Busy Weekend with Janine

I had hoped that I'd get time to show Janine how to make a tote bag but, like usual, we were too busy chatting and going out and having fun.  Let's see...what did we do....

Went to see the Disney film Maleficent (not too bad)
Went to Sycamore IL Rockin with the Reptiles event on Saturday.  Then went to the Midwest Museum of Natural History after that (same town and our payment for Rockin with the Reptiles paid for admission to the museum)
Went to Walmart - 3 times (why can't we remember what we want all in one trip?)
Went to Lowe's to get more of the towels that keep us cool
Saw mom for Breakfast on Sunday and then went to Walmart and Farm and Fleet looking for slacks for her.

In between all of that we:

Ate out at the Chinese buffet (two different days)
Ate out at the Junction (Janine remembered the Cream of Broccoli soup and HAD to have some)
Ate at Hy-Vee's Salad buffet.

I'm tired but in a good way so I'm not going to do anything for the rest of the evening except start to show you some pictures that I shot at the various events.  Ready?  First are some pix from the Rockin the Reptiles.  It was in a parking lot so the kids could get up close and pet some of them (yes Janine and I did too).

This little guy is only 3 months old.

The next picture is of Hercules the turtle.  Each one of his species always has 13 points to the turtle shell top.  

Janine with the bear in the Museum

Goodies Arrived!

My orders have started to come in.  Not for what I make but for what I bought.  LOL.  Let's see.  I finally ordered some Ratayne to try out.  Does anybody know if you can do this in the sink or a tub or have to take it to a laundry mat?

Here is some things that I ordered from Missouri Star Quilt Company.

I thought that cute little blue bag might be useful to put some stuff in for give aways some time.  It's around a 7" x 10" size but everything you see in the picture (well quilting related anyway) fit in the bag with room to spare.  The fabric on the left is called burlap.  It's cotton so it doesn't feel like burlap but the line is called burlap and I thin it will be good to blend in with a lot of things.  Yes you see more Stonehenge in the picture.  What can I say...I love it.  I have some Stonehenge charm packs on order also that were on sale (with my Quilter's cash I got two Stonehenge charm packs for $16.18 (shipping included) so you see why I just HAD to get them...right?  The little thing that looks like a spool of thread is really a tape measure and then there is a Moda Charm Pack called Through the Winter Woods.  That might be used for a new tote for me along with the burlap.  It seems fitting since the pattern is from MSQC and uses 12  charms in it.

I ordered this morning from Bird Brain Designs also.  I am getting "Three Christmas Friends" pack.  It is under $30 for all the material, the Perle Cotton, and the pattern.  The pattern itself it normall $9-$10 so I thought in this case I'll just get the whole thing together.  I needed more Turkey Red Perle Cotton anyway.

http://www.birdbraindesigns.net/three-christmas-friends-2

I think it will be a very nice table runner or wall hanging and I can always separate the pattern into mini wall hangings so it won't be long before it pays for itself.

Speaking of table runners....I am having Custom Quilt Kits cut my material for me for one.  It will cost me $25 for the applique pieces (cut with fusible already on it) and the material for the top.  The binding and backing isn't included but I always wait to order that until I finish it,  Rose from Custom Quilt Kits just received in Edyta Sitar.  Want to see what the table runner should like similar to when finished?

http://www.accuquilt.com/go-spring-showers-table-runner-by-edyta-sitar.html

It's called Spring Showers.  Eventually I will do a wall hanging and have Rose cut and fuse my pieces also.  It's worth the price for to her do it.  :)

Well that should be the end of my spending spree for quite some time.  I have enough projects in the planning, mid way planning and half way finished to keep me occupied for a long time.

This weekend my friend Janine is coming up to see me and I probably won't have enough energy to type up a blog post until she leaves.  I'll be sharing pictures as we go about town.  :)

Everybody have a great day.

Progress on Ancestery

What a surprise today.  I got my Ancestry DNA results in.  If you are interested, you'll find it out on my page that says The Bromelands.

After that great news I was a bad girl and used up some of my quilters cash with Missouri Star Quilt Company and ordered some stone chips.  Those are the 5"x 5" squares put out by Stonehenge.  That makes two shipments I am waiting for now from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  :)  I also ordered some Ratayne to hopefully stop the bleeding of the blues on my new purse that I bought a couple of months ago.  I'm tired of using it and coming away with blue hands!

I also took time out today to clean my irons.  Never done that before but I am pleased with how they turned out.  I will definitely buy the cleaner again.

Not much to report on but sometimes it's enough to just post what you did.  LOL.  I mean how exciting can it be to report that I spent time at the laundry mat and washed my white on white for the Esther Aliu table runner?

What I did today

I got my computer back today!!!!!!!!!!  YAY!!!!!!!!!

They had to wipe it clean so now I'm in the middle of downloading the programs on it that I need or want (is there a difference?) like irfanview, AVG 2014 and Spybot Search and Destroy.  Still have to download EQ7 again but the IT department at work kindly deactivated it on this computer before wiping it so I shouldn't have any problem.

In between waiting for downloads, I decided to get out my Saran Wrap and cut strips so that I could get my spools of thread all neat.  Now I don't have any loose ends that get all mangled up.

I have a few other different types of thread to also wrap but it's a great start.

Then I decided to pull out a pattern and get fabric to work on it.  Of course that meant I had to get more fabric...really I did!  I'll wash the red tonight so tomorrow I can start on it.

The darker color is suppose to be green.

What's the pattern?  It is Esther Aliu's Easter Rose Tablerunner.  This will give you an idea of what I hope it will look like when finished.

You can see the pattern on her blog.

http://estheraliu.blogspot.com/

That's it for today.  Everybody have a great day/night.

What I've done this weekend

Not much!   LOL

Well that's the short version.  The longer version is that I didn't go to the International Quilt Show (no worries Diane....family and rest comes first) but I know there will be photos of the quilts on the internet that I will be able to see.  So instead I went to Needles in Rochelle and signed up for the July 12th (my birthday) 2nd annual stitch out.  I went last year with Connie and it was fun.  It's a good way to start to work on some UFO's.

Yesterday and today I've been working on the test pattern for the Quilter Pattern Magazine.  That should be finished before my vacation ended.  I will then start to pick up on the BOMs that have been waiting for me to work on.

In the meantime I've been taking more pictures with my camera.

Back to being productive.  Have a great day.

More mom and less computer

This might be a duplicate post for some and if so, I apologize.  It wasn't showing up on the board so I am trying again.

First the bad news and then the good news.

The bad news is that I don't have a computer at home that is working right now.  I'm having somebody do a virus scan on it and see if that is what is preventing me from getting online.  Comcast is working ok but there is something that is preventing me from getting online after I click on the internet button, etc.  It will get figured out sooner or later.  In the meantime my computer time is limited to work computer and/or my phone which I refuse to do long postings from.  :)

The good news is that I am still loving my camera and showed it to mom this Sunday.  Of course that means more pictures of mom!  Here you go.

She is sporting one of her "bibs".  The bib itself came from the nursing home but around 3 years ago I bought one of those outdoor flag which had the cardinal and some holly on it.  A quick snip with the scissors and some needle and thread and that birthday (or Christmas) she had a fancy bib to wear.  It took her a year or two to even wear it because she didn't want to get it dirty.  She is now wearing it and I promised her I would hand wash it when it got dirty.  LOL.

This week is the International Quilt Show in the Chicago Area.  I am hoping to go and have started to write down a couple of things that I want to check out if I make it.  Just little things like wool for penny rugs or ornaments and aurifil thread.  I only one one spool of Aurifil and that is white.  Now that I know it works on my sewing machine I'd like to pick up another color.

On the good side is also the news that tomorrow is my last work day until June 26th.  Technically the 25th since I come back to work on the 26th.  If I don't have my computer back during vacation I know I'm going to be in the office at least one day to do some stuff.  

Well that's it for now.  Keep your fingers crossed that I get the computer back soon and everybody have a great day/night.

Ancestry work tonight

Tonight I'm not working on my quilting but on my family tree.  I've joined Ancestry.com in the hopes to get more information about my father's side of the family.  I'm going to start there and then go to my mom's side later.  It is somewhat aggravating since his parents came from Norway and there is the change in spelling of names etc. syndrome.  One record shows that Grandpa Bromeland was born in Sand, Norway.  That came from the Illinois, Deaths, Stillbirths Index from 1916-1947.  That is close to where I was told he grew up in so we'll see.  It was interesting to see some of the records.

I never knew that dad's sister's middle name was Henrietta.  Her full name was Rachel Henrietta Bromeland.  Aunt Rachel was a great crocheter.  I don't think there was anything that she couldn't duplicate.  I actually still have the ripple afghan that I got when I graduated high school in 1974.  She made an afghan for all of the family childrens when they graduated.  

I also found out that Grandma Bromeland, also born in Norway, full name was Anna Julia Bromeland.

It's interesting to see some of the stuff that is out there.  I didn't know that my Great Grandma Bromeland was Kathrina Peterson.  It will be interesting to dig deeper.  I found Grandpa Bromeland's naturalization card (and I'll print it out) as well as found that Grandma and Grandpa Bromeland are buried in a small town around 40 minutes from here.  Perhaps one day I'll go over to try and find the cemetery and see who else is there.

That's it for tonight's post.  Everybody have a great evening.

I am trying to load a video that I took with my camera.  I can't tell if it will work until I publish it so forgive me if you can't see it.  I'll adjust it later.  Of course this means you might get a couple of emails from me.  Sorry.  I must say that I am quickly falling in love with my camera.  Still haven't found a "full" manual for it but they say there is one on the website.  I've just been too busy to get there so far.  

So to answer Billie's question.  Yes I love my camera.  One of the things that I love it the dpi.  It's 350.  I don't totally understand all that but I do understand that the higher the number the better the pix.  The higher resolution will  be good when taking pictures of the quilts.    It runs on 4 AA batteries.  My old camera ran on 2 and I love the feature of the running on batteries vs. recharging via a cord.  Sometimes you just don't have an outlet handy.

The camera has 20 megapixals.  My old camera had 8 or 12 (can't remember) so that is a big improvement also.  It takes panoramic shots and that feature is easy to do.  You just keep turning the camera until the bar on the view screen stops moving.  Then it will put all that you panned into one picture.

It has other features also but that is what I have discovered so far.  I hope that helps Billie.

new camera fun

I'm sorry that I haven't posted much in the last couple of days.  I finally got my internet back online with comcast.  I ended up going back to what I had originally which was NON WiFi.  I didn't want to pay the cost for it plus the service guy was talking to me about how much I would lose in speed.  I can always run to WalMart and get a NetGear box or whatever WiFi router if I want to.  He told me how to set it up (and he uses Net Gear also).  Since it is only me this will be fine.

I managed to get everything hooked up right so now I can have fun with my new camera.  Yes, I bought a new camera.  It's an in-between one.  Better than I had but not as good as I'd like to get if I was getting super serious about pictures.

So have a seat and see some of the pictures I snapped with my new camera.  I won't bore you with ALL of them.  LOL

These are the pictures that I took around work (NIU = Northern Illinois University) when I went on a walk the other day.  I need to take my camera with me more often and there are a few places that have nice flowers around them that I might snap but in the mean time here are a few from my work area.

Hoped you enjoyed this little sneak peak of where I like to walk.   Back to work now.  :)

PS:  I was a bad girl and ordered $80 worth of fabric from Thousands of Bolts.  Shhhh.  Don't tell anybody.

Finished Weekend Project

With the car expenses looming in my near future (like after the weekend) and the hot weather, I really didn't feel inspired much to work on anything this weekend.  Then, in the mail, I received my BOMs from Custom Quilt Kits as well as some fusible paw prints and letters for NIU.  I had wanted paw prints since NIU's mascot is a huskie and I have one portion of my office work wall devoted to my NIU t-shirt wall hanging periodically throughout the year.  That got me thinking (you probably smelled the brain cells overheating).

I've wanted to do a flag banner and remembered that Missouri Quilt Company had shown a quick vid on how to do one.  I pulled out some deep read fabric and then spotted the fabric that I would use.  It was a deep red but also had black crackle in it.  NIU's colors are red and black so I was set.  Until....

I don't have internet connection right now at the house due to a bad router.  The new router was also bad...so I'm back to the drawing board.  On my smart phone (Android) I did a search for Missouri Quilt Company but had a hard time finding the right tutorial.  Perhaps it was because I kept getting side tracked with other videos?  Nawwww, couldn't be.  Finally I found it.   It is called Easy Pennant Project-sewing with layer cakes.  It WAS easy...once I knew the name to look for it under.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQZV9jdfGx8

Instead of the wide band they used to hang up the pennants on, I used some white cording that I had.  I just put it up against the fold (watch the video and you'll see) and made sure that my pressure foot was on the other side of it so I didn't sew into it.  Before long I had my small pennant to hang up in the office.

What do you think?  It didn't take long once I had seen the video again.  It would so easy to quickly sew up some flags for various events or holidays and keep them on hand.  Happy Birthday's, anniversary's, holidays...the possibilities are almost endless.  Perhaps I'll make up a Happy Holidays banner to hand up in my window this year.