it in the next couple of weeks so it's ready to go when Katie's is done.If you look closely, you can see little fingers holding the right side of the top, Miss Ruthie had to help, too, then had to have her own turn holding it up for me to take a picture.
Peek!
Debbie's is well under way. All of the applique is prepared, the background pieces are cut and I've appliqued one block and am on the second. This one has posies appliqued on the corners where the blocks meet, so there will be more to do as I begin to assemble the blocks, which I plan to do as soon as a few of them are finished.
Along the way, I've come up with a couple more projects as well. I printed out paper for another strip quilt, one to go on the little couch in my sewing room, and this time the blocks will be smaller to make better use of some of the scraps, and for variety. It was hard to get a good picture of these, but you can see the sewing lines. To each side of center will be a 3/4 inch strip and outside each of those will be a 1/2 inch strip. The triangles will be background fabric and where they meet will leave a nice space for quilting.I also have a couple of scrap quilt ideas floating around my head and hopefully those will make it to paper soon. In spite of having things that need to be done, it's nice to take a break from them to work on something else for a day or two.

With the Christmas quilting well under way, it's possible that as many as 3 of the 4 quilts could be finished by fall. That leads me back to wanting to get the roman shades made, so piecing the finished strip blocks will begin soon as well. While typing this, I realized that while fabric searching for other quilts, I found a piece that I'm pretty sure is big enough for the roman shade for our bedroom (this one is appliqued and I didn't want there to be any seams, which are more visible with the window light behind it) so that may get a start sooner than I expected as well. Below is the pattern piece, at the end of each calyx will be a 3 dimensional rosebud. There will also be a vine with these same elements going around the sides and bottom of the heart shape and across the cornice box so it is a complete picture when all put together.

I've done a bit of applique so far today, and am babysitting for a few hours this afternoon. While Ruthie and her little buddy are occupied, I might get a bit more done, but with keeping them occupied and a few quick chores, I don't expect to get much more done before dinner time. After, though, it will be time for putting up my feet and doing some more applique or some hand quilting on Katie's quilt. It's nice in here right now with the a/c on, so as long as I don't get overheated with chores, dinner, and dishes, it might just be cool enough in here to quilt.

Keep Cool and Happy Quilting!

Sue

Where to Begin....

2009-05-30T11:44:00.011-05:00

There has been so much activity since my last post I barely know where to begin. I spent most of the time working on Marshall's quilt and finished it at about 10am the morning of his party (last Saturday.) I was very pleased with the results and he was thrilled. Here is the full view (or as much of one as I could get in my limited space, the grass was wet so I couldn't take it outside.)Here is a view of the border design. I enjoyed doing it so much (and the look when it was done) that I'll be doing more of these tessellating type designs in my borders. I like how it fills it all out, and it was really fun to do.While working on Marshall's quilt, we also were preparing for "junk day" here. With Marshall's quilt done, it was time to get quilting on one of the Christmas tops. I chose Arnie's quilt to do first, as it probably has the most quilting on it.
At this point, I should be able to go right from one quilt in the hoop to the next until all four are done. With Katie's top already done and Emma's well under way, I'm in really good shape as far as my Christmas quilting goes. I pulled out my design board, and I think I'll try to find a way to keep it out for a while, I'm enjoying being able to see her top in progress and will enjoy doing this with the next ones, too. Here is Emma's top on the design wall. 30 of the 40 hearts are appliqued and I'm making the 9 patches in groups of 4 so I can place a row at a time.
While I was quilting on Marshall's quilt, we also prepared for "junk day." Our garbage service requires us to buy special bags and everything we put out must fit in them. Between storing what we didn't want and couldn't throw out, and saving things we weren't sure we'd use again, our crawlspace was WAY too full. Jonathan is our project doer, he offered to bring everything out, a couple of things at a time, while I kept quilting. It worked out great, we got rid of LOTS of junk and Jonathan cleaned out the garage, too.

We had a lot going Memorial Day weekend, I had something every day from Friday through Monday, and that's a lot of activity for me (and for Ruthie.) I spent most of the week trying to feel normal again, I quilted a lot, caught up the laundry and all of Jonathan's organizing work make me even more anxious to go through some other things in the house (I've been slowly doing this.)

As the kids get older, it's becoming easier and easier to keep up, which makes me VERY happy. While the older kids will be very busy this summer, with jobs and social activites, so far it seems that it should be rather quiet for me. I plan to spend a lot of time quilting, hopefully a good part of it outside. So far it's been either too cold or too wet to do that.

While cleaning the garage, Jonathan came across this bike trailer and asked if he could try it out on his bike. I wasn't sure if Ruthie would let him pull her in it or not, but she liked the ride. They went around the block a couple of times and then headed to the park, but she'd had enough before they got there so he turned back. I suspect that I'll have a few quiet afternoons as he's offered to take Lucas and Ruthie to the park on occasion. She was all smiles after the first time around our block.

Ruthie tends to go off by herself when people are here, at least for a while. When our friends came on Memorial Day she went into the kitchen. My husband found her like this. She really can sleep anywhere!

I had planned to quilt by the firepit today, but it's cold, damp, and has rained so everything is still wet. I'm really hoping for a better day tomorrow, the Cubs play at night on ESPN, we don't have that channel, so it would be a perfect night to sit out and listen by the fire for a while. Hopefully the weather will cooperate!

For now, it's time to get back to quilting before needing to start dinner. My husband is only home for dinner on the weekends, so I try to make a really nice one whenever possible. Today it's western style barbequed ribs with oven fried potatoes and a couple of vegetables.

Nothing more will get done if I don't scoot! I hope everyone has a warm and relaxing weekend :)Happy Quilting!

Sue

Prolific Production

2009-05-03T23:40:00.016-05:00

I've had an unbelievable couple of weeks since I last posted. All 5 of the quilts that need to be done this year are under way. The most pressing is Marshall's, his is in the hoop and the quilting has a nice start on it. I need to have this done by the 23rd and am feeling pretty confident that I can do this.

While I was piecing Marshall's quilt, I was also piecing Katie's quilt. I used the same pattern for these two quilts, it worked up really quickly and was quite a lot of fun. I may do a scrap version with smaller pieces sometime as triangle paper makes these projects so easy for me.

I continued to ready applique pieces for Debbie's quilt, and just this weekend decided on a pattern for Emma, which also has some applique. Hers will be an Irish Chain, with hearts appliqued in the spaces. I have the applique pieces for both quilts in a storage box and I'm in the process of basting down seam allowance. Tomorrow I plan to cut the background fabric for both so I can begin the applique. This is perfect "take outside and watch Ruthie" work, she loves to be out and this allows me to get something done while supervising her outside.

Today we had a fire in our firepit, and I basted some pieces while sitting out there. Also on the agenda tomorrow is cleaning off our porch, so I can sit there and sew when she's playing out front.

Friday night was Prom night and Rachel and Marshall went to his. Rachel wanted to have her hair highlighted, but wanted it to be a surprise so we stayed up late Thursday night and did it after Youth Group. Friday, Rebekah switched her work hours so she could do Rachel's hair, along with 2 of her friends.

Here is the front view:

And the side view:

Here they are, ready for their big night:

While Rachel and Marshall had their big night out, I had a big night, too. I had planned a sewing night with a friend. We've been trying to do this 2 or 3 times per year and I love the "sew till we drop" aspect of it as it's almost like a mini retreat to me. She had a conference that day, so we weren't able to start until 5:00, but we picked up Chinese for dinner and then dove into our planned projects for the evening. Our "usual" is quitting around 2:00am. We've done it twice, so far, and each time I came home and put on another movie and sewed a while longer.

With the kids out at prom and due home around 2am, I knew we'd make it until then. As it turns out, we were still pretty wide awake when they arrived so we kept on going. My husband had to get up really early for work that day, imagine his surprise to see us still going at it at 4:00. My friend finished up her projects (she made two baby quilt tops that night) and I took her home (she lives only a few blocks away.) I walked in the front door, turned off the lights, walked upstairs, quickly changed and climbed into bed about a minute after hitting the front door. I looked at my clock, it was 6:45.

My project wasn't quite finished, so after a few hours of sleep I got up and got back to it. By mid-afternoon, Arnie's quilt top was done, too.

When I cut for tops, I nearly always cut and make the binding, too, so the fabric doesn't get misplaced or accidentally used for something else. Since 3 of the 5 quilt tops are done, and I hadn't yet made the binding, I did all of them yesterday afternoon along with planning out Emma's top.

Ruthie continues to be a joy. She had her first big day outside today in a while. We've been out for short amounts of time before now, but it's been either too wet or too cold to be out much. We had a fire in the firepit, she played ball, sat on her lawn swing, played on the swingset and generally just enjoyed the nice day. She's doing very well with potty training, staying dry all day on most days now and rarely needing to be reminded.

Her speech continues to improve by leaps and bounds, with both her vocabulary and her enunciation improving daily, it seems. In spite of her delays, she's very much a 4 year old and can be quite entertaining. While she's grown so much since last year, she's still quite small. We sometimes forget that until we see her with other children. Here she is, sitting in a plastic basket.

Several times a week, we find her sleeping somewhere. She'll be awake one minute and sound asleep the next, though the little stinker actually pretended to be asleep on the floor last night. No pretending here, though, she was OUT.

Hopefully I'll be out soon, too. It's getting late and since I got motivated to do this post and some needed paperwork, both of which were on tomorrow's agenda, my day will now be wide open for quilting. With any luck, I'll make a serious dent in Marshall's quilt by midweek.

Happy Quilting!

Sue

I Admit It....

2009-04-20T14:44:00.010-05:00

I've been stalling, or at least uninspired. I have 5 quilts that have to be done this year as gifts, and several more that I'd like to see at least started.

I picked patterns for a few of them, made templates for one, printed triangle paper for two more, but still, they sat. My desire to finish the ring quilt, and my lack of enthusiasm for the new projects, prevented me from starting them, and distractions have made the last border of the ring quilt take a lot longer than I'd have liked.

BUT...it's done. Finally. And with the finishing of it Saturday night came a very welcome surge of energy for the new projects. The quilt is so big, I don't have anywhere in my house big enough to get far enough away to photograph the whole thing...and it's too wet to take pictures outside. Here is a stretched out view, such as it is.

Below is a view of the border motifs.

And here it is draped over my little couch by the window.
I spent my free time on Sunday pinning fabric to triangle paper for part of Marshall's quilt (I'm hoping to buy at least one more of the needed fabrics this week) and for one of my nieces' quilts. The pattern I said was Emma's quilt has changed as I didn't have enough of the background fabric I pulled for the whole thing. As I chose new fabrics, the new choices seemed to fit Katie more, so it has become hers and I have to choose a new pattern for Emma.

The triangle paper is pinned for Katie's quilt, and I've cut the larger 1/2 square triangles and pinned them together.

I had a nice stack of sewing waiting by machine this morning.

As Rachel and I decided to watch a movie after her Bible study, I really didn't want to start the machine work yesterday because I couldn't to it and watch the movie at the same time. Instead, I got the freezer paper templates all marked for Debbie's quilt (my sister-in-law) and I cut that out while we watched the movie. These are the stems and leaves that are cut from freezer paper, the green fabric is what they will be made of.

When my husband has to go to bed earlier than I can fall asleep, I make a late night out of it if I'm able. Last night, after watching "No Reservations" with Rachel, Lucas, and Ruthie, both Lucas and Rachel went to bed, but Miss Ruth was still raring to go. We settled in to watch "27 Dresses" and about midway I looked over to see this...

On today's agenda is the stack of sewing by my machine, then cutting apart the triangle paper pieces and maybe even pressing them and pinning them for the next step.

The quilt that weighs heaviest on my mind at the moment is Marshall's as I'd really like to have it finished by his party, which is on May 23rd. I'm hoping to get both the red and the border fabrics on Thursday, the batting next week and be basting the weekend of the first. That will give me 3 weeks to quilt it.

Once that one is done, I can breathe easier as the other 4 are all for Christmas. While I'd still like to work my way through them and be done by the end of September, only time will tell if that is a realistic goal.

I also really want to spend some time on the posy and celtic as I'd love to be basting that on hunting weekend, which is the weekend before Thanksgiving. I still have to secure the second side of several sections of the applique and need to get fabric to make more bias for the border design. It may be hard to find the combination of colors I'd like to see in one fabric, so that's an unknown at the moment.

Ruthie came downstairs a little while ago in this getup, she was in Rachel's room and got into some of her accessories.

While waiting for pictures to load, I've been able to get some of the sewing done, so the pieces for Marshall's quilt are sewn now. We have sports fever in our house these days, with both the Bulls and Blackhawks in the playoffs in addition to our baseball addiction. Tonight will be spent in some combination of machine sewing, unpinning, perhaps repinning, pressing fabric to freezer paper and cutting for yo-yos while watching first the Bulls, then the Blackhawks both go for wins in their games.

Time to get to it!

Happy Quilting,

Sue

What Have I Done!

2009-04-04T09:30:00.009-05:00

I will be quilting my fingers off this year. While the list is daunting, even for me, I'm really excited about it and feel really challenged.

The bad news is that the flying geese quilt will not be the next in the hoop. I'm disappointed about that, but with the addition of a graduation quilt to my list, the money for batting for the geese quilt needs to go towards fabric for Marshall's graduation quilt. Marshall is Rachel's boyfriend, they've been dating for nearly a year now and he has given her a beautiful emerald promise ring. He's very likely going to school only about an hour or so away, which will make weekend visits possible and I'm sure they'll be on the phone for at least a few minutes each day. It dawned on me just the other day that we will be invited to his graduation party. We really can't afford to give cash for a gift but a quilt for his dorm room should fit the bill. Rachel talked to his mom on the sly to make sure they didn't already have a plan for his bedding and I was given the go ahead. It is now about 2 months until the graduation and I don't even have the fabric, nor can I get it for a couple of weeks. It's an easy pattern, though, so still doable (except it will have to be set aside when he's here, LOL) and if all else fails I can wrap it undone and take it back to finish as he won't be needing it until August.

This pattern will actually be made twice this year, once for Marshall, in red, black and white and once for my niece, in mauve, peach, and aqua with a small print background. I have triangle paper printed for both quilts and plan to cut fabric for Emma's today. I was able to pull from my stash, so hers will be started first, though the piecing on this one will be set aside if it's not finished before getting fabric for Marshall's.

While thinking of the strip block shade for my sewing room, I decided to go ahead and print foundation blocks for the quilt to go on the couch by the window. I made the blocks a little smaller for this one to make better use of the scraps and it will take 256 blocks to make the size I want. This will most definitely be an "I need a break day" project or something to work on if I'm at an impasse on everything else...which isn't too likely. I can't help but keep one of these in progress, it helps to keep my scraps under control and allows me some mindless busy work if I need it.

This is the pattern piece for the shade for our bedroom. This, unfortunately, will be a back burner project. I was really hoping to have it done by the end of this year, that will depend very much on how everything else goes. If some of these projects that need to be done go more quickly than I anticipate, then there still might be time. With warmer weather coming and Ruthie loving the outdoors, that will eat into my sewing time, though I've thought about bringing my machine out to the picnic table, and of course I can hand quilt outside if it's not too hot or windy. This pattern was a pain to enlarge, I don't draw well freehand at all, so I used our business copier and enlarged it in small bits and then pieced it together like a puzzle. It was a challenge, but actually quite fun to do. At the end of each calyx is a folded 3D rosebud. I'm really looking forward to this one, and am still trying to figure out what to do for the cornice cover.

Here's the recap of work for this year.

Have to do:

Marshall's quilt, which I really hope will be done by the end of May

Brother in law's quilt, for Christmas

Sister in law's quilt, for Christmas

Quilts for 2 nieces, also for Christmas

Want to do:

Roman shade for sewing room

Roman shade for our bedroom

Cornice covers for both shades

Finish applique sashing and border on posy and celtic quilt

My tentative plan for hunting weekend this year is basting several quilts. The posy and celtic if it's ready, the flying geese quilt and at least 2 more tops in my pile.

Today, something very unusual is happening. For about 2 hours, I will be alone in my house. My husband is taking Lucas and Ruthie to a movie (Ruthie's first time to a movie theater), Rebekah is working and the other kids are at a youth conference. I plan to pop some popcorn, put on a movie and quilt the whole time they are gone.

I'm finally on the borders of this one. The one inch border just got a quilting line 1/4" from each side. The floral border has hearts in it, I'm just about to turn the corner and then one side of those is left. The outer border has the flower/leaf unit from the ring blocks and the flower worked into a feather motif going around the quilt. I can't wait to get to that outer border, which is being quilted in pink thread and as each is finished I know that I'm that much closer to being done with this quilt! The binding is made and waiting and my machine is set up and ready to go.

Speaking of my machine, I've switched for a while to the Featherweight, for a few reasons. One is that I was pretty discouraged when the reverse lever BROKE OFF of my regular machine. I don't use it very often as I mostly piece quilts with it, but it made me sad nonetheless. Another is that I have more bobbins for my Featherweight than for my White and the bobbins actually hold more thread. With all of the sewing I have to do this year, having to stop fewer times to change bobbins or thread them all up again will be nice. The fact that it's a smaller machine is also nice as I can sew and still chat with the kids, my husband, or friends without feeling like I'm hidden behind my machine. It also makes the table look less crowded so I don't mind it sitting there when not in use and it's really nice to be able to sit and sew a few seams if I find myself with unexpected spare minutes.

Ruthie's hair is nearly always in a pony tail, but last Sunday I left it down and curled it with a curling iron. It was adorable and she looked so much older in her tiny little body! Potty training is going well, she still has accidents but overall I'm very pleased with how well she's doing. We've graduated to pullups at night and when out, so no more diapers!
And here she is with the ever present ponytail. Her speech is also improving immensely, she's adding new words all the time and the "old words" are becoming clearer. She is walking faster and beginning to run, can walk (rather than scoot) down the stairs, and is taking in everything around her. I'm so glad the other kids are such good examples for her, because she mimics so much of what she sees.

I'm really hoping to have the hearts done before my moviegoers leave so I can spend the time they are gone working on that outer border. I'd better scoot! Have a great day and
Happy Quilting!
Sue

Long Time, No "See!"

2009-03-25T09:00:00.010-05:00

It's been busy here! Not really anything particularly different or interesting, just the "usual" busy-ness of a household of 8 with a quilting Mom. I had hoped that by the time I posted again the ring quilt would be done, but when I laid it out and saw how much there really was to do, I knew that was unlikely. It's getting there, though, I have 11 blocks left to quilt (of 64) and the borders to do. My plan earlier in the week was to be on the borders by the time the kids left for the campout tomorrow noon, that won't happen. Now I'm hoping to be on borders by Friday night and binding by next weekend.

Since I last posted, Jonathan has had a birthday, he turned 15. Birthdays in our house are pretty nicely spaced overall. Our oldest two have birthdays only 11 days apart, but the rest of us are spaced 6-8 weeks apart, all year long. Birthdays tend to run several days in our house as my husband works evenings. The big birthday dinner always happens on the weekend, when he is home. The kids get to choose what they want for dinner and dessert for the family dinner and now also get to choose the meal on the actual day, if it's during the week. Now that they are bigger, most of them opt for shopping and lunch out for their birthdays, rather than us trying to pick out something they'd like. Jonathan wanted tools and camping equipment, so my husband took him to shop and then they picked me up and the 3 of us had lunch out. His birthday dinner was lasagna with homemade rolls, his choice nearly every year, and a trifle for dessert. We eat our big meal soon after church on Sundays, so the trifle was served at supper time, along with a variety of snacks.This is the next set of strip blocks. They were going to be "just" a throw quilt, but once I decided the roman shade for my sewing room would be made of them, I shifted the plan. I thought I'd be using some of the blocks for the shade, and could add a few more to make a matching throw for the couch by the window...but boy did I figure wrong! I actually had to make an extra 28 blocks to have enough for just the shade and cornice cover. The throw will have to wait, though I enjoy these blocks so much that I'm sure very soon another set will be in the works. I still have a lot of strips left, and more scraps to be cut. This project will be on hold for a bit while I get the Christmas quilts going.

Also still in progress is the posy and celtic quilt. This one is my takealong right now as it fits nicely in a bag with the few supplies needed to work on it. The braid pieces are all on, though many of them are only sewn down on one side. The finishing part is really easy since no pinning or thinking are involved, which make it the perfect "keeping my hands" busy project right now. I'm still trying to figure out the border, I don't have enough braid bias left to use that, which was the plan. I'm going to poke around and find something that incorporates most or all of the colors in the quilt, or see if I can get more of the green.

Next up in the hoop is the flying geese quilt. I'll be getting the batting for that with my groceries tomorrow and when my fingers need a break from hand quilting I'll be marking and basting this one.

The Christmas quilts will also be started along the way here. I have triangle paper printed for one niece's quilt, I have to practice with my curved piecing quilt for the other. For my sister-in-law's quilt I need to ready some applique and pull fabric, this will be the project to work on when Ruthie wants to be outside. I probably will need to buy fabric for my brother-in-law's quilt, so that one will be waiting a bit. When I have this many projects in the works, I keep a list of the next thing to do on each one, so I don't have to try to figure it out every time I switch projects. I think I'll make that list today, it really helps me stay on task.

Here is Lucas on Crazy Day at Awanas. He wanted to wear the clothing they wore for the Awana Games the weekend before and we put this gold gluey stuff in his hair to spike it. The ribbon is the first place medal his team won at the games, he was so excited!

And Ruthie! She is doing so well and is so proud! Potty training is well under way and most days she is staying dry. I think we're going to try pullups this week for nighttime and when out. She says new words every day and often is answering questions with words we didn't even know she knew yet. She loves to be outside, though the weather hasn't been too cooperative, yet. She eats well, sleeps well, and we're falling into quite a lovely routine.

So I guess that's it for now, if I'm going to get my big list of things to do actually finished today, I need to get a move on!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Ooops! I Did It AGAIN!

2009-02-25T08:37:00.008-06:00

Musing about quilting, while quilting, is not always a good thing! As I pondered the year ahead, I knew this year that I would have a couple of quilts to do for Christmas. Truth be told, I rarely even think about them much until mid-summer and often don't start until summer is drawing to a close.

We have a gift giving rotation with my husband's family. Several years ago, I decided that as each couple's turn came up, I'd make them bed quilts. With that finished a couple of years ago, the lap quilts came next. I did them for my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, who live in North Dakota, two Christmases ago. Last Christmas we had my inlaws for the gift giving and they live in Arizona. They have no need for lap quilts, and I think get tired of getting quilted things so we got them a restaurant gift card.

This year, we have another brother-in-law and sister-in-law and I can hardly wait. They love to receive my quilts and live in Montana. As I thought about what I might do for them, I decided I'd also make them for their daughters. The last quilts I did for their girls were quite a few years ago now, very simple and machine quilted (that Christmas I made quilts for all 17 of my nieces and nephews.)

So that's 4 quilts to make. The thing is, my lap quilts....aren't really. If I need a quilt to coverup because I'm chilly, I need to be covered...so my "lap" quilts are at least 65 x 65, often bigger depending on the pattern and who they are being made for.

I have a quilting friend who often passes her magazines my way when she is finished with them. Some time ago, I started to go through them when I get them and I put post-it notes on the front with the pages and names of quilts or techniques that interest me. When I'm looking for a quilt to make, a quick look through the post-its gives me a pretty good idea what quilts I'm interested in and whether or not they will do for the project that I'm looking for.

I perused the post-it's on the covers of the stack of magazines and found 3 of the 4 quilts I need to make. I did some of the prepwork for them, I have a notebook I've been doing all my figuring in so I don't lose the sheets of paper. The notebook also has a nice vinyl pocket in the front, where I put the templates I made until needed.

While thinking about those four quilts that already need to be done, I remember that I've already decided on a few other projects for this year. First up will be finishing the quilting on the ring quilt and finishing the applique on the posy quilt. I had planned to quilt the flying geese quilt next, that one shouldn't take too long.

I had also planned to make two roman shades, one for our bedroom and one for my sewing room, both with cornice boxes. Our bedroom drapes have been up since we moved into this house, 23 years ago. They are in pretty poor shape at this point. In addition, this time of year the angle of the sun makes it very bright in our bedroom in the morning and I'm not an early riser. Right now, I have the valance taken down and a quilt clipped to the rod. It doesn't match at all, but was the only thing I could find that was near the right size and not to heavy for the rod. Each time I walk in the room, that shade is on my mind. I haven't chosen the design for that one, yet, I'll know the right thing when I see it. My hope is to have it done by fall, when it will also help to protect against the cold.

I think I've decided what pattern to use for my sewing room window, but haven't, yet, figured out dimensions, etc. This will actually be the same as my latest strip quilt, which may find a home on my chaise by the window since they will match. I'm going to figure out how many extra blocks that I need and add them to the pile since the latest strip quilt isn't that far under way.

The shades will be backed with room darkening fabric, not only for the room darkening effect but to protect the design side from the sun. The cornice boxes will be covered with a quilted topper, adding another small project to my list.

So...that is 4 "lap" quilts, 2 roman shades, the 2 cornice toppers, the ring quilt, the posy top, and the flying geese quilt...all on the agenda for this year. I also found a couple of tops while perusing magazines that I really want to make, those will likely have to wait unless some of this goes much more quickly than I anticipate.

Of course, in the midst of all this, I'm potty training Ruthie. We've been doing it off and on for a few weeks now, going full force when we are home for the whole day. Yesterday we *may* have had a break through, but I won't know for sure for a few days. She told me "potty" twice (usually this means that she's already wet) but was dry...she wet herself as we made our way to the potty chair. I didn't think much of it until it happened for the second time, then I realized she just may be starting to recognize that feeling.

Armed with quite a few pairs of training pants and rubber pants, I've been trying to keep her in underwear all day, only in a diaper at night. This doesn't work if we have to leave the house, but it's a good start.

I have to say, I'm tiring of sitting on the bathroom floor, and the many loads of wet laundry, but it's oh so worth it!

Rachel and her boyfriend went to a nice restaurant for Valentine's Day, so Rachel painted her fingernails and toenails red for the occasion. Ruthie had to have hers done, too. It's not easy to paint those tiny little toes and then get her to sit still long enough to dry, but we got them done and they've stayed pretty well. She loves it and admires her toes whenever sitting on the potty, LOL, I see a lot of painted toes in her future!

And now, I'd better get to it or I'll never get anything done. A few chores and a lot of hand quilting are on the agenda for today. Happy Quilting!

Sue

Busy Busy!

2009-02-08T23:59:00.008-06:00

I've been happily busy, mostly with quilting. I've also been busy with some extra household things, going through and packing up what's not needed and storing what can be used later, while donating or discarding things that can't.

We tend to be savers here, as it seems as soon as we rid ourselves of something it's needed soon after. That served me well today as yesterday my new mouse and keyboard stopped working. Jonathan found old ones in our crawlspace and that's what I'm using at present. I haven't given up on the new, cordless ones, but know that's a task best left for when I'm feeling motivated and like my problem solving skills are in full swing.

In the meantime, I'm happy to have the old ones!

I'm on block number 11 (of 64) of the ring flower quilt. It hasn't been getting much attention because of the posy and celtic quilt, but all in good time. I'm hoping to get at least a few more blocks quilted on this one during the coming week. Once the posy and celtic top is done, the ring flower quilt will be the priority. I'm a little afraid of putting the posy and celtic top down for too long as it still seems like a daunting project and I'm afraid if I leave it sit for too long, it will sit for VERY long. I'm also so thrilled with the results of the posy and celtic quilt that it's actually hard to work on anything else right now. The main problem is my very sore underneath finger, which could surely use a rest. Though the same finger is underneath for quilting, I end up hitting a different part of it so can alternate between the two.

For now, I'll suffer, LOL, because I'm LOVING this. I was concerned that where the braids met at the intersections that it would just be a jumble and I'd lose the under/over feel of it but was pleasantly surprised as I laid it out to see that most definitely is not the case. Now that I've got the logistics of it all worked out, I'm working bigger sections at once. Combined with the fact that I've done so much applique lately, this is moving along much faster than I anticipated.

Another concern after sewing the first section was that it would over power the posy blocks, but that doesn't seem to be the case, as seen in this view a little further away. The blocks stand out even more in reality, and looking at the pictures my eye keeps moving around just fine and isn't getting stuck on the braid, so I think it's ok. It sure is hard not to second guess everything sometimes!

I've yet to decide for sure what will be on the outer border. I did pick out a design to applique in the same way, and may add some posies to that. I won't be deciding for sure what I'm doing until the rest is finished so I can gauge how much or how little needs to happen in the border for proper balance.

Everyone is in bed here and has been for a while now. I had figured on spending the quiet time appliquing but decided to do this post instead since there is so little uninterrupted time during the day. Tomorrow Rebekah is highlighting my hair and I promised Rachel we could do DDR for a while, it's our current choice for exercise until the weather is warm enough for me to start walking again. Other than that, though, I should be able to spend quite a bit of time quilting tomorrow, laundry and dishes are all caught up and the day is relatively free.

And Miss Ruthie. Her language skills are exploding of late. She'll try to say almost anything now and her speech is getting clearer. She has a long way to go, but words have almost completely replaced signs and she now looks for things to say. Last night I washed her hair in the kitchen sink (laying her on the counter) and when we got finished, she ran to the stairs and yelled down (we have a tri-level, so short flights and the family room is visible from the stairs) "Daddy! Wash!" He said "Did Mom wash your hair?" She said "yeah!" (yeah is said in an adorable sing-songy voice every time she said it.)

She will often go to one of her siblings and say, pointing to her head, "Mom, hair, OW!" (Translation, Mom brushed my hair and it hurt.) We have a long way to go, but are so pleased with the current progress and it really seems to be snowballing, coming faster and faster all the time.

A few minutes of applique and it will be time for bed. I'd hoped to make it a late, late night, but I'm feeling pretty tired and don't want to push it, I'd rather be well rested and ready for a productive day tomorrow!

Happy Quilting!

Sue