Bah Humbug

So they say....where has the time gone? Can you believe that we are two week to Christmas-I have an 8 year old who makes certain I know that A) he has only next week of school and B) Christmas is in 14 days! I have yet to complete my shopping or my sewing. On top of that I have been sick-what started as a cold 4 weeks ago was ignore-now it is bronchitis and a sinus infection. The best part about that is cough syrup with codeine-well let me tell you I haven't slept this good in a month! I think the hubby would agree because the only break he has had from my self induced misery was when we were at Mom and Dad's for Thanksgiving and slept in separate rooms.

Tonight is the first night in weeks I have felt up to being on the computer (a zillion gabillion emails) or sitting at the machine and so far I have done both! Wahoo!

Last weekend the boys did a "NO MOM" shopping day while I was here working. I should have been in Philly with my sister but due to work deadlines I was here. Oh well-we did go get the tree on Saturday but did not decorate it until Sunday night because I was not up to it. To Zach's delight it was up on Sunday along with the advent calendar and some knick knacks. Whew Good Mom status regained!

Then I got a CHRISTMAS CARD in the mail and realized that I had forgotten an important part! UGH!

I have never been this far behind! I will catch up on everything including cookie baking this weekend-I am super mom and I can handle this! Yeah I know-it is the steroids talking. Whatever works!

Gracie's New Home

My secret project has arrived so here is the picture:

Something funky and whimsical for Mom & Dad's camper. The is a M&H paper pieced design and there are 2 more similar in theme for later surprises.

The Little Gracie came on Thursday in 3 boxes, 1 box later and one piece is back ordered. I of course ripped right into the boxes and began the process of putting her together. Holy Cow! I gave up after I realized I put the table boards on backwards and out of order. When the hubby asked how I was doing I put a request in for some tools to make the job easier-who knew a screwdriver could hurt.

So on Friday he bought me a screwdriver-it is the cutest little thing. I got back to work after dinner and by midnight I had the machine sitting on the platforms. It is beautiful. If I could have found an extension cord that night midnight would have been early!

So here's Gracie....

I loaded my flannel 1/2 square triangle piece on it today and away I went. No thread breaks but I did have some serious puckers on the back piece. I think it is because I rolled the back and then pinned it-the directions and how to blogs say to pin to header then roll. So maybe the next one will be better.

Sewing, sewing, DONE!!

It has been a productive week here in Central PA. I finally made sense of the gazillion 1/2 square triangles, put the remaining scrap squares into a simple flannel blanket for the dog crate, finished a block from my 2+ year old Thimbleberries quilt (the one I am hoping to find the fabric to be able to finish) and put together the cutest wall hanging that I got as a kit last Christmas.

I also added the label to a secret project...obviously you can tell who it is for but you won't be able to see it until it arrives. I bought the pattern at the Hershey Quilt show. Zachary loves the pattern-he helped pick out the fabrics at our favorite shop in Montoursville. He had such an opinion on what they should be-the ladies thought he was so cute-man does he have them fooled!

The wall hanging is too cute and allowed me to use a couple of never used stitches on my machine-love it!! One of the stitches is the blanket stitch-shoot-how cool is this?? No hand cramping, no neck pain, no puckers, no ripping it out - I will definitely be trying more of these in the future. Plus the satin stitch on this new machine is so perfect with just one pass. Where was this machine when I was sewing Greek letters on sweatshirts for my sister by the dozen!

I am anxiously awaiting my EBay purchases from Shoreline Handwerks in Monteo, NC so that I can begin work on "The Mission" stained glass wall hanging. I still have to find the black fusible binding by Clover. I am hoping that JoAnn's carries this and I don't have order it online, which would mean more waiting!

This empties out my UFO box quite a bit. I am trying to complete some of the smaller things so that I can move on to some larger projects-Pennsylvania Pavers in the brown and pink Buggy Barn fabrics-Can't wait to see that one go together. As I was digging through the UFO box I came across this - You can't see it but the 3 trees are fused on and blanket stitched in green. The stars are also fused and blanket stitched in gold. The binding is a burgundy with some molted pink where you see light spots. My mom had me do the embroidery part-it was meant to be a gift but we did not get it finished in time so my recollection of it is that I get to keep the wall hanging-Mom's recollection is that I can keep it until it is done then it is hers.....I will trade it for my Triple Irish chain hanging in her living room! Guess I get to keep it after all ;)

Mom-do you have any of the border fabric left for the binding? Yes I can make another one-especially now that the machine will do the stitch for me!! I bet I could turn these out quit quickly!

Emptying out the UFO box has caused the "Find a Quilter" pile to increase. I have been "hinting" for a Little Gracie II for a few months and the hubby finally heard me. What drove this was me asking to be budgeted for $200 so that I could get my brother's wedding quilt done before Christmas (yeah so what that their 5 year anniversary was Labor Day). He was concerned that I was being "taken" with the price tag until he researched it himself with my guidelines-NOT an all over pattern (I spent too much time perfecting those matching seams) a specific "Daisy" quilt pattern in every other block and Warm & Natural batting. He found services for slightly lower but wondered how much that thing was that I wanted-so he researched that too-"Babe-do you realize that with 4 of your quilts you have paid your self back with the Grace thing?" Me-"no kidding really - 4 quilts?? I had no idea-I have 4 right now that need to be sent for quilting".

He ordered it on Saturday and the predicted delivery date is Thursday!!! OMG! I am beyond excited! The catch is that it will be a Christmas and a birthday gift-well worth it if you ask me! I will be asking everyone else for Our Gathering Place gift certificates for sure this year!

Pajama Day!

It is 1:30 and I am still in my jammies! Wow-I haven't done this in years, without being sick. I am may be in my jammies but I am not lazy. The new house has 4 bathrooms. An hour was spent cleaning 4 toilets, 6 sinks, 1 tub and 2 showers. Thank goodness the child is crazy and loves to clean the toilets with the disposable scrubbing bubbles things so he is actually a big help. I also worked on buying fabrics for my next project: http://quickquilts.com/curiss/nov08/modernmission/. I will be using the Shangri La Moda fabrics-a red, brown, blue and 2 of the ivory tonal. There were 7 total that I wanted to use and my stash gave me 3 of those between FQ's, Jelly Rolls and Charms. Ebay was once again able to save the day and offered me the remaining 4 pieces. Hurray!! I then looked into the Clover fusible bias binding and was stunned-the 28 yards needs is going to cost 40 bucks! Sheesh-oh well. Now I wait for the Slug, aka Mail person, to deliver my treasures.

The gazillion pink half 1/2 square triangles have formed themselves into a VERY pink flannel snuggle quilt for ME-one guaranteed not to end up in the "Man Chair" or on Zack's bed. It is way to pink for either of them to be willing to use it. Ha ha ha!! I did find some nice pale yellow in the clearance bin at my local quilt shop yesterday. Hopefully this will tone down the pink of it-because I have to agree with the boys it is a LOT of pink.

Well the jammie day is over and I must go shower. There is a Halloween Party at Bucknell University that I promised Zack we would go to.

The intent was....

Who in the world knows!!

No good explanation for all these 1/2 square triangles in flannel. Hmmm must have been a girl baby blanket in the works at one point-cannot remember who the poor little girl was/is that is now without a homemade quilt. I hope that I was able to purchase something as meaningful.

The new plan is to finish the pinwheels which was not the intended pattern-in the bag with this plethora of flannel was a Quilter's Cache printout of a butter fly. What was I thinking-all these blocks all that hand embroidery!! Once finished I think I will keep it for myself. It is pink so I wont have to worry about Zach or the hubby taking it-almost guarantees that where ever I put it down it where it will be when I go to retrieve it the next time. Plus Zach has a moon blanket that is a flannel top and a flannel backing that is tied together and I love that blanket but it is too short to cover chin to under toe. Can't you just imagine the toasty-ness as you read?!!

The Joann Fabric BOM has found a home-in the family room on the spare bed. It looks cute. Zach refers to this as his "TV Room"-"The Man Cave". It houses a TV the PS2, the Wii and his toys. If I could only convince hubby to relocate the PS3 down there-then the 69" TV would be all mine!!! Yeah I don't think it is possible either but I can dream.

Connecting Threads has their books 40% off so I have been wanting the Victory Quilts book for a bit now purely because of it's theme. I ordered it last week and still have not had it arrive. I checked to make sure it had been sent and also to make sure I used the right address-yup and yup. So the delay is the Slug...watch it come tomorrow when I will have no time to pour over and savor the pages of Eleanor's creativity. Also Cre8tive Quilter (http://cre8tivequilter.blogspot.com/) mentioned doing a virtual something with a pattern from the book. Even better-incentive to complete. A little competition never hurt anyone.

Where did the time go?

Wow! Time certainly did fly-I can't believe it has been 4 weeks since my last post.

We moved and are slowly settling in and unpacking. We have so much more room than we had at the other house. As we were moving we realized that we had stuff we never unpacked (pictures) because we had no room. In this house we will have to be careful to not buy to fill because eventually we will move again. We would eventually like to be in a slightly milder climate.

Soccer started so Tuesday and Thursday nights are practice while Saturdays are the game plus I am taking a 12 week class on Tuesday nights for my SPHR certification. So whenever possible I need to study so that the money spent on this along with the exam fee are not wasted.

I have gotten some sewing in-mainly just a surprise piece and bindings on some very old UFO's. During the process of moving I organized my sewing stuff and found the 2004 Thimbleberries BOM pieces that I was doing as part of a class. I ended up moving to PA before the classes were finished so I am missing all block from the last 2 books-it was a 4 book series. I was able to find the books on EBay and now am searching for the fabric to somewhat match. My goal is to at least find similar colors versus trying to find the exact fabrics that went along with the books.

Here are pictures of my new sewing room. I love it-now if things would just calm down so I can use it!! Once Soccer finishes I think we can get back to sewing-just in time for holiday sewing.

I will be back!

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. Things are busy right now-Soccer is Tuesday and Thursdays, Exam study class is on Tuesday and we are packing our selves to move on the 19th of September. We have hired someone to move the stuff but we need to pack it-I think I would have preferred someone to pack it and I move it. I thought the 10 days this summer without the kid would have stressed out the hubby and I but no-this packing thing is going to do us in I think! Why are the "family" things in the house mine to pack? Why do I have to do the kitchen, the bathrooms, the ya ya ya ya-why is the adult male in the house done once his dresser, closet, computer and tools are packed???? UGH!! I love my hubby very dearly but I tell you he is on my last nerve-Yes I ONLY have one left!!

The professional exam study class is a true class for a true 4 hour 250 question exam-how did I miss that information?? Sitting in class I decided that I might just as well take the SPHR exam and get it out of the way-it is the same study class and why go through it twice. The bad part is that the exam is right after Christmas which means that I will have to study over the holiday-through the baking and through the sewing and that stinks! I will multi-task become super cooking sewing, studying, sewing MOM and succeed at it all!

Amazingly enough, before packing the sewing machine up on Sunday I was able to put the bindings on two UFO's. One was the trapezoid and one was a Joann Fabric BOM from I think 2001-2002. I remember sitting in the chair doing applique after I broke my broke my leg one winter. It has been quilted waiting for the binding since about 2006. With the Buggy Jars, the Trapezoid and the BOM done I have only 3 completed quilt tops waiting for attention. I am hoping that I can add a quilt frame to my new sewing room and turn those 3 tops into quilts shortly!

I think the camera is packed-maybe hubby's is not yet-I will try for a picture to post.

g

Miniature Booty Swap #2

My MBS2 quilt arrived on Friday and it is awesome! It is dark blues, hot pinks and variations of gold/orangy stars. The colors are so bold and striking together. Don't you love the quilt label? I have got to figure out how to do that with my machine. The feature is there I just need to find it... ;)

Thanks again to Marlene (http://madamquilter.blogspot.com/) -I love it!!

The process of sorting has begun in preparation for the big move. We moved here 2 years ago in October and we did a HUGE sort and dump so you would think there would not be much. There is more than I would like but overall we did a good job keeping things organized and in their proper homes. The exception is my quilt room and the closet I keep recipes and cookbooks in-dag gone it no one to blame but myself. I tell you what though the next move should be seamless because I am organized now! I spent all day in my sewing room sorting, setting and am ready to sustain! (anyone notice the 5S reference?) I have an old dresser that I kept stuff in but there was no rhyme or reason and I had project pieces in different spots, was using fabric for one thing in another and then having to re-buy.

I went to Target and bought plastic boxes, clear this time, and magazine holders. I then when through the dresser and put all the projects together in one bucket. I was able to save one for the fat quarters that are groups and I don't want to separate but need to wait for that "perfect" project. I see a turning twenty in my future for some of them because I FINALLY found my pattern book! I knew I had one! I have been a subscriber to Quiltmaker Magazine forever and have saved them for just as long-so I sat on the floor flipping through magazines. The criteria to keep was that it had to have more than 3 projects in it that I would consider making-if not I pulled out those I would consider, stapled them together and filed away. What was remaining went in the trash bag-I know almost sacrilegious but I had too-I only could buy 6 magazine holders in the color I wanted and I had to save one for my Cook's Country magazines.

Here are the fruits of that labor:

Maybe it wasn't meant to be square....

So I pulled out a 42" trapezoid UFO to finally finish after about 10-11 years. This is the Carol Doak Birds of Paradise from one of her earlier books. Mom and I drove to Syracuse in January to take this class. This class drove me to buy my first Viking because I hauled around an eighty pound Kenmore machine-crazy big and heavy. That machine could sew through steel beams if you needed it to! The top, backing and binding have traveled to North Carolina, a few spots in New York and finally here to PA. It was none to smooth and because I have the cheapest, most useless iron on earth! (brand new one to boot!) I had to hang it in the bathroom and hope the shower steam would help my lazy iron. It kind of did and finally today I decided that it was as flat as flat could be and moved forward. I tried the taping the back to the floor method, laid the batting then the top. WOW-how crazy un-square can a top possibly get-I must have been sipping wine or suffering from vertigo when I put this together! How do you square up a trapezoid? Hmmmm....you do the best you can and move on-get this bugger done with a disclaimer on the label that it was only the 3rd quilt I had ever done.

The new machine is wonderful to quilt with-all the room! I have yet to struggle turning it as I pivot. After this is done I need to find a project that can let me use some of the fancy stitches...I think I have a batter bowl pattern in there somewhere which would use the blanket stitch-that could be a good start.

Summer is over!

I am not really happy to see the days get shorter, colder and see the white stuff fly-but I am happy to see my kid go back to school! He needs structure and other children and the summer is just way to long for him. He is an only child (step sibling is 12 yrs older and 3 hrs away) and the neighborhood children have different rules so there is not much interplay-Crazy what other parents think is appropriate behavior for the 8 and under crowd!

Tonight was packed-5:15 we looked at a house that was a cute 2 story Cape Cod with a usable basement. Draw back is small bedrooms and the washer and dry in the basement. The hubby is retired so he is in charge of the "house" with the knee replacement in January steps are foe not friend. The good is the playhouse in the backyard, great entertaining kitchen/dining set up and wonderful backyard. Do the goods make up enough to help through the pain of packing and moving.....Nope.

6PM was soccer practice and 7PM was Meet the Teacher at school-let the fall BEGIN!! Soccer will be Tuesday and Thursday with Scouts also on Thursday and I am the weird Mom that will insist on Scouts over Soccer. I review many many resumes and never am I impressed with Team Captain as much as I am by Eagle Scout. Personal opinion that I will stand by and suffer many strange looks because of it.

I have stopped taking Master's Courses because going so soon after finishing my bachelor's the subject matter was painful. I had just taken all these courses and now had to take again but with an extra paper to make it Master's level-very annoying and I was disinterested. So I stopped taking them and today have signed up for my PHR certification courses. My career will be stalled without a Master's or my PHR - not that I am looking to leave I need to be prepared and show that I am moving forward-ahhh the politics of a career. So my Tuesday nights from September through November will be spent in a classroom.

So when will I get to sew? Weekends-the good part about school starting. Scott and Zach during the summer are ready to go go go on the weekends because they have been home at the house all week. So during the summer we tend to more day trips which cuts into my home time. During the school year days are busier and we ALL crave home time on the weekends. So I get machine time-plus-shhh don't tell-I am tucking away to buy a Little Grace frame. I found them on Ebay (gotta love it) for any where from &500-$800 and some with free shipping. If we find a 4 bedroom or a 3 bedroom with a family room it will be MINE!! Shhhhh-I have not shared my plan with the hubby. I gotta find a way to break it to him-this will entail me listening for something he would like and buying it for him-although the new PC for his birthday ought to count for something-oh yeah the new sewing machine. Shoot-hmmm think think think.

The MB2 is done and ready for the mail this weekend. I think I am going to finally quilt my Carol Doak paper pieced wall hanging from 10 years ago (I think-sound right Mom?). I have kept it rolled gently and the binding and backing stored with it so I didn't use them in something else. It is funny to look at it and see how dated the fabric is but it was great at the time and I fussed so much over finding the perfect shade of Periwinkle.

I will take a picture of it once I find the media card for my camera-Zach had it to print pictures from the last I saw it. Hmm that would be a good project for right now-there are pictures on it that I have not downloaded yet.

All right-have a nice night.

Non-Quilting Blog

How come the 2 days of the weekend fly by but the from Monday to Tuesday during the week will crawl! There is always so much i want to do and only a fraction of it gets done. Oh well.

Saturday we headed to Sunbury for the Riverfest. I was a nice town event-there was PLENTY of food, crafts, bands and a car show. Scott and Zach enjoyed the car show-how come they can't remember the "Honey Do" list yet they can rattle off the most mundane information about cars that existed well before their time. We did our normal walk through and then split up to each enjoy our own lunches. Zach calls is "trash"-not meant to be insulting but that it is junk food with not a veggie or fruit in sight. Scott headed to the hot sausage booth while Zach and I got fresh potato chips sprinkled with Old Bay Seasoning-YUMM!!!! OMG they were amazing! We got fresh lemonade and homemade Root Beer-Poppa-it was good! I had my Gyro and Zach had the corn dog on a stick. As we were wandering out we say deep fried Oreo's but there was no room.

Today the hubby asked what I had planned for the tomatoes he has been collecting from the garden....why does it have to be my idea?? So I spent the afternoon making homemade tomato sauce. The house smells delicious! I enlisted Zach to help and as we were working Zach said he wanted manicotti for dinner so off to Super Wally's we went for the ingredients. My mom gave me a recipe a while ago that I have not tried but pulled out for the manicotti-you use the no boil lasagna noodles instead of manicotti tubes. You soak the pasta sheets in boiling water for 5 minutes-they become pliable, you spread the filling over 3/4's of the noodle and roll! Manicotti roll ups! They were good and so much less work. Doubly good with the homemade tomato sauce.

I finished the binding on the MB2 swap and just printed the label. I decided to try a computer generated label instead of trying my best handwriting-which is not all that good. It printed a bit larger than I would have liked but next time I know to shrink it. I have decided to not do another swap right now as my other projects are piling up and I am of the personality that I only work on one thing at a time. Although I buy enough to be working on a hundred at a time. I really want to get moving on my BOM from Our Gathering Place in Montoursville. It is a paper pieced design using lite, medium and dark bali's. I have 2 months done but truly need to catch up plus there are some UFO's that need attention.

Where or where can she be.....

I know, I know-where have I been-I get a new machine and you expect I would be burning through projects and lots of posts. Well I meant well but life got in the way. I have however got my MBS2 all sewn and quilted. I am working on the binding this weekend.

The new machine is great except it is BIG! I lost my work space to the right of the machine where I kept my seam ripper, snips and magnetic pin cushion. This morning I was fussing over nothing being at arms reach! So while we were out and about running errands I checked the aisles for something to solve my problem. I found it at Target! It is a shelf that clamps-perfect. I wish it were in pink but I can make a runner for it in Pink and "girl it out". Plus when I need to close that door, I can take the shelf off and stick it inside the cupboard.

Here is my Miniature Booty Swap 2 piece. I like how it turned out. My plan is to have it in the mail this week-but we will see. My step daughter and her boyfriend are visiting this week so there will be little sewing because there will be people in my sewing room!!! The injustice! No actually it will be great to see the kids. It has been a few months.

Got my kid back.-highly overrated.

Thursday was the LONGEST DAY EVER...We were leaving after work to head to NY to get our kid-whom we missed terribly. The hubby and I did well considering we have never had that much alone time. I had my computer turned off, my phone forwarded and Miranda ready to go at 3:10-I never walked out of the plant until after 4-buggers!
Got home loaded the car and off we went-it was amazing-I didn't even have to stop to potty! If you talk to the hubby a 4 hour trip requires on average 2 trips. I don't think I stop that much but I might out of boredom from riding.
So we get here and oh mercy I missed that child up until yesterday at about 11AM. Yup then the mouth kicked into high gear. Involved a melt down in Kohl's and a few threats in Old Navy-we were school clothes shopping. Not sure when the tide turned but it got better until about 4PM at the in-laws. Now don't you agree that a child acting up is the absolute worst when it happens in front of your mother in law!!! OMG I could have killed the child-he stood in front of me and told me "No-he wasn't doing that" All I asked for was a "please" when I demanded the item I had in my hand. His father intervened and nicely said that was not a nice way to talk to mommy and that he could have the item when he asked politely. Now mind you the room is quiet-the newborn even stopped fussing when the 8yro said "NO". If the couch would have opened up and fairies offered me a passage to the other side-I would have gladly gone....The child then told his father "NO-I don't have to" and walked outside.
Well we bid our goodbyes with me apologizing for his behavior....
The good news is he is alive but missing a few of his favorite belonging and activities for a few days or possibly life.

I don't think there is any fabric or quilt shops in the works for the weekend-although I am hoping for rain and that could change......

Where to start...

So off we went to Hershey on Saturday-it was the first time that we have been to Hershey and not had to sit in traffic. Although like every other trip to Hershey we could not find where we needed to be and ended up looping. Hershey has a very nice park and the largest public pool I have ever seen.

So into the quilt show we go-first thing first-the vendor market!! WOW! I am from upstate NY and the quilt shows I have been to are in churches or schools with maybe a dozen or so vendors. So needless to say this was amazing and bless Scott's heart he waited as I entered each booth and listened to my excitement as I exited. It was neat to see all the gadgets, the fabric trends and patterns. We went through everything once and ended at the Viking booth.....13/14 year old machine-very basic, no frills, served a purpose.

There it was the Sapphire 870Q....the last one, the demo model, marked down by $400-what was a girl to do???? I just HAD to buy it-the best part you want to know....all my feet and bobbins are interchangeable-Eureka!! Ok not the best part-the best part was that the seller kept the machine while we went through the quilts and I wandered back through the booths to pick up some MH paper piecing patterns.

I love the MH paper piecing patterns and have seen a couple of them and have done the pansy one. I picked up 4 of them-ha ha Mom!!! I only told Mom I picked up 2 ;).

Ok so then we went through the quilts. Wonderful works of art. Showcased quilts in a non-quilt way-they were not ones you put on beds and snuggled under. They were made to be hung and centerpieces. Amazing. The Quilting Pirate has a site showing a majority of quilts because although I took my camera the batteries DIED!!! UGH!! Darn rechargeable batteries!! I loved the bright pelicans it was so neat to me. I also stood at the pelicans in disbelief at the whole cloth quilt done in-are you ready?? That Cheddar Orange color! Yup no kidding. Can you just picture the clerk at the quilt shop when the customer asked to purchase 8 yards of Cheddar Orange-LOL!!! It was beautiful in workmanship alone. As we were wandering we came upon a wall hanging of a view-as I looked at I realized I recognized the view. Someone had done a "picture" quilt of the International Bridge . I know that bridge-how cool.

Ok so on to the machine-I love it and so much different than what I had. I have only sewn seams with it so far but am liking the auto sew, the auto foot and the auto cutter feature. The auto foot has taken some getting used to-I keep looking for the lever. There are so many stitches-I haven't had a chance to play with-work days are long. I will next week though.

I think there is about 4 more inches of space so I can't wait to finish the MBS2 and try to quilt a fair sized wall hanging that I is in the UFO pile. The size of the wall hanging would normally have me struggling in my old machine so I look forward to seeing the difference.

Enough for now-happy sewing!!

Mommmmmm

That is the response I got when I called to talk to my kid last night. OK granted I had already called him in the AM and interrupted a computer game and now I was interrupting him playing with the dog....I swear I could FEEL the eye roll through the phone!! So my monkey has been with Poppa since Wednesday-3 nights and I am missing him and want to be part of his adventures with Poppa. I am so proud that when I do talk to him he is not missing me and is so comfy with who and where he is that he doesn't miss me-sounds good huh? ;) OH well.

I have gotten some sewing done this week and am liking how my Miniature Booty Swap 2 is coming along. I chose a very geometrical design this time that requires fussy cutting and attention to where the colors are falling. Very outside of my comfort zone but I am enjoying the amount of thought I need to put into this-versus my normal strip piecing comfort zone. The pictures are the colors I am trying to put into the quilt. They are all from my stash!! I started with the red, the butterflies and the black. I need 6 and a main fabric-so where do I go in my stash for shiny fabrics with bits of gold....the HOLIDAY Bucket!!! That is where the cream and darker brown came from while the green and gold/yellow came from my Miranda Bag (love love my Miranda bag). I think this may be one of my first entirely stash projects-ever! Go Me!

We are off to Hershey today and if there is a sewing machine vendor with a Sapphire I think it is coming home with me-I have been hemming and hawing about this for MONTHS and I keep coming back to this machine. We will see-the dilemma is that 14 years ago I spent $400 on my Viking 310. My machine owes me nothing it has been great but I really want some more stitch options but am suffering from sticker shock-they are not $400 any more!!

MiniatureQuilter@blogspot got a new machine (Brothers Quilt Club 1000) and showed us the stipple stitch that her machine does-I love it and I want that!! I have to manually do my stipples which is fine but to just go on auto pilot would be awesome! Plus I want a bigger opening-I have a hard time machine quilting the throw size and cannot even think about a twin much less a queen. I would like to comfortably be able to maneuver the lap quilt size. I think Scott is tired of hearing about how a want a new machine-just buy it already is the look I am getting. So we will see....that money could buy a couple of new Coach purses-I like the new fall designs (oops just revealed a weakness-Coach and Donney). Ugh!!

All right enough rambling for now-gotta go shopping! I am taking the camera and hope to be able to share pics-

Childless

Anyone notice the time of night? Insomnia has struck-working 2nd shift today probably has not helped. Either way-tomorrow my monkey leaves for 10 days to visit his Poppa Buddy Buddy and Grammy-he is beyond excited. Mom however is torn between never been apart this long and never spent that much time with hubby alone before. Hubby and I met when Zach was 18 months old so we have never had more than 2 nights without Zach-this could be a challenge-LOL!!

Ok-so we decided that we would do something that we would not normally want to have an 8 year old tag along with us-we thought about Philly or Gettysburg but then I was looking through a new Quilt Magazine and saw this: http://www.quiltodyssey.com/ How cool Chocolate and Quilts!! We are THERE! Bless my hubby's heart he is truly willing to tag along to this with me on Saturday. Not sure what it will cost me for payback but I think Best Buy will be involved.

The house is coming together slowly but surely. We finally got the AC back on Monday afternoon-this past weekend was HORRIBLE. At one point it was 88 in the house. We have a window unit in our bedroom and the 3 of us pretty much hung out in there. There is still a hole in the ceiling-it is sealed with plastic and a promise to come back early in the week. The initial dust and grime has been cleaned but I think we will be dusting daily for weeks. I opened a drawer to an end table and it was full of crud from the collapse.

I should be working on my MB2 but I have all next week! I got my pattern scaled down to fit within the guidelines and was determined to use Stash Fabric-I think I will be successful-that could change after visiting the merchant mall on Saturday ;) Although I could just look for a "Me" project.

Packages!!

Some good news from yesterday, besides not being homeless, was that I got my ALQS quilt in the mail-all the way from Australia!! How amazing! Australia is on my families "Must See" list. Lynda Betts made this amazingly beautiful quilt for me! How lucky was I? It is a pineapple design in this great floral and polka-dot fabric-so retro!! The added bonus to this lovely piece is that it is HAND QUILTED and is of Moda fabrics (love love love Moda's). I cannot express how lovely this is, how much I love it and how badly I needed something good this week.

I took the picture outside and then put the quilt back in the box until we are done cleaning up the mess.

Thank you Lynda!!

My second box was my Connecting Threads order. I did open that inside in my bedroom, cleaned on Tuesday. I am okay impressed with what I bought. Things seem a big more rust/orangy than I thought they would be but I still like. I can't wait to get this cleaning done and be able to pull out my sewing. Thankfully the sewing room was an area the cloud of dust did not reach-helps that I usually keep the door closed.

Ok so to sum it up: I have been so lucky in my swaps-I have two absolutely beautiful quilts to hang in my room and I am so excited to get going on my Miniature Booty Swap 2 quilt.

Oh the DRAMA!!

Here is my life since Sunday AM....

Zach was playing Wii and noticed a water spot on the ceiling. We assumed it was the drip pan for the AC had overflowed and the gutter was blocked. So outside we went to unplug the gutter. The gutter was not plugged, in fact there was nothing coming out of the AC unit drain pipe at ALL!! So we call the landlord at 11AM and watched the water spot turn to a drip and then a crack. They showed up at 6PM and said yup it is broken. They called the company who put the AC in and someone came over to fix it. Apparently when they put the unit in March of '07 they did not run a strait pipe to the gutter they put a u-shaped trap in but didn't tell any one. The trap had water in it which froze over the winter cracking the pipe.

So since about May when we started using the AC again it has been draining into the insulation in the attic! Monday morning at 7:28AM the ceiling in the living room collapsed. Not even the worst part.

The insulation is original to the house circa 1950's and is called vermiculite and contains asbestos. Yup-at 11AM on Monday my house because a potential asbestos abatement area complete with plastic surrounding the 4x6 foot hole. We had to send a sample to NJ at $400 so we could find out the type and the level. This was important to know because at a certain level OSHA says it is a HAZMAT area and men in suits need to come in and then the debris needs a special license and permit in order to be disposed. Monday evening the landlord informed us that her insurance would not cover abatement so they would not be able to afford to fix it. What!! So as of Monday if the test revealed a certain level-we would be homeless.

Tuesday night at 9:30 PM we found out the levels and type of asbestos-so we went to bed planning in house hunting this weekend and figuring out how we go about getting our furniture cleaned-yeah we didn't sleep much or well.

THE GOOD NEWS!! As of 10AM today the levels are below the OSHA levels and it is not fibrous-it can just be fixed and cleaned like normal!!! I am not homeless!!!

I do however have a MESS-the furniture is brown suede and covered in grey insulation dust. The 3 of us worked as a team and got the coffee table, couch, chair and end table cleaned in about 2 hours this evening. We set Zach up outside wiping down knick knacks with Swifter wipes and damp towels while we did the heavier dirtier work of washing walls, vacuuming furniture and mopping.

Oh yeah-the AC unit is not working until the hole is fixed and we are in a high humidity slump. Lovely huh-oh well.

Eating a wave

Someday he will be embarrassed but right now he thinks it is neat-so here is one of my favorite pics from last week.

Whew-home!!

So we finished a 8 hour trip in 11.5 hours on Sunday because I-95 is a parking lot between Richmond, VA and DC. The hubby and I literally pulled out magazines to read while stopped in traffic. The child was enjoying the movie player.

Vacation was wonderful. I loved being so close to the beach and seeing all the family at once. It certainly relieves the stress of trying to get to everyone's house annually and if you get to one and not the other then you offend someone....you know the deal. The picture is of "Poppa Buddy Buddy" and Zach parasailing!!

I decided that this year we were going to have everyone come to us-we rented a house on the beach and invited eveyone to join us. I loved it-I got to be Aunt Shelly and spoil everyone rotten!

I was able to find 2 quilt shops in the area. One I had seen online that I was excited about closed! The other 2 were cute. I found some neat patterns and some nice blue and yellows. I am determined to find the "perfect" pattern and do myself something in blue and yellow to hand along side my Miniature Booty Swap. I like the color combo on the walls of my bedroom.

I took the escaping bugs quilt to sew the binding but didn't do even one stitch-much to the dismay of the child who wants to use the quilt. I promised to have it done this weekend.

I signed up for the Miniature Booty Swap II and am excited to start digging through the stash for those fabrics. I know I have plenty because of all the flag wall hangings I did a few years ago when the siblings were sent to Iraq the first time.

While I was gone I got a Connecting Threads catalog in the mail-I have never seen this one before and really loved it-89 dollars worth! Not much in quilt talk but after a week's vacation plenty enough. I won't share what I got because I want to scale down one of the patterns to fit the MBSII size guidelines. So you will just have to wait and see ;)

On Vacation

Sorry for the lack of post's lately but last week was spent preparing for vacation and this week we are on vacation.

We have rented a beach house in Nags Head and all of my family is or will be here-the first time in 4 years. To us that is a big deal with 2 serving overseas every other year and 1 out to sea keeping our shores safe. BUT as the parents of an only child-it is quite hectic and we are seeking some quiet, don't have to share time in our room as I type this-poor bugger.

Yesterday my hubby, dad and I took 3 boys to the Jockey Ridge state park to climb the sand dunes. HOLY COW they were amazing. I am not in the best shape ever, not that I ever was so I can't even say-since....My hubby had his knee replaced in January and my dad is 63-we were trying to keep up with 2 8 year olds and a 4 year old. They had a blast running down the dune and sliding on their bums. I then had a plan to wear everyone out so that there would be no trouble sleeping so off we went to the beach-same crew. I was crazy but I was determined to wear them OUT! It was great fun and I have now had to promise to take the same crew again today. 4PM we have a date.

So there is no quilting going on, but a plan to find a fabric shop or 4 ;).

The kids love their pillows.