Shelly's Quilting Blog

Home Decor Challenged

2011-04-09T07:34:00.000-04:00

How can I not decorate? How can I put quilt colors and blocks together but cannot put together my house? Is it PTSD leftover from 20 years of being a renter and being issued a military house? I can't figure where to hang a shelf, where to put a picture, what color scheme....UGH! The walls are not white they are pretty greens, tans, corral, greens, greens and greens.....get the drift. Celery green, apple green, gray green, dark pea green....green green green.

The Hubby has declared that he is not repainting a room-it will have to be done professionally. Not quite so easy as his house in NY-fancy ceilings, hardwood floor, molding, etc. I get it but means I either don't decorate and wait until the painting is done or buy stuff now to decorate and learn to like the green.....Sigh. might be easier to organize the sewing area and bury my head in the fabric!!!

We are actually spending a day somewhat at home which will be a nice treat. This evening we are headed to a Columbus Blue Jacket professional hockey game. DH and son are WAY excited!! Can I take my knitting into the game and not appear to bored?

Enjoy spring if you are lucky enough!

2011-03-31T11:05:00.000-04:00

Holy Cow-I know my mom has said she misses my blog but I didn't realize it has been over a year!! Where did it go? I will tell you there was not a whole lot of sewing going on that is for sure! That Red & White all over quilt is still a UFO and in progress. I am happy to say though it is together and needs the papers torn off the back from the Gazillion 1/2 square triangles. If I never do a 1/2 square triangle again I might just be alright! But being my mother's daughter (with a VERY strong shopping gene) not sewing did not meant not buying fabric!! So when I do get the room up and running I will have PLENTY of projects!

We are no longer Blogging from Central PA-we are now in Central Ohio and the sewing room changed from a great space with natural light and built in bookcases to a corner in the basement with great potential! I am excited about the space and all it has to offer, I just need to find the time to set it up. I get to organize from the ground up: flooring, cabinets, shelving....all of it!!

Last winter I actually was spending too much in the sewing by myself after working long hours so I taught myself how to knit and crochet so that I could at least be in the living room. I love it!!! I have made felted bowls, a felted purse, a cupcake hat for my cutie pie niece, a pumpkin hat for my cutie pie nephew, place mats....It is never ending!

I am hoping dusting off the blog will inspire me to get moving on the room or do something creative-I miss it and just don't know where to start.
Shelly

What is Red with White all over?

2009-12-11T16:51:00.000-05:00

My snowball blocks! Still working on them-got them all put together into rows and will begin joining rows into blocks this weekend.

Will post pictures maybe tomorrow-just wanted to give a brief update for my challenge co-horts!

Shelly

Red: the color of Love or Anger????

2009-11-23T22:30:00.001-05:00

Well my awesome ivories and wonderful gorgeous reds are now a GAZILLION 1/2 square triangles!!! Ok well not a gazillion but 500+ and not quite done, I still have to cut them all apart.....burst my own bubble. I was determined to get these done so that I can use our 10 hour car ride to Tennessee on Wednesday to cut them apart. I am hoping to slip my "ghetto" (no offense please) in a suitcase with out my husband knowing so that I might be able to put these together with the center squares. Considering how many of these there are, I will be happy with just getting them cut apart!

Wahoo!!!

2009-11-16T20:49:00.001-05:00

They all got here on Saturday!! I was into that package quicker than ice melting in July!! They are beautiful and range from light light to light tan. Thank you so much swap partners!!

This is my first attempt at something scrappy. I have been quilting for about 15 years now and have NEVER done anything like this-I can't even see the architect of a block if it is shown as scrappy-I have a scrappy mental block. Yesterday I was putting together the reds and had to stop myself from trying to group them, make a pattern, sort, organize....UGH!! It is funny now but was not funny yesterday! Then to top it all off-I decided to make the quilt bigger so that I can use it on my bed. I suppose I am into self punishment on this one!

I think I will be doing the 1/2 square triangles using triangle paper. I figure the paper will cover the fabric and I won't be able to see the scrappy, the lack of rhyme or reason..... ;)

Love seeing the progress on the other blogs!

Mr Postman-bring me a dream.....

2009-11-12T20:42:00.001-05:00

the dream has been ivory/off white/cream/light beige strips which I will NOT open until I have all my packages! My packages are traveling the world as we speak.

I thought I was going to make this using the gazillion yellow fat quarters I have collected the past 10 years. But after seeing everyone else's red versions-I switched it up and dug out the reds. Holy cow did I have a lot of reds and it was funny because some of my favorite ones I had 2 or 3 pieces. At least I am consistent.

I washed all my reds and used 2 Color Catchers and then re-rinsed using 2 more which still turned pink!! Good thing I listened to Nicole!

I finally got my book in the mail this week and had a panic attack when I couldn't find the red and cream snowball quilt in the book....took me a second peek through to realize it was the scrappy directions we were doing-consistent but not quick....

I cannot wait for this weekend-we have no real plans and I hope to be able to sew!
Take care,
Shelly

Still Here!

2009-10-30T19:03:00.001-04:00

I have no real excuse as to why I have not blogged in 2 MONTHS!! Holy Cow! One reason that is a good one is that my sister got married. As the Matron (HATE that word-Matron) of Honor it was a lot of work even with a wedding planner. I was in charge of the RSVP's, table favors and a secret shower. There had been some sewing going on-I made a wall hanging for my sister and her hubby and mid stream decided to quilt it with black thread instead of the King Tut that I had bought for it.
I loaded it on the frame, made some extra bobbins and away I went with the WalMart special thread....BIG mistake!! I am now the proud owner of a birds nest wall hanging and my sister and her hubby got a last minute gift card to Bed Bath & Beyond. I have been working on ripping it out with my best friend's assistance (the seam ripper). I have since bought the only thread to use in my machine while on the frame and once I get this mess ripped out, I will have what I need to make it beautiful.

I was able to finish "Jack" he is so cute and I love the random Halloween fabrics I picked up here and there. My holder is a mantle wreath holder and I used triangles in the corners and chop sticks in between-Cute and Green!
I like the seasonal quiltlets so I think I will keep my wreath holder dressed appropriately. I already have one going for Fall-it is a wrought iron fence with a tree and you sew leaf buttons on the ground. Can't wait to have that up on Sunday!
I am participating in a scrappy snowball quilt challenge that is the brain child of Nicole at Sister's Choice Quilts and Allyson at Fat Cat Quilts. I am even doing the light fabric swap-how cool will that be! I am finding though that I have A TON of ivory/cream fat quarters but not much yardage. I might have to shop to follow through with this swap. Not a bad thing either ;)

BOM's

2009-08-30T09:35:00.002-04:00

I love the concept of Block of the Month's (BOM's). I love to sew and this allows me to ease into a project instead of having yardage hanging around as UFO's.

Currently I have the Thangles Buck a Block going from my local quilt shop: www.ogpquiltshop.com and the Natural Wonders by Debbie Mumm: http://shop.debbiemumm.com/p-4509-bom-2009-quilt-1.aspx

Enough to keep me busy yet still work on other stuff-well not so much of either lately.

This morning as I was cruising through my favorite blogs I saw this at the the Jolly Jabber-Beautiful and such a mix of material!

http://www.fatquartershop.com/Green-Piece-Moda-Block-of-the-Month.asp

Loving it and will head back there shortly to sign up-Hubby is in the same room-can't be whipping out the quilt only credit card-too many questions I don't want to answer!

Then while I am there I see this one!

http://www.fatquartershop.com/Pennsylvania-Dutch-Block-of-the-Month.asp

Now I am all about the Americana-RW&B color combo-OH yeah the Project House 360 BOM is being printed but not necessarily sewn at this time.

http://www.projecthouse360.com/bom2009.html

Now I am debating which one to do....Ok I got it.....

BOTH!

Oooooo the hubby left-time to place an order-or two!

This & That

2009-08-29T08:16:00.005-04:00

3 weeks since my last post? Cannot be possible...where has the time gone, oh yeah-work. That necessary evil that allows me to support my addiction (fabric) and pay the gazillion dollars I owe in student loans-what was I thinking going back to college 20 years after high school????

Not much sewing going on here for various reasons. I am still recovering from the 10 day/bi-annual visit of our 11 year old nieces!

I will start that 2 years ago we took the then 9 years old girls for a week, I cried more than they did-it was horrible-I felt so inadequate. I took vacation time while they were here, we planned all these day trips and had great activities planned we were excited....

Went to Hershey Park for the day (5 people-not cheap) only to learn that the girls do not like amusement rides-so while the hubby and the son or me and the son sought our thrills the other adult had 2 feet firmly planted on the ground with 2 pouty young ladies.

Went to Penn's Cave, bought tickets only to learn that one or the other didn't like boat rides or bus rides.....got my money back on that one luckily.

Went to a swimming pool with slides and water sprays and cool stuff to find that one didn't like getting their head wet. We sat on the blanket and she pouted while my son and the other had a grand time.

They are allowed to stay up past a decent hour and`1 sleep til noon-at that time we lived in a ranch house with our bedroom right off the living room and Hannah Montana at 1AM is NOT COOL to me!

Then there was the cool Aunt Shelly saying I would buy them an outfit for school....ended up at the Limited Too-because they are picky dressers and they would defiantly find something there.....can I saw that was almost as much as a student loan payment!!

So that was 2 years ago.....This trip had some thought into before they got here-laugh I know the best laid plans....

This year I did not take any time off-the hubby wanted to do this and he is retired so he could schlep them all over and not have them like it. We would do bigger things on the weekends, together. During the week they would do day trips and cheap activities.

I also planned the menu around exactly what they would eat-we had a LOT of steak those few days.

We established some ground rules about bedtime, behavior and language right off the bat.

So we started off good-hadn't seen them in a few months, how is everyone, do they like their new school, was your summer good....then they spotted my sewing toys-OMG don't you know THEY LOVE TO SEW!!!

My husband got all gushy-awww-look you can be their mentor as you would a daughter(not even closely related duh? As if!)....I grudgingly opened up my sewing toy shop-laying out a few ground rules:

1. Not buying anything-so whatever we decide to do has to be from the stash and something they could work on while I was at work-figured this would give the hubby a break during the day.
2. I had to approve the fabric they wanted to use
3. They could not just use the toys-I approved what they used on what IE Gingher scissor must NEVER EVER TOUCH Paper!

We decided on raiding my stash of 4" squares and making pillows. Easy enough. OK a headstrong 11 year old on a sewing machine scared the HELL out of me! I corrected her finger placement a million times then finally decided I couldn't watch and if she sewed her finger than at least she would learn....even the scissor usage was painful to watch.

So after an evening of sewing squares together one decides that they don't really like sewing and the other decides it is too hard and needs a break...2 days later they want to know when am I going to finish their pillows-uh never...you wanted to do this you finish them.

Heartless? May seem that way but what you don't know is that during the two days it took them to make that request, the hubby and I had been following them around picking up glasses of table tops, wet towels off bedding, wet towels off carpet, wet towels off wet towels, throwing away half eaten items, gathering shoes from all over, closing doors, closing the refrigerator, shutting off lights, reminding that we don't call each other names, you must take turns on the video games, being anti-social in public with arms crossed is UNACCEPTABLE-don't go or stay in the car, No you CANNOT be online after I go to bed.....

After about a million re-threads on the machine (the ghetto machine NOT the Viking!) Exasperated-I finished putting them together. At the end of the visit we had 2 cute pillows somewhat made by them-only 1 twin agreed to having her picture taken-this would be the professional pouter niece.

That is how the visit was sewing related-the rest of the drama and the reason I will NOT do that again for AT LEAST another 2 years is not for this blog. I did walk away with a DEEP appreciation for having only 1 child with the bonus being his MALE gender! They are great young ladies-just moody 11 year old girls who have different rules than at my house which results in being allowed to do more grown up things.

Whew!

2009-08-06T20:30:00.003-04:00

The drama did not end yet with this quilt! Can you believe it??!!
I found a piece of batting that was exactly the right size if I were to not use the quilt frame.

I decided to just do one diagonal line in the plain white blocks to maintain the flow of the triangle blocks. I used a red chalk pencil to mark the diagonals. When I tested it the line rubbed right out with warm water as directed. So I layed it out on the floor and safety pinned it-picked it up to find a pucker deep enough to LOOSE the BABY in!! So unpin we go...the next round of pinning I taped the backing to the floor with painter's tape. Worked perfectly!

The diagonal sewing was uneventful as was putting on the binding. The additional drama came when I went to gently rub out the RED marks on the WHITE blocks-I know, I know just the idea should have been a red flag! They DIDN'T RUB OUT!! Let me tell you my husband heard me cussing words he has never heard me say! I was angry and had no clue what to try....Mom was here so that we could attend the Hershey show and suggested just putting it in the washer with warm water. I had nothing further to loose. Thank you Mom because it worked!

It is finally done and headed to NY tomorrow!!

Hershey or BUST!

2009-08-01T07:48:00.002-04:00

For one day only Hershey is good for something other than the obvious, CHOCOLATE and outlet shopping...today the Quilt Odyssey is in town and I cannot wait to get to the Merchant Mall! I don't think this year's shopping will be as cool as last year-Hubby went with me and authorized the purchase of my amazing Sapphire 870. The Hubby is not going, he has opted to go to Harry Potter at the IMAX/3D theater with Zach and Poppa. Mom and I are on our own. Not a bad thing but the pocket book won't be as plentiful.

The Thangles quilt is quilt and has the binding sewn to the front waiting to be hand sewn. THANK GOODNESS-have you ever had one that did not go away to the completion pile? This one has been that for me and will be glad to see it land with it's new owner. In the end it turn out very nice, thank goodness despite all the issues I have had with it.

Not liking this quilt......

2009-07-26T19:08:00.005-04:00

I ran out of backing-so off to Verna's (no complaints there) got the backing, decided on how to quilt it, decided to not use the variegated King Tut thread (have NO clue what to use that on now), had to buy white thread, loaded it on the frame got 1/2 through to learn that I was running out of batting!! UGH! Decided that I didn't want to run all the way to Williamsport for batting so I trekked to Wal Mart thinking that they had to have a packaged cotton batt-NOPE only polyester. Darn-all is on hold until tomorrow when I will have to visit Williamsport. I think I will buy a twin batt just to tuck away in case of emergencies.

All was not lost, I opened my Jo Ann Fabrics Bohemian block of the month and cut out the other 4 block pieces. I like the "Sunflower" block so I bought 1 kit and fat quarters of all the colors to make 3 more blocks for a simple wall hanging. Then I hit my ruler with the rotary cutter, chipped the blade and the ruler-set everything down and took a nap! I could not get a head today!

I hope everyone elses sewing went better today!

Next weekend is the Quilt Extravaganza in Hershey-SOOOO excited!

***I FOUND A PIECE OF BATTING THAT WORKS-BARELY!! NO ROOM FOR SHIFTING ON THIS BUGGER!!!

Don't you hate that??!!

2009-07-08T19:02:00.005-04:00

Don't you just hate it when you buy what you need for a project only to get to a point and realize that you don't have enough fabric!! UGH!

I was asked to make a baby quilt as a gift. So we decided on a pattern (see a post in April about a Gazillion 1/2 square triangles) and away I went-construction was delayed due to the Boy Scout quilt but all was together this weekend. It took me HOURS to pick the triangle paper off the back so that it would press nice and flat. An off note-for picking the paper off the back-the Triangle Paper was much easier than the Thangles Paper.

Yesterday I came home from work ready to load everything on the quilt frame only to find that I did NOT have enough backing! UGH-kick scream cuss.....Daggone it. What I think happened because the one thing with quilting that I am really good at is the Math-is that I did not count for the 8 extra inches I need on all sides to load it on the frame. Right now if I chose to quilt it on my machine, not on the frame, I would have enough backing, but not enough to load it on the frame.

The bright side is that I now have a reason to treck out to Verna's on Saturday! I love Verna's and need to justify a reason for going otherwise I go without focus and BUY just randomly! Which is great but I am trying to stick to finishing what I have stuff for already.

Hopefully Saturday I can get this loaded and quilted. Part of my crazy thread purchase was a pastel variegated one that is intended for this-I want the quilting to be subtle so that the blocks stand out. I am thinking ABC's We will see. In the mean time I have some thangle BOM's to catch up on and the Debbie Mumm BOM to do-I just got the next 3 blocks on Monday. I am really liking these colors.

This is a random picture I took while in Chicago-I am standing inside "The Bean" looking up-very cool.

99% Finished

2009-07-02T19:19:00.004-04:00

My disclaimer: I said that my goal was too ambitious on the Boy Scout quilt for my Dad. I had good intentions-enough said-here is the tale....

Saturday as I was packing the Hubby and the Son for Boy Scout camp I realized that the son has been wearing the same 3 pairs of shorts because nothing else fits or is "dress", the sweatpants were 3" too short (I swear I JUST bought those!) and we needed bug spray and toothpaste. So off we went-how hard in June will it be to find pull on shorts in size 8-PLAIN....Just about impossible! JCPenny, Sears, Macy's, WalMart, The BonTon, Dick's Sporting goods, Old Navy, etc....na da! I avoided The Gap because of the price but as we were walking buy I popped in quick expecting to still be empty handed....would not be the case-there they were-plain, not denim, pull on shorts-they were perfect Rip Stop Nylon, drawstring everything-then I looked at the tag-$18 a PAIR!! Daggone-oh well. We bought 3 pairs - never did find a pair of sweat pants but we did get packed finally!

Essentially there was no sewing on Saturday-still a border to add, quilting to be done, binding to be bought and cut and then sewn....already behind the 8 ball.

The boys had to meet the rest of the Pack at 2 so we spent a lazy morning together and at 2 off they went-I was alone! Just me and the dog. I hated to head home and just sit when I had 2 days alone (hubby came and went from camp-alternated with Poppa) so off to JoAnn's I went. I never get to just wander and look-I always have people in the car waiting for me to get exactly what is on my list and leave! It was nice-they carry the BSA fabric and had one that would do for the binding. $100 later (after coupons!) I left for Wegman's grocery store and dinner-love their grilled veggies!

That night I got the borders on the quilt and the backing loaded on the frame. At 11PM I gave up and went to bed. Monday night I got everything loaded and started quilting. Did not go well....the thread coming off the cone got caught on something pulling the needle off center and it chipped my free motion foot causing a burr which the thread got caught in as I was stippling. I fixed the thread-modified it's path and used a paring knife to fix the burr because I could not find a file-which resulted in me putting said paring knife into my finger tip-YES there was swearing....Eventually I had it figured out and away I went. At 1 AM with about 3-4 passes left, I went to bed.

Tuesday night I finished the quilting and got the binding cut and sewn on-not hand sewn over to the back. I was able to hand sew about 1/4 of this that night. So although it is not done done, it is together and awaiting hand attention. I took it with me to show Dad-he likes it and was not expecting it.

The matching quilt for Zach is still in single blocks and will need to wait until after the pastel 1/2 square triangle and a potential wall hanging wedding gift-not part of the 6 year gift previously mentioned.

A finish!!

2009-06-24T20:11:00.004-04:00

WAHOO!!! The 5+ year project is quilted! All that I have left to do is the binding-actually FIND the fabric that will become the binding. At the beginning of the year I make a list of things to do this year-this was a huge one on that list. I don't really remember what is on it-uh oh. I will have to go back and check it out.

While quilting this I was using King Tutt brand thread and ran out 2 passes from the end! I had purchased the thread while on vacation in North Carolina so there was no way to "run" any where and get another spool. I found a place online and of course I am not going to order just 1 spool of thread for a $6 shipping fee-No I ordered 5! $52 later I had what I needed to finish my 2 passes and then some!

The BSA Fabric quilt is almost a top-I have the borders to put on but an not sure what I want to do there....not much time to decide since I want this on the frame Friday night and off Saturday afternoon for binding and ready to go Sunday at noon....yeah I don't think I will make it either but you always have to be ambitious. Keep you posted!

2009-06-12T07:30:00.003-04:00

No fancy blog titles-that part kills me. I can sit here and have at it with the key board but to come up with a catchy title is beyond my blogging ability.

I didn't realize that there was such a lack of posts-a whole month! I have been quilting so it has not been because of nothing to show.

This past month I decided to make some special Boy Scouts their own special Boy Scout quilts. I had seen things made from the fabric line in numerous magazines but have limited access locally to see something like that in a quilt store. So I bought a fat quarter bundle online and thought a turning twenty was in the works. Really what else is there for 20 fat quarters.....While in NC at Easter I visited a JoAnn's Super Craft Center-those stores are awesome! They sell furniture for Pete's sake. While there I saw some of the Kauffman fabric at Joann's (OF ALL THE PLACES!). So I bought a couple yards of the blue with the numbers down the side and the piece that has all the merit badges on it-actually after searching for a SPECIFIC merit badge on it I have discovered that they are NOT all represented.

Once back I decided that I didn't want to do a turning twenty-just not exciting enough for the fabric. So I flipped through some books and magazines, you know we all have them in piles and piles, and found a Floating Square block that is in a Layer Cake book I have bought during my Atlanta trip.

So off I go with my 20 fat quarters and my floating square block pattern. I needed 35 blocks for each quilt (x2) and could get about 4 out of each fat quarter-SWEET! So the adventure began....I cut and cut and cut, then I sewed and sewed and sewed, then ironed, ironed and ironed, the sewed and sewed and sewed.....you get the picture. What I left out is cutting apart my chain piecing each morning while waiting with Zach for the bus. He was great at sorting them back into coordinator fabric piles for me.

Finally last weekend I completed all the blocks and am ready to put them into rows and so forth. But the internal deal with my self is that I can get nothing done beyond the ROW stage until my brother's 6 year old wedding quilt is quilted and off the frame-mind you no mention of when the binding will go on.....

Production on the BSA quilts ceased on Saturday and quilting began on the 6 year old. I bought a spool of King Tutt thread in NC because I had heard great things about it online and was having trouble with looping and thread breaks. So I loaded the Tutt on the machine and away we went-AMAZING the difference the thread made-no broken threads and if I didn't move the machine down the frame too fast, there are no loops! So back and forth I went-it is a queen size so there were quite a few trips. I can see the leader cloths coming around the roll bars when suddenly no thread-literally 2 passes left to finish and I ran out of thread! UGH!

Once again the 6 year old is just sitting waiting for the postman to deliver the thread.

The update on my MBIII is that there isn't one. The one I made arrived safe and sound to it's new owner but the one I should have gotten is no where to be found and no word on what happens next. I have emailed the moderator of the swap but have not heard anything back-very not like her so life must be very busy which is understandable-to a point.

I guess the swaps are cool in theory but how to make adults follow through with their commitment to a perfect stranger? I deal with people not full filling their commitments every day and they are not even strangers! Oh well.

We are in Chicago this weekend doing the touristy thing-take care!
Shelly

MBIII Received!

2009-05-13T21:48:00.003-04:00

My apologies to Sharon for not reading my comments and realizing that she received my MBIII swap on the 7th. She likes it and is so kind about the dish towel.

I am still anxiously awaiting mine-for those that know me they have got to be laughing because I do not like surprises-love presents but don't like not knowing. I do better when I am surprised.

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-10T07:04:00.004-04:00

Not much sewing going on lately due to job and soccer commitments. Zach is doing well so far in soccer. We finally convinced him to open his stride and he would be able to run faster and further. The child is all legs and does this Scooby-Doo running thing-yeah Scooby-Doo was the influence-he is a DIE HARD FAN! Last weekend the coach placed him in the goal-scared me crazy! My baby laying on the ground with the ball under his body and the feet of the other children flying towards him. I literally had to leave for the concession stand. He loved it and was not afraid at all-despite my fear I am proud.

My partner received my Miniature Booty Swap III, per the USPS tracking system. I can't wait to hear how she liked it. I have yet to receive one-I am on pins and needles to see what my quilty partner created for me!

My brother and sister-in-law's quilt is about 1/2 done and still on the frame. I am loving the King Tut thread-not the price tag especially since locally I will have to buy it online. The spool that I am using is one that I bought from Loving Stitches in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Then on the sewing table it a Confetti 1/2 square triangle project-the one I tested the like and dislike of Triangle Paper versus Thangles. The cutting table has numerous projects-I have seen a few blogs with lists that run along the side of "to do" projects-I would love to do something like that but the list would run a hundred pages. I digress-on the cutting table are my Boy Scouts of America fat quarters waiting for my time to turn into them into two lap quilts for my favorite scouts-Dad and Zachary.

The best project on the cutting table are my Paper Dolls! I was lucky enough to find the elusive Paper Doll fabric at Ben Franklin Crafts in Montoursville. They don't have the complimentary pieces but they do have the big dolls and the clothes! I will be making this for myself. I loved paper dolls as a child and had quite the collection. They included Betsy McCall, the Walton children and the Gingham Girls. Sadly my shoebox of paper treasures were lost along the path of life. This is perfect for me-plus it will add some girl to this masculine testosterone driven house that I live in!

A bit behind with blogging

2009-04-29T21:25:00.004-04:00

It has been a while since I posted and there has been some quilty things going on so here we go...

The MBIII hosted by the Quilting Pirate is on it's way along with the matching dish towel. Looking at the other blogs-my dish towel is sad sad sad....I had no idea and faced such a creative block when faced with that project. Anxiously awaiting my MBIII package!

My parents came down fro m Upstate NY (the real upstate ate-not just Albany) for Easter weekend. Like last year we bribed the boys (Dad , Hubby and Son) with a trip to Miller Smorgasbord if they would accompany us to Lancaster. Which of course would include a quilt store stop, or two.

We wanted to visit Sauder's but they had a death in the family and were closed that weekend-mom and I regrouped and headed to Brubakers. Last year we LOVED it and wanted to buy bunches. This year we walked in , around and out-hmmmm. The boys had a nice nap, which my husband informed me he took only because he could not get a signal on his Blackberry-he had no choice but to nap. Yeah right!

We left Brubakers and headed to The Old Country Store-well if you have a chance to go to the Lancaster area be sure to stop in this little town to not only visit this shop but the pottery shop, P. Buckly Moss Gallery, the little gift shops and the Kitchen Kettle Village!!! I found Triangle Paper at The Old Country Store-I have heard about it and seen it online but an too thrifty (cheap) to order it online without truly knowing what it's purpose. I bought finished 2" paper - thinking this would be a good test size having just used 2" finished Thangles for my MBIII quiltlett.

While in the little village of Intercourse-some day the 9 year old will find it funny-there was gift shop that showcased a quilt blowing in the breeze that was absolutely amazing . It is called Star Spin-amazing. I was determined to find the pattern or stand there long enough burning it to memory. A few shop stops later tucked in a corner and marked $5 was the PATTERN!!! Eureka! I will do one of these as it is stunning-here is an example: http://www.amishcountrylanes.com/Pages/hs118.shtml.

After that the boys were at their limit and we had to go feed them and head home-that and it was 6PM.

Saturday Mom and I went to Our Gathering Place so that I could pick up my months of BOM and then to Verna's. We found fabric at Verna's to put together a little something something that would test the Triangle Paper vs. the Thangles all for a mere $40. You have just GOT to LOVE Verna! While there I found that she had the Zippity Doo Dah line, so I picked up some 1/2 yard pieces of what she had-for what you ask....who knows.

That night we cut out our Verna's fabrics and tested the two products-for onsie twosies we like the Thangles but for bunches and bunches we like the Triangle paper.
After Easter weekend the hubby, kid and I headed to NC for the week-more on that the next blog.
Hope all is well in blog land-

Realization.....

2009-04-10T07:09:00.003-04:00

The pre-story......I bought a new sewing machine last summer because after 14 years I wanted more features-stitches actually. The plan with the new machine was that some day I would buy a frame and put that on it and keep my 310 to piece on....well I LOVE the new machine. I love the features, I love the quiet, I love the size, just love it love it love it......SO I think that I will just move the machine back and forth from the frame. Yeah Right-sounded good though didn't it. In the mean time I gave the 310 to my step daughter. So I felt bad for not using my frame so I loaded the new machine on the frame, got quilt loaded, was ready to go and realized that I had forgotten the kitchen towel for the MBIII! I was afraid that if I took the machine off the frame I would postpone using it even longer than I have already. What was a quilter in desperate need to piece to do?????

BUY A NEW MACHINE! I thought about this for all about 10 seconds-just something simple, forward and backwards-Wal Mart surely will be able to fulfill my need for less than $100 (my limit without asking permission-and did I truly want to run it by the hubby???? Not so much). So I come home with a Singer Simple (yeah he noticed but has yet to say much 10 stitches all for $97!! Well a little bit more because of course I had to buy bobbins and needles that would fit.

I am excited now I can keep the new machine on the frame and still have something to piece with-a quilter's dream right????!!! NOPE!

I am a SEWING MACHINE SNOB and I want to piece on my Sapphire and I still want a Long arm on my frame (Bailey-waiting for Cowgirl Quilter to give feedback)!

The Singer is noisy, the needle does not go up and down on it's own, I have yet to find where I can get a 1/4 foot for it, what is up with the strange way the feet attach, it does not automatically cut the thread, it does not go as fast (sure sounds like it is speedy).......My hubby even commented on the loudness of it....oh well.

It is serving a purpose and so far it pieces quite nicely but this will be short term! The drive to save my $$ for the Bailey is heightened! Hurry on the reviews!

PS-this is not intended to offend any Singer sewing machine users-I am a Viking/Husqvarna type of girl. Apologies.

MB III Finish

2009-03-29T11:22:00.006-04:00

I got into the blogging thing because I wanted to participate in a swap. I have participated in 3 so far and the 4th one in process as we speak. To date the requirements were just to produce a good quality quilt somewhat following your secret partner's likes and dislikes. This current one-The Miniature Booty Swap 3-is requiring that you complete a dish towel too-I am SOOO hung up on this part! Drawing a complete blank on how to approach this or even complete this task. UGH! I have done a basic search on the Internet and still have no clue.

I am outside my comfort zone on this and it is struggle. I am working through this mental block in that I bought the dish towel and might have a plan as to what I might put on it-might.

No Quilting Here

2009-03-21T07:20:00.004-04:00

Can you tell that my week of making sure the hubby didn't fall face first down the stairs is over? Yup I regretfully headed back to work last week and my sewing has suffered. Because not only did I head back to work, my boss was out, and my hubby can't drive so I had to be Manager and Taxi Driver. Normally we split the week night duties-but I have them all until the 6th of April-oh please please be the day the neck brace comes off! Now mind you I am the one who signed the boy up for all these activities, so I truly have no one to blame but myself but my goodness he is busy!

Monday is Drama-not too bad we pick him up from school at 4:30, Wednesday is Basketball from 6-7:30, Thursday is Cub Scouts from 6:30-7 but we live 1/2 hour away so there is an hour driving time on that one and Saturday is Basketball again ranging from 4 to 5:30 start time and lasts 90 minutes....does seem so bad you say, only 3 nights a week you say....normally I would agree with you except the hubby is not driving so add into that running back and forth from work to taxi him to eyeglass appointments, surgeon follow up, general practitioner appointment, the dog got a tick have to go to the vet appointment, "honey I ran out of coffee creamer and we need milk (WE NEED A COW) stop after work" errand, damn-didn't I just put gas in this car like two days ago errand.....Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out.....

I am spoiled-I like my quiet time on Thursday evenings-I get to sew while I watch the House Wives on Bravo. I get a blissful 90 minutes a week ALONE! So when my MIL called and said that she had a doctor's appt could her son drive her-she forgot he was in a brace and can't drive-I volunteered! She has had some liver ailments and the closest specialist to her is in Rochester NY-2 hrs from her house. She had never driven (yeah don't understand that either but hey) and my FIL is 80 and certainly should not be driving 2 hrs especially on the NY thruway! There are other siblings within a few blocks from their house-but we won't go into that this post-not enough time in the day. Plus the best part was that I would be able to see my parents (they live in the same town) and I haven't seen them since CHRISTMAS! I was so in need of the hugs only parents can give! So last Sunday I headed up to NY-I stopped at the Joann Fabrics in Dickson City-are they going out of business or had my mind romanticized how awesome that store was?? I then wandered up I81 enjoying the bright sunny day and honking at the vehicles driving bye with "GO SU" on the windshields. I was slightly north of Syracuse when I saw it...piles and patches of SNOW!!! UGH! Reaffirmed why I am slowly but surely moving south, so that the snow season is short, sweet and always remains pretty!

My visit with my parents was short but just enough to get me through to Easter weekend. I did go see my mom's new office and walked in to find my own quilt show going on-that was really neat. She had one hanging that I forgot about-cool. Thanks Mom.

My day trip with my MIL was nice also-I have known her since 2002 and been married to her oldest son for 3 years-in all that time I have NEVER had more than a 15 minute conversation with her. Stop gasping-there are 6 kids in that family so when ever I did see her to have a conversation with her, there were 5 other families which bring with it up to 9 other grand kids, needy sons and daughters. Plus my last MIL experience was NOT a good one-I think she secretly hated me-not enough time for that here either! I was a bit nervous about spending 5 hours alone with her but you know what-it was great! I had a great conversation and found that although I thought I liked her-I truly do! It was nice and I would do it again.

This weekend is somewhat packed with the FINAL basketball game and the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby-but tomorrow, so far, has no plans. This is good because I have to research making a dishtowel to accompany my MBIII wall hanging.

Take care and enjoy the sunshine!

Shelly

Nursing and Sewing

2009-03-05T16:25:00.005-05:00

I have been home nursing the hubby after neck/spine surgery and have gotten a lot of sewing done while he has napped. I was able to finish the daggone stained glass wall hanging and now it joins the "to be quilted" pile. I was going to then start my Miniature Booty Swap III wall hanging but found that I had no appropriate fabric-I was stunned and had to look twice to make sure-nope nothing. Well that meant a little bit of Internet shopping was in order. I found the perfect fabrics at the Fat Quarter Shop and of course their service was impeccable-ordered on Monday in my hands on Thursday!

Ok so the MBIII was out as a project-what to do-Ohh I know, I know-my thangles Buck a Block of the Month. So out it came and was done in 15 minutes-the hubby was still sleeping so I had to find something to do.

So I moved on to my Debbie Mumm block of the month blocks. This one might actually do the trick as I waited for my FQS order to arrive. I got out the fabrics and directions-cut all the strips out and moved forward. I got one block done, moved to the 2nd block only to find that I cut one of the fabrics wrong!! Ugh-back to the Internet to buy a replacement piece. So now what....I rented Australia and made do with that.

Today I got my FQS order - I got that all cut out, sat down at the sewing machine to discover that I have NO WHITE thread-I have a zillion shades of off-white, tan, beige, ecru....but no pure, clean , snow white! Crazy. Must be why I stopped on my snowflake table runner-I need white to sew the snowflakes on the top of the pieced top.

So once again I have hit the quilted wall-after the kid is done with Cub Scouts We will be stopping at Walmart for white thread.

Better luck tomorrow with the sewing plans!

**Stopped at WalMart after Cub Scouts-head to the craft department, stand in front of the thread case and GASP! The white thread is empty! Empty I tell you! There is winter white, off white, ecru but no plain old, snow pure white! UGH! Then I notice the "specialty" thread-the skies opened up and the angels sang-there was literally ONE spool left. I grabbed it-whew!

Stained Glass Wall Hanging

2009-03-02T13:28:00.009-05:00

McCall's Quick Quilt had a stained glass wall hanging in it's November 2008 issue which I though would be amazing displayed on this large bare white wall in the dining area of the great room. I have been hanging on to my 3 Sisters fabric from Moda for a while now and thought they would be beautiful in this wall hanging and the colors would compliment our furniture.

So as you may have read earlier the Pre-sew process was trace, cut, iron, cut again, place and iron again. Whew-I was bored at that point. Little did I know it would get WORSE! After you iron all the shapes on the background you have to outline ALL the pieces with the fusible bias tape-yeah all freaking 108 pieces! Not even the worst part-after fusing the bias tape you have to EDGE Stitch it along both sides! I have literally used an entire spool of black thread on the bias tape alone! So what started out as enthusiasm faded to boredom has now settled into talking myself into NOT relegating the darn thing to the UFO pile! I am down to the final 2 strips of horizontal bias binding. I like it and think it turned out really neat. I will however NEVER be doing another stained glass'esque anything AGAIN!

It will be a little bit before I can load it on the frame to quilt it because I need to piece my Miniature Booty Swap III quilt before I tie the machine up on the frame.

Quilting, quilting, quilting....

2009-02-09T19:04:00.005-05:00

I got to sew this weekend! It was wonderful! Due to my self inflicted sewing exile to study-I have not sewn since Christmas! I did sneak in a quick table runner but that didn't count because it was a stress break versus and real sewing opportunity. Saturday I got to get to work on my stained glass wall hanging and made great progress. As I was working I was uncertain about my color choices but as it came together I am quite pleased and excited to see it hanging on my wall. I will tell you though that all those pieces were quite annoying to me-trace, iron on fabric, cut them out again, fuse on the main blocks, machine applique.....on and on and on. I will re-think a project like this again-SO FAMILY THAT READS THIS-when you see my beautiful wall hanging-NO YOU CANNOT have one too-sorry I cannot subject myself to such monotony again! ;) Although I would gladly loan my wall hangings for a small fee-gotta save for that frame exclusive machine somehow.

I did have an opportunity to pick up the Thangles BOM that my local quilt shop is having this year. I chose the fall colors-it is one block a month versus the past 2 years which were 6 smaller blocks a month. I had a hard time keeping up-lol-I still am sitting on about 4 months of the batik paper pieced quilt. OH well, add it to the list! Can you believe that I had to buy 1.75" Thangles?! Gasp! Those who know my quilting style-I DO NOT LIKE or CONDONE Gadgets and Gizmo's. So for me to buy a Thangle it truly is an event-and shhh don't tell but I LOVE them and now have them in every size available! After 9/11 Mom wanted something patriotic for her office wall. So we saw a picture in a magazine and recreated the wall hanging. The daggone thing had a gazillion 1/2 square triangles in a variety of reds and whites-I made 1/2 square triangles for DAYS! I hated them by the time I was done. Two years ago I bought a Jack-O-Lantern kit that used 5" Thangles-WHERE WERE THESE THE YEAR I WAS DOING THOSE FLAG WALL HANGINGS!! I used them again for tree skirts and now the list goes on and on and on-no more 7/8's for me!

2009-02-03T20:09:00.008-05:00

Well shopping in Atlanta was not successful in terms of the shopping list-it was successful for other stuff!! I did a nice little 2 hour road trip after my meetings on Thursday. I travelled to a cute shop in Conyers, GA called Sweet Home Quilt Co. It was real cute and had a nice assortment of wools. I didn't find anything on my list but I ended up with the Little Miranda bag pattern and some Moda fabric for the bag.

The next stop was in Marietta, GA at Tiny Stitches. This shop had a great variety of patterns but I will admit I suffered from sticker shock. The patterns and books were reasonable but holy cow-$4 for a fat quarter-I was afraid to look at an entire bolt. That certainly didn't stop me from buying-I got a Layer Cake book and a roll of fat quarters that are Coffee themed and crazy brown, cream and blue colors-I love them! I picked them out of a sale bucket!

The final stop was Red Hen Fabric-too cute! it is a bright red building with a quilt painted on the side. Inside it is jammed packed with fabrics, books and gadgets. It was nice to wander through and see all the colors-I would have liked to been inspired to pick out a project but my commitment list of 2009 was nagging me so I refrained.....darn!! I did walk away with 2 fat quarter which cost me $4 total!!

Sunday's Super Bowl was GREAT-4 HOURS of uninterrupted sewing time!! I got all the pieces cut out for my stained glass wall hanging-what in the world was I thinking!! There are 8 stained glass looking blocks-each with 4 pieces-then there are another 8 blocks with pieced centers-UGH! Not only ironing them on to the fusible web, but then cutting them out and then sewing the 3/4 in strips together! The cherry on the top was having to order the Clover Fusible Quick Bias Binding-jeese $42 later! Oh well-it will be beautiful and well worth it when I am done-hopefully in this lifetime. ;)

I have joined, and been accepted in, Toni's Miniature Booty Swap 3. This time around we will be creating for our partner's kitchen. I have some ideas and think that I bought the perfect fabric in Nags Head last summer-now where could I have put it when I organized everything.....hmmmm.

Ahhh Sunshine and Warmth....

2009-01-28T08:34:00.002-05:00

Nope I am not on vacation but darn close! I am in Atlanta GA on a business trip-I know-coming from Central PA by way of Upstate NY, this is a mini-vacation! I always make sure that I rent my own car and bring Judith (Garmin Nuvi) because you never know when the meetings will not run as long as expected and you can find yourself Quilt Shop Hopping! I have a list ready and Judith programed just in case. Although if the weather at home doesn't improve I am staying here! It is 56 degrees and overcast in downtown Atlanta! A far cry from ice, snow, ice and no school! Poor Zach-school at least distracts him so that he is not focused on that fact that I am not there. Scott might have to step up and hand over the remote control and allow it to be on a kid friendly channel (CNN Junkie!!) otherwise he will have a sad boy on his hands. Apparently the dog is having a rough time. She keeps looking at the doors and listening for the garage door-the morning report said that she barked at anything yesterday. Poor baby-nope I have not left her in the year we have had her. If I did leave her she was boarded at her favorite Puppy Hotel so she didn't miss us.

My goals for quilt shop excursions are:

Henry Glass Buggy Barn Cafe Mocha-I want to see the colors before purchasing
Left Overs of the Moda Christmas line with the Ball Ornaments-I will know it when I see it.
I want a deep red with an ivory print on it that does not have people or farm animals plus a tone on tone red to match
Fabric for a quilt for my nephew (Hi Seth!) no idea what theme another thing that I will know when I see it.

No other goals just to wander and look-oh yeah I WANT the French Roses pattern by Heather French or the Quilt Pink book that it was featured in.

For Mom

2009-01-25T10:00:00.001-05:00

Mom-this is the Green color in the snowflake table runner:
Not sure the picture does it justice-sorry.

Quilty Shopping Day!

2009-01-25T08:37:00.005-05:00

Saturday in Central PA saw nice, warmer, blue sky weather-finally above the teens-although I guess Friday was too but with the Migraine I never noticed being passed out from pain. So I had to meet a friend in Mifflinburg (11AM) to pick up my Pampered Chef order (love the stuff-can't believe there is anything I don't have) and for anyone who knows the area you can't go to Mifflinburg and not swing over to see Verna! The bad part is 1/2 was to Verna's I remembered I had no checkbook nor cash-so a right I took thinking I could take another right and end up back on main street....you would have thought. 20 minutes later I find an ATM and start again.

Verna's was PACKED!! Holy Cow-I have never not been able to park in her parking lot-we parked on the street I was crazy. Poor Zachary set foot inside saw all the ladies and decided that he would wait in the car. My mission at Verna's was to pick up a backing for a quilt I need to do-I had heard that she sold backings cut in one piece-no seams! Now they are either white, cream or black so if you want a fancy fabric it is not for you but if you just want a utilitarian back this will work. Of course that was not all I bought-I got the chalk pounce, a refill and the neatest purple flowered fabric. I am NOT a fan of purple but I thought this would look striking with white-just the 2 colors.

I do have share that Zach did come back in to see how much longer I was going to be and to tell me that he had to Potty-Verna heard him and directed him to the "outhouse" - yup you heard it an OUTHOUSE! Zach asked what that was an I explained it was like the "blue potties" so off he went....when I go to the car he informed me that was the smelliest outhouse ever and next time he would hold it! I was contemplating using it but decided not to....

After Verna's we headed to Muncy to a Ben Franklin's. I had no idea this store existed! Friday night after clawing my way out of the migraine pain, and because I had slept 5 hours during the day and couldn't sleep, I was go online and looked for the wooden "plate" that fits on Grace and you use with the stylus. I found the "Popcorn" one I wanted and noticed it was being shipped from Muncy PA-ah why pay $20 shipping when I can drive up there. So that is how I found the Ben Franklin in Muncy-well Clarkstown actually. They had the plate in stock -hurray! I ALSO found the paper doll fabric and learned that in March they will have the completer pieces! I have been scouring the Internet for a place to buy these fabrics and just didn't want to pay 3 different places shipping. I am now the owner of 1.5 yds of the dolls and anxiously awaiting March to purchase the rest-PLUS if you bought more than a yard it was 25% off!!

From there we found a bathroom and some snacks (1:30) and headed to Our Gathering Place in Montoursville. Zach informed me last week the following: "Mom I need a quilt that fits" "What do you mean a quilt that fits" "LOOK!!" He pulls his bugging quilt up to his shoulders and points out that his toes stick out "I can't lay flat and be covered-STOP laughing at ME!" "Sorry Zach, I am not laughing at you, I am laughing at your toes sticking out" "UGH-never mind!!" I had set aside a pattern in a magazine that I thought would be easy to do for my nephew Seth who would like a quilt. I pulled it out and new that OGP had some cool dinosaurs fabric that he would like-yup he did. I also found a black fabric with a cream design on it-I want to do a dramatic black and cream with twisting ribbons.

I finally stopped and fed Zach-hit WalMart for groceries, by passed the craft department at Zach's instruction because I had looked at that ALL DAY! and home we headed. All in all a good day-cool to spend it with my kid.

Oh yeah I got Todd and Summer's 5 yr old wedding gift loaded on Grace....it is a start!

Self Imposed Sewing Exile-Broken!

2009-01-20T19:49:00.004-05:00

I couldn't do it-I could not sit here and study while my beloved machine, Gracie and hundreds (almost) of projects screamed my name-so I compromised. An hour of studying and a +80 on the practice test got me 30 minutes of studying. There are 6 modules so I could potentially earn 3 hours of sewing-well jeese I should have given myself that challenge since Thanksgiving when the studying started! I got my 3 hours!! No strings this time around-I could sew whatever I wanted-what to pick? I could have finished any number of items but instead I chose a new project from my local quilt shop: Our Gathering Place. It is a table runner of the prettiest ice green colors I have ever seen and oh so simple-4 columns and 12 rows of 3 1/2 squares with appliqued snowflakes. It will look nice in our neutral toned living room. As I was waiting for my iron to heat up (have I mentioned that I HATE this iron!) I traced my pattern pieces for my stained glass-esque piece that I have vowed to finish in 2009. I multi-tasked!

I am showing my Mom's Christmas gift in this post-she has requested Fall Theme wall hanging for her office. This is from the Quick Quilts magazine and all is from my stash except for the olive greens. The picture does not do it justice-I am quite impressed with how this turned out and love how it looks hanging from my banister-hmmmm I wonder if she will miss it-maybe she will forget I made it for her. ;)

I stippled this in the ivory parts by "floating" it on the backing and batting on Grace. HOW AWESOME! Shoot-I had it quilted in an evening-just back and forth-no twisting and maneuvering, stopping and starting. Grace earned her keep that night!

Ok-back to watching my recorded inauguration speech. I am proud of our country today-I hope this is the beginning of the end of an era and the end of a simple minded belief that one is greater than the other.

When did 2009 get here?

2009-01-17T09:22:00.007-05:00

Seriously-when did 2008 end and how did I miss it? Oh yeah-I was out cold that night by 9:30! I must say I that I have barely checked emails in 3 weeks much less post a blog. I have made sure to keep track of my favorite bloggers: Cre8tive Quilter, Sister's Choice Quilts and Life is a Stitch - BlogHoster. There are plenty more I lurk on but these are the ones I am obsessed with reading. They are great quilters, wives, sisters, daughters, friends, bloggers, and some mothers whose wit and sense of humor makes it to the pages of their blog offering me an escape from the daily grind and my house full of testosterone!

So here we are in 2009 and I have grand plans for my WIP's and UFO's this year-the same as I did last year. I think all in all I did fairly well. Considering the ones I chose to finish were at least a decade old! I am committing to print my must do quilt projects for 2009-here we go:

Quilt Todd and Summer's 6 year old Wedding Gift-after all it was the reason for buying Grace!
Quilt my beloved Round Log Cabin-this to date is one of my favorites. I am not a fan of blue but I LOVE the movement and perceived circles.
The Stain glass-esque wall hanging for my very bare, very white dining room wall.
Quilt Mom's 9-patch wall hanging!

Ok so this is all I am committing too, there are about 1/2 dozen other things that should be here but I cannot commit because you know what will happen-the quilt shop will get some amazing kits in or a new line of fabric and bam I am off track. OMG! I just figured out I have QADD-Quilt Attention Deficit Disorder~Hmmm I wonder if Fabric Pills exist for therapy??

I have not allowed myself much time at the sewing machine lately-a self inflicted "NO SEW ZONE" is in place. My SPHR exam in on the 26th so I am forcing myself to study. I did however break the zone and forwarned the hubby that I was going to-he has been enlisted to help enforce the new policy. I HAD to de-stress and I have been dutifully studing daily. This brief reprieve had some rules-whatever I chose had to be something already started or if something new I had to be able to finish it-so as to not tease me into a longer furlough- and I only had the length of Mama Mia movie! I planned prior to starting the movie to be able to get the most out of the break.

I chose a Cup Cozy! My co-worker and I love our post lunch Lattes (decaf for me!) but our favorite spot is new age, organic-y, recycle....and does not offer a cardboard finger protector. SO unless we are wearing longer sleeves than necessary or gloves, we burn our fingers holding our beloved mid afternoon snacks. I saw a pattern/kit in the Connecting Threads catalog for $22-WHAT!! $22 bucks? Are you nuts? I don't mind spending money on fabric or patterns but PAHLEEZE let's make it reasonable. I scoured the treasure trove of free patterns on the Internet and discovered lots of versions and for a mere $8 bucks the pattern could be mine-nope not good enough-I want free! Kind of like Jill at Ramblings of a Fabric Obsessor with the Yo-Yo maker. I gave up on the free and set out searching the cars because I knew there had to be at least one of the Starbucky ones tucked in a side/seat pocket. Eureka!

I took apart the cardboard one and worked up a muslin prototype that is perfect, choose a great Kaffe print and VIOLA! Here is the result-Cool huh? All done within the allotted time! Now not only are our fingers cool but we are COOL with our Kaffe Cup Cozies! The Cherry Alley Cafe should be very proud as they will fit with their new age views in that they are reusable!

Uh oh-the hubby just asked how my studying was going....gotta close up and get the practice exam on my screen. See you later!

Bah Humbug

2008-12-10T20:58:00.002-05:00

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

2008-11-09T21:08:00.004-05:00

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!!

2008-11-04T21:24:00.011-05:00

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!

2008-10-26T13:19:00.004-04:00

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....

2008-10-13T20:21:00.004-04:00

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?

2008-10-09T20:22:00.006-04:00

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!

2008-09-11T21:43:00.002-04:00

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.

Miniature Booty Swap #2

2008-09-01T10:11:00.017-04:00

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....

2008-08-24T20:23:00.005-04:00

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!

2008-08-19T20:41:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-17T19:04:00.002-04:00

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.....

2008-08-09T21:18:00.004-04:00

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.

2008-08-02T09:11:00.002-04:00

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...

2008-07-29T21:18:00.004-04:00

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

2008-07-26T09:59:00.004-04:00

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

2008-07-23T00:25:00.003-04:00

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!!

2008-07-17T20:14:00.004-04:00

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!!

2008-07-16T21:20:00.005-04:00

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

2008-07-09T18:51:00.001-04:00

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!!

2008-07-09T18:25:00.003-04:00

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

2008-07-01T10:20:00.002-04:00

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.

"And where do you think they will fit?"

2008-06-16T20:26:00.004-04:00

The comment from the hubby as I explained why I had bought 5 pillows and intended to take them to NC with us. I did not make pillowcases to cover pillows that they will lounge around on and then have them use their bed pillows!!! These will be for use in their new pillowcases that they can drag to the beach for all I care. "I don't think we will have room for much extra" Hmph-no worries yee of little faith-I also bought SPACE BAGS!!!????? What you are seeing is my 5 pillows compressed to the size of 2! Isn't that neat? Well Dear-they will fit in the car with the rest of the luggage.....Here is a picture of the pillow cases themselves. Can you tell there is one girl in all these boys.

During the week I spent one night cutting the 3 pieces, the next night ironing and pinning the "hotdog" together and the third night sewing the seams. I sat on the porch pulling the tubes right side out and grading the seams which drew some attention from the neighbor. She could not believe that I was actually making pillowcases-how talented. It always amazes me when someone says that because to me it is so easy and makes sense.

Here is my ALQS that is headed to the mailbox on Wednesday. I love the colors. The picture does not do the colors justice and I failed to take a picture over the weekend outside. Oh well-maybe the recipient will have better luck conveying the colors in a photo. Maybe it is the lime green of the walls that is the distraction. Not my choice-the walls were painted when I moved in and I kind of like how bright it makes the room so I keep them.

ALQS-done 5 pillowcases-done Now what ??

2008-06-13T21:25:00.004-04:00

I have completed the ALQS and need to stop at the post office tomorrow for a box and label. Depending on the rain, I will try to hang it outside and take a picture. The light inside and my camera do not do justice to the colors.

I also completed my pillow cases. You would think they would not have been such a big deal but I could not get myself to work on them. I finally made myself at least cut the fabrics, the next night I sewed the edge, trim and body and tonight I sewed the side seam. Whew. Now I need to wash and press them and add them to the vacation suitcase-2 more weeks!!

I cannot wait! An employee today realized my vacation is coming up and panicked. I assured her that I would take messages and return calls but would NOT be taking my work computer. I REFUSE!! I am so looking forward to seeing my siblings and parents all at one time. I also am refusing to plan anything-I am going to be as lazy as I can. Anyone who knows me will know that this is all talk and I will last until lunch the first day in lazy mode!

I believe that tomorrow I will cut into my Friends and Flowers charm pack. I am excited. I have a pinwheel/flower/applique thingy planned in my head and cannot wait to see it translated.

This quilt is one I started 7 years ago for my son-is this a WIP or a UFO? It awaits some embroidery details before being quilted. Hmmm-maybe I should do this before the F&F charm pack. Guess we will have to see the mood/motivation tomorrow.

My excuse!

2008-06-08T22:21:00.003-04:00

You know it is hot when the child who is normally asking to go outside for some "Fresh Air" is pleading to not have to play outside. I agree since our KitKat candy bar incident on Friday night that put us at the emergency room (nut allergy) he is taking Benedryl and Prednisone so I am not making him do anything he does not want to just to keep the peace! Amazing that an 8 yro can have a mood swing better than any PMS person I have ever met.

So we rented a few movies and hung out. I put the binding on my ALQS and got that sewn on-whew. Now for the label. I went back into the sewing room, which is where Zach watches TV, to start some pillow cases and this is what I found:

Now how can I disrupt this-did you know that "your quilt things make great ramps Mom"! No way am I disturbing that-pillowcases can wait. I did grab the fabric pile and will at least have it ironed.

I dare say it was too hot to sew, even with Central Air.

I should be sewing

2008-06-07T11:20:00.003-04:00

I know, I know - I am supposed to be binding and making 3 pillow cases but it is such a lazy day and I haven't had one in so long. I was going to blame it on the heat but we have central air and the house is very comfy-so that won't work. I could blame it on being tired but I went to bed at 10 and woke at 7 so that won't work either. Can't think of anything else-oh well. The hubby just stated that he wants to do a late lunch, see a movie and go to Lowes. Guess I will have to get dressed shortly.

This is a picture of the Miranda Bag I made for a co-worker who admired mine and is not crafty-can you believe that exists??!! She traveled to Omaha for work and received numerous comments and awe that someone could make something like this-these types exist??!! Too funny-I am as shocked that people can't do these types of things when this is more my passion than my career-which I love too, but force me to choose and I think sewing would win.

I promise to touch my machine today-just later than originally planned.

ALQS

2008-06-05T22:23:00.008-04:00

Here is a tease picture of my ALQS-I have the binding to do. My hands have not been up to hand work at night-must be the weather or my work tasks lately-who knows. No worries though-it is small enough I can finish up in an afternoon. The Quilt Diva fabric is the back-I couldn't resist. I bought 2 yards of this a while back and have not looked at it since purchase. I was digging through the stash and thought it would be great as backs for these quilt swaps. The camera does not do justice to the colors. When it has arrived I will post the entire quilt and use the hubby's camera so it will translate better.

The next project after that you ask-Pillow Cases! I have read in the blogging world how easy they are, a neat way to use novelty fabrics and a great accessory to a quilt gift. So I get this ambitious idea to make all the children a unique pillow case and buy them pillows that they can use at the beach house when we all get together in July. Now mind you there are only 5 to make but they need to be done by June 26-27 and my work load is crazy this month. Plus I have a Charm Pack of Friends & Flowers that is screaming for me! Oh the pressure! The goal this weekend is to finish the pillow cases, buy pillows, bind the ALQS and cut the F&F fabrics-wallhanging design is all done in EQ.

Ok-enough for tonight-Lordy I cannot believe I am still up!

Quiet Weekend

2008-06-01T19:27:00.004-04:00

As much as I LOVE long weekends I really do not like coming back afterwards-I spend the week playing catch up: laundry, house work, my job and life in general. I was so looking forward to this weekend and got what I needed to do done!

The weather was on and off again rain yesterday so I took advantage of the lawn mowing delay and got my blocks for the ALQS pieced. My Mom is cleaning out the sewing room and was recycling magazines so I spent some time looking threw them and found a neat block for this exchange and had bought a pack of fat quarters that would be great. The original pattern was pieced with templates!! What in the world is a template-is that something from the age of cassette tapes? Well there would be no template quilting here so I headed to the computer, booted up EQ6 (Mom's not mine-yet) and turned it into a paper pieced project-much more my style. I got that all together Saturday and realized that I did not have enough left of any one color for the borders and did not like the idea of a scrappy border. It was 11AM-my local quilt shop is open until 3-plenty of time to shower and get there. I arrived at 1:05 and saw the sign on the door that said "Summer Hours"-Nuts-I only had 55 minutes! Seems like a lot of time but I needed to find the perfect border and fabric for 2 more pillow cases. To top it off-they were setting out the holiday fabrics-I got what I needed to get but had to postpone the touching and playing with the holiday fabrics for another day. I then headed to the mall for my favorite shampoo and came across some nice sales and ended up with more than shampoo-don't you love when that happens. The last stop was the grocery store before headed over the mountain.

My parents visited for Easter and while here we went to Lancaster for the day. I wanted my mom to see how different the Amish are here versus upstate NY. While there we visited a quilt shop-there we say a nine-patch in traditional colors with black-it was really stunning and then I flipped the price tag.....$400!!! I dropped the tag and stepped away in case the white gloves didn't protect the lovely wall hanging from my sweaty palms. Are you kidding-400 bucks for a wall hanging? I appreciate that it was hand quilted-in the ditch mind you but 400 dollars??? Needless to say that wall hanging is still in that lovely shop in Lancaster PA-it does not grace the walls of my home.

BUT-there is a reproduction hanging on my wall and it's twin in upstate NY hanging on my Mom's wall-all for a mere $40 in fabric and a day's worth of work. I found this variegated rainbow thread that is amazing in this-not very Amish at all but I love how it turned out.

I am all about the classic in retro and this defines that for me-I love it.

Memorial Day Weekend Goodies

2008-05-25T07:03:00.003-04:00

We are in Upstate NY for weekend visiting both sets of parents-the real Upstate! 30 minutes south of the Canadian border not 15 minutes outside of Albany. We started out Friday AM-2 adults, 1 kid and a dog heading up PA Route 220-can I just say yet again that I HATE that road! I swear that is the absolute last time we are taking it-I am erasing it from Judith's mind (the Garmin). I know that I have said that before (maybe not here but the hubby has heard it plenty of times) but I had tried to pull a sneaky by programing Judith with a quilt shop stop in Johnson City (right outside of Binghampton NY) and didn't want to bypass 220 for fear of missing the quilt shop. So off we went on the route that had a drunk as a foreman or they followed the black snake up the mountain-needless to say 10 minutes on that route the dog was sick and the kid was squealing because the dog was "barfing". We kept trucking along knowing that when we got to Tonowanda the road straightened out. Sure enough once we got off the winding road she was fine. All was good-nope-we get to NYS route 17 heading east and the sun is on her side of the car-peeuuuu did she stink-now she, her bed and the seat were in desperate need of a washing. I fessed to the boys what I had done with Judith and they were fine but gave me a timer-20-30 minutes-WHAT!! Barely enough time to touch everything-better than nothing so with no complaints I walk in to Sew Many Quilts-oooo lovely. Such pretty displays and a nice array of fabrics. I was in search of Friends & Flowers Red Geranium in yardage not a cake, jelly or charm-new concept but you know some traditions die hard. They offer so many classes and answered my questions about what the blocks were called and how big they were-they could have easily told me to take the class-as I have heard before. Plus they sell the Viking Sapphire 870-which I drooled over for about 10 seconds-no since wasting time. I got what I needed and then some-you knew that was going to happen didn't you ;) and we headed north. Arriving safely and without further vomit.

Upon arrival to Mom and Dad's I got presents!! Mom got me a Quilter's Journal, the mini Thangles that I have searching for, and the cutest thing for binding-you wind the binding around this spool thing that has a rope so you can hang it over your neck and as you sew the binding it unwinds from the spool hanging around your neck. I normally refuse to buy gadgets and Mom knows better than to buy them for me but this one is cool and will be used!

Saturday my parents and my family traveled even further north (didn't know there was so much Upstate did you?) to see my Grandparents in Potsdam. We detoured yet again to Rensalear Falls to the cutest little quilt shop and they were having a 25% off sale!!! Beautiful! I bought 20 fat quarters in a bundle of the Retro Jell-O fabrics and coordinates! Love it! I think I will actually do a Turning 20 out of them. We saw my grandparents which was nice because we haven't' seen them since moving to PA.

I doubt I can sneak in any more quilt shop stops this weekend-liable to get the hairy eyeballs form the son and the hubby, so I think this is it but it all is wonderful!

My First Swap has been received!

2008-05-19T21:35:00.004-04:00

How Cool!

A few months ago I was searching the Internet looking for the Disappearing Nine-Patch and seeing what that was about. During that process I came across an "online quilt guild". Having worked nights while going to school full-time I was in the dark about what the Internet offered beyond a classroom. And so my cyber quilt guild began.

Today I learned that my Miniature Booty Swap made it to my partner-so finally here it is:

I had never worked with Batiks but thought the 3 values of pink would work really well in a Triple Irish Chain. I like how it turned out and hope the recipient enjoys it also.

Mail Surprise!

2008-05-10T21:48:00.004-04:00

Yesterday when I got home from work I had a package waiting for me on the dining room table. I did not immediately open it thinking it was my Mary Engelbright charm squares and not wanting the temptation/distraction. So I left it there...this morning I went to eBay to leave a comment to the seller and realized that they were not coming from Oregon-what was in the box??? Well excitement hit me at 7AM pre-coffee and I tore into the box to find a lovely, lovely miniature, a great drawing by a 4 year old and a sincere note from my partner. This was her first quilt swap too! The colors are perfect as yellow is one of my favorites. I have been buying and saving yellow fat quarters for years with the intent to someday make myself a scrappy yellow and white Bear Paw.

Thank you so much to Melissa in Oregon!

Tease Post

2008-05-06T21:26:00.003-04:00

I was catching up on the blogs that I like to read on Saturday and realized that my Miniature Booty Swap is due in a few weeks. I started out ahead of the game and with the nice weather weekends and busy work weeks I have fallen behind. So I informed the boys that I would do whatever they wanted on Saturday but Sunday was mine and I NEEDED to sew!
They were fine since that meant they could watch the hockey game and invite the neighborhood "boys" over. The little boy decided the hockey was not cool and played LEGOS on the front porch with his peeps while the big boy and his buddy tested the home brew and watched the hockey game.

The puppy must have been feeling the testosterone in the house and decided to help me quilt. She normally sits in Zach's rocking chair playing with the fabric strings I have tied to the back of my chair. Sunday she was clingy and wanted to be up on the sewing table or on my lap. I have not mastered sewing with her on my lap so on the table it was-she was good for the most part.

As we speak the binding is sew on the front and awaiting the hand sew to the back-whew I caught back up!

Soliciting Opinions

2008-04-26T09:12:00.003-04:00

I have come to the decision that I want to explore a quilting machine. The past few years I have graduated out of the wall hangings and into bed size quilts. I cannot maneuver anything larger than a twin in my machine. Which has resulted in my UFO pile to be made up of a King top (brother and SIL), Queen top (mine), a Joann Fabric BOM from way back and a huge desire to do more than wall hangings.
Any suggestions, opinions, etc??

The Amish Auction

2008-04-24T19:22:00.003-04:00

Saturday I dragged my husband and son to an auction that was to benefit the local Amish schools.

We drove over Friday night to make sure we knew where we were going because I had heard that if we didn't get there at 7AM (Un-natural on a Saturday) we would be parking in Timbuktu and with the husbands fake knee that is not good and does not help my case to him being there with me. So we got that figured out and just seeing all the stuff was amazing! So we get home and the hubby decides to start a batch of home brew- a 4 hours process! I went to bed without him at 11 and have no idea when he was done.

So we did not arrive at 7AM as I had wanted-8:30! I didn't complain because I knew how lucky I was to have him there at all. We wandered around and were amazed at all the stuff! It ranged from normal trash to treasure stuff, to homemade furniture, farm animals, quilts, crafts and bedding plants. It was awesome.

Zach and I checked out the quilts and he was amazed at their desks! The desk was the back of the chair-how neat he thought. The quilts were amazing and to think they were completely hand done! To me that is amazing because the only hand done on anything of mine is the binding.

The hubby and I discussed that we would bid on one big enough for our bed (king) and in a design that I would never do-Applique or curved piecing (I know my limits) yet we had a $300 limit. We have a big vacation coming in July and are headed to our parents Memorial Day weekend.

So there were some awesome ones that we tried for but they were going for $400+ oh well. I was able to get this neat wall hanging for $50-it is about 52" square and I liked the colors although it is really pink. I also got at table runner in a wedding ring design that has yet to make it in front of the camera.

I was successful in adding the borders to my Miniature Booty quilt and now just need to decide how to quilt it-traditional like the pattern or modern like the fabrics....hmmmm.

So glad tomorrow is Friday

2008-04-17T20:49:00.003-04:00

No sewing this week and that stinks! I got some great thread on Sunday and cannot wait to give my Amish 9-patch a modern twist and yesterday my Smoke YLI thread awaited my return from work and I want to get my friends Miranda bag done this weekend. She chose the beautiful fabrics from the Moda Shangri-La line and I didn't want to take away from the fabric design with the quilting so I decided to quilt with the smoke filament. Plus there is my Booty quilt to add the borders to and the ALQS to design. I think since that one is not due until July I might go with an Applique design-just a thought.
I am grateful that tomorrow is Friday and this busy, crazy week will be done!
Saturday is a local Amish school fundraising auction-I am so excited-there are over 200 quilts to be auctioned! I love watching how much they go for!

2008-04-13T09:27:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was supposed to have been scattered showers so instead of being stuck inside we planned a day trip to Philadelphia. 9AM on a beautiful blue sky morning with the portable DVD player and a sitter for the dog we headed to Philly. We never had one rain drop. I am not complaining because it was a beautiful day with the blooming trees and flowers.

We visited a few of our favorite places: Conshohocken Italian Bakery, Trader Joe's and of course IKEA-my favorite. If they carried fabric I would never leave!! My husband is NOT a fan of IKEA but he was so tolerant of my looking at everything and the child was allowed to drive the cart so he could have cared less. A while back I had bought the child these square containers with wheels and lids that could stack on each other. They have been great for LEGO'S-he can wheel them from room to room versus carrying something-8 year old boys are not known for their grace or balance. After Christmas and his birthday the LEGO'S have outgrown the container and a new one was in order-the purpose of the trip. No worries that was not all that I found! I have been buying spices in plastic flat containers that take up a lot or room in my cupboard so I found some "spice" jars. We have been talking about a new knife set but just haven't gotten around to researching it so IKEA had 4 in a block for $4-what the hay-if they only cut paper it was a good deal!! That was not all but those were my favorites!

The next stop was Trader Joe's. We are not organic, wholesome food eaters as a practice-we enjoy our hot dogs, hamburgers, fries and such. We visit Trader Joe's for the unique products that we cannot get anywhere else. We love their grilled veggies with balsamic butter. This trip found White Balsamic Vinegar, artichoke ravioli and a Gorgonzola raspberry salad dressing in our cart. The child decide he could not live without sushi for one more minute so he opted for 2 packs of veggie rolls. Yup-the 8yro loves his sushi and he is willing to try different ones-not me, I am stuck on veggie or California.

So that was our scattered shower day-shopping in mid 70 weather. Sadly we did not visit a fabric store-when I persuade the hubby to visit IKEA I cannot push the limit to include fabric too....

A quilt story

2008-04-09T21:45:00.004-04:00

I haven't done any quilting this week so I have no updates to show there so I thought I would show some stuff I have done in the past. Unfortunately this is not a flattering picture but I will share just the same: It is 12x12 and was my first attempt at applique and a miniature. At the time I had a 90 minute drive to work with 20 of those 90 minutes spent at stop lights in downtown Raleigh NC. I sewed the center while at those stop lights. You cannot tell from the picture but the fabrics are all of the same design just different colors. I love this quilt. I sewed magnets into pockets on the back so I can hang it on the cabinets in my office. I would love to do another one but cannot remember where the pattern came from-hmmm.

The top to the Booty Swap is done and now that my rectangle size has been approved I will add the borders this weekend. I need a cool variegated thread and had planned on heading to JoAnn's on Saturday but the new ad came today and if I am patient and wait until Sunday the thread will be 1/2 off along with the cutting accessories!! I have learned that paper piecing is rough on my rotary blades and am in need for some new ones!

Happy quilting Cyber Guild! ;)

2008-04-06T20:16:00.003-04:00

What a beautiful day it was in central PA-60+ Degrees, blue sky, sunny-just beautiful. A good part was that the boy was outside playing and I was left to sew with minimal interruptions. I got the top to my Miniature Booty Swap done and just need to decide how to put borders on it.
It was fun and kind of scary because you are selecting colors and a design for a stranger and hoping you make the right choices and they will like it...I like it enough that I want to make one for myself just a little bigger.

Quilt Swap

2008-04-03T21:21:00.002-04:00

I have done lots of quilts as gifts and have even managed to keep a few for myself, only a few. So I have never wondered what I would like to receive because I have NEVER received a quilt. I would be appreciative of anything that someone took the time to do-because having done so many for everyone else I entirely appreciate the time and care that will go into my new mini.

My Very First Quilt Swap!!

2008-04-02T17:31:00.004-04:00

I rushed home from work this evening knowing that my partner's information was going to be waiting for me-hurray!! Never have I been so impatient waiting for junk mail to load and move to the trash!

I was not disappointed-there is was-the whole reason for my new found interest in blogging-a Quilt Swap partner. Life is good.

Now time to play in EQ, hunt through the stash and possibly plan a trip to my local quilt shop, Our Gathering Place, www.ogpquiltshop.com. Never really need an excuse to go in my mind but justifies it to the hubby.

2008-04-01T18:50:00.005-04:00

Beautiful huh? What a nice surprise while I was outside chasing the dog on this balmy central PA evening.

Work today was long, this headcold is refusing to go away-I may have to relent and admit it may be allergies versus a cold. I have felt like doing nothing after work. Which is really bad because I have a Miranda bag that I need to finish as a gift, two Amish 9-patch wall hangings to quilt and bind and 2 charm packs of Shangri-La to play with...I think I want to do the disappearing 9-patch with some of my charms only not at 4". The great part of the day was having 2 quilting magazines in my share of the mail! Quiltmaker and Fons & Porter. Quiltmaker showcased a quilt and a machine quilter from my hometown of Watertown NY-how neat!

Quilt in a Day-11 years actually

2008-03-31T19:43:00.004-04:00

What is up with Eleanor Burns and her "Quilt In A Day"-her and how many assistants? This is an Applique project that I started in 1996 and finished this year in time for it hang above the fireplace for the holidays. I will say that there were 4 moves, a child, a divorce, a college degree, a new marriage and a new career all in those 10-11 years that contributed to the slowness of completion. So I guess Eleanor is not to blame.

The leaves are hand sewn and the quilting is a cross hatch design in the middle of the heart and chevron on the outside all done by machine. I love it and refuse to take it down. I figure that 11 years in and out of a box gives it a pass to hang beyond the season!

New to Blogger

2008-03-29T20:44:00.000-04:00

Hello hello!!! I am new to Blogger but have been on 360 for years intermittently-the hubby recommended I switch-get with the times he said.
So here I am!
Life in Central PA has been good-finally quiet after the very busy January. Scott's knee healed nicely and he is doing great. Therapy is done and he got to 2 degrees on the extension which might actually be straighter than he had prior to the surgery.
Dad is doing well, not back to work yet, but doing well. Physically you cannot tell he even had a stroke but if you chat with him and he is tired or excited you can certainly pick up on it.
The GREAT news is that everyone is on US soil!! Todd came home from Iraq after a 15 month tour-Safely. I am so proud of his kids who have to deal with Daddy being home 12 months then gone for 12 months. Zach has no idea how lucky he is.