Almost a New Year!

We are home from our trip north and have enjoyed just having time to hang out and do nothing! We were here at home for Christmas morning and the kids finally woke up around 7:30. DH and I were sure that we would be awakened by them at about 5 a.m. - but instead we were awake first! We opened our gifts here and then headed north.

The trip was going great - very light traffic - until we got to the south side of Nashville. There was a accident that happened about a quarter mile in front of us and blocked all four lanes of traffic. We sat completely still for an hour. After seeing no police coming (firetrucks and ambulances arrived right away) , all the traffic decided to try to do a 180 and drive the wrong way down the shoulder. We were in the far right lane and decided to stay still. We had already seen two tow trucks driving down the shoulder with cars that had had fender benders BEHIND us. It was pretty scary to watch people in the far left lane trying to turn across four lanes of traffic. Five police cars finally showed up to direct traffic around the remnants of the wreck.

The kids barely made it through dinner before wanting to rip into the rest of their gifts. First we played a dirty Santa game - where I somehow ended up with one of my great-aunt's quilts. (I will post a picture later.) Then when we opened our regular gifts, my mom had made me a lap quilt in Christmas-y colors. (Again - pictures to come!) The picture above is of the wall hanging I made for my sister. She is the one who first introduced me to Denyse Schmidt quilts. We both fell in love with her style and fabrics. This is made from Denyse Schmidt fabric that I ordered at Susan's store! I am hoping it matches the colors in her dining room.

We had our big Christmas dinner on Tuesday afternoon. We ate a lot but there was still a ton of leftovers. Unfortunately, my mom's frig decided to die at some point during the night on Tuesday - so Wednesday morning we had to throw everything out. We were all so sad! My dad kept asking if we were sure it was spoiled. The temp was above 80 degrees in the frig - I am sure it was spoiled! DH and I were still craving leftovers so last night we cooked turkey and dressing here at home! Yummy!

Hope everyone has a wonderful New Year's! We are planning to hang out here at home and be in bed before midnight. Yes, we live on the wild side!

An early Christmas

Ever since my kids got sick in October, I feel like I have been running in circles. There were several weeks in November where I had one or the other of them home from school everyday. Maddie was the worst - I was afraid she was getting pneumonia again, but she didn't. We are all on the mend now.

For Thanksgiving we headed to Arkansas and then to Nashville. On our drive up to Little Rock, me and hubby came down sick. By the time we got to bed that night, I was running 101.5 fever. We survived the week of travel and made it home safely.

Then came the start of the Christmas rush. I was the PTA chairperson for the school bookfair. I tried to keep my schedule open in case anyone called in sick and I needed to fill in. Amazingly, every single person showed up to work! The librarian said that was the first time that has ever happened.

The kids are now out of school and hyper! Yesterday we concentrated on organizing and cleaning Maddie's room. And today was Ian's turn. Ian feels the need to keep every little scrap of paper he has ever drawn on (a trait he gets from his daddy, the architect).

Yesterday, Christmas came early to our house. First of all, three packages arrived. One was from my mom - stuff for our stockings. One was from Stacy's brother and SIL - gifts for the kids. And one was from Nines - for me!!! Yeah!! She made me a lovely scrapbook of our quilting retreat at my mom's house! She is spreading her talents to other things besides quilting.

My DH also decided we each needed to open one gift. He claims he was worried he might have to exchange my present - but after opening the box, I think he just wanted me to be able to play with it! Ian was convinced it was a sewing machine because the box was so big! That would have been ok too! It was a lovely Dell laptop. It is so nice to be able to sit on the couch and surf the web!

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. Hope everyone gets all of their christmas quilting done in time! Tomorrow I need to get a wallhanging quilted. Nothing like waiting till the last minute!

Presents in the mail

In today's mail, I received this lovely gift from my friend Jim - the solider who I made the star quilt for. He is a blackhawk helicopter pilot and has been in Iraq numerous times.

The paper says " Operation Iraqi Freedom, This American Flag was flown aboard a MH-60K Blackhawk on a combat mission in September 2006. For Sarah Norman , Your support of the troops, those injured in combat, my family and for me will not be forgotten. Thank you! Jim Boyd" In the bottom left is a small picture of Jim in front of his helicopter. In the right hand corner is a picture of his units insignia. He also quoted Aristole, "We make war that we may live in peace."

How cool is that?

Thanks for reminding me, Nines!

I did my usual morning routine - get up, check email, check and see if Nines had posted anything new. And she had! Reading her rather hyper post (and she claims to be off caffeine!) reminded me that I had not posted the picture of my friend Jim, the sweet man who I made a QOV for. Yes, I am the floating head next to him. Jim is due to be deployed to Iraq for a month sometime next spring. Then he is getting out. He has a extremely sweet family. Me and his wife agreed that if we lived closer we could be really good friends. Not that you can't be friends long distance!

My little guy is home sick today with a fever. Of course he doesn't want me out of his sight. I will have to convince him to come sit in the sewing room!

Hope everyone has a great day!

Quilting, quilting, quilting

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am still alive and well!

The same Saturday night that I got the binding put on the pink and brown quilt, I also got the binding put on the scrappy quilt below. I am giving it to two friends that are getting married right before Christmas. Her bridal shower is tomorrow night. Hopefully, not too many college girls will be there - so they all won't start expecting a "wedding" quilt. (The two people getting married are in their mid- 40's.) This quilt was already done except for the binding and was just sitting there waiting for a good home!

Sunday afternoon there will be a baby shower for a lady from church. This family's oldest child is Ian's age - 5.5 years old. This one will be number 4! We are all excited because this one will be a girl - after 3 boys! This quilt was made from the leftovers from the quilt me and my mom made for my cousin's new baby girl. The only thing I had to buy was the pink for the border and the backing. I love the polka dots!

Naomi - DON'T READ ANY FARTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE YOUR CHRISTMAS PRESENT. Can you be trusted?

Today I got to sit down and piece a while. A few weeks ago, Susan posted a picture of a quilt her daughter had made and it had a great polka dot fabric in it. I had to get some for me and a friend - so I emailed Susan to double check that it had come from her store. When I called to order it, I happened to think to ask the lady if they carried Denyse Schmidt's fabric line for Free Spirit. They do! So I asked the lady to send me a variety of fat quarters in blues and greens. My sister is the one who turned me onto Denyse Schmidt - so I am using the fabric to make her a wall hanging for her dining room. Yes, it will match - her dining room is a lime green color!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

It's done! It's done! It's done!!!

Can you tell that I am just a little bit excited to be done, done, done with the pink and brown pineapple quilt? I was able to calm down and get the binding done this afternoon. Nina actually called me this morning and told me to just quit getting stressed out over stuff!

In other news, I made a batch of yummy muffins last night. Actually I made a double batch. 24 yummy breakfast muffins. See, maybe some of Nina's baking talents have rubbed off on me! I promised Nina the recipe - so here you go!

Coffee Cake Muffins

makes 12 muffins

Mix dry ingredients:

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup wheat germ

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. cinnamon (I added at least twice that!)

1/2 cup sugar (could do half sugar/half splenda)

Mix Wet ingredients:

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1 cup plain or vanilla yogurt - low fat

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Mix wet and dry. Makes 12 miffins - 2 WW points each. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 25 minutes.

How to ruin a binding in several easy steps

Nina asked how did I ruin the binding. It is very easy to mess up binding if you are stressed out! First, you sew it on with too wide of a seam. That means there won't be enough fabric to turn over to the back. Then you try to remedy the problem by trimming the seam a little bit, which makes the binding almost disappear on the front. The you also, accidentally, cut the fabric on the corner and leave yourself a nice hole when you flip the binding over. Then you give up and rip it all off and start over! I still wasn't able to face it again today.. maybe tomorrow!

Car update - DH and I went by the dealership this morning and DH asked if they had any new info. on the backordered part. The service manager said they would be checking on it sometime this morning and would give us a call. Stacy told him about my planned trip out of town and the service manager said they would get me a rental if the car wasn't done by Wednesday!! I called them at noon and the backordered part was supposed to be shipped today and arrive on Monday. And if everything goes perfectly, I WILL have my car back on Wednesday. The good news is that they are also fixing the driver's seat belt which was causing the airbag light to stay on and they are also fixing Maddie's seat belt, which locked in position as soon as you put it on. Honda warranties their seatbelts for the life of the car. Yeah Honda!

Hope everyone has a great weekend. I am off to clean up the sewing room. It is currently about waist (or waste!) deep!

I should have stayed in bed...

This day has gone from bad to good to worse. The air conditioning on my 2002 CRV went out on Monday and we took it in to Honda on Wednesday morning at 8 am. Still no answers by last night at 5. They called this morning to say that the compressor was falling apart from the inside out and had totally contaminated the entire A/C system. The whole thing will need to be replaced. The Honda lady said that the service manager was willing to "help us" on this. BIG HINT that they know something is all their fault. He was willing to cover the parts (about $2000) and we would just pay for the labor (about $800). I told the lady "Thank you" and that it was a great offer but that hubby was going to want to talk to someone higher up the Honda ladder. He had already surfed the web and found out the '02/'03 compressor are widely known for self destructing! So I get off the phone with her and call DH and leave a message to call me a.s.a.p. About ten minutes later I get another call from Honda lady saying that the service manager had called their district manager and had been told to cover the whole thing!! Yeah!!!! They said it should be done next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Then this afternoon I decided to work on the binding for the brown and pink quilt. Let's just say that things have gone horribly wrong and I am ripping the whole thing off and starting completely over with new binding - TOMORROW!!! Do not try and put binding on when you are stressed out.

This afternoon I called Honda to tell them that I really need the truck back by Wednesday because me and the kids are going out of town on Thursday. The lady tells me that she had just heard from the parts department and they had gotten all our parts ordered but that one part was on backorder and there was no release date on it. In other words, they have no idea when it will come in. I calmly asked her what I was supposed to do without a car for an indefinite period of time. She said I could go rent one. I replied "That would be at least $40 a day out of my pocket." All she could say was "yes". I am going to try and talk DH into calling the manager and insisting that they either give us a loaner or rent us a car - especially since they can not give us a date the truck will be finished. Stacy had already said we could rent a car but I really don't think we should be the ones paying for it since the repair is something that Honda knows is a problem with their product.

Now you know why I need to go back to bed! It is DH's b-day so I am definitely going to make him take us out to dinner!

Can you see why me and Nines are friends?

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

"Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh."

A binding Saturday

Can you tell what I did today? Last night I got the brown floral fabric cut for the binding on the pink pineapple quilt and got the strips sewn together today. Then I cut and sewed the binding for this quilt. This is the quilt I am going to give to my friends as a wedding gift. And then the pink strips are for an outer border on a baby quilt. The baby shower is October 29 so I have a couple of weeks to get it done.

Did you notice that bright yellowy cutting board? I finally bought myself a new one this past week. After 7 years of cutting on the same one, the lines were worn off and it had some pretty deep valleys cut into it. This one is cool because it has the grid on both sides - so when one side gets worn out you can flip it over and keep going! The back side is a real pale pink.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

P.S. - Where are the pics of everyone else's laundry rooms?

The quilting is done!!!!

This morning I finished up the last of the quilting on Taylor's quilt!!! Yeah! In the wide brown border I did freehand loopy-loops and leaves and in the pineapple blocks I just did little petite loopy-loops. Someday I want to do beautiful quilting like Judy, and Darcie, and Bonnie, and Carolyn, and Nina, and........... But for now - loopy-loops work just fine!

After I finished the quilting, I got to spend 3.5 hours counting fundraising money at the grade school. UGH!!! It is amazing how parents can mess up such simple math! But it is done and the school will make about $10,000 for their new playground.

Nina said she wanted to see our laundry "rooms" - so here is mine. It is more like a big closet. Our cabinet maker had a couple of beautiful white cabinet that he had mis-measured and he sold them to us for a steal! The odd little nook at the far right is caused by the water heater closet out in the garage. I use it to store my vacuum. The closet has bi-fold doors that close it off from the hallway to my bedroom.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Yummy!

Here is a yummy fruit salad recipe.

3 chopped apples
1 can chunked pineapples with the juice (the can that is about 5 inches tall)
1 box instant white chocolate pudding - sugar free
1 small carton fat free kool whip

Mix it all together and chill!

1 cup = 1 point ( for any of you on Weight Watchers)

Not as huge as I thought!

I was a little concerned Friday night when I finished this top - that it was somehow it was going to be entirely too huge for a queen size bed. You remember this quilt, don't you? So yesterday morning I made up my bed and then threw the quilt top over to see how it fit. Perfect!

After spending several hours at the soccer field for pictures and a game, we made it home in time for lunch. After a quick nap, I managed to get the backing pieced and loaded on the machine. I ran out of steam after piecing the batting. Now I can go at the quilting without having to face several hours of other stuff first!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

A Friday night finish!

I got the pineapple top finished last night. I really like how it turned out. I am hoping to get it quilted this week. Wish me luck!

Almost there!

Yesterday afternoon I sat down for about an hour and worked on the borders for this quilt. As you can see I put a 2 inch brown border all the way around. Then on the top and bottom I put the rail fence border. Now I am rethinking putting the rail fence on the side too. The width of the quilt doesn't really need another 9 inches. So I am contemplating putting a thin pink border down the sides and then the wider brown border all the way around. Are you confused yet?

I am loving this quilt! Thanks again, Bonnie, for the wonderful pattern!

A quilt for a charity auction.

This is a quilt that I pieced over a year ago. I made one at the same time in greens - same fabrics just in green! Anyway, the green quilt I finished right away and took with me to Florida to a lady's retreat me and Nines went to. They had a auction to raise money for scholarships to help out women who were not financially able to come to the retreat on their own. Nina also made a quilt for the auction - one of the star quilts like we made for our soldier friends.

The blue top sat there in the "waiting to be quilted pile" for a whole year until I finally got around to quilting it in July.

The kindergarten here in town has a "family fun night" as a fund raiser every year. They have a silent auction and ask for donations for the auction. This blue quilt will be my donation. I put the binding on it on Monday. Why do I dread bindings so much? It always goes much quicker than I expected!

This is the back of the quilt. This lovely toile came from a friend of mine, Christie, when she was cleaning out her garage! She has a garage full of crafty stuff. Speaking of Christie, today we are having a girl's day out for her birthday. We are driving down to Columbus Georgia (about an hour away) and go to Hobby Lobby, and a quilt store called Sew much fun, and having lunch. We might also hit Sam's and the party store if we have time.

I really am going to quilt some this week!

I have been slowly but surely making progress on the pink and brown pineapple quilt. Last weekend me and my mom went out and found some brown fabric to make the border with, but now I have a crazy idea in my head that it needs more than just a huge solid color border. I am going to put on a skinny 1.5 inch brown border. Then I have taken all the left over 2 inch pink strips and pieced them into a rail fence type block which is three strips wide.

After this border I will put on another solid brown border. And then on to the quilting!

I have another good reason for getting this quilt finished - I need to make a wedding quilt for two friends that are getting married in December. Now usually I don't make wedding quilts. We go to church with lots of college kids and if I made each of them a quilt when they got married, I would have no time for anything else. But the two people getting married are an older (than me) couple. She has been married before and has grown kids. The groom I am not sure about. Anyway, they are both so sweet and they are both so happy. I have put the groom in charge of finding out what her favorite colors are!

Time to get busy!

Don't give up on me yet!

I am still here and still stroll through the blog ring, but since I haven't got to sew in forever, there isn't much to post!

This fabric was given to me by Maddie's 1st grade teacher. Her aunt is a quilter and is downsizing from a house to a small townhouse and is clearing out her junk. You all should be proud - out of the several garbage bags of stuff she gave me I only kept two things. The other piece is about 5+ yards of some Marcus Brothers fabric. You can buy either piece from me over on ebay. The mystery is what this fabric was going to be used for. It is cotton fabric, cut on the bias (in 20 inch wide strips) and ends up being about 15 inches wide about 9 yards long. Any ideas where this was headed?

My parents are coming for a visit today - so I'd better get cleaning!

Hello from Alabama!

Leah emailed me last night to make sure I was still alive. Yes I am still here. Just not much quilting going on and way too much other stuff going on.

After we returned from Tennessee a few weeks ago, school started. Ian has had a rough time adjusting but I think we might be over the hump. Maddie is loving her teacher.


Last week I made myself drag out Hannah's quilt. They moved to Missouri in July. She had the top put together and just needed to put the final borders on. I told her I would quilt it for her. So I got the borders put on and got it loaded onto the machine. Oh, the importance of quarter inch seams and a good ironing job. I had told her she needed to square everything up before she tried to add the borders. When she gave me the quilt before she left town, she said she was surprised at how wild the edges were! I think she finally understood what I was trying to say about being accurate. Anyway, as usual, the quilting really helped the quilt! It lays nice and flat now. I think it turned out great for her very first attempt at quilting! I hope she will keep it up. Her hubby is in medical school so I am guessing that she will have a lot of free time on her hands.

I have now returned to working on the bed-sized pink and brown pineapple quilt I am making for a little girl from church. I had the middle of the top pieced a few weeks ago and took it to show the mommy and the little girl. I mentioned something about laying it out on Maddie's full size bed to make sure it was big enough. Amy then says "Oh, did I forget to tell you that Taylor now has a queen size bed?" That is a important little fact that she had forgotten to share! I ordered a few more fat quarters of pinks (Pink is NOT a color found in my stash!) and now I am back in business.

Another Quilt of Valor

Saturday evening I got my QOV loaded on the machine. I am going to Nashville on Wednesday and want to be able to hand deliver the quilt to my friend Jim. Mom gave Jim her QOV quilt for his friend, Jeramy, and she said Jim got a little teary eyed. I am already worried what will happen when the quilt is for him! (Yes, I will make sure someone is taking pictures.)

Anyway, Sunday I got one pass quilted - loopy-loops and free-hand stars. This morning I finished it up. Then I had a very attractive offer to help me unpin the quilt. I can't refuse an offer like that!

This is the label from Jim's quilt. The quote is from the song "Hail Columbia" which was written to be performed at George Washington's inauguration in 1789.

I really like the flag fabric. Me and Nines found it at Hobby Lobby in Tennessee.

Ready to go..

Last night, for some unknown reason, I had the house to myself for about two hours! DH was next store fixing some things in the spec house and the kiddies were outside playing. What's a girl to do? I made myself drag out the flannel and the blanket binding and work on the blankie for my coming niece/nephew. She/He is due to arrive in about two weeks!!! Yes, I have already made this baby a quilt - the yellow one, but what is an over excited auntie to do? Sew!

The blankie is a nice size - 35 inches by 44 inches. The reason I was putting off making this blankie is the HUGE amount of satin stitching around the inside edge of the binding. Takes forever to do. I did one side at a time and then took a short break.
Since I had to drag out the newer Singer to do the satin stitch, I thought I might as well do the hooded towel too. After all, it takes all of two minutes to do. Yes, two minutes...if you go really slowly. Sew the washcloth to the towel, centered of course. Then sew the top of the washcloth together (on the inside). Done! Yes - this is for the same baby. Too much? Naaah!

I get all of this done - it is about 7:30 pm and still no family! No dinner either but no one seemed to care.

All that is left to do is sew the label on the baby quilt. Yes I wimped out and did it on the machine.

Several people have asked how I make labels on a ink jet printer. I used to use the chemical stuff you soak the fabric in but my bottle got old and the ink would not set. So now I buy the pre-treated sheets at Walmart. These sheets work great but they are made of a heavy fabric and are kind of hard to hand stitch thru. I have done it by hand but end up with some very sore finger tips!

Today I am mailing off the box of goodies to my SIL. Hope she likes it!

A label for the yellow and white baby quilt

This morning after another practice session on the machine, it was time to make the label for the baby quilt. I could not figure out how to line up a whole row of letters correctly. The machine will only do one word at a time. So I decided I would have to do the label part on the inkjet printer and do the decoration on the embroidery machine. I think it turned out cute!

New (borrowed) toys!

I have been notified (again!) by several members of my family that my blog has not been updated since Friday. Sorry! Friday and Saturday were spent giving the house a very thorough house cleaning in order to have the new preacher and his family over for dinner Sunday night. Monday I cleaned up the dinner mess, read for a while, and spent the afternoon shopping for an armoire for the TV. Finally gave in and ordered the one I really liked from Rooms-to-go. We had gone there last Friday and seen it in person. The only thing is I now have to wait until August 30th for it to be delivered. Do I have that much patience? We also ordered a mission style leather chair from JCPenney. Hopefully that should arrive this week.

I managed to get the binding and the label on my dad's quilt. Wanted to get it and my mom's QOV in the mail to them today. The quilting really helped this quilt out. Maybe it would be more interesting if you used pieced blocks for the nine inch squares.





Tonight I went over and borrowed my friend Christie's embroidery machine. She assured me I could figure it out without her there holding my hand. After speed reading thru the manual, I gave it a whirl. I broke a needle because the white thread I was using for the star centers got caught on the edge of the spool. But we got the needle replaced and was able to start over and make it thru with no further excitement. Ian thought it was interesting that the machine would go by itself. The first time he came in, he looked under the table and saw no foot pedal so he started asking questions. Later he came back while I had gone out of the room for a moment and he just stood there in amazement. Tomorrow I am going to try and make a couple of quilt labels with this machine. We shall see!

A lovely Friday despite the nasty heat

It is a small comfort to know that it seems to be the whole country is sweltering together in this nasty heat wave. It was in the high 90's today with the usual oppressive humidity. When does fall start again?

This afternoon we piled the kids into the car and drove to Montgomery to hit four more furniture stores. We were still wavering on whether we wanted a leather sofa (mucho dinero but very cool!) or some sort of reasonably priced upholstered sofa. At the fourth store we both agreed that we could live with fabric sofa we found. Only $500! Not too bad. It looks kind of olive green under the store's very dim fluorescent lights but when I took a pillow outside it looked more brown. So I guess I will have to be surprised when I see what color it looks like in my living room. I get ALOT of natural light so I am hoping it looks more brown. Now we still have to find an entertainment armoire for the TV junk. It needs to be at least 6 feet tall because our living room ceiling are 12 foot and it would be going against a huge empty wall.

When we got back home we found the Nintendo Gamecube my DH had ordered "for the kids" waiting on the front porch. Guess who has been playing the most? That's right, the DH! We have ordered some more kid friendly games off of e-bay and half.com that should be arriving soon.

While the rest of family was huddled around the gamecube, I went and sewed on the binding to the yellow baby quilt. It looks so cute! Nice and neutral! Now to get the label done. And the hooded towel. And the flannel blankie. Can you tell I want to spoil this child before it even arrives?

Almost done ...for...

Yesterday I decided to get Papa's quilt done so that I could mail it to him along with mom's quilt of valor. (Plus his b-day was this week and I didn't even get a card mailed!) So I pieced the backing, pinned the top and backing onto the machine, and went in search of some batting. I had two good sized pieces leftover from the yellow and white baby quilt. Got out the iron-on interfacing and fused the pieces together. I made sure the piece ended up being wide enough but didn't actually measure the length. Surely it was long enough because it was longer than it was wider by a good amount.

I am quilting along, getting close to the bottom. Two more passes and I will be done. Then I look down.

Oops! It is going to be close!

After I was done quilting and unpinned the top from the roller, this is what I was left with. In certain places, the top comes exactly to the edge of the batting! Very close call!


Several of the fabrics had leaves on them - so I did a loopy-loops with leaves scattered throughout. I think the quilting definitely helped this quilt! Now to find some dark green fabric to make the binding out of. All of the pictures should be clickable.

Mom's quilt of valor

Here is what I have been working on today. This is a quilt my mom made for a friend of the family's close friend who was injured while fighting in Iraq a few months ago. Jeremy has already been through several surgeries and faces several more. Jeremy is a friend of our friend Jim who I have made a quilt for. Jim goes back to Iraq in September and I hope to get him his quilt before then.

I just did a big loopy-loop with stars in strategic places. I think it turned out nicely.

A late evening snack

Tonight after getting the borders on the baby quilt, I decided I wanted to play with my lovely hand dyed fabrics. They have been calling to me for a couple of weeks now. While at my in-laws, we took the kids to the library, where we all got to check out a couple of books. One of the books I checked out was called "The Amish Quilt" by Eve Granick. It isn't really a pattern book, but rather a history of Amish quilt making. I love reading about history anyway, so this was fascinating.

I wanted to try and piece a small Amish inspired quilt. I was going for a diamond in a square kind of top - but of course my math was way off and the outside square was way too big. But I liked the look. What do you think? I think I am going to do two more blocks and make it into a wallhanging for above my sewing table.

One thing I have figured out is that fat-quarters are really too small to do anything of great size. Next time I dye fabric I am going to leave it in 1 yard cuts.

Time for bed!

Got those borders on!

This morning we went couch shopping. Once again - my taste versus DH's taste. We had agreed that we wanted a leather couch but who knew there were so many styles out there. I wanted clean lines. Unfortunately, the cleaner lines usually were accompanied by the standard brass nail thingys. Do you know what I mean? Stacy wanted something with cushy low arms and it has to be long enough for him to stretch out on.

Anyway, we came to no decisions and gave up and came home. After lunch and a nap, I decided to tackle the borders on the baby quilt. I think the top turned out really cute.
Now I am trying to psych myself up to have a quilting marathon. Somehow I have accumulated a pile of quilts that need to be quilted. Here's the list:

1 - this baby quilt

2- a quilt of valor my mom made

3 - the quilt of valor that I made for the our blackhawk pilot friend

4 - my dad's "the biggest blocks he's ever seen" quilt

5 - the civil war repro quilt my mom gave me a year ago

6 - the pink YBR quilt my friend Christie made for her daughter

7 - the lap size YBR quilt my other quilting student is finishing up

This should keep me busy for a while!

Time to get the kids ready for bed! Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend.

Try, try again!

Ok, let's see if blogger wants to play nice today!

Here is the picture of the baby quilt I am working on for my new niece/nephew. Do you know how hard it is to get a good picture of a quilt made from soft yellow and white fabrics? I had to adjust the contrast in Photoshop so you could have some idea of the pattern.

Blogger seems to be in a better mood today - so let's share some more pics from the grand adventure in Tennessee.

Here are the girls in their adorable dresses that Nina made. The front panel is faux-redwork, done on Nina's sister's MIL's expensive embroidery machine. Got all that? Me and Nina used to make the girls lots of matching dresses when they were littler. Is littler a real word?


Here is my sweet Papa reading to the kids. Notice the beautiful quilt at the foot of the bed. Such stunning workmanship. Yes, I am humble!


In honor of Nina's love of all things ORANGE - my mother came up with an orange food dinner. You had your choice of baby carrots, cantaloupe, orange jello with oranges in it, and BBQ pork with an orangey BBQ sauce. No, this was not planned - but we all found it quite funny!

Yet another sweet picture of Eva, Maddie and Bekah. They were all so glad to see each other. When Nina pulled into the drive way, Maddie started squealing at the top of her lungs and ran to the car, jerked the door open, and could hardly wait for Eva to get out so she could hug her!

And lastly, here is Nina, modeling her t-shirt I made for her.

Time to go clean up the kitchen and get dinner together. Nothing has gotten done around here today. We spent from 8:30 a.m. till 12:30 p.m. up at the grade school putting together the school supply kits that will be for sale on "Meet the teacher" night. We made up about 200 paper bags full of school supplies. I love school supplies! After lunch at Burger King, we headed to Walmart to buy our own school stuff. Ian was so excited that he got to buy school supplies this year.

Ok, ok - dinner time!