Monday - Where did the weekend go.

This was one of my busy weekends and little got done for crafting.  I still managed to finish up the mini wall hanging for the bucket list on cyber quilters 4-c.  It was the cathedral windows drawing.  This is a bad picture and if I remember to bring it into work I might replace it.  I really love the red border on it.  It looks and reminds me of the farm buildings I grew up around.  Seemed to work well with the blue denim fabric.  Next Monday I should have more to show since it is my quilting weekend (every other weekend).

That's it for now.  Have to get back to work before bossman comes back tomorrow and I also need to write my progress on losing weight on my other blog page.

It's Friday!

Can't believe another week has gone by and I still am far behind.  Which, when you translate that sentence, means this will be a short post.

Wednesday was Professional Administrative Day (the old Secretary's Day) and I got flowers from Lyndon (Bossman).  Much to my surprise I also received flowers from another friend on the same day.  I'm not arguing.

I will be taking some from each and putting them in a smaller vase to take to mom on Sunday.  At least that is my plan.  Let's hope that I remember.

Off to a meeting.  Will post more when I can.

design wall monday? Already?

I actually have something on my design wall at work.  Wow...Perhaps I should have warned you before I posted that.  That's ok.  I'll wait for you to recover from the shock of that announcement.

It's not much but since it's at work it doesn't have to be much.  It's all about getting things started again and back into a grove.

That being said here is the finished mug rug that I did.  You know I don't like it and just wanted to finish it because I sewed the binding on the machine.  LOL.

As some of you may know, the yahoo group that I belong to has what we call a bucket list.  I don't do big projects for this since limited space etc.  This months bucket list drawing was to learn to do Cathedral Windows.  I did one block for it (that's enough thank you very much) and here it is.  I will be turning it into a mini wall hanging but not sure how I will finish it yet.

It is pretty plain right now.  I have a little under 200 of these denim squares (approx 8") so thought to use five of them here.  The middle is the reverse side of the denim.  I was going to embroidery in the larger blocks but can't think of what I want to do or what to applique there.  I might just end up doing red border and back on it and leave it.  I might also use red thread and to hash marks for the quilting.  This will probably be a wall hanging.  The blue is actually a prettier shade then it shows up in the picture.

Any suggestions?

Where to start...

Of course that title could mean where to start

1.  cleaning the house
2.  organizing the fabric
3.  cooking something
4.  list what I am working on
5.  work on something


It actually does mean all of those things so I guess I'd better make this a small post.  I did get to work on a couple of things today.  Hopefully tomorrow I will manage to finish up a little mug rug.  I bought a battery control little fan which seems to be working pretty good, and I finished my April teapot.

There.  That wasn't so bad.  I'll take pictures and post tomorrow.

Oh yeah...i also started to clean a corner of my work area  That counts as cleaning house doesn't it?  As for cooking something.  I'm defrosting home made brats from our local grocery store.  Guess that will be on tomorrows list.

Everybody have a good evening.

New Shtuff in Mail

I haven't posted in a bit so forgive me.  Life has been hectic and not enough hours in the day.  First of all let me tell you the story of my Brother embroidery machine.  Some of you may remember that I bought this little machine second hand and have some troubles on and off.  It's not one of those big machines and the only size hoop I can use is the four inch one but it is a starter one and I like it..  So the last time it jammed (oh did I do a number on that) my nephew unjammed it and then cleaned it for me before giving it back to me.  I know it worked then because we did a small piece or two while at his house.  He has 3 girls and 2 boys and they were fascinated with watching the machine do the embroidery.  :)  The girls are into Cricket scrapbooking so they were especially interested.  Since it is a Disney authorized one it had Minnie an Mickey also which just added to its charm.

So what's the problem?  I'm getting the insects in the bobbins again so it's jamming.  Insects is what I call all that bunched up thread underneath that keeps your fabric in place etc.  My top thread kept breaking so it could have been a thread problem.  Anyway,, I gave up on trying to do the design I had picked out and then decided to change both bobbin and top threads to see if it was that.  I also decided that (sit down Kat before you read this) I needed to practice FMQ and took some material and just did some on that.  I think that if nothing else, this machine might be able to be used for FMQ.  I didn't do too well when it was "me" moving the fabric around but when I put it on auto (disconnected the foot pedal) it did much better.  That was probably because the speed was more constant?  It's a theory anyway.  When I take my FMQ class next month it might be with this machine.

By now you might want to know what I got in the mail.  I received more patterns!  Yeah I know...Just what we all need, right?  These are Dinah Jefferies patterns (Garden City Gateworks) and will be used in a Baltimore style wall hanging one day..  I really liked the patterns and will try to pick up more when I can.

Here is what i got this time:

The patterns are for the center pieces and not the borders/frames that they are shown with.  If I wanted to I could do those frames also since I have them in another pattern...somewhere.  LOL.

It's going on 11 pm and another work day tomorrow so I'm signing off for the night.  Everybody have a great day/night.

HUGS to all.

New look to blogger and my day so far

Not sure I like the new changes to blogger but I am sure I will get used to them. Last night I sat down at the computer and started to put some of my fabric on boards.  These are foam boards that I got at Dollar Tree for $1 each so that I can cut to whatever size I need.  I know most people would like the same size for everything but I kind just like that they are wound up on the boards and don't care if they are different sizes.  I'm different sizes also (LOL) and it gives me character.  That means that my fabric has character also right?


Here is what I did last night while catching up with some of my shows on Hulu.  They aren't going to stay in this tub but it was the drawer that I pulled out to work on.  It was stuffed full of fabric now the fabric is a bit more organized.  Eventually I will sort it and put the tiniest pieces in a draw by themselves while the other pieces will be organized....some way.  :)

I have plenty more to do so just a little bit at a time.  Perhaps tonight I will do some more after I search for some patterns.

I took a walk the last half of lunch period and snapped some pictures by the lagoon.  I love that little area of water by work.  Being landlocked in the middle of corn country means not a lot of water around unless I travel a bit.  This I can walk to.  Besides it's fun keeping track of the ducks and geese who are NOT afraid of cars or anything.  They know we all stop for them when they cross the road.

Ready to go on my walk with me?  Here are the pictures that I took on the path that I walked.

Hoped you enjoy my walk with me.  Stay tuned for more updates as the days go by since I am taking a walking challenge starting next week.  The challenge isn't hard...just walk 30 minutes a day.  That is hard for me because I have so much stuff that I do inside that it is hard to get outside for me.  Perhaps one day I might take an indoor walk for 30 minutes and snap pictures of that also.

April! Already!

Hi everybody:

I had a lovely visit with mom this morning  I finished her wall hanging and she loved it.  She even chuckled when my brother and I put it up because, naturally, she had picked the hardest to get to place in her section of the room for it.  It got up though and she smiled so it was worth it.  Laughing at my brother had nothing to do with it...really it didn't.

April 1st.  April Fools Day...whatever you want to call it.  Today is the day that my allergies acted up so I spent most of my day in bed after coming home.  not a terrible way to spend it but it was kind of unproductive.  April also means another month has gone by and now I can show you the test pattern I did for April for Wenche's Christmas Baltimore BOM for Quilting Pattern Magazine.

http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/

It's a great magazine and always has a lot of stuff of interest in it  It comes out monthly so go check it out.  Here is the third block for the Christmas Baltimore.  They show a picture of the full quilt also on the site so you get an idea of what it will look like (great of course).

Oops!  Forgot to post my Asian Teapot for March.  Here it is but ignore the wrinkled background fabric.  I finished it at work and didn't have my iron handy;  LOL.

March 31, 2012

Can you believe that April is literally right around the corner?  Here it is the last day of March and the weather is still wonky.  Yes wonky...it's my favorite word ... for now.

I am helping a friend do some t-shirt quilts.  She hates to do the ironing and cutting so I will be doing that to help "catch her up" and then she will put it all together.  This is good for me since I want to do a couple of also.  I have a variety of t-shirts from NIU that were given to me or I bought and don't wear any more.  I thought perhaps I should turn them into a quilt.  The other quilt that I was thinking of doing is from t-shirts that my friend sent to me from his travels in the army.  I won't have a lot of them so that might be more of a wall hanging size but still all this cutting and fusing interface will help later down the road.  I do think that I need to get another template.  Perhaps a 14" or 16" one since the blocks will end up being 12.5" unfinished.  If I use a 14" or 16" block it might cut down on some waste that is currently happening.

On the other hand, I have scraps of t-shirts, some fused and some not fused, to figure out what to do.  My friend Shelley might be able to use them in her "angry birds" but I have an idea brewing around in my silly head for some of the larger pieces.  I'll let all of you know after I try something out and see if it works.

Oops.  That's all the time I have for now.  Time to switch gears and start to think about gaming tonight.  Catch you all later.

Hugs.

classes

Oops.  Almost forgot to tell you.  I received a raise at work so am treating myself to two classes at the Acorn Quilt Shop in Rockford, IL.  The classes aren't until May and June but I am both excited and intimidated about them.  Intimidated about ....sit down Kat so you don't die from shock from this statement... the FREE MOTION QUILTING one.  Yep, you read that right..  I'm going to take a class on it.  9-12 for two Saturdays in a row.  The excited part comes from the other class.  I'm going to finally take a hand applique class.  I was told it was needle-turn so I'll see what they decide to teach. 

That was it.  You may resume your normally scheduled life now.

Finished something - finally

I know it's been a bit sine I've posted that I've finished something but I can do that today.

Actually I finished my test blocks but you don't get to see those until way later since they aren't published yet.  But I *can* show you the mini wall hanging that I did for mom.  It's a good thing I finished it because she was asking about it last week.  It's surprising what she remembers and when.  This is to go above her bulletin board of pictures.  She already has one that I did at Christmas time so she wanted something else to put on the other side.  Perhaps I'll be able to take a picture to show everybody after it is up.

Here's how it turned out.  The pink floral fabric is some of the fabric that my boss brought back from Ghana for me.  As soon as I saw it I knew that I would use it for mom's mini.

My Mother The Thief

Isn't that a bad thing to say?  My mother is a thief.  I have to admit it and acknowledge it since when she takes things it is either from the nursing home she is in or from me.  She thinks that my brother and I need all those cloth napkins and white wash clothes that the nursing home has.  Each week we accept it from her and then on the way of the nursing home, drop them in the laundry bin.  It's comical really.  BUT...yes that was in all caps...it's not so comical when she insists on borrowing my lipstick and then instead of giving it back puts it in her pocket.

She knows that we wear close to the same shade.of lipstick so she said she needed it more than I did.  It's awful hard to argue with that since *I* can get out to the store and she can't any more.  It's also hard to tell a 92 year old she can't have something as small as lipstick when it makes her smile.

So today I am without lipstick.  Wonder what she would do if I showed up at the nursing home and took my lipstick back.  I wouldn't be surprised if that was her plan.  She is always asking us to visit more often.  :)

All this, of course, is said in fun.  Yes mom did steal my lipstick but I will go out this week and buy another one replace it.  I usually keep two extra on hand for when she does things like this.

Just thought I'd share some of the news.

Speaking of news....Northern Illinois University finally sent out a notice that the civil service employees received a raise and it is retro'd back to January 1, 2012.  YAY me!