It's Friday

YAY!   I survived coming back to work for a couple of days and am happy that this weekend is here.  Too bad I can't manage to only work two days a week.  LOL.

I came back to a new computer so have been going through my list of things that I want to have installed and slowly tweaking the computer to be more Bonni friendly.  The major issue is that IT has to move everything off my an external drive that I was using for work since the new computer doesn't like it.  It's this computer and not the hard drive since everybody else can see the hard drive files.  Sigh.

While on vacation I did manage to repurpose a small wall hanging.  I had done "Dust Bunny's" from The Quilt Pattern Magazine wall hanging but while it was cute, it wasn't my favorite.  So I took off the appliqued dust bunny (two bunnnies sitting on a black dust pan) and decided to put up circles instead.  They are fused on but not stitched.  I decided to be totally lazy and not even stitch them down since it won't be up for long.  I can always do that later.  The background was already quilted (FMQ too!) so the layers will all stay together fine.  What do you think?

This weekend I hope to work on a small banner for the office.  It will be red fabric with black letters for NIU and black paw prints.  Probably a couple of paw prints, then NIU, then a couple more paw print flags.  That would be put above the area where I hang my NIU T-shirt wall hanging.  Custom Quilt Kits is did the paw prints and the lettering so all I have to do is fuse them in place.  Once again this is a quick little project and I might be lazy there also and not sew it on (buttonhole).  You wouldn't be able to see the stitching anyway from a distance.  On the other hand, I might try raw edge applique just to be sure.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

I have my blocks for the Rose of Sharon BOM to catch up on, the HEXIE BOM to do (yes I'm behind on that also) and work on the last two blocks for the Civil War BOM.  I might try to get the Civil War BOM done so that I can figure out how to finish it.  I'm thinking of just doing plain sashings and then use swags in a border.  I'm talking with Custom Quilt Kits (who offered the BOM) about that already.

Also on vacation I decided to get my hair cut and shaped a bit different.  

Yep, that's me.  Hope you enjoy the picture because it could be another 5 years or longer before you see me post another one.  LOL.

Where does the time go?

I go from 3 days into vacation to 3 days LEFT of vacation.  I'm not complaining.  The end of the vacation was pretty good.  Things are settling down but I still have a lot of work to do.

I did finish the test pattern (mailed it off and it was received) so then I turned my eye to something else.  This WAS a finished project that I got tired of the center so I ripped it out.  Yes, I actually did rip out some of it which left a little hole in the top so now I need to do something to put in the center.  It is all quilted (Free Motion Quilted) but not a very good job since I'm not good at FMQ.  I was thinking of just doing various sized circles and put in the middle.  I found these fabrics to see how they would work.  What do you think?  The yellow fabric is the same fabric that I used on the border.  It's more goldish (the right side shows a more true color of it).  What do you think?

That's the most I've gotten to thinking of it since I got distracted.  What distracted me?  Charlie Brown.  Here's Charlie Brown.  I went to visit him and his parents but somehow I don't think he 

is appreciating the outdoors as much as I was.

I took pity on him and let him back inside but not right away.  I was too busy enjoying this view.

I'll go back to watching the view outside for a bit.  It's too nice of a day to sit inside (and I don't have any more applique prepared to stitch).  :)

Have a safe Memorial Day weekend everybody.

Day 3 of vacation

Vacation so far has been hectic.  Not with quilting, which would have been nice, but with filling out papers for TIAA-CREF.  Hopefully that is all finished and I can turn my eyes once again to more fun stuff.

That being said, I just finished up my test pattern for The Quilt Pattern Magazine.  I will send in all the paperwork for it.  If you haven't seen that magazine it's great.  With the holidays coming up (yes, I said that dirty word) you'll want to figure out your schedule to get all your projects done.  Now that I finished that I made a list of what I wanted to get done.

Crochet 3 pairs of potholders for mom
redo a couple of mini wall hangings for mom
work on SCA belt tokens or whatever they are called
work on Inspired blocks - at minimum trim them to consistent size
work on Baltimore BOM
work on last of the Civil War BOM - sew last two blocks and them trim all to consistent size

In the side lines waiting for their turn
  - Teapot BOM - all fused, needs to be sewn
  - Animal babies - check how many more I need and if I have to pay for them (loss of patterns when external crashed)
  - mini BOM from Quilt Pattern Magazine - think i just need to figure out how I'm going to put them all together.
 - figure out what to put in middle of quilted wall hanging (more on that in another post)
 - Correct dimensions for Dan's quilt.

Whew!  I think I listed enough projects (and there are plenty more but those are the ones that are close to being finished) that now I'm tired and I think a nap is required.  That's what vacations are for isn't it?

Vacation is about to BEGIN!

1 hour to go and my vacation will begin.  I'm getting excited but not because I'm going anywhere but just because it is a vacation.  :)

What do I hope to do?  Redo my pattern that I'm testing since it didn't turn out right the first time.  I have some gaming to prepare for and then I have some more quilting projects to work on.  Not sure which ones yet but I'll let you know when I do.  The office is about as set as it ever will be for me to go on vacation and I'm going to try not to think about it.  I'll check my emails but won't check my phone messages.  When I come back to the office I should have a new computer all installed.  That will be good...right?

So, until I get something I can post for you, enjoy one of my favorite trees.  It blooms only for a short time so I'm glad to have caught a picture of it.

See you next time!

I love my mom ... BUT

Yeah, I love my mother.  I really do.  I would be happier if she remembered how long it took me to do craft projects.  LOL.  I hope you are sitting down for this story.  Here goes.

As you might know from a post a couple of days ago (or was it weeks), I am suppose to crochet 3 pairs of potholders for mom to give as presents to the nurses aids, etc.  I am slow enough with crocheting that it takes me about a week to do ONE of the potholders.  Not one pair but ONE potholder.  That might be a slight exaggeration because I can get it done in one day if I ignore everything else but you get the idea.  Why does it take me so long?  This could be one reason.

If I don't wind up the yarn in a ball, that is what happens to the yarn.  It took me all night to get it wound up in a ball.  I think that my friend Janine's cat Samson snuck into my apartment when I wasn't looking and had fun.  Anyway, back to Mom.  So for Mother's Day I gave her four coasters.  After she realized that they weren't the potholders but coasters for her, she loved them.

That being settled she turned her attention to the two mini wall hangings that were above her picture bulletin board.  I embroidered them about a year ago but now her eyesight doesn't allow her to "see' them.  She needs them to be appliqued because she can see the larger pieces of fabric etc.  Of course, trying to be helpful, she said I could just fill in all that open space on the embroidered mini's.  Do you know how LONG it would take me to do that?  LOL.  So we settled on something else.

I happened to have my "Inspired by Tradition" book with me so we started to look through that.  I know that I can do those blocks so wasn't too worried.  Mom started to point out which pictures/blocks she liked.  By the time it was finished she had 10 pictures she liked.  I told her that she had to narrow it down to 2.  By the time she had decided which two she wanted, she had completely changed her mind on which blocks she wanted and now she wanted to merge two pictures into one.  I'll let you know how that turns out.  I think I have printed out the right size of the blocks I want but have to tape them together first and add the two elements together.  I'll keep you posted.

Everybody stay safe and don't let your projects take over your life.  You can get them all done...sooner or later.  :)

Mother's Day 2014

Back from seeing mom for Mother's Day 2014.  We had our breakfast, courtesy of my brother (it was his turn) and she was delighted that he brought McDonald's breakfast burritos and their hot picante sauce.  He also brought flowers but they were secondary to the picante sauce.  Once that comes out everything else is secondary.  I guess it was a good thing that I had given her what I brought her for Mother's Day.

The bucket list for May is Free Motion Quilting so I gave mom some quick and easy coasters and did free motion quilting on them.  Here she is holding up two of the four coasters.  She had fun picking out which coaster my brother Kerm would get to put his coffee mug on.  She decided that the watering can one was good for him but she wanted the pink flower basket and I got the yellow flowers on my coaster too.

Of course she also had to point out that "the ladies" were all dressed up for Mother's Day too so I had to take their pictures.  These are the two bunnies that Ms. Nancy had done for me and mom.  Mine, named Edith after my mother, came to visit her and I haven't been able to take her back home yet.  It appears that rabbit teas last a LOT longer than a month (or 3) of Sundays.  Mom hasn't named her bunny yet (the yellow one) so I think I will name her Daisy after my aunt and mom's friend since school days.  Daisy passed away earlier this year so it will be a nice reminder to have a Daisy with mom.  I think she looks like a Daisy don't you?

You can also see that mom doesn't pay attention to the holiday season.  If she likes it she keeps it up on the wall or in her section of her room.  Behind Daisy and Edith you can see the snowman that Brenda Sutter embroidered on her machine as well as the Christmas tree that mom made this year in activities class.

I have tons to do today so I'll bid you farewell.  Happy Mother's Day to all who are one and for those who aren't I hope you have a delightful day remembering your own mother.

Flowers

Stayed home from work today and am huddled up in bed for most of the time.  I had an allergy attack and I just feel "off".  You might know the feeling...the pressure behind the ears, the throbbing eye/head. The Benedryl will work soon.

So since I can't concentrate on anything, I'll just share some flower pictures that my friend Helen sent me.  May *is* the month for flowers after all those April showers, right?  For pictures it doesn't matter that we're behind our normal level of rainfall by 4".  These still look good.  Don't you agree?

This is a perfect one!  I want this!

Spray Starch vs. 505 Basting Spray

I was watching a video today on the quiltingboard and was caught up in a comment that was made.  Here is the video link:

http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutorials-f10/how-baste-quilt-using-spray-starch-t242179.html

She accidentally discovered that she could use spray starch instead of her 505 can of basting spray.  She made a comment about “just iron to set your starch like you do with your 505 basting”.  I’ve never used 505 but do use basting spray.  Do you iron your project after putting on the basting spray to hold your layers together?  I haven’t but wondered if it made a difference.  I couldn't imagine doing that on a large project but perhaps smaller ones.  Curious minds want to know.

Gone up in Smoke!

It's a great day outside but my energy level this weekend hasn't been there.  I still managed to call up Carbonite to see if they could fix my external terabyte drive.  It wasn't good news. It appears that my external drive has gone up in Smoke.  Now I can try to take it to a local to see if they can do a recovery but Carbonite guy (Brad) said to be careful.  Just in the 2 hours that he worked with me on it, he could see it deteriorating more.  Question is do I want to spend the money to see if they can recover it.  He doesn't think it would be good to send it in the mail any place since it is so fragile right now.  The estimated cost, which is super estimated is between $100 and $1500. It all depends on how long it would take them to work on it.  Is it worth it?  I'm not sure.  I will miss the information.  It has ALL my gaming, pictures, movies, patterns on it.  Some of it could be recovered but not all the old pictures.  This was my back up.  I have some on other back up systems but like most people, after time you forget to back up the back up.  Must think now on different way to do things.  Since I don't have the extra money right now it will sit in the corner of my sewing room in a safer spot.

That wasn't the only thing that went up in smoke.  I drowned my sorrows over the lost information by toasting some marshmellows.  These are toasted inside on a stick and using my long handled candle lighter.  LOL.

That was yummy.  What else did I work on?  I worked on the Facebook Quilters BOM.  Here is the May mug rug all stitched down.

I am almost finished with my first block for the Rose of Sharon BOM.  Have some leaves to stitch down so that will be done this week.  I also noticed that on Craftsy, Jenny of Elefansz has a free stitching pattern for Mother's Day (next week people!).  It's relatively simple and cute so I might try to get that stitched up for mom.  Wish me luck.

It's called Simply Love.  Isn't that cute?  Run over to Craftsy to grab it up.  I search for it brought this up.

https://www.craftsy.com/patterns?patternSearchText=simply%20love%20free%20pattern%20from%20jenny%20of%20elefansz&sortBy=relevance

If it doesn't work for you just type in Simply Love by Jenny Elefransz and it should take you there.  Of course while you're there, have fun looking around for the free patterns.  Hey look!  I don't have to retrieve those patterns for the crashed drive.  Craftsy stores them for me.  Cool, right?

Another cool thing was that my friend Connie, put some of the patterns I had sent her on a dvd for me so I can start to recover my quilting patterns.  Thanks Connie!

How was your weeend?

Sniff...sniff...Do you Smell Something Burning?

That is what I was thinking to myself last night.  I didn't think anything of it at first since it was chilly and some of my neighbors like to burn leaves and fires but eventually it sunk in.  It didn't smell like burning leaves or logs.  What was it?  So I went around looking for something in my apartment that was overheating.  First I checked my baseboard heaters to make sure nothing was blocking them and then I discovered what it was.  When I straightened up I turned around and noticed my lampshade on one of my floor lamps was cocked to one side.  Oh boy.  Have you smelled plastic melting and burning?  Yeah, it's a terrible smell isn't it.

That's not all of it.  THEN I noticed that the light bulb had melted plastic on it and it was smoking.  Out came the large boxed fan to help blow away the smoke so my smoke detector didn't go off.  Now the smell has permeated through my small space so I opened up the window to help get rid of it.  What happened to the light bulb?  It's still functioning.  Minus a shade.

One of these days I'll have to replace it.  Life can be an adventure can't it.  :)

progress and eye candy

I managed to finish up about a 1/4 of the Rose of Sharon block.

It's coming along ok.  I have decided to stitch the outer petals in black since they are a black and red combination.  I think it will look good.

Now for your eye candy!  My friend Helen in Australia sent me this link.  Just look at that first quilt picture!!!!!

http://www.bernina.com/en-AU/What-s-New/BERNINA-Awards/Australia/Best-of-Show-State-Winners-2013

Enjoy!