The Weather is Frightful...but I've been productive

I didn't get a chance to have breakfast with mom today.  Kerm (my brother) and I were snowbound.  Ok, that's not entirely true.  HE was snowbound with a 3' drift in his driveway and I *might* have been able to get to the Nursing Home but it's out in the country/edge of town also and those roads are open to swirling winds, etc.  So I called up the Nursing Home and they said they would make sure to get mom down to breakfast there.

It took me 1 hour to clear the snow around my car.  The snowplow had gone by and buried the car up to the tires.  My neighbor came out and helped me towards the end which was nice because I was able to give them their Christmas present.  I had crocheted four hot pads/pot holders for them.    I've gone out to start the car a couple of times, making sure to let it run long enough to get the warm out coming out.  In between that I decided to look and see what I could work on.

I'm still trying to catch up on some of the BOMs so I took stock on how close I was to finishing on a couple of them.  Let me say that when I talk about "finishing" I actually mean stitching the individual blocks and not putting them together.  That's in another category.  If I get that far I'll let you know what I'll call that category.  I started with Animal babies from Angie's Bits n Pieces.  I thought I was only behind on a couple of the blocks but I think I'm like four behind.  I did fuse on the owl today and will print out the other missing blocks and redo them.

After that I saw that I was behind on my mini blocks of the month from the Quilt Pattern Magazine.  I was behind two months on that and got them fused but then had a heart attack.  I couldn't find ANY black embroidery floss.

Yeah, that's it.  Just four thin strands of black floss in the whole apartment.  My niece in law has 3 skeins of black and 3 skeins of white for me but we haven't met up since she picked them up (She works for Michael's).

I watched it carefully but it was JUST enough to finish the pilgrim's hat for November.  I also finished up the December block.

Now that I have all 12 mini blocks done, I laid them out to get an idea of what they would look like.

They still need to be trimmed down to the correct size and the sashings and borders put on.  But I'm happy with how they turned out.  

Now with NIU being closed tomorrow, I can start to figure out what to think about working on tomorrow.  I'm not sure what it will be.  I do know that I will celebrate being off work by taking at least one nap and not setting the alarm.  Anything else will be....a surprise to me.  

Everybody be safe and I'll let you know what I decided to work on.

January 2, 2014

It seems weird to type in 2014 but I'm sure I'll get used to it by the time I date all those tuition waivers waiting for me to process.  Shhh.  I'm sneaking in some "me" time but that's ok.  I'll  just call this quick little note my break time.  Missed taking a break this morning so I'm due some "me" time.

I'm no longer having all those extra days to work on my crafts since work is back in session.  I did bring in some of my projects that I showed you all over the past week or so for when I meet up with Connie for a mini show n tell and guess what I discovered.  I had fused that Christmas wreath to the WRONG side of the WOW (White on White for my non quilting friends) fabric!!!!!!  It will still work so I don't have to change anything but I could have sworn that I was extra careful when I fused it on.  Sigh.

I was told about another BOM though.  I will collect this one but not sure if I'll be brave enough to attempt it.  It's all piecing and you know how I feel about that.  I do like Debbie Mumm though so perhaps I'll attempt it especially since a) it is free and b) it is stars.  The name of it didn't hurt either.  :)

http://www.debbiemumm.com/Projects/QuiltBlocks/2014/

I also found out today what the first bucket list drawing for 2014 will be.  The bucket list drawing is done in one of my yahoo quilting groups and it challenges us to learn new techniques or new blocks, etc.  For 2014 the list will consist of:

2014   1.  Paper Piecing .........................  2.  Redwork ...............................  3.  Bargello ..............................  4.  Stained Glass .........................  5.  Origami ...............................  6.  Chenile ...............................  7.  Free Motion Quilting ..................  8.  Curved Piecing ........................  9.  Trapunto ..............................10.  Cathedral Windows ..................... 2014 January11.  Applique ..............................12.  Delectable Mountains ..................13.  Irregular Edges or Finishes ...........

As you can see from the above, Cathedral Windows was drawn for the first one.  I actually have an idea on what to do about that.  I think I have some fabric that looks a little bit like stained glass windows and I might use that for the centers.  Just not sure what else I would use with it but it's a start.  Some of the things on the list I won't do because I just don't like them.  Chenile is probably in that list.  Origami might have been in that list but I did find a pattern one day for a folded box.  If it is drawn AND if I can find that pattern, I might make something.

Break time is over.  I'll catch up with you all later.  Stay warm.  Our wind chill tonight is suppose to be between -15 and -15F.  Time to stay inside and keep warm.  I wonder if my car will start tomorrow then.

Happy 2014

I got tired of saying Happy New Year so often so thought I'd just shorten the post title.  :)

This is my last day of break so tomorrow my quilting fun slows down and I go back to work.  That's ok because I'm somewhat of a workaholic and I like working.  I guess that is a good thing since I probably won't be able to retire until I'm in my 70s.

So what did I choose to work on my last day of break?  I worked on messing up my sewing area again.  That can be translated as I started a new project.  I'll put it back in order sooner or later.  This is a Holiday wall hanging that I fell in love with.  I showed you how it would lay out in my last post but this time it is all fused onto the background fabric.  I used a white on white berry leaf pattern fabric that I like.

The other part of the day has been collecting/organizing some of the BOMs (block of the month) that I am interested in.  Sulky has a different one.

http://www.sulky-international.de/scripts/clsAIWeb.php?seite_id=200

Look at the first one...the cake bar.  Isn't that a cute idea?

Angie from Angie Bits 'n Pieces always has a delightful BOM.  She is the one who offered up the Asian Teapots two years ago and then last year it was the Animal Babies.  This year it is all about shoes.  I wasn't going to do this one but then just realized that I have a 14 year old great niece and a 12 year old great niece.  This might be a good thing to do for one of them.  What teenage girl doesn't like shoes?  It's called Walk With Me.

http://ajpadilla.com/bom/walk-me

Of course I can't forget Fat Cat Patterns.  There new BOM for 2014 is called Penguin Cheer.

http://fatcatpatterns.com/

Let's see.  What else did I hear about or find that I might have to collect (in case I don't get a chance to work on it until later).

Oh yes....My favorite Quilting Magazine.....The Quilt Pattern Magazine.  As most of you know this is an online magazine and while the subscription is more than reasonable (I would say even cheap especially for what you get out of it), they are offering a Newsletter Mystery called Around a Star and was designed by Cindy McCoy (a terrific lady and most helpful lady).


The Rules
1. This Mystery will be available to everyone on our newsletter list.
2. Each block will be online for about two months.
3. Quilters are responsible for downloading instructions while available.
4. Sorry, we cannot provide missed downloads.

 So if you aren't already getting their free newsletter, you can sign up for it at:

 http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/SignUp.html

Another BOM which caught my eye was the Sycamore Rose BOM.  Since Sycamore (IL) is so close to where I live I had to check it out.  You too can check it out at:

http://cburdy.wordpress.com/

I know a lot of you will say that is a lot of applique work.  Yes it is BUT the finished blocks are 14" so it is a good one to start out on.  If you use fusible (instead of needle turn) it will be even easier.

The last one (for now) that I was interested in is Garden Gate which is offered by projecthouse360.com    Check it out.  I currently don't like the border but perhaps I will like it by the time I get to that stage.  If not...well I'll leave it off.  You don't always have to make it exactly as the pattern calls for.

http://projecthouse360.com/

 That's it for now.  I know I won't get them all done but I'll do my best to keep up so that I can "collect them" if nothing else for later.  

What are your quilting plans for 2014?

New Years Eve 2013

Happy New Years Eve everybody.  If you went to a party or traveled, I hope you stayed safe.  I stayed inside this New Years Eve and chatted on the phone with my friend Dan while he was on his way to see his fiance and friends.  I love going hands free with him because I can sew and chat at the same time.  It's a good thing that he doesn't mind hearing the sewing machine go.  LOL.

I feel pretty good about what I finished up for 2013.  I still have projects that aren't finished but overall I'm pleased with productivity.  Today, in fact, I managed to finish up another Civil War block from the BOM offered through Custom Quilt Kits, Inc.

It gave me problems and it isn't the best but it was the best I could do.  I got it close enough that I told myself that I wouldn't tear it apart (again) and just will settle with it looking like that.

Not sure what I"ll do with this when it is all done.  I'll probably give it away so I don't have to look at it.  This is definitely one of those "do to learn" type things.  I'm not good at piecing but I am getting better (sigh).

Then I decided to finish laying out the applique for "Feather Fancy".  That is more because I had to make sure I had cut out all the pieces.  It will be put on a white background but I haven't figured out yet which of my "white on white" fabrics I want to use.  This will give you an idea of what it will look like.

The light green is a lot prettier in person.  The camera on my phone didn't do it justice.  It's one of the greens from the Stonehenge line.

I also have some extra "feathers" or "leaves" left over and received some in the mail today from a friend.  I'll have to find a use for them.  The red circles were extras from another project where I used the Grapes of Wrath GO! die on them.  That uses up my extra's for circles so might have to cut some more just to keep on hand.  They have come in handy so far.

Guess I'll get to bed now and think about it.  :)  Everybody be safe and I'll post tomorrow.  I hope you had a great ending to 2013.

What a Wonderful Day......

Some days are better than others and today has been a WONDERFUL day.  Today brought out the little child in me and you ask why or what happened?  I got presents!  I don't expect presents because my family doesn't give them out (except to mom) any more.  So any presents I get, I get from friends and from work, etc.  Today was a mixture.

It started this morning when I finally dragged my body up out of my warm bed to go get caffeine.  I decided to go to the gas station to get a soda since I could get another punch on my soda card (five punches and you get a free soda).  I had four punches so this would mean next trip I would get a free soda.  So I counted up my coins (payday tomorrow so coins today) and went in.  I walked up to the counter and as I was counting out my coins the guy said, "pop is on me today" AND he also stamped my card so tomorrow I can get a free soda also!  Wasn't that nice?

Then when I got home there was a gift bag outside of my door.  My neighbor had dropped off a Christmas card and a small tin of fudge AND a large tin of home made cookies!  Talk about BonBon pigging out before January 1, 2014!!!!!  I'll be putting a dent into those tins.  LOL.

Of course after starting a dent in the cookies I wanted to take a nap so I did.  I only have two days left where I can take a nap in the afternoon and I fully intend to take advantage of it each day I'm off.  When I woke up I decided to get rid of some of my white hairs to start off the new year.  That didn't take long but when I got back to the computer after completing that guess what I had waiting for me in my email box?  A gift certificate from my friend Shelley in Utah for Thousands of Bolts (and only one nut).  I love that shop so I got a chance to take advantage of their mega sale which will stop tomorrow by midnight.  It will be interesting to see what the Stonehenge looks like when it comes in since it is hard to see the colors of it online sometimes.

I ordered:

This is by Northcott and called Princeton - Order 1 yard of it.

This is from Andover and called Garden Maze.  I order a fat quarter of it.

This is one of the Stonehenge wide backs (108" wide) and I ordered 1 yard

Another one of the Stonehenge wide back (108") and I ordered one yard.  I am hoping that this will be whitish.

I hope you all had a great day too!

Almost the End of the Year

Wow.  2013 is almost over with and I wonder if I'm happy or sad about that.  Perhaps a little bit of both.  I don't think I will make New Year resolutions this year since I just break them anyway but I do have a plan for some things.  More on that in a day or two.

One thing that I had plans for while on break was to work on the teapot BOM from Angie's Bits n Pieces.  This was a couple of years ago that it was offered.  I had most of the blocks done but suddenly they all disappeared.  This weekend I managed to redo all the blocks.  At least I got them fused on and I will now be able to take one or two with me back to work and stitch them.

Of course they will look better after I have stitched them.  I am thinking that I will use the buttonhole stitch but perhaps all in the same color.  I'm thinking a dark brown.  Getting all of those fused on today made me feel like I accomplished something.

The other thing that took up a lot of time today was watching the Phoebe Allen cam.  :)   Phoebe is a hummingbird and her TWO eggs hatched within 15 minutes of each other today.  You want to see one of them come out and join the world?  They have it on YouTube also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v0YMVQIbFk&list=PLYthSoXtMUBWQxK2RUHNkLeqTvH4RZ5vh&index=1

It shall be fun, I think, to watch the cam and see the babies grow up.

I'm yawning at the computer now which means I've been on it far longer than I intended.  I will stop here tonight and will write more tomorrow or on New Years Eve.

Everybody be safe and thank you for stopping by and reading my blog.

The Day After

Sigh.  Now that Christmas is past, it is time to find the apartment again.  As you probably know from reading my blog, I am a messy quilter.  I pull out a ton of fabric to search for what I want and a lot of the time it doesn't get put back until after the project is finished or my deadline has passed.  That means it is time to, once again, find my sewing area.  I'll work on it a little bit at a time and then work on cleaning up the rest of the apartment.  Perhaps I'll even start the new year with a clean apartment.  Gasp!  Is that allowed?

I have made progress.  I have 1/4 of the sewing area cleaned up.

Guess I'd better get back to cleaning.  Looks like the ironing area is next since it looked messy in one of the pictures.  LOL.

The good news is that I finally found my missing embroidery floss that I had bought for my Rose of Sharon BOM project.  I keep them off to the side and separate so that I don't accidentally use them before hand.

OOohh.  I think it is time to take an even longer break and work on that project.  I'll talk to everybody later.

Merry Christmas - December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas everybody!   Today is my day for myself.  I will be working on the Santa redwork wall hanging and will probably finish it today too.  I'm ansy though because I want to hear from Theresa on how her daughter liked/loved the quilt.  She texted me on Christmas Eve to say she was so excited that her daughter gets it in one day.  It's terrible trying to keep a secret at this time of year isn't it?

I finished my own Christmas present this morning.  It's funny how if you wait long enough, you'll find the right thing to use on your projects.  Of course that might take years to come but it will come.  This time it didn't take as long but when shopping I discovered the rhinestones and I loved them.  JUST the bling I needed for my wall hanging.

I hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday season.  I have no idea if you celebrate Christmas or the other holidays and it doesn't matter to much to me since I consider you all my friends and that is enough for me.

Christmas Eve with Mom

My family has always celebrated Christmas with mom on Christmas Eve.  That came about after my siblings started to complain about traveling between parents and in laws.  In keeping with that tradition, I went to mom's nursing home this morning and took her breakfast.  Yes I said mom's nursing home because she claims everything - even the nursing home.  She's a sweetie though and the nursing staff lets her so who am I to say otherwise?  Just as long as she doesn't have to pay taxes on it we're all safe.  LOL.

For her Christmas present I gave her a semi  manicure.  I'm not an expert and really don't do my own nails so it was an adventure.  She was happy afterwards so that is all that matters.  I find it hard enough to do my own but to do it on hands that tremble from age and arthritis?  My hat is off to the ladies that used to do her nails.  She heard that the lady who used to do it can't do it any more but I wanted her to have fresh nail polish on for Christmas.  Here she is holding up my table runner that I made her.  Notice how she held it so that she wouldn't mess up the nails.  hehehe

Hmm.  I think her socks match the table runner also.  So now that she has a new table runner I go to put it on her table and she has a fit.  Apparently she thinks it is too pretty to put on the table because somebody might spill something on it.  I told her that's ok.  It can be washed and dried in the laundry.  Nope.  That won't do.  She took off the table runner I made for her birthday because she spilled something on it.  She went to the washroom and washed it but she didn't want to take a chance again.
BUT...she came up with a solution.  She had me hang in on her wall.  Of course I didn't put a sleeve or hanger on it since it was to be for a TABLE!  Masking tape to the rescue!  This is why I carry a lot of stuff in my back pack and people wonder why.  See?  It came in handy.  I hope it stays up until Sunday and I might have to put a sleeve on it...or just keep replacing the masking tape.

It does look good there.  Now to try and figure out what to give her for Mother's Day.  :)

Everybody get to bed early tonight....Christmas is tomorrow!!!!

Until then remember you only have to be good for a little longer yet.  hehe

The Eve of Christmas Eve

Whew!  I made it.  Finished mom's  Christmas gift 12 hours before giving it to her.  Now I feel like I could sleep for a week!  No wonder Santa Claus only does this stuff one day a year.

I will be giving it to mom tomorrow morning after breakfast.  Hopefully the car will start because the temperatures (with wind chill) -13F tonight.

I will also be giving mom a manicure tomorrow morning for the holidays.  I had to go and buy some orange sticks for her cuticles so I went to Dollar Tree and picked up a little gift package for them.  I will be honest and say that the reason I picked out the package was because of the two small Separators for polishing the fingers.  What do you call them?  Anyway, I'm not going to use them for mom but instead I'm going to use them for my bobbins.  I've been wanting to try them out and I think they will work out pretty good.

I'll write more tomorrow but right now I"m just tired.  :)

Ms. Edith

Today I received a secret pal package from one of my facebook quilting groups.  This is actually the replacement secret pal package since it seems that the post office has lost the first one.  This is so cute.  I decided to call the bear Ms. Edith after my mom.  Those are so much her colors and it came with a little hat too which mom also loves.

The green squares are a tote bag that she made.  It's folded in half lengthwise so that I could fit it into the picture.

Thank you Ms. Nancy!