A Few Minutes Today

Today I set the timer so I wouldn't forget to come out of the sewing room. I don't like setting the timer. I wanted to spend all day in my hidie hole. But I couldn't. I had a few errands to run this morning so I did those first thing--I can put off errands for days........

After I got home, I took the dogs for a walk and then had to decide which to do first, sew or chores. Yes, sewing won out. I made my Stashbuster BOMs. The left side top and 2nd down are this month's blocks. The 3rd done down is the result of my cutting mistake. But I like it and the block fits into the quilt so I'm keeping it. It is my quilt after all. I need to start thinking about sashing and borders for this quilt. I better put some fabric swatches in my purse.

Poor Tony puppy is exhausted after our walk. This is a good thing. Sleep for a while. I don't care if you are on the couch. Just sleep!

We have discovered we have 2 roosters. I guess that's what happens when you buy baby chicks, they can say you have hens but they tell you there is a 10% chance you'll get roosters. I think we might have 3 out of the 10. Hmm, what to do. So far Manly Stanley is a very loud little man and Rodney the Rhode Island Red has yet to find his voice. I hope I have the pleasure of hearing him when he starts to crow because it is hilarious!

Life on the farm is good today.

I'm A Winner!

I have a list of several blogs that I love to read, sometimes I even leave a comment. (Comments are nice! Even if it's just a short little note that says Hi, I was here. )

One of my favorites is the blog of Sue Hecker. She has categories for every day of the week. One day she had a contest to guess what fair food on a stick she ate. Well, you know I had to enter my guess. I didn't win first prize, but my number was chosen in a random draw for the second prize. How awesome. Thank you Sue. The Gypsy Rose by Fig Tree Quilts jelly roll is gorgeous. (The link for the jelly roll shows the fabrics.)

I've won a few things recently (Fat Quarter Bingo!!-woohoo) and feel my luck may be used up. I think that very well could be the case--see yesterday's post.

Go over and visit Sue, she has an awesome website and blog. Thanks Sue.

Good Day/Bad Day

Ever have one of those days? I'm having one today.

Good Day: Today is our 37th anniversary. Yeah for us. Ernie brought me home 3 dozen roses. I love getting roses. Love it! Thanks Babe.

Here's to 37 more years. We have had some very good times and some very tough times. I think most marriages have those. We raised 4 children into awesome adults that we are very proud of. We are at a comfortable place in our lives right now and it feels good.

Bad Day: Not totally bad, just ughhhh, kind of bad. I've spent so much time in the kitchen and not the sewing room that when I do sit down to sew, it seems I sew thing together wrong! 3 different projects, 3 different goofs!

When I photographed the blocks for the Design Wall post, I saw I had one of my HSTs wrong. Today, when I should have been in the kitchen but don't want to be, I hung the top with the blocks sewn together and yip, right there I see where my 6 blocks are sewn together wrong. The center should be backgrounds, not the colors. The importance of the design wall is jumping out at me. I will leave this up on the wall and work on it to make it right.

Tomorrow, our sewing at Marian's day, I will spend time with my seam ripper. First is the BOM that need 2 blocks taken out and then sewn into the right places because it is now haunting my dreams. Second is the Carol Doak wall hanging I started to put together and put a piece in the wrong spot. Quick redo on that one. I should have both of these right again before I leave her house.

I should..........but will I??? Now I probably should get back to kitchen duty.

Design Wall-Week 16

3 little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and went to find his dog food. Tony had played long enough.
Elliot and Clella spent the night Friday night so their parents could go out on a real date. They got up extra early on Saturday morning so Poppy layed down hoping that Clella would go back to sleep for a couple more hours. They made it an hour-Elliot and I snuggled up on the couch. Then it was game on. Poppy was the best toy of the day.

About noon, I went up to have lunch with friends at the quilt retreat that I had to pass on.
(After a couple emails and comments, please know my grandchildren did not have anything to do with me missing the retreat. Although, I would miss anything if my family needed me.)
After watching show and tell, I was inspired to sew. So I grabbed my basket of leader and ender half square triangles and started putting together more depression blocks. I assembled 6 more blocks and have lots more HSTs to be put together. I am almost ready to call this a complete top and add some borders and get it quilted. I also just discovered there is a mistake in the top right block! At least I spotted it now.
On Friday afternoon, I also went visiting at the retreat. I was feeling quite pouty about not being able to be there with my friends. Then I came home and worked some more on this quilt top. After it has hung up there for a while, I see that I have a couple squares out of order. This is supposed to be a calendar quilt. I was going to leave it alone but now it's driving me crazy. So I have some unsewing to do before I go forward. I think I like the border corners. Something simple. I'll use the gold for the binding because I don't have enough of the brown.

Head over to Patchwork Times to visit Judy L and to see what everyone else has on their design wall. I love Design Wall Monday.

A Fish Tale

A four day weekend results in 4 days of fishing. 2 fish brought home, 1 day skunked and 1 day lost "the biggest salmon I've ever seen!"

I stayed home where it was warm and dry.

Design Wall-Week 15

Where has the time gone? Week 15 of Judy L's Design Wall Monday. Be sure to check out what everyone is working on. I have no idea which order these pictures will publish in so I'll just chat and you can find the picture. :-)

Me, I cheated. I pulled a Thimbleberries UFO out of the bag that it has been in the box for a couple years and put it on the wall. I shouldn't say I'm cheating because I actually plan to work on this quilt during the week. My friend Sonya gave me these blocks and I feel like a rotten friend for not finishing this quilt. A few months ago I went to the quilt shop with the blocks and bought sashing and border fabric so I have no excuse. I put this UFO on my list for the small online group challenge and this number was pulled for August. I have 3 days until the next number is called. I've been doing pretty good getting those projects done or to a place where I can put them on the list for the next step like I did with the row quilt. (quick note--the blocks are printed, not embroidered but they sure look like they are)

The 2 blocks are the beginning of a BOM for the same small group. We are each taking a turn to choose a 9" block. I have decided to use one or 2 white background fabrics and my scrap basket. So far, so good. I am waiting for Stashbusters to post the next 2 BOMs so I can still be caught up with them.

The wagon full of produce--that needs to be taken care of this morning. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we celebrate 3 day holiday weekends with rain. We had mega rain storms this weekend and it beat my garden up pretty good. The roma tomatoes are so heavy that if the rain could hit them, they were knocked to the ground. Cherry tomatoes are spit wide open but I'm going to try to save most of them.

I am going to make another batch of pickles, put the tomatoes on to cook for sauce, zucchini chunks will go in the dehydrator and carrots will be eaten. I have to take some of the goods over to my dad's so I can borrow the pressure cooker. I think it's time I learn to use one. But I'm going to borrow before I buy.

Hubby just called and has landed a nice fish so I need to get busy before he gets home. Fresh fish and tomato salad for dinner. Yumm (I took a picture of this awesome fish and will post it later.)

A Few Minutes A Day

Since September is National Sewing Month, I decided it was time for me get sewing again. Just a few minutes a day makes me feel good and I can get a lot done after a while. 2 finishes this month makes be pretty happy. And it's only the 5th. I can only imagine what I can do if I keep up this pace. But who am I kidding??? I know me.

One day while cruising through blogland, I found the cutest wall hanging. I follwed the link to Jenny of ELEFANTZ. Jenny has offered this stitchery free on her blog (link to it on her side bar) and I have seen it on several blogs. I haven't done embroidery for a while and I was ready for a tv time project.

Once I got started, it went pretty fast. A few stitches (or more) each evening and the blocks were finished. I already knew I was going to change up the borders and yesterday I started the borders. After stitching the pieced borders across the top and bottom, I took them off. This morning I added 2 background strips and then the pieced borders. I was very happy with that. I got out the backing fabric, batting and pin basted it. I started stitch in the ditch and all of the sudden, I was ready to add binding. I had planned to stitch the binding down tonight while in front of the tv but couldn't wait to get it finished.

The border pieces were leftovers from Ashlee's quilt that was finished in March. There are still a few pieces left and they will become another project and anything after that goes into the scrap basket. Now I must go dust my Party Lite houses and shelf. I probably should have done that before taking the picture. Embarrassed!!! But gee, I have sewing to do.

It's A Great Day When...

...you can sneak in some time to sew!

Finally, I took the time to sit down in front of my sewing machine. She's been lonely, we missed each other. I needed to finish something, anything. So I looked in my box and found this wall hanging. I didn't write this one on my UFO list and honestly, I don't remember if I made these blocks this year or last. Doesn't matter now, it's hanging in my bathroom.

The top was finished, the backing was cut and so were the binding strips. I wonder what the delay was...maybe another great project that couldn't wait to be started. (Aren't they all that way??) I pin basted it, set up my sewing machine for a curvy line stitch and started sewing. Then I did some stitch in the ditch around the flower pots. I found a butterfly stitch, enlarged it a little, tested it a few times to get it right, changed to some iridescent thread and tested a couple more times. Then I stitched some cute little butterflies in the background fabric and added some tiny buttons to the flower pots.

This one is done, done, done. I am happy, happy, happy. Now I must go take care of my tomato sauce that finished cooking and is now cool enough to put away. It truly is a great day!

Design Wall-Week 14

This has been a very unproductive sewing week. But I'm OK with that. I honestly didn't feel like sewing much. On Wednesday, our sewing group went on a field trip to a Longview kitchen/fabric/quilting/sewing machine/vacuum cleaner shop. First it was out to lunch with a birthday celebration for Harriet. Then on to the shop. After we were done there, we went to Momma Made It. Sharon has moved into a very nice new shop.

I thought maybe I would be inspired to get sewing but no. I have lots of ideas floating around in my head, just nothing has been started yet. I have been doing some embroidery work in the evenings but that is even on hold. I need to trace my next design and haven't done that yet.

The garden is going crazy so every day there is something to take care of. I canned a couple boxes of beautiful peaches and made a couple pies. I'm happy to say the pies turned out excellent.

Since I have no sewing/quilting pictures to share this week, I thought I'd share a couple of pictures Taylor took this weekend. First is of our grand-dog (Taylor's little princess) Shadow. And the hen is the one Amanda named Patricia. Patricia tries to be a bit bossy but Sally, Jessie or Sue keep her in check.

That's it for me today. I am going to go put my chickies to bed and then I am going to be done for the day. Be sure to go over to Judy L's and see what she is up to and check everyone else. This is still fun even with nothing to show on my wall......really there is nothing on it. I finished up the string top.

Pretty Pickles

I had an overload of lemon cucumbers and had no clue what to do with them. My google search lead me to Jillicious Discoveries blog and a post she wrote about lemon cucumbers. From there I did a search for bread and butter pickles using lemon cucumbers. I found this recipe and decided to give it a try with my lemon cucumblers. After all, isn't that how great recipes are created??? Just try this and this and this . Well my pickles turned out delicious. So I made a second batch and added a red pepper because in one of the photos at the recipe, I saw red. It could be a carrot for all I know but I put in a red pepper. It makes the jars very pretty. They have set on my counter for 3 days, now I must put them away. I think today is a good day to bake a chocolate zucchini cake. Yummm.

Remember the other day when I wrote about starting a fire in my microwave ? Well, I was adjusting the glass tray and it broke in about 20 pieces. Right in front of Hubby! I've been using it a little bit with the big ole burned out spot on the try but now I have to go to the repair place and order parts. Darn!

It's kind of a rainy cool day here today so I am going to bake a couple things and sew. And do some laundry.

Design Wall-Week 13

Wow, 13 weeks of Design Wall Mondays! I don't think I've ever been this consistent with posting anything.

I had a little time at the sewing machine this week. I decided I have to get this quilt finished. I left it with the last 3 block halves that need to be put together. I have a bin full of short stings that will be made into a border that I think I will work on today.

I have to get busy on my UFO for my small group. I haven't even gotten the bag out of the box yet. But I don't feel guilty about it. I have had other things going on that aren't sewing related! I have a small bucket of tomatoes that need to be taken care of this morning and I need to bake some bread. That shouldn't take long if I get started. I'm having a really hard time not crawling back into bed but I know that will put me in complete slug mode! Instead I think I will have another cup of coffee then get started on my day.

Head on over to Judy L's and see what everyone else is up to. I think my next string project is going to be Mary's String Diamonds. She has awesome instructions right here.

A Look Out My Kitchen Window

I have the best view out my kitchen window. This morning the orange flowers on the pumpkins sparkled. So I grabbed my camera and took a walk. I'm no fabulous photographer like my daughter Jenny, but I think these pictures turned out well enough to share with you.

First is the lower yard. It used to be cow and horse pasture, now it's chicken pasture. The bush is a climbing rose. When we moved here, it was up the side of the garage. Since this was my grandparents place, I've known that rose forever. The poor rose has had a tough life. Hubby wanted to put the woodshed on the garage so that meant the rose had to go. I salvaged a start and planted it. Then I had to salvage again and again. Now we have this bush and there are roses that have traveled up trees along the neighbor's driveway.

The yard looks horrid. We had an extreme heat wave here and the yard couldn't take it so parts of it shriveled up and died. Notice I didn't call it a lawn.....it's mostly weeds but it looks nice when it is green and mowed.

Next is the garden......well watered and growing like crazy, veggies and weeds! Potatoes are in the garbage cans, corn is set on, 2 or 3 ears per stalk. Tomatoes are amazing, zuchinnis are starting to come on good and lemon cucumbers are plentiful.

The orange pumpkin flower is food for a couple of bees. The vines are taking over another part of the yard. There are a couple nice sized pumpkins and several small ones. I sure hope there will be enough for pies and breads.......no jack o lanterns from these!

Design Wall-Week 12-Part 2

I sewed blocks! I put them up on the design wall!! I am an achiever, not an over achiever like I want to be, just a plain ole everyday achiever. And it feels good.

I'll take these down and put them away until next month after I admire them for a while. These are the blocks for the Stashbuster BOM. The top left and center left are this month's blocks.

The instructions for the center block were for one 12" block. I made 4 6" blocks. I like the scale of this with the other blocks and it's a pretty neat design. I will probably made the 12" block like the instructions call for. I want to have 30 blocks for this quilt and there are a couple other blocks that are a larger scale. The real challenge was making the 2" square in a square for the center of the 6" blocks. But Bonnie of Quiltville came through with an awesome chart for square in a square blocks. Thanks Bonnie. Whenever I am in doubt about something, I always check Quiltville first.

Now I need to figure out what to make for dinner that is quick and easy because I am in the mood to sew! WooHoo.

Design Wall-Week 12

I guess the only time I am going to post anything almost quilt related this month is on Design Wall Monday hosted by Judy at Patchwork Times. My sewing machine got a little bit of a work out this past week. Not much but enough to produce this cute coil basket.

One day while cruising blogland, I stumbled upon The Quilt Rambler. She had written this post about her morning juice mix. I was intrigued so I kept going to visit to see if she had written any more about it. After a couple days of reading her blog, I was hooked and her blog is now among my favorites. Isn't blogland great??

Fast forward a month and she is hosting a workshop with Jamie Wallen and one day they made these awesome coiled bowls. I loved the look of these and couldn't wait to find out more. I've made several but this was a different technique and I HAD to know how to do this!

I am very pleased to tell you there is a new 2 disc DVD set for sale at Jamie Wallen's website . The DVD is called Mrs. Kings Gallery Baskets. I ordered it and stalked the mail lady until it arrived (which was maybe 3 days after ordering!). All I can say is this DVD is FAB U LOUS! You have Rosanne Campisi right there on your tv teaching you everything! I mean everything! This DVD is full of tips and techniques from start to finish. Every secret she has for making these fabulous baskets is right there for you! I can't wait to get in my sewing room and finish my basket and the lid. And start another and another and another.

I love having a library full of instructional DVDs. I don't go to classes so I bring the classes to me. I have watched each of my DVDs more that once, heck I've probably watched them more than 5 times each. My brain is full of useless information most of the time and it's great having something I can watch again when the information that I need hasn't stayed in the brain. Don't laugh, you know exactly what I'm talking about! I think I'll watch the first part again.

Design Wall-Week 11

Not much happening on the big design wall this week so I thought I would show you my little design wall. While putting together my Diamond String blocks into 4 patches and trying not to get them turned while moving to the sewing machine, I had a brain storm! I know, kinda scary!

I made a little design wall to sit beside me at the machine. I've had this 17" Q-Snap quilting frame for several years and have only used it once for just a little while. It's an excellent product, I'm just not much of a hand quilter and when I do, I don't use a frame or hoop. So I got the frame, a piece poly batting and flannel and made this little wall. I was very surprised how much I used it. I am going to take the frame to the hardware store and see if I can figure out something to make it free standing. If I can't I'll just prop it up like I have been.

These little blocks are for my 3rd wall hanging like this one. And they still have the paper on them and are staying on the flannel. And yes, someday, I will get them sewn together. But right now I have a garden that is taking a bunch of time and grandkids that I love to spend time with. And I've been working on organizing my sewing and quilting stuff so my room is more chaotic than normal. Hopefully this week I will have time to spend in there and get it the way I have planned in my head, my other design wall.

Be sure to hop on over to Judy's Patchwork Times and see what everyone else is working on.

There hasn't been much quilting or sewing going on around here this week. Monday was spent doing errands. I left pretty early and picked up Taylor. We planned to go to the big grocery store. Just before we got there, I asked her if she wanted to go to the craft store first. Of course she did! But we got sidetracked by the bagel shop.

After our early morning snack and craft shop tour, we headed to the grocery store. I swear I won't ever go there again without that girl! At this store, you have to bag your own stuff. That is Taylor's favorite part of the trip. So as I'm unloading the cart, she is at the other end with the pile of bags and is expertly loading up the bags, picking them up to make sure they aren't too heavy. The cashier wanted to keep her, I said no. She's mine! I even paid her with a new lunch bag with some reusable containers.

Next we were off to a couple other stores, a quick drive thru for some lunch and the last grocery store for meat and produce. We came home, put everything away and then got busy so she could fix us a fancy dinner. Taylor made stuffed shells because Aunt Cryssie, Uncle Mike, Elliot and Clella were coming out for dinner. She is turning into a very good cook. And she is fun to work with in the kitchen. After dinner, we all headed to the garden. Beans, tomatoes and cabbage filled our basket and buckets.

Tuesday's project was to take care of the beans and make strawberry fruit leather and watermelon candy. I only have one tray for the leather (and promptly got online to ordered more!) so we cut up a whole seedless watermelon and loaded up the dehydrator. They have been drying for 12 hours now and are almost ready for the taste test. I did a quick rotation of the racks this morning--they say you don't need to but I did it anyway. I think I'm as anxious to have it finished as she is. Hopefully by the time she wakes up this morning, there will be something for her to taste.

Design Wall-Week 10

I don't have much on my design wall this week. I'm still working on my Diamond Strings from the last post. I haven't spent much time sewing on them. A few minutes here and there but my blocks are coming together. I decided to set them as stars with white sashing and then a few borders. Be sure to head over to Judy L's and check what everyone else is working on.

I need some new clothes so I got out a pattern and some fabric and now I have a wearable muslin--it's really a cotton/poly blend--and a new favorite pattern. I need to lengthen it a little just for my comfort. I've been in such a funk about my weight gain that I haven't bought any new clothes for a long time. The funk is gone now and I have a pretty good plan. One of these days I'll tell you about my inspiration.

I bought a new dehydrator the other day and have been giving it a workout. I've had a dehydrator for years--hubby bought the Ronco one off tv years ago and it finally died. My friend got me a bag of Walla Walla sweet onions fresh from the farm so I dried 2 big batches of them.

Next I had a banana that was ripe and decided to experiment. I sliced 1 banana , 1 apple and opened a can of pineapple chunks, drained it and put them on the dehydrator to see how much they reduced down to. After a few hours (overnight), here are the results in the picture, minus a couple slices of banana and apple and several chunks of pineapple. The pineapple is my favorite. Next experiment will be some fruit leather for the grandskiddos, then I have some herbs and a garden full of veggies that I can dry out.

I want to try some tomatoes. I read that you can dry the tomatoes, then make a powder out of them and use small amounts to make tomato paste. That would be handy! Now I just have to wait for more tomatoes to get ripe.

Today is run around day. I'm going in to pick up my sidekick, Taylor, and then the real fun begins.

Decisions, decisions

I've been playing with my diamond string blocks and can't make up my mind which layout I like best. If I do the straight set, it looks good and I have a plan for some borders. But I like the look of the stars. They have to have sashing to show the stars and the center will be square--I have enough for 9 blocks. Because of the amount of fabric I have left from the green and white (it was a border print) I'm thinking I'll use the white for the center sashing and the green for in the borders. Hmmm.

When I thought of making this quilt I was going for the green and white framed blocks. Then I put it on the wall and saw the star and now I don't know what to do. I've looked at the photos on the Quiltville page but no one has made the blocks like I have.

So I will post this and hope someone can tell me what to do. Pretty sneaky, huh??? For now, I'll leave it on the wall, I have other things to work on. Or not.

Design Wall Monday-Week 9

Mondays are my favorite blog day. I love to go to Judy L's Patchwork Times and start clicking links and go blog cruising to see what every one else has on their design walls.

I spent part of a day sorting my scraps again and was inspired to work on my strings project. I love sewing on phonebook pages. This is my newest version of Quiltville's Diamond Strings. I had planned to work on Basket Weave Strings but the Diamond blocks are farther along so I am working on that. I had to sew a few blocks together to see what it will look like. I love when you can turn a couple blocks different and get a new design.

We are having a "heat wave" here this week. Our heat wave consists of 5 days of 95 degree plus and is the top news story of the day. (When we get snow or ice, that's breaking news and we get a flake by flake report.) Anyhow, I am going to do my grocery shopping early this morning, get more onions on the dehydrator, and then I will get to sew the remainder of the day.

Oh, the microwave tray, I don't have to replace it. :) That's a good thing--more fabric money.

Why Must I Learn The Hard Way?

I continue to learn things the hard way. Things I already know. These lessons cost money. Sometimes lots of money!

Ian spent the night last night. I forgot to tell him to put his flip flops up so Tony couldn't get them. This morning as he is getting ready to leave, he couldn't find them. I told him to go look out in the front yard. Yip, there they were, chewed up and ruined. I gave mom money to buy him new ones.

I was grinding wheat for bread this morning. I don't let my Kitchenaid Mixer/grinder run more than 8 minutes so I set the timer. OK, I have had the microwave for over a year. Do I know how to use all the stupid buttons??? Yeah, but I didn't pay attention this morning and thought I pushed the timer button, pushed the time and start. The mixer was running and Ian and I were talking. I looked up to see how much time was left and noticed the light was on inside the microwave and there was a little flame!!! Holy crap! So I opened the door, blew out the flame and look what I saw. I've ruined my turntable and the little turner thing. So no microwave.

I wonder how much this will cost me.........and how much crap am I going to take from hubby? NONE, I tell ya, I will take none!

Summer Time...

...and the livin' is easy

Design Wall-Week 8

I did it, I caved in and started a new project. Last year sometime, I started playing with the graph paper and crayons. I worked this scrappy quilt top out to use some of my batik strips. Yesterday after finishing the baby quilt, I decided I would try to make up a block or two. Well, I sat down, cut all the pieces, sewed up the 12 6" blocks and put them on the design wall.

After hearing hubby snore, I knew I had a good hour to sew up a few of the long blocks before I had to fix dinner. After 8 of them were done, I put them up. I don't know how this is going to turn out. I think it will turn out great, but will I like it?

You see, I am not much of a batik fan. Don't get me wrong, there are some gorgeous batiks. But there are also some just butt ugly batiks. I have lots of the ugly ones. We have been swapping batik strips at our retreats for a few years--2 or 3 retreats a year. I have a small collection so I pulled out all the batiks with designs on them.....you know the surfer, flip flops, flowers, swirls, the ones that look rather ummmm pukie. But I am going to keep working on it, rearranging the blocks and make the quilt. Someone is going to love it. Who knows, it may even be me.

Go on over to Patchwork Times and see what others have on their wall.

Do You Ever Wonder Why???

Why does blogger not let me upload pictures in the direction I want them? Or why did I put this little baby quilt away and not finish it? Well it's finished now. It took about 4 hours to load it, quilt it, bind it and machine stitch the binding down. Now I will give it to Clella like I had planned to last year!

I wonder why I have spent the last 45 minutes reading my old posts to find where I had written about this quilt top. And no, I didn't find what I was looking for! But I am going to keep looking.

This quilt was UFO #4 for our small group and I will now call it Finish #15. This is called Pinwheels on Parade from Pat Speth's More Nickel Quilts book. (I didn't know there was a third book called Amazing Nickel Quilts. Exciting! Now I must get it too.) From my notes, I see I have it dated as being started in 2008 and I tell myself it was left over from another quilt. I wonder if I am loosing my marbles! Don't ya hate it when you do stuff like this.

Oh well, I have another UFO to mark off my list and my baby girl gets a new cuddly.

Simple Pleasures

Last night I had the pleasure of talking on the phone with my friend Sharon and if you know me at all, you know I don't like to talk on the phone much. We talked about how much we enjoy where we are in our lives.

Both of us are trying to simplify things. I have been working really hard on decluttering but sometimes it's hard to let go of my stuff. Like the hoarder people you see on the talk shows, I understand how they feel about letting go.

My big thing is to get my UFOs done. I'm happy to report that finish Number 13-the Christmas Redwork Project-is now official and small group UFO #7, aka my version of Quiltville's Diamond Strings, is also done and has become Finish Number 14.

WooHoo, now I need to load this month's UFO which just needs quilting and binding.

Inspiration

As I cruise around blogland, I find inspiration all over the place. Recently I "met" Debby at Quilty Pleasures. Debby has challenged herself to have 50 finishes for the year. I was impressed with how close she is to her goal. She is at number 30! That is amazing.

I went through my blog posts for the year and tallied my quilt finishes. I have finished 12 of my own quilts, including 5 of the 9 I have started this year. 1 of the 9 is a BOM that I am current on and 3 are in the waiting to be quilted pile. I have quilted 10 quilts for other people. Out of my UFO bin, I have completed 2 tops that are ready to be quilted and I have several small projects that I've done but didn't count. That UFO bin is looking pretty good right now. I hope I can keep this pace up. I'd really like to start 2010 with an almost empty bin (being realistic here!).

Today is sewing at Marian's and I have my Christmas red work to finish. The binding is on, I just need to stitch it down and sew on the buttons and a few stars and snowflakes that with be the quilting. I think I will call this project Number 13! Thanks Debby. :-)

I was feeling like I haven't accomplished much this year but now I feel like I've done very well! Now if I could just figure out what to do with this boat that my darling father thought I needed. I think I'm going to have hubby fix it so it sits level, fill it with dirt and plant it with wild flowers! I miss having a boat full of flowers.

What's On My Design Wall-Week 7

Can you believe Judy has been hosting Design Wall Monday for 7 weeks now?? It has been fun to see what others are working on and it has been fun for me to work on things I have had hid out for such a long time.

I decided a couple weeks ago to get out this little redwork Christmas project and since I had been thinking about Christmas in July stuff, this needs to be finished. I had 2 blocks finished and the other 2 went pretty fast. And the tablerunner from last week, I still need to go to the quilt shop for the border fabric. I'm going to try to get there Wednesday.

This morning I started to work on the pieced blocks. I pressed and cut the stitched blocks, made the pinwheel block (that I will be taking apart and fixing the center!) and my iron died. I thought maybe it would happen soon. It didn't stay hot and yesterday, it got hot--really hot! I plugged in back in this morning and it got hot again so now it is cooling and will hit the garbage can. Why can't things be made to last? Now I have to go buy another iron. (After posting and clicking on my photo, the pinwheel looks scorched, I went in and looked and it is-darn. And boy does that flanned need to be cleaned off!)

So much for my plans......maybe I'll go to Taco Bell for lunch. Hmmm

A Surprise and Another Finish

This morning as I was gazing out my kitchen window, I saw something moving in the garden. The big chickens have learned to fly over the fence but this wasn't a chicken. It was a pheasant. There were 4 of them in the yard. Then later in the day while I was checking for eggs, I saw something in the little chick's run. It was a baby pheasant. That little bugger is fast. He must have seen me move because he was out the door and gone.

We have no clue where they came from. As I was getting ready for bed last night around 11--yeah, I know, that is very late!--I thought I heard someone drive in. Our driveway is right beside the neighbors and it isn't unusual for them to be coming in around that time. Then I thought I heard a car door so I came out of the bathroom just in time to see headlights and see the car turn out onto the road......hmmm, did they drop those pheasants off here knowing we would give them a good home or were they looking for some place to rob??? Kind of makes us wonder.

Now my finish, this is my 3rd finish in 2 days. I impress myself sometimes. I loaded this Carol Doak wall hanging on the frame this morning and after a bit, it was ready for binding. I just copied the quilting from the picture in her book, Easy Mix & Match Machine Paper Piecing. I looked on her website for the book but I didn't see it. That makes me doubly happy that my friend gave me this book.

I decided instead of making just one of these, I may as well make 3. What was I thinking?? Number 2 is ready for quilting. Number 3 still needs to be assembled but all the blocks are finished.

I Found It...

...and I finished it. The green monster is finished, folded up and laying on the end of the couch waiting for me to take a nap. But not tonight, I am going to lay my head down on my pillow and cover up with the big quilt.

The binding was right where I put it. On top of my gadget drawers right smack in front of the sewing machine. If it had been a snake........well you know.

A Finish and An Almost

I am happy to say that I have finished a bag for Granddaughter Amanda. Finally. I think this has been in the works-meaning sitting on the table--for about 3 months. Today, as I was looking for the binding for the Almost, I picked up the bag and decided to finish it before I moved on to anything else. It only needed the straps and a couple details.

The bag is from Quilting Arts, Project Series 300, Episode 302-1. It's called One Of Everything by Anna Marie Horner. It's a very nice size bag and after I make one for Ashlee, I am going to make one for myself. Of course I didn't follow the directions completely. I changed up the straps and added some buttons just for the fun of it.


This quilt is officially Almost finished. :~) I can't find the binding. It's all made, I had it, placed it where I was sure I would remember where it was and now I can't find it. I know it's in there somewhere. So I will finish cleaning off the cutting table and then if it doesn't magically appear, I will have to do something else. This will be finished today!

This was a mystery from Cyber Quilter's Yahoo group in 2007 and UFO #6 on my small group list. I put a fun frog flannel back on it and I'm going to use it as a nap quilt. I played around with the layout and decided I liked it quite a bit off center. Kind of like me.

TTFN, I must go find binding. Think, think, think.

What's On My Design Wall-Week 6

I'm writing this post in advance of Judy L's Design Wall Monday because Monday I will be at Crystal's with the kiddos while she and Mike go to her ultrasound and maybe do some running around.

I can't believe this is week 6 and I finally have something new on my design wall. It isn't a UFO and won't be. It's a tablerunner from the Moda Bake Shop called Sugar Cookies. I need to take it with me to my favorite quilt shop, Country Manor and get some fabric for the sashing and the border. I didn't know what I wanted to do with the charm pack when I bought it until I saw this. I'm hoping she has some of the red for the outer border. If she doesn't, she'll have something else that will work. I'm sure of it.

Week 2 and Week 5 had this beauty on my design wall and I am happy to report that it is put together and ready for quilting! I'm excited. I'm going to play with some free motion quilting, nothing too fancy because this needs to be done. So for my small group UFO challenge, I am going to call this one not quite done for the month. But gee, I do have until the 10th. I don't think I'm going to make it. Because I lost my mojo, I am a little behind in my UFO completion for the group. No worries though. I'll get it. After all, this one only took 8 years to get to this stage.

Oh, about the glove...I wanted to toss it but the tightwad in me says it's brand new and those things are like $5 a pair but he buys them by the dozen so they are a little cheaper. That is why I have a couple boxes of gloves....dirties that need to be washed 2 or 3 times to get them clean--yukkieness! and a box of clean. They are all the same so it's like having a clean sock basket only it's gloves.......... Do you have a sock basket???

Earning A Couple Good Wife Points...

...and saving Mr. Tony's rear end!

I have a dog that thinks it's OK to chew on things. Gloves, socks, toys, firewood, rocks, whatever--he doesn't care. When Big Dad saw his almost brand new glove in this condition, Mr. Tony knew he was busted. I knew I had to save the poor little thing. We think the glove fell out of the truck when Dad came home from work and someone found it on the ground. So I put it on the mending pile in hopes that it would be forgotten like the rest of the mending.

The other day at Marian's we started working on a sweatshirt jacket that needed the cuffs taken off. I brought them home with me knowing that I had to fix the darn glove. Crud! So this morning when I got to a stopping place in my project and I needed to replace my needle, I decided to fix the darn glove and so it worked out. I got out my super deluxe ripper and in a jiffy the raggety cuff was in the garbage and the "new" cuff was on.

I think that takes care of mending for a while, what do you think???