ABC's

A quick note to post pictures of what I've been doing the last few nights. The picture on the left is one of Barbara, who bought this quilt for her sister and Carol, my co-worker, is helping her hold it up. Barbara CRIED when she saw the quilt! She said she was lightheaded! lol Maybe she has low blood sugar.
The next pictures are of a fabric book I'm putting together for a Christmas gift. I couldn't find the ABC panels in town, so I decided to make my own. You'll notice all the pages are not there. I still need one more page to make and I guess I just didn't take pictures of the others. I'm off to work. Have a great Saturday!

Here I go again..

I just couldn't rest with this not finished. Jim helped me decide what kind of border to put on this. I tried green and blue fabrics and we both decided they were way too busy to use as a border. They just took away from the center. So, I figured a black border would be best and he agreed. I added a narrow 3-D border before sewing on the 3" black border. I like it!

This is a record! Sometimes I don't post for several days and today I posted twice! So, now I'm too tired to work on the stars. This is getting ridiculous. I've really GOT to get busy with projects for Christmas! I know, this is a Nativity scene. Can't get much more Christmas-y than that! But, it's for me. :-) I'm off to bed.

Divine Inspiration

Or, maybe it was Divine Intervention! LOL This printed panel was a remnant I picked up at WalMart for less than $2. I didn't even know what it was until I got home. Judy and I had been looking for "ugly" fabric to use in our rag rugs and this one looked possible, until I held it up! You can tell it was a remnant because the filigreed border around the edges is cut off the bottom. I think I'm going to cut the borders back to the red stripe and then decide on a 4" to 6" border. The pattern is one called "Window Panes". I was really amazed at how the numbers just fell into place as I started cutting the pieces. I had to sort of play with where I would cut some of the main pieces so as not to cut through a face, but, for the most part, the instructions worked out just fine.

Yes, looking at the picture on this page, I can see that it definitely needs the outer gold border removed.

I think I'll go work on the star quilt for a bit. I've got about 4 more rows to attach and then I'll make the binding.

Stopped by to see Dad today and he was doing great. He was even in the kitchen cooking potatoes!

No stars tonight

I decided to take a break from the star quilt and tried working with my embroidery machine. I embroidered this Mrs. Santa, with the big hands, tonight. I've decided to use it as the center of this block. You might remember it from a previous post with the Snowman block. I removed the center of the block and replaced it with this one. So, now I remember why I haven't used the embroidery part of the machine so much. It takes too long! But, my sister pointed out that you can't get all that detail, or man hands, in 5 minutes. This motif took almost an hour to complete. Longer than that when you consider the time it took to change out the thread color.

Since I didn't work on the star quilt tonight, I think I'll go on to bed. I'm too tired to do anything tonight and I'll make mistakes if I try.

Roses are red...no, wait, the stars are!

Here's the red star quilt ready to be sashed. That will connect them all together and then the binding will be put on and it will be done! I really enjoyed the quilting on these blocks. So easy to just "draw" with my sewing machine. It looks like a poinsettia blossom on each block.

Tonight I also finished the rag quilt I started last night that will be a Christmas gift. Jim snipped it for me since he didn't want me to have to do it all myself since he realized what a job that is. Thank you, Jim! I then washed it and put it in the dryer to fluff up. Can't show a picture yet. It's not Christmas! lol

I'm off to bed. Dad's been doing great. Thank You, Lord!

Seeing Red!

Only 37 more blocks to go! lol I've got a running start on these blocks now, though. These will be sashed, quilt-as-you-go style, with white on white on the front. The back of each block is a white-on-white, well, the same fabric on the front, and will be sashed in red. I had thought about alternating white and red on the back to get a checkerboard effect, but with the time limit I have I thought I'd better stick to something simple. If I can keep everyone relatively healthy, I'd like to get this one finished and ready for binding by the weekend. I'll let you know..

Dad's still doing fine, thank You, Lord! Jim and I took him out for a bit yesterday and I think he enjoyed it. He even discussed news he'd seen on television. He loves to watch the news channels.

Time to wake up grumpy. I let him sleep today. :-) Actually, I'd better get in the shower or I'll be late for work. "I'd rather be quilting!" LOL

Thanksgiving '07

Just thought I'd post a picture of how Dad is looking these days. Better, wouldn't you say? We had Thanksgiving Dinner at his house yesterday with Jim, Judy, Joe, Robert, April and me in attendance, along with Dad. We had a wonderfully filling meal with lots of pies, not the least of which was this
mouthwatering Peanut Butter Pie! This was one of Joe's contributions to the meal. Judy did the majority of the meal. I added the fruit salad and brought potatoes and green bean casserole and April brought a HUGE apple pie and a great salad. After we ate, Judy and I ran to Big Lots. Now, that's the time to go shopping. But, the deals advertised are not good until Saturday. :-(

Time for me to quit rambling and get in the shower. Some of us have to work today! I've always said, though, that I'd rather be working on Black Friday than out there with the crazies, shopping. You know who you are! LOL I'm not a big shopper, as my friends and family can attest.

Christmas blocks

The first block is made with a panel square and the corner squares are a la Cathedral Window style. This will be my block for the block swap during our Christmas party this year. The snowman is for the outgoing president. She requested snowmen in her blocks. They are both 12" blocks, finished.

Busy day at work and it will be that way tomorrow, too. It's a little strange knowing Jim is home all the time, at least, not at work. It's nice to come home to vacuumed floors and a clean kitchen when he takes a mind to do that. I don't expect him to stay home and clean house all day. That'd be nice, but let's get real! lol He finally got a chance to get out to the golf course today since it was so nice. It's been windy and cool until today but they keep telling us it's going to get colder tomorrow.
Judy and I will work on pies and stuff tomorrow night. We need to get to the gym sometime! I must find the time to work on a commissioned quilt that the lady wants to give as a Christmas gift. I've got 11 of 28 Friendship Star blocks made that I'll be using. Once I get the blocks done, I'll start quilting them with an alternate block of plain white fabric. It'll be a two-color quilt, red and white.

Time to take the contacts out.

Crazy 9 patch turtles

 This is the front of the batik Crazy 9 Patch with the turtle borders. The colors are so vibrant in person and these pictures do not do it justice. The next picture shows the back of the same quilt done with the quilt-as-you-go technique.

Then, below those two pictures is a picture of a comfort quilt going to a soldier who's name was given to the QOR group by a member of the Patriot Guard group in WY. The top was donated by Marcia, of the QOR group, and I went ahead and quilted it and will send it off tomorrow.

It is such a beautiful day out! I really need to get dressed and get to Dad's so we can get out and enjoy the day.
 
 

When you have nothing to do all day...

 

What do you do first? LOL This is the question I posed to Jim this morning. It's been two weeks now since he retired and he STILL feels as though he's on vacation. Granted, he hasn't been anywhere or done anything "vacation-y" but just not having to get up early, is vacation enough. It's taking some getting used to, but I knew that. The cap he has on is one that the P.O. gave him upon retirement. It reads "Retired Postal Worker. No more snow, no more hail. I'm retired, YOU deliver the mail!" He has been a big help with my dad. Who, by the way, is home from the hospital and doing much better.

Time to get to work. Well, some of us, anyway! LOL

Janome 6600 and Crazy 9 Patch

 

I've placed my new Janome on the dining room table for now. It gives me a little more room to quilt bigger quilts. I hope to, someday soon, find another table, or an extension of some kind, to add to my present sewing table.

I've really enjoyed working with this machine. But, I also have my Bernina set up in the sewing room. I find myself going back and forth between the two. For instance, last night I was quilting some blocks and some required green thread and others, white. Instead of having to re-thread the Janome, I just used my Bernina. Purty smart, huh? LOL

I finished the I Spy, Crazy 9 Patch in order to go to the local group meeting today. They are meeting, since 9 a.m., to work on this pattern. I have my batiks all cut out and I really had planned on going, but I was just too pooped. I didn't savor the idea of having to pack up my machine to travel, either. So, instead, I just finished the one I started right after last month's meeting. I think I'll stop by to visit here in a bit and take the quilt to show and tell.

Wedding pictures, galore!

I won't bore you with all the 300+ pictures that were taken during the wedding (actually, April and Rob tell me there were over 800 pics taken!). These are just a few of my favorite ones. I couldn't resist adding the two of my boys by themselves. The photographer really captured them.
I thought this was such a cute picture of April and her parents.
Of course, this is a favorite of mine with my "baby". lol
Here are my good-looking sons!

Rob and I, with Jim behind Rob, walking down the aisle.
Rob and April walking into the reception.
On a quilty note, April had quilts set up at the entrance to the yard for folks to use during the ceremony if they happened to get a little chilly. I thought it was a nice touch. She had some of mine and a few made by her grandmother. (I hope that's right! I'll have to double-check)

One more run to the hospital

We've got Dad in the hospital here in Clovis tonight. The cardiologist decided, at his routine visit, that Dad's heart rate is too high. It has been that way for the last 3 or 4 days and we knew something was up. So, we were sent straight to the ICU and he was admitted to have meds administered intravenously to lower the heart rate. Hopefully, he'll only be there 24 hours. Please pray...

The picture of the pincushions you see are those I received from a swap. What a treat! I love them all. Now to clean my room to find a place for all of my pincushions. I'm afraid that won't happen anytime soon, though.

I need to get some things done and head on back to the hospital in a bit.

Houston 2nd Day

Here is Angie, finally! What a sweetie this lovely little lady is. I wish we'd had much more time together. She called me just as I was getting ready to start a mini-class (the results of which you can see here). Angie, it was SO nice to meet you! Thanks for taking the time to find me and for the little tissue holder. I love those and I really needed one.

The heart you see here is the project we worked on. It's a very simple idea...you just layer your top, batting and backing, take a few decorative lines of stitching to hold it down, cut out a heart shape, turn the heart shape over and re-attach with more decorative stitches. So much fun! Can't wait to get home to do more and then put them all together with the quilt-as-you-go technique. What you see here is the front and then it's turned over to see the back.


Now this is the Toothbrush Rug I worked on last night. Today I picked up a sample of the oval rug to work on. It's coming along nicely. I also bought some fabric to use for a rug, but I have decided it is too pretty to tear up in strips for a rug. So, I'll just have to wait until I get home to use up some of my "ugly" fabric in rugs! lol They are sort of addicting...

Houston '07

I met up with Liz today. She and Tina are the friendliest people you'll ever meet! We had lunch with them after we found each other. That was a story in itself. I called her when I first got to the convention center. We decided I'd call her when Deborah got out of her class. I was walking around about 30 minutes later and my phone rang. It was Liz wanting to know if Deborah was out of her class and just where were we? I asked her where she was and she said, "near the Pfaff display." I realized that booth was just to my left so she said, "wave your arms!" LOL I did, and there she was, nearly right in front of me! We had a good laugh and went to eat. I hope to find Angie tomorrow.

I bought a few things today. One of my purchases is a "toothbrush rug" kit. Just a small, learn how-to kit. It looked very interesting so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I also bought a vibrating cushion that I'm leaning against right now. Gives my lower back a massage. So many things to look at! I really like the Grace quilting machine. I am seriously going to look into that one of these days.

I'm going to pop the DVD in showing how to make this rug. If I can figure it out, I'll post a picture of what I've done. I know a lot of you are going to say, "My grandma used to do that!" lol

Comfort quilt finished

I can't help it. I love this quilt! I may have to make some blue and white blocks and make one for me. This one will go in the mail today to a special person needing some comfort in her time of health crisis. I'm not sure if she reads my blog, so I'll wait to say who it is until she gets it. The fabric used in the alternate blocks on the front and the entire back is some fabric that Leota found at a garage sale. I love it when I can put to use what people bring me in the form of a comfort quilt for others.


Deborah and I leave for Houston in two days! I just pray Dad stays well enough for me to go and stay gone for 5 days. Since Jim's last day at work is tomorrow, Tuesday, he knows he is going to be helping Joe and Rob keep Dad on track until Judy gets back from Albuquerque on Friday. Yes, we are BOTH going to be out of town. A little scary, but I know we have to live our lives.

I added this picture of my boys and Jim having breakfast yesterday morning. It's rare these days that I get the three of them to myself especially now that Rob is married. April had to work early on Sunday so I talked them both into coming for breakfast. Well, I didn't have to talk very hard! LOL

I still need to get the label ready for the blue and white quilt so I better get going. Need to get my nails done, do some laundry, check on Dad, etc., etc.

Another comfort quilt

I love "quilt-as-you-go"! This one is almost completely quilted as of tonight. The two rows on the left need quilting then I can start putting them together. I'll add the binding, and, poof, it's done! I'm using a very simple quilting pattern so it's going very fast. I'll probably rearrange some of the blocks so the dark ones are not close to each other. When it's totally finished, it will look a bit different because the thin sashing that will hold them together will add to the design. I plan on using a dark blue to sash the front. Maybe on the back, too. I'll post a picture of the back when I'm done.

Not too busy at work, but tomorrow may prove differently. No surprise since it's Friday.

Dad is doing a bit better with the new diuretic they put him on and the oxygen he's breathing. He informed me tonight that the pills in his Saturday box were there because he moved them from the Wednesday box. When I asked why, he said 'cause he forgot to take them Wednesday morning! Guess I'll have to start checking them more closely.

I thought I might finish the quilt tonight, but I am really tired. As long as I have it ready to mail by Monday, I think I'll be doing fine. Have a good weekend if I don't see you 'til next week!

Quilt as I go..

Monday night was spent quilting these blocks. They are from a pile of comfort quilt blocks that have been sitting here, staring at me. lol We've had some ladies lose loved ones in our online qroup so I thought I'd better get at least one of these done in case we want to send one on. I'm not sure yet how I want to put these together. If I use the traditional sashing to connect the blocks, I'm afraid I'll lose the secondary pattern that arises when the blocks are sewn together. But, that's the easiest way for me to do it. If you click on the picture, I think you get a closeup of the quilting. I just picked a design I thought would fit and ran with it.

While quilting last night, I decided I didn't want to cook. So, I called Pizza Hut. While placing the order, I got up from my sewing machine, intending to run into the den to ask Jim what he wanted on his pizza, when my shoe caught one of the cords under my table. I couldn't shake it off fast enough and so I pitched forward onto my knee. Good ol' carpet burn! Ouch. The phone flew out of my hand but I didn't lose the Pizza Hut person on the other end. Picked myself up, walked to the den, got Jim's order and limped back to my room. LOL I tell you, I've GOT to get this sewing room in order before I knock myself senseless!

Early day this morning so I best get going.

No quilting, but some crochet

Well, I haven't cranked up my sewing machine in the last week or so, but I have been working on another afghan. Here are 5 swirl motifs put together just so I can see if I'm going to like it and, thus, continue making a total of 52 "blocks". LOL, yes, 52 of these things! Am I crazy?? Maybe, but this will be a very portable project if I continue to make all the blocks before I connect them all together. I think I'm going to like it, so I will continue...

Dad's visit to the doc today netted him a new concentrator for oxygen use, an antibiotic and another, 5-day diuretic (added to his present Lasix). He looked better when I left about 6:15 this afternoon. I hope and pray he's able to sleep better tonight and that the diuretic aids in removing a lot of the fluid that is building up. This congestive heart failure is not for sissies...

Jim is off tomorrow and then he only has 6 more days to work before retirement. More thoughts on that later...lol I'm going to bed.

Wedding Weekend

These are just a sampling of the pictures taken this past weekend at Rob and April's wedding. It was a beautiful wedding in a beautiful backyard. The wind blew a bit, but it really wasn't too bad. The picture of them on the swing was actually taken a few weeks ago, part of their engagement picture package. The photographer has done a wonderful job and I can't wait to the pictures he took of the entire event. These candid shots were taken by our son-in-law and he did a good job, too! Thanks, RW!

I couldn't resist showing you a picture of my baby boy dancing the Mother-Son dance with me. I wish you could see his face in this one, but maybe the pro photographer will have taken a better one.

Needless to say, I have done absolutely no quilting this weekend. I did show Rob and April their Double Wedding Ring quilt that is only about half quilted. They really liked it. It will get done, eventually!

I'm off to get ready for the day. Dad has an appointment to see about his oxygen levels and maybe a possible infection. Please pray that they can deal with all this here and we don't have to head to Lubbock.

Have a great day!

Where did the week go?

This week has flown by. Maybe because it's time for Rob and April's wedding? We have the rehearsal and dinner tonight. Jim's daughter, Brenda, and her family are on their way from Houston as we speak. They should be here around 1 p.m. I wish I'd taken today off. But, I didn't, so I need to get my rear in gear and get going for the day.

My brother and his wife will be in this afternoon and my aunt should be getting in tomorrow sometime. I think those are the only relatives, on our side, that are traveling to get here. Oh, speaking of my brother, he called last night to let us know that his daughter is going to make them grandparents once more. Their son had a little girl a month ago and this baby is due in June.

Dad is hanging in there. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. Please pray that he can make it through this weekend without any episodes. We do have an appointment for Monday morning since he does seem a bit short of breath and is weaker than he has been. I told my brother that if Dad seems worse today, I am taking him in for a check. Unfortunately, his cardiologist in town is out until Nov. 5 and his backup guy in Lubbock is out until Monday. We'll see his primary doc here on Monday and go from there.

Off to start this very long day..

"I Spy Crazy 9 Patch"

This one is made from fat quarters I have accumulated throughout the last few years. Exchanges for birthdays, bingo winnings and other occasions have brought me many different kinds of FQs. Most of these are children's prints.

Let me back up...Last Monday I went to my local quilt group meeting. We left with instructions to cut fabric for next month's program. It will be a Crazy 9 Patch lesson. I couldn't wait. So, I found some sketchy instructions online to help me get started. (We only got cutting instructions at the meeting.) Then, in order not to have another UFO needing to be quilted, I decided to go ahead and quilt-as-you-go this one. Hence, the back of it has the car fabric connected with red strips. I'm not sure I cut and sewed the blocks like you're really supposed to, but it will do. Ultimately, this will be a donated quilt.

Only one more week before Rob and April's wedding. I pray that Dad will stay healthy enough to attend. I'm a little worried about him since he had his flu shot this last Monday. He has not felt well at all, and today seemed to be the worst. He seems to be accumulating more fluid on his lungs, especially his left, and we are working on helping him get back to where he was. His weight has been going up gradually and it worries us. His breathing was more labored today than it has been in quite a while. Please pray that he will overcome this episode on his own.

I really need to finish quilting the DWR but it is so big and heavy that I get lazy to do it. I try to do a ring every day or so, but it is slow going. Maybe I'll have it done in time for their first anniversary! LOL

Halloween quilt (edited)

I edited the post to show what I did to the Halloween quilt today. I took it to the shop and no one seemed to catch on to the fact that I had quilted a spider web all over it so I decided to make it more noticeable. I ran to Hobby Lobby and bought a metallic paint pen and just went over my quilt lines. I like the way it turned out! NOW I'll hang it at the shop! lol Stayed with Dad until 5 and left him sleeping. Joe was home. Dad seems to have had a reaction to the flu shot we took on Monday. I hope he feels better tomorrow.

So, here's what I've done instead of cleaning my sewing room. I saw the orange fabric as I was thinking of sorting through things and decided to make a Halloween quilt. I thought a big spider web would be the ideal quilting pattern. I hope you can see it in the closeup. I'll bind it and hang it at the shop. Stash busting at it's best!
It was another slow day at work, but tomorrow should pick up. Leota had some minor surgery done and will probably not be back to work this week.

Time to take the contacts out. I may have to try to get an appointment with the eye doc sooner than December 10. I've waited this long, maybe I can hold out until then.