This will be the place where I chat about my life. Most of the time it will be about my crafts like quilting or cross stitch but it will also be about my gaming and family life.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Another Blatimore Block Done
The hearts got out of position a little bit and misshapened. I'm not sure if I'll redo them or not. I might just unstitch part of them to get it more rounded.
Memorial Day 2011
When I went out this morning to get caffeine and noticed that the park had flash flooded from the rains from over the weekend. I had my camera with me so I took some pictures.
I have had some comments on Cissie's wall hanging that I am doing for the swap. It is split evenly between the first border and then last border pix. (see previous posts) I will be doing the first one with the leaves and berry on them. It will work better with the design I think. I will use the other ones for other projects.
I almost ran out of material to add for the leaves and berries. I did though so it turned out. I will trim it again after the leaves get added. I also added a blue inner border.
I will be stopping working on this for a bit. I need to take a break from it so I won't mess it up since I don't have extra fabric. It needs to be under 30" and if my calculations are correct it is around 26". I hope to be able to cut off around half inch before adding binding. It needs to be all finished by the 25th and that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Sunday quilting
I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do for the border but when I was at the grocery store, I was looking through some quilting magazines and saw some borders that might not be too bad. I had my cell phone with me at the time so I went and snapped a picture of them. :) Hadn't thought about doing that before.
This is one of them. Actually I took a picture of the whole thing because I've done that center block before or at least close to it.
This one I also like the border. I hadn't thought about doing something like it before but it has its appeal.
Then I saw this quilt and might make something similar to it some day. :) I've done similar to it and could use EQ to replicate something similar.
I also found a couple of older blocks that I had done. This first one was being billed as a 10 minute block from a tutorial on youtube. It took me considerably longer than 10 minutes and actually didn't totally finish the block (the sewing) until the next day. I know....I know....if I did it more, I'd probably get better at it.
oops. Didn't iron it before taking a picture. Oh well. It's done in rust colors. The finished size is just short of 20" so I might finish it either as a doll quilt or as a pillow sometime.
This one is made up of scraps from a tube quilting method that I did. It's around 16" so I might use it sometime for the doll quilt swap. I think it would qualify.
I'm not sure how I'll finish it yet but it will be simple to do and I have to admit that I'm pretty proud that my points pretty much match up. This might be finished before going back to work on Wednesday. Not sure yet. The darker color in it is a green leaf motif.
Until next time....
Memorial Weekend 2011
Russell Chamberlain - Uncle and biological father to Patti
Fred Chamberlain - Grandfather - moms side
Myrtie Chamberlain - Grandmother - moms side
Sherry Bromeland - died before leaving the hospital. I was told she strangled on the water bottle.
She had a twin who was still born and I don't believe I ever learned if they gave her a name.
Patti (oh dear, I can't remember which last name she went by). Sister. I know that sentence in(___) doesn't sound very well but she had been married five times. I'm not sure if she ever officially divorced her last husband so her name could have been Eberly or she could have brought it back to Bromeland. Patti is a Chamberlain by birth (my cousin) but she was adopted by mom and dad as soon as she was born. Long story that I won't go into right now.
Kermit Stanley Bromeland - dad.
Mom hates, for some reason, to have names and markers. It will be one of the first things that I will want to put up after she leaves this earth. Uncle Russ has a marker because he was a veteran and they paid for it. here are what the flowers looked like this year. Oh yes, mother preferred artificial flowers so they would look like throughout the year no matter how much rain, etc. we have. It's about a 30 minute drive to get to the graves from where we live.
Uncle Russ always get red, white and blue for a theme. He also has other colors now added because Patti was cremated and buried on top of him. We didn't have to disrupt him because she isn't buried as far down. You don't have to be if it is for cremated remains, etc.
Then there is dad's red flowrs. Mom always said his favorite color was red so I try to get his mostly red with other colors thrown in to brighten it up. This year it was white.
Grandma and Grandpa get bright flowers while Sherry gets pink because she died so young and was a girl. It was mom's color scheme and even though she can't make it out there any longer, I still follow it.
We cant' forget my cohort each year...Santa. This is Phillip Stanley Bromleand, big brother, aka Tony aka Santa. :)
He's the oldest of us whereas I'm the youngest.
I cancelled gaming on Saturday so didn't need to hurry back after the flowers were put on. We did go to iHOP though and discovered that I must be getting old because with the event of my birthday this year, I will qualify for their "senior" menu. Hmmm. How did that happen.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
What a weekend!
Now for the pictures. Some of you might have seen these already but not everybody. Here we go:
This one is the finished table runner for Tealfalcon. It was a little long to get the whole picture in but I think you should be able to see the purple binding that I used on it. I finished it last night while chatting with my friends Shelley and Casey on IM as well as listing to a quilting webinar over the computer.
This is a close up of the center block which might give you a better idea.
The other project was the snow lady one. I might have posted it before but here it is just in case.
Like I said, I also picked out the pattern for next months swap. I have a person who just said she would like a small wall hanging but not Fourth of July or any holiday one.
I will be using these fabrics:
These two fabrics didn't scan as well but they are a green, similar to olive green, and an off white/cream with a pattern on it.
The pattern that I will be using will be ONE block of this. I will use fusible for it to help speed it up for I have a couple of more projects all lined up that need to be done also.
That's all for this blog. I'll continue after I get back from taking pictures at a retirement party for a couple of people from work.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Making Progress
Gaming ended early tonight since we had a lot of rules questions and I didn't feel like answering them all. LOL. Interpretation of written rules. That's ok though, our youngest player is at least reading the book and when we do come to a conclusion of how I will run it, it runs much more smoothly. Even though we didn't have battle, he still wants to play Traveller and had fun so that is good.
Managed to work a little more on Karla's wall hanging. Actually I feel like I made a LOT of progress. Finished making the quilting sandwich and then all of a sudden decided how I would stitch it. On the black border (yes I added a little more to it) will be white buttons and the silver metal things that look, to me anyway, a little bit like snowflakes. The binding will be white. That will be the same white fabric that the snowman is made out of.
Here is a distant, and little bit fuzzy, picture of the progress to date. I've also attached a close up of one of the corners so that perhaps you can see the stitching that I used. Tomorrow I will start to sew on the buttons and silver things. After that all I have to do is put on the hanging sleeve and label. I think this might be finished in the next couple of days. YAY!
Update on Saturday
Anyway, here's a picture of the rice and how it turned out. That red on top is salsa. I didn't have any tomatoes to eat with it so put in salsa. I love salsa (but not hot "spicey" salsa...can't handle that anymore).
I also managed to try some stippling/free motion quilting. Didn't like that. Didn't like it enough to show a pix of it even. Not sure I'll do that. I know...I know...it gets better the more you practice. Just not enough hours in a day yet for that. Perhaps eventually.
It's Saturday!!!
Since I've been on the steroid drops, I've found that Benedryl acts quicker and affects me more. Not sure why since it is steroid eye drops I'm taking and not the steroid blister pack. Anyway, whereas I could take two benedryl every four hours before and not feel sleepy until three days in a row, I find myself taking one benedryl and two ibprofen and am totally happy to crawl into bed. Last night, I didn't sleep my usual 5 hours but instead slept nine hours after taking the benedryl/ibprofen nitecap. My eyes are still a bit strained this morning. Probably between quilting and allergies. I won't take anymore benedryl until tonight. I will have to make sure to set the alarm though because mom's biscuit and gravy Sunday can't wait. She might not be able to tell what day it normally is or what happened but when the Nursing Home staff tells her it is Sunday, she remembers biscuits and gravy. How can one be late to that?
So after 9 hours of sleeping, I find myself starting the day off two hours to three hours behind schedule. I'm fast catching up though. This post will be my last one for the day since I only give myself til noon to do chores and quilting and then from noon to 3 to prepare for gaming tonight. Depending on how I feel after gaming I might do quilting or check emails, etc. before bed. This morning I find myself having to cook. Not that cooking is a bad thing (except for my waistline) but I haven't had to do too much of it lately. I've been having salads every lunch hour so that is a quick grab and go. Breakfast has been cereal since I had to have milk for some work events dishes I had to do this week. There were two. Now I have to drink up the milk before it goes bad since the only size I could get at the time was the gallon. The only size in the type of milk I wanted was the gallon. Yes, the grocery store had more than gallon sized containers of milk. So today is a cooking day in the morning. I had some bacon that needed to be cooked up so cut that up in bite size pieces and cooked it and threw in my left over onions and mushrooms. Now I'm cooking up some rice and will mix it all up to combine with it. I will probably toss in some garlic (gotta have garlic) but not sure what else. Egg perhaps for a refried rice type dish and maybe a little bit of rosemary. I don't use that much and had to buy some recently.
Weekend goals for quilting are:
1. add more black to the snowwoman wall hanging. It's not as large as I wanted and I need to make it larger. The border on it is black so I can add more to it and it shouldn't show that much.
2. Sandwich up the snowwoman wall hanging
3. Finish up my final block on the Baltimore Style table runner.
4. Sandwich up the Baltimore Style table runner.
Those two projects need to be mailed around the 25th so time is running out. I think I can still make it on time. They are for a swap and my two partners are close to finishing up also. One has finished and the other hopes to finish this weekend.
I think I shall stop here and go and see if I can figure out how to do a meandering stitch on my machine. I might do that on the table runner. On the other project I shall be doing an outline stitch and then using the small white buttons in place of more quilting.
Until next time....Have a great weekend!
Friday, May 20, 2011
The Best Marking Pen
It's FRIDAY!
Yesterday I posted a picture of a book that I ordered. I can't wait to see it. Today I ordered these:
You can find out more about them at:
http://www.pinmoor.com
They even have a video on how to use them or for their purpose. For my non quilters who read this, think having erasers made for quilting. You use safety pins or straight pins to hold your material together in order to sew it and you would stick the sharp end (grins) of the pin into one of these to hold the material instead of fiddling around with safety pins. Watch the vid. They explain it a lot better than I am.
http://www.pinmoor.com/video.html
They come in packets of 50 but Connie will be splitting the package with me so we both can try and see how we like them. I'll post a review later.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
I shouldn't have done it
YAWWWNN
Last night was also a semi productive night. I managed to get some writing done for Warhammer 40k. The writing is sent off to my semi official editor and I should get it back within a day or two. Then I can tweak it and it will be ready to run and thrown at the PBeM group.
I also made some decisions on some quilting projects. Within the next seven days I want to learn how to take a .jpg and put it in EQ7 to color, etc. I am sure this will be more of a matter of digging out the book. I have scanned the pattern in that I wish to use the picture from so that part is already done. Here are the two JPGs I want to import into EQ7.
The first one is called Tulip Twist. It was popular between 1830 - 1860. I am planning on making this into a small mini wall hanging. The end result might not be larger than an 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper. It was usually featured with alternating between blocks with this design and a plain block and used mostly for twin or full size quilts. The corer blocks were plan and it had a weaving vine with one flower underneath each "bell" curve of the vines.
The next block is called Floral Sunburst and is from the same time period. I might be joining in on a 8.5 x 11" size quilt exchange and this one also has possibilities for it. The pattern showed for a queen size quilt with 4 1/2 inch sashing strips and one 2 1/4 inch strip to set off the squares made from the center of an Ohio Star block. I would just do the center for now though.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Oh yeah....
Block two of 5
Here's the progress pix of Tisha's block. I enjoyed working on this one last night. Wasn't as hard to do as I thought it would be. I have to finish sewing on two petals and then the leaves. The leaves are a little pain just because I have big fingers and they are smaller.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
One Project Done!
I've had a long day and next week looks like it will be a long week also. I'm off to bed. I have a doctors appointment tomorrow so I'll see how the eye is tomorrow.
Need a Break from Applique?
Time to work on something else than. Put in the eye drops so I could work on something and turned to my current ones. When did I get so many that I need to be done by this month? Sigh. Oh well, I will get them done. Probably at the lst minute, but I will get them done. In my attempt to stay away from Baltimore (ok, that scratched off working on the table runner for the swap) I turned to the block swap that I need to finish. It is in purples and I am not sure I have enough of the fabric to get the block done. THEN I remembered....oh wait, that isn't 36 individual 5 1/2 " blocks, each one of my 5.5" blocks get cut in four. I might have enough fabric afterall. So here I am sitting at the computer cutting out circles and appliqueing them....oh dear, I sai that word didn't I. Ummm. Here I am fastening them on.
I would show a picture of it but Shelley reads this and it is for her. Perhaps she'll give permission after I finish it. :)
Back to Appli....fastening on circles for the drunkard's path.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Happy bud!
I won't get a chance to work on the block until tomorrow evening and even then I'm not sure for how long since I will be gaming. This time the gaming is the beta test group for Outremer. Outremer is a 1850 or 1860 alternate history guide line. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
Everybody have a good day/night.
8 pieces of the puzzle
Here is the results of the hour at lunch. One hour to baste these. LOL. No wonder quilts cost so much.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Mini Carnations for Mom.
My eye is bothering me now which means it is time for bed.
ARGGGH! The wrong picture. Let me try again.
There, that's better. The other picture is part of an applique that I'm doing for a swap.
Until tomorrow or the next blog entry.
Back to the drawing board!
Here is the first block that is all done. Sorry about it not being clearer. It was taken with my cell phone this morning. The colors can be seen better in this picture.
I need to make three of those blocks.
Here is the proposed layout and color selections.
These shots will give you a better idea of what the colors will actually look like. These are scanned pix of the colors. Sometimes you don't get a good idea of what the fabric looks like from a scan. Hope this helps.
The border will be the teal/black/gold mixture fabric.
That's it for this time. I notice that I have a couple more people following me now. Welcome!
Time to get the mail out at work. Just put in my eye drops and now I can see a bit better. LOL.
Until next time.
HUGS to all.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Mom on Mothers Day
I forgot to take a pix of the pink carnation arrangement that Tony (big brother #1) gave her. He did good! She really liked them. He will go and eat dinner with her today so I'll see if he will can get a picture of them. It is soooo mom.
Then there is a picture of me and mom. I don't like my part of it but oh well. She is smiling and that is what is important.
Until next time....
Happy Mothers Day
This is just a short post before heading off with biscuits and gravy for mom. I plan on staying with her a couple of hours this morning. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to since my eye has been giving me a lot of problems the last couple of days. It feels better this morning. Perhaps it is just because it is morning and hasn't had an accumulation of a days worth of eye strain on it yet. Either way I feel a bit better today than I have in the last couple of days so I will take it.
I hope to get a picture of mom today. I know that we won't have a lot left so must get them when I can. She hates pictures. Must have inherited that from her (grins). I can usually get her to have a picture on Mothers Day. Perhaps one with Kerm since I have some good pictures of her and me and not too many of her and Kerm. We'll see.
I have taken a picture this morning. Not your usual picture though. I took a picture of my new template. The template is clear so in order to get a picture of it I put it on my pillowcase. It would be cute if it really was pink. LOL. It's for cutting out circles. Yes, quilting has templates for everything! That's for people like me who can't sew a straight seam or cut a straight...umm...square I guess. Was going to say cut a straight circle but that would haven't looked right. LOL. I am hoping to try it sometime today.
I will be on and off the computer today. I have some gaming stuff to do as well as some quilting. I have to also see if I have a needle that will go through those small buttons I bought for the wall hanging. They might have to be glued on. I still have to sew on the eyes, nose, and mouth of the snowwoman yet. That, at least, I can do today. Then I will have to get to writing.Have a great day everybody.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Big Sigh!!!!!
Back to almost square one. Perhaps it would be back to square 1.5. I am back on Steroid drops (four times a day). he didn't like the progress of the last three weeks after he took me off them. My eye is more swollen and red in the corner. I go back in two weeks although it might be more like 2.5 weeks since I will wait until I get paid again.
I did ask some questions about the pain and how long it might last. He said that it varies, which I already knew, but as long as it's not bright searing pain it should go away. He has known people who have had the pain (he had a long set of words for it) for months afterwards and sometimes it even healed up and stopped. I still have swelling in the eyebrow and forehead area and markings on my face as if it was still injured. He said as long as I have the markings, it is not unusual to have the pain. That, at least, is a good sign. Good in an abstract way. At least I know not to start to worry until after the markings go away.
I don't feel like quilting or doing much of anything tonight. The visit took the wind out of my sails. I did get the McCall's Quick Quilts magazine in the mail today and it has some cute quilts in it. I might have to make some of them or at least let them inspire me.
Until next time.....
Monday, May 2, 2011
Forgot the link
http://cabinquilter.blogspot.com/search/label/calendar
May Calendar desktop
I put it as the "center" on my desktop and have a blue background color. Think I might check in again in June to see what she puts up.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Happy May Day
That was then, this is now and my May Days are a bit different. It started with bringing biscuits and gravy to mom and Kerm (my brother) and eating it there with her. I also had a fleece throw for her bed. For those of you who might be reading this and don't know, my mother is in her early 90s and lives in our local nursing home. She is usually cold but likes the feel of fleece so I thought she would enjoy this. She loses track of time (don't we all?) so Kerm had to go to the dining hall and get her. While he was pushing her back to her room where we would eat breakfast, I was busy making her bed and lifting her blinds up on the window to the height she likes. That way she can see her bird feeder which is outside her window. She shares a room with another women but her bed is the one by the window. Anyway, I laid out her new fleece blanket and half way through breakfast she noticed it was different. Her face lit up because she saw all the cardinals on it (she's a cardinal nut) and was stroking the fleece because it "felt nice". The weather even cooperated with us and it was a nice sunny day. Couldn't have asked for a better start to the day.
The middle of the day wasn't bad either. I gave up my comcast tv service on Friday so this was the first weekend without tv. I dug out some of my dvd's and was watching them in between quilting. It will give me time to reacquaint myself with my dvd's which will be good. Afterall, why have them if you don't watch them.
I also managed to make some spaghetti in my attempt to "not eat out or order in" all next week. I need to pay off bills and/or save money and I have just been lazy. The $120 I had to pay for a new tire brought that home REAL quick. Especially since I need three more. I will get to them eventually but one at a time. So I have to remember to take breakfast and lunch tomorrow. I will be meeting Connie at lunch so lunch needs to be non messy. Perhaps a salad? That would be healthy. Well perhaps not healthy after I add stuff to it. LOL. I can have spaghetti (made with ground turkey) in the evening through so I'm not worried. Just have to remember to take it with me.
I also managed to learn a new quilting method this weekend. It was called tube quilting. I found it on YouTube and it was one of the Missouri Quilts vids. I will post how I do it in another posting since I am doing this post via email. It only adds pictures at the top of the post and if I am going to explain with pictures how I did it, I want the pictures in a certain order.
Here is a picture of what results of that tube quilting. It was easy and I don't think I did bad on it. NOW I have to figure out what colors to put on a border and bind it with.
Actually I might have the binding already. That will be another picture another day.
The day is ending now and it is peaceful. I've put on piano music and turned off lights. The only lights are from the computer and a single mulberry scented candle that I lit. This is a good way to end the day so I will say goodnight now and post another day.
Good night.
What to work on Next
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