Carpet is out of the way. Now down to business! Let me tell you, I worked my fanny off and got all the carpet I planned to get out of here, OUT! I was then able to get back to sewing. I took Friday off so I had a four day weekend. I had a list and accomplished most of it errand/chore wise. Most importantly I got back to sewing.

I am in a round robin and had to make my center. This was due April 30th but somehow I had May 30th in my head. I finished it Saturday and then went to work on the person behind me on the list. I added three of the four borders and ran out of fabric. I meant to make sure I had the FGQ turned in the right direction before I cut but alas, I did not. I spent several hours sketching and watching TV. I have a loose idea of what I want but can't seem to get anything on paper. It will come.

I have a totebag pattern that I have been wanting to make. It is a gift so no pictures yet. I read and re-read this pattern and thought, no problem. Then I started putting it together and it isn't quite as straighforward as I had imagined. Luckily the shop where I bought the pattern has a sample. I will call or pop by and take a look. I hope it is not as I think it will be as I would have chosen a different fabric. I used a solid and would have preferred a small print. No panicking yet....we will see.... I also drafted out my pattern for my gift bag tote that I like to make. I started cutting fabric as well. Another gift as well. I have two different ones I am making of that pattern.

Did I tell you I won a doorprize at the new LQS? It was exciting! I didn't even know what the prize was. I just threw my name and number in the pot as I was directed to. LOL. A totebag, rotary cutter, saftey pins, seam ripper, charm pack, a little pouch and a small mat. All nice stuff! I am keeping the tote and fabric and gave dd the rest.

You might get a giggle out of this so thought I would share. As you know I have been pulling up carpet and pad and hauling it to the curb pretty much by myself. This is a lot of work. Hubby has started fussing at me about overdoing expecially since this last batch was huge and it really wore me out!

Last night he went to our room to watch tv. I got my knife and crawled under his desk to start cutting the next batch to go out Friday and I hear his voice asking "What are you doing?" I said, "Oh nothing. I am just picking up some trash under here." I am hiding the fact that I am cutting carpet up. It is almost like a disease. I am driven to get it done! I have three patches left to get. The one I cut last night and another small patch I plan to get tonight and then one big one I will get Thursday night. All in time for the poor trash man on Friday! Then my mind can stop working this over! For those serious quilters please sit down.....I actually prefer doing this right now over quilting!

Busy, Busy Weekend I had lots of plans this past weekend and usually I don't get them all done. Because there was so much to do I planned to get some things done Friday night that normally get's done Saturday or Sunday.

Friday night hubby and I made the Walmart grocery run. I have three things that I usually prefer to buy elsewhere. Bagels, bread and beef. I can get them there but like the quality I get at the grocery near my house. I was up a little later than usual piddling. Not sure doing what though....

Saturday I got up and met my FlyLady group. It was just one other lady and her family and I brought my dh and dd. We meet at Paneras and I had a bagel. Boy they are good! I bought a bakers dozen to have for the week. My son thinks they are a big hit too! I will have to hide some if I want them during the week for breakfast. We ran by Home Depot afterwards and looked at flooring. They have a vinyl out that looks like wood. Hubby seemed to like it and we took some samples with us. I felt like we had agreed on it and we even measured to know how much to buy. By Sunday night he was already back peddaling. Sigh...this is why nothing gets finished. I took dd and dh home and then set out to my friends house. A lady opened a quilt store across the street from her house. We visited a little and she showed me all the improvements her dh had made around the house. Then we went to the new store. Cute, small but nice inventory. A good start. We asked about a sit and sew. The store owner suggested we pick a date and time and get all our friends together and schedule it. This idea has possibilities! The other store in that town had moved to the downtown area so my friend and I ran over there too. I love when shops are in the old buildings. Lots of nice architectural features. They had a few samples I was interested in but were sold out of the patterns. That was a cheap visit for me. We went back to my friends house and I finished my iced tea, said my goodbyes and left. When I got home I got cleaned up and dh and I went to the Wildflower festival in Richardson. Hubby wanted to see Foghat and Grand Funk Railroad. We wandered around the vendor tents and bought a few things, got some food and went and watched Foghat. They played more than an hour and hubby's knee could not take it any longer. He decided he needed to leave and miss the other group.

Sunday I knew I had to work off and on throughout the day. I have some sewing things I need to get done but needed interfacing. I decided to make another Walmart run for that stuff then run by Albertson's to get the rest of my groceries. Hubby decided he wanted to go too and my hour errand turned into several hours. I pointed out to him that I had a call I needed to be on by 12:30 so we finished up quickly and went home. The call was quick so we watched a movie. I had to OP on #quiltchat then we watched another movie. When that was over I decided it was time to pull up more carpet. Hubby wasn't happy but I told him I only wanted to move the couches and get those parts done. It didn't take too long and we had that area all cleaned up and put back toghether. I made dinner and decided to get my sewing done. I drafted an applique pattern while watching the second movie earlier that day so spent time cutting pieces and prep'ing them.

All in all I got a LOT done. Getting that carpet up is consuming me right now. I have plans to get up a few more sections tonight so they can go out in the trash tomorrow. I will have as much as I can do, for now, done this week and then I will get back to more sewing!

Three Wishes. I have seen some people posting a certain number of things that no one else would know about them or weird things about themselves. I share this with you and if you choose to blog this topic please let me know.

You know the stories and jokes about finding a genie in a bottle and getting three wishes. There is always money involved in these. I have thought about this for a very long time and have three wishes that do not involve money. I challenge you to come up with three non-monetary wishes.

1) It's a Wonderful Life Wish I wish I could see how I have touched and affected other peoples lives. If you have seen the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" you will understand this. George decides he is better of dead and decides to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. In the process an angel, Clarence, jumps in the river and is drowning. George does jump in but to save Clarence. George tells Clarence that his life has not meant anything. Clarence takes George back for a review of his life showing him how wrong he is. My favorite movie!

2) Communication I wish that I could read, speak, write and understand all languages of the world. I love talking, helping and getting to know people. This is just such an amazing concept to me. I love language. I speak French, have studied Spanish and am trying to improve and also know several little phrases of many languages.

3) Eye of the beholder This wish sounds a little vain. You have to really understand my point to get this one. It isn't about vanity. I wish that all men saw me as the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. But, I want to know the one or ones that see me as I really am. Get that? There isn't much point to this other than knowing those people that see me and accept me as I am.

That's it. I think if I could do #2 money would never be an issue for me. What do you think ;).

No Quilting! I have had other things I wanted to accomplish and been devoting my time to that. It was my Birthday Saturday so did some fun things but most importantly to me I have pulled up my dining room carpet! It is so old and nasty and I just could not take it anymore. My family fussed at me for doing it on my birthday but 1) it had to be done 2) no one else is going to do it 3) it made me happy to finally have it done!

My dining and living rooms are one room and I was going to pull up my living room carpet on Mother's Day. I got a grip on myself and decided to not do it that day. Instead I lazed about and watched movies, then did some decluttering and cleaning and ended the day with a roll in the stash and pulling fabric for some new *SHOCK not UFOs* projects. The fabric is all laundered so now back to my sewing soon.

Tonight I am going home to make a few cuts in that living room carpet so that I can get the kids to pull up one strip each. Then I will get hubby to pull up a section for me too. This will make a big dent in that room. Note: I am minimally moving furniture for now and when I am ready to put new flooring down will get the rest that is under the really heavy furniture. My goal is to pull up all that I plan to for now before Thursday night. That way the trash man can take this away Friday. Yeah!

Stashbuster Topic of the Week. Do you follow a pattern or do you make it up as you go along? I am one of those people that follows a pattern to the T. Anytime I have tried to make up something I have anguished over it. I think I am concerned that it will not be "right". I am not sure where that feeling comes from. I have made several objects, not quilts, where I have had to make things up as I went. Let me tell you I drove my poor friends crazy asking them if what I was doing ok. I see some lovely quilts and I know I could mimick what I see. When it comes right down to it, though, I seek out and purchase the pattern and use it....I want it be to be right after all.

My Dream Quilt. When I sent this question out my mind was a blank. I am not sure when I had that lightbulb moment but realized I do have a dream quilt. I want to make a Crazy Quilt. I think the first time I saw a Crazy Quilt in person was when I was a kid camping with my family and family friends. They had utility quilts that were tied. I remember they were super heavy and can only imagine what was inside. I hated those things as they smelled bad and I hated getting near them.

My next encounter was a much happier one. My mother and I went to the "1890 House" in Cortland, NY. I had been born and raised there but never been to this house. It is now a museum. We looked at the architecture and antiquities throughout the house. We climbed the stairs and entered a dark bedroom. On the bed was the most beautiful crazy quilt I had ever seen. This quilt is what I think of when a crazy quilt comes up in conversation. It was made of beautiful velvets and satins in dark colors and had a lot of embellishments. I was already quilting by this time and have been collecting doodads for my dream crazy quilt ever since.

I DID IT!! The peach and blue ninepatch is completely quilted. I even picked out a few more rows that I was not satisfied with. I also put the last row of quilting in the baby Irish chain quilt. Now to just trim the batting and backing and bind these two. I plan to get the trimming done on both tonight if possible. Then I can pin them to be ready to sew by the weekend.

I can see that quilting and binding 5 more by the end of June is unrealistic for me. Except for the 12 Days quilt the rest are big quilts and will take time to get quilted. I'll have to see how it goes but try to relax about my lofty goals.

Weekend Accomplishments. More unmet goals. I had intended to finish quilting my ninepatch and the baby irish chain. I quilted the ninepatch to the 3/4 point Friday night. I had started out with a few issues but resolved them by unthreading and rethreading the machine. This included removing and replacing the bobbin. I actually think I had the bobbin in backwards. This caused there not to be enough tension to balance the top thread tension. It was quilting like a dream after this. I got to the 3/4 point and decided since it was late to finish Saturday.

I got up Saturday morning and got some household chores done. I felt very tired not too long after that. I decided to go ahead and nap a bit. I woke up with a really bad migraine and to my shock I had a nose bleed. I have never had one and it worried me. I called the neighbor since dh was away. He told me ice pack and lay my head back so that is what I did. I was worthless the rest of the day. I had to OP in #quiltchat that night and did that but went to bed right after.

Sunday I got up and did more chores, grocery store run, caught up on my recorded shows. By this time I had to OP again then cooked dinner. After dinner and a little more tv I sewed some more. I decided to frog a few rows which took a long time. I sewed for an hour and have about another hour to go. This excites me since I will then have two UFOs to bind and can report as finished!

I have a lot of new things that I have to work on. I was going to push ahead on UFOs but decided to take a small break and work on new things as a reward. Hey I am half way through my UFOs after only a little over 4 months. Yeah!

Reflections on April. What did I accomplish this month? I finished my King size log cabin and got it sent off in time for momma's birthday. She loved it! I also got the quilting done on a baby quilt with the exception of one round for the border. I managed to get half way through the nine patch on point quilt. The one thing that I am overlooking here that isn't quite as tangible is that I am getting to know my new sewing machine. I have used different feet and stiches. I have had to play with the tension and work through some issues that seem to be a thread issue. I have done simple straight seams, sewn down a binding and progressed to simple quilting. I plan to progress to free motion quilting next and feel up to that challenge! All in all not a bad month!

Success! My quilt kept calling me last night so I answered the call. I decided to sew for a few minutes while dd finished her homework (at 10:00 p.m.!). The first thing I did was to pull out the last few rows of quilting. I didn't like the tension. I quilted a few rows and ripped a few rows. I kept fiddling with the tension to get the thread to not lay on the back. Suddenly I had the reverse problem. The stitches from the back were pulling to the front. What had changed?? I adjusted the upper tension down, eventually to zero. I stitched and ripped and stitched.

I finally got the tension where I could accept it. I quilted the last row (for this direction) and looked up at my machine. The machine was unthreaded and I couldn't even see the sulky coming from the spool. I took the spool off and looked it over. I could not find the end. I ran my fingernail over the thread repeatedly turning the spool. I eventually found the end. It appears that the thread had gotten caught in the way it was wound. I wonder if I didn't have the end that was first wrapped on the spool and it was coming off ok for awhile then just could not unspool any longer.

I rethreaded my machine and checked the back of my quilt. I had a wonky row and picked it out. I then quilted that row again and it went beautifully. Here I am almost 2 hours after starting and I have resolved my tension issue (I hope) and have gotten to the half way point in my quilting. Yeah!

I hope to get back to it tonight to quilt just a few rows so I can be sure that my tension issue really is resolved. I can't stay up until midnight as I am just too tired in the morning. Let's hope this quilt is all quilted by the weekend then I can bind it and the baby quilt. Keep your fingers crossed!

**** A few people have commented about me being hard on myself. I think it is frustration. I set goals to accomplish things and when I don't meet them I am disappointed. I guess I shouldn't be. None of the remaining UFOs have a timeline on them. I have an aggressive goal to have these all done by the end of June. I have new projects that I want/need to do. I may let the June date slip a little and work on other things a little to give me a fresh view.