Time Flies

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

Spinning Wheel©2011 Quilt in Piece Designs

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

Blizzard 2011 and Other Musings

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

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

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!

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

Catching up

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

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