Happy Mail!

Mail was wonderful today.  No bills, only one term life insurance advertisement, and one package.  Yep, you read that right.  My friend Deb, the one who does live feed on Youtube on Sunday afternoons, sent me an envelope.  It was all squishy and I had to remain calm so that I could open it. 

Ok.  So that wasn't quite right.  I had to remain calm so that I didn't poke myself or whatever was in the envelope with the scissors.  I don't think that most of you realize how restrained I had to be!!!!!  I'm the kind of person who mails a present or envelope to somebody and then keeps asking the person if they got it yet.  Then when they FINALLY say yes, I have to get on the phone and wait for them to open it up so that I can hear what they think.

Now it was payback time.  My envelop was squishy so I thought it might be fabric.  THEN I couldn't open it up without scissors.  I actually almost broke out in a sweat when I couldn't open it.  Was this package going to taunt me and just stay prestine?  I say NO!  I will not have that flamingo on the return address label get the upper hand.  It would not win!  So off to my craft room to find scissors.  Obviously not my good quilting ones because I don't want them to get dull since they cost so much.  No, this was a job for CHEAPIES!  Yes that's right.  Those scissors that come in a pack that you can use for almost anything. 

They were the heroes today  They opened up the envelope just like they were suppose to.  I snipped off a corner  so that I could see where it would be safe to cut.  FINALLY I cut into it and was able to open it up.  Look what was inside!

Aren't they cute!  Those purples and that orange/pumpkin colored?  I'm not sure what color to call the one which has my name on it.  Blue?  Teal?  Either way it's mine!  See? It has my name on it.  I'll take it to show my friend when we meet for lunch on Thursday so I'm keeping the name tag on it so it knows where it goes after lunch.  Of course I'm joking.  Connie wouldn't keep my fabric.  :)

I didn't get much done tonight since I was just stroking some of the fabric telling it how much I liked it.  This is also where I tell Deb Thank you for the loverly fabric.  That's right.  Loverly.  That's a step up from lovely.

Everybody have a great night.  Perhaps tomorrow I will get back to crafting.  :)

Stitch...Unstitch...Stitch...Unstitch

That is what I have been doing.  I took today off of work and it was great not to go in.  Don't get me wrong, I love my work but it was also nice to do crafting when I wanted to do it, etc.

Last night I made some progress on the test pattern for The Quilt Pattern Magazine and then realized that my cutting was being a pain and not working out.  So today I redid my thinking and played frogger as I unstitched what I did last night.  I had to go get more fabric but that turned out fine.  While I was at Hobby Lobby getting more white on white, I saw this material.

I have some friends who loves paisley so I am sure that I will find a use for this.  I actually bought 5 1/2 yards of it.  That was all that was left on the bolt but the real reason why I bought that much was because it was marked down to $2 a yard!!!!!  I couldn't pass that up.  It feels very nice to the touch also.

Also while I was there, I picked up some other things but they will be given away as gifts so I can't show their pictures.  Another thing that I picked up was some premium cardstock that was on sale.  Normally I wouldn't have looked for it but on Friday I learned how to make paper envelopes.  I got on Amazon and I already have my envelope maker and have had fun making some envelopes. 

I also made some envelopes where the pattern is on the inside of the envelope and the outside is just white.  It is fun to make and I can use these various sizes for stuffing with small things and put inside larger envelopes, etc. 

Since I had an extra day off, if you discount helping to proctor exams at Malcom X on Saturday, I put a dump cake in the crockpot.  It is:

2 cans of apple pie filling
1 stick of butter (melted)
1 vanilla or white cake mix

Put in your cans of pie filling in the crock pot first.
Sprinkle the cake mix on top of it (the dry mix, do not add anything to it)
Then pour the melted butter over it all.

Set the crockpot on high and in 4 hours you have the apple crumble.

While the crumble was cooking, I got in a little practice of free motion quilting. 

I don't have any patterns that I was doing.  I was just using up some fabric sandwich that I had cut off from a previous project.  Why throw it away when it is already layered.  It's a start.  I am going to try and work more on it. 

That's it for tonight.  I will have something else to show you soon, I hope.  I know I can work on it over the weekend so if nothing else perhaps then.

Oh, almost forgot.  When I was in Hobby Lobby, I struck up a conversation with the lady in front of me at checkout.  She quilts also and doesn't live that far from me.  We exchanged contact information so perhaps I'll have a local quilter to get together with sometimes.  So I will give a shout out to Sid in case she is reading this.  Hey Sid!  it was nice chatting with you at Hobby Lobby today.

I hope everybody has a great night/day and I'll write again soon to tell you about my projects and life.

Bye for now and keep stitching!

Happy Mother's Day

Hello everybody:

I do not know which of you is a mother or not but I wish you all a Happy Mother's Day.  To me, mother means somebody who nurtures and builds you up.  It isn't about gender or if somebody physically gave birth.  To me, it's about how you know you can go to them with a problem.  You know they will be there to listen to you even if you didn't know you needed to tell somebody something.  You can talk to them in person, over a social media, or phone.  It's because they are there for you. 

With those definitions in mind, I would like to wish everybody a Happy Mother's Day because all my friends are mothers.  They listen to people's problems.  They are there to support people (and animals).  All my friends are mother's because mother's are super great.  I came up with my definition of what is a mother from MY mother.  Edith Elvira (ducks because I told her middle name) Bromeland (Chamberlain).  She, and her mother, were great examples of what a female could do. 

Dad died when I was around 12.  In one aspect I'm glad that he did.  NO!  I'm NOT glad that he died, but I am glad that in our short time together, I only have fond memories of him.  That also pulled mom and I together more.  She was there during my dating period when I was young.  She helped come up with nicknames for my dates and when they broke my heart she came up with fictional ways to deal with them.  They should thank me that she never carried out those plans.  Mother loved Tarzan movies and Westerns.  Being split in two by saplings as seen on Tarzan, or buried in sand by an ant hill and have honey poured on them from a Western usually got me out of my slump.  You know we had a good relationship because I would talk about my dates.  I didn't tell EVERYTHING because I would still be grounded if I had. 

That's not all that I love about them.  I love the stories mom would tell of grandma.  How grandma would keep setting back the clock so that grandpa wouldn't know mom was coming in late from a date.  Or what grandma did to appease grandpa when mom hitchhiked to a concert out of state.  Of course these stories were also meant to remind me that mom had a wild side and that she could out think me.

I also loved the stories mom would tell me about the exploits of my brothers and sister before I was born.  Things like rearranging the furniture so when my brother came in late, he would trip over the overstuffed chair.  He tripped and landed on mom who was sitting in the chair.  Or the time that she would stay up late (11 pm for her) and wait for my other brother to get off work.  He always drove by our house to make sure we were ok.  She would stand outside on the front lawn and use an electric lantern to flag him down.  He would pull over, all concerned, and she would then take him into the kitchen where she had food waiting for him.  She would make him sit down, eat, and tell her about work and not let him go home (4 blocks away) until she saw him start to yawn.  Then she would send him home knowing that he would sleep.

Those are the family examples but mom was also a leader.  She was the first woman foreman at a local factory.  She was the manager of our little local newspaper.  She would meet snakes, both animal and politicians, who she would talk about and told me how she handled them.  She showed me that it was ok to be afraid of things and people but remember that they could be afraid of you too.  Smile and work your way through it.  Her motto was "kill them with kindness".She didn't like to brag about her prowess with firearms although she was almost better than her twin brothers who put on a live wild west show on stage.  She taught me that you didn't have to brag or show off.  It was enough that you knew you could do it.  She also taught me that you can be a mother to others by listening and being there for them when they need it. 

All those life lessons were done over many years and yet the memories still linger.  Delightful memories, sad memories, all intermixed to help make me what I am.  Of course I had to throw in some of me during those years but then, of course, that shouldn't be a surprise.  I am my mothers daughter after all.

Once again, everybody have a great day.  I'm off to start a new test pattern and it's so much larger than I'm used to.  I won't be able to wait until the last minute to do it.  As always, thanks for reading what was going on in my brain.  It was either this or write about wondering how large my ears are.  Perhaps that will be the next post.

Productive Weekend

What a productive weekend!  I can't believe that I finished a UFO from He double hockey sticks (as my mother would say).  This object was started on my old sewing machine and after breaking many needles (I stopped counting after 4), I put it away and hence another UFO was born.

But lo and behold, those UFO's will eventually get destroyed or finished.  This was half way into the garbage can when I thought to give it another try on my new machine. I'm both sad and glad that I did.

I know that people will say don't be so hard on yourself Bonni.  They are right.  In this case though it is deserved.  I might do another one with the new machine because I know it will be much better.  There is one big mistake but I wasn't going to disassemble the whole wall hanging to fix it.  The next one will be done on a better machine and I've learned more and am more confident in my quilting so it will be better.  This was a learning experience so it can be shown complete with errors.

I also put on the second border for the Sudoku Quilt. 

Now all I have to do is figure out what to use for binding and the backing.  The backing can be a tone on tone white if I don't find anything else.  Binding can be white if nothing else.  This will be going on a wall so it won't get much use or washed often.

I also worked more on my cross stitch block (1 of 18) and also on the house block that I need to finish and get sent off.  All in all, it was a productive craft day...not so much cleaning day or anything else (except laundry).

Everybody have a great day/night.

What a beautiful day!

It is a great and beautiful day today and it is supposed to be even better tomorrow!  I can't believe that I have a day off and it is nice.  So what am I doing?  I'm staying inside.  LOL.  I am staying inside and avoiding cleaning the apartment.  I have the window open, sprayed for ants so they don't think the open window is an invitation, and contemplated what to work on.  There are two things this weekend that I'd like to work on.  It would have been 3 but I left one of them in the office.  :(

So, I need to work on my house block.  I have some ideas.  I found this fabric the other day and bought it because it reminds me of wood for a building...or perhaps a picnic bench material (but that's another post).

I was going to work on my cross stitch but I am always debating if I want to work on cross stitch or quilting.  THEN, while at Hobby Lobby, I saw a stamped cross stitch quilt block packet on sale.  It was normally almost $15 but it was on sale for under $4.  There was 6 blocks in each package so I picked up three packages and now I can do both cross stitch AND quilt.  The quilting will have to wait until I'm done stitching it.

That will be eighteen 18" blocks.  According to the directions, it be enough for a twin size bed. 

The other project which I "should" be working on is a landscape quilt/picture.  I am not sure what I will do since landscape isn't my thing but I did find this fabric and it said "use me in the landscape".  Who am I to argue with fabric when it says use me.  Doesn't this look like it should be in the skies over a nice beach or water scene?

Sorry, the picture is a little blurry.

Now imagine a beach under that and perhaps a wooden pier or something (see fabric posted earlier).  It's slowly coming together on what I want it to look like. 

Now to find some white background fabric for that house block.  I'll post it when I get something besides the white fabric.  LOL.

Everybody enjoy their day and weekend.

It's May already!

Where did/does the time go.  It's May already and I barely am into April projects.

Speaking of April projects, I wasn't going to put a secondary border on the Sudoku Quilt but now I am thinking I will.  I am thinking of cutting back the white border to about 1 3/4 inches and then putting on a wide teal striped border.  What do you think?

I'll have ponder it over the weekend.  That means I won't have to take it home.  It can stay on the office bulletin board while I think more on it.  Besides I'm not sure what I want for the back (probably a white on white tonal fabric) or then to use for my binding.  Originally I was going to use the teal fabric for the binding but after holding it up I think it will make a great secondary border.  Not sure what size.  There is the Fibonacci sequence that people say are good for this sort of thing.  It is what nature uses, etc.  Basically, the Fibonacci sequence starts out 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.  Each number is the sum of the 2 numbers that precede it.  So my 9 patches would be 9, the white gets cut down to 1 3/4" (to accommodate seams) and then my teal would also be 1 3/4".  that might work. Right now the white border is 2 1/4".  I'm not sure if I want the second border to be that large. 

I think Mother Nature is having fun with the weather.  We are under a flood watch which isn't anything like a lot of flood watches.  Ours is more like the Kishwaukee River will flood and go over main street (Lincoln Highway, Rt. 38) but it doesn't get high enough to wash the car away, etc.  The city will close off streets before it gets that bad.  At lunch, however, we had a break in the rain (YAY) and I walked to a restaurant to meet up with a friend for lunch.  On the way back I stopped to take another video of our geese and I was certainly glad that I did because the new goslings were out.

That's the 1 o'clock bell you hear in the background which indicates that I'm late back from lunch.  Nobody was mad so it was all fine.  I also stopped outside of the building I work in (Adams Hall) and snapped a couple of pictures.  It does seem that our April showers did indeed bring out May flowers.

Everybody try to stay dry and enjoy the day!