Phoenix

When I was in ABQ posting about my trip to facebook my cousin in Phoenix asked me where I was going next. I did not answer her because I was on a secret mission! As you saw last time we did head to AZ but to the north.

In the pictures from my last post you could see the wide open spaces. At one point I caught Ray looking off in the distance. I asked him if he was out riding his horse across the open range. After a pause he said, wistfully, yeah. I told him me too! LOL

After leaving Williams we turned south toward Phoenix. We drove south through the Verde Valley. We would descend about 5000 feet in altitude over a 170 mile distance. It is hard to tell from the pictures but the roads were steep and winding. I was not super comfortable because in addition to that the sun was in our eyes as it was setting and there were signs to watch for elk all along the highway.

I had been to Phoenix before and remember my friend telling me about the Saguaro cactus. I knew to watch for it’s appearance. I was not disappointed as soon, they were everywhere you turned.

I had been to Sedona on that previous trip but we chose to continue on to Phoenix. If you get the chance to visit Sedona I highly recommend it.

Another beautiful desert sunset.

I did not recall seeing palm trees last time. They are everywhere! I just laughed upon seeing them. Not sure why I was so amused.

We found a Harley shop the next morning and they unloaded the bike for us. What an awesome service. Ray was going to try to find helpers and brought his ramp but I suggested we check out a shop. Working smarter not harder!

Happy biker! His helmet was in the truck and he put it on after this picture.

I had spent that morning setting up some meet ups. After unloading the bike we went back to the motel. An online quilting friend came and picked me up to go quilt shopping. We found a few shops and I found a few things I didn’t know I needed. She was driving so I was able to snap a closeup of this cactus that was in the median of a residential area.

My friend brought me back and Ray and I went to meet another friend I had first met in Phoenix many years ago. We had lunch and got caught up and reminisced about that previous visit

She invited us to go shooting with her. We happily accepted. I had never been to a shooting range before. It was quite the experience. I have shot guns before but never in an enclosed space. We shot for a bit and she took us back to our motel.

Remember the goals and secret mission thing? Well my goal (#2) was to surprise my Aunt Betty with a visit. I lied to my cousin and told her I needed her address to send a package. She gave it to me without question.

I texted her and let her know the package was going to be delivered and would she be home. She said she would.

We drove to her house and parked. I walked to the front door and called my cousin to ask if she had gotten the package. I heard her ask her daughter to check. When her daughter opened the door she was startled. I motioned her to not say anything and told her who I was. I asked her to take me to her mom.

When my cousin saw me she told me she had a feeling I was coming. I asked her to take me in to my aunt.

My aunt sat and stared for a minute. I heard her say my name as soon as she realized who I was. I had brought her the quilt below not knowing purple is her favorite color. We grew up in a dairy farm community and I told her the cow print was to remind her of home.

I had not seen her since my mother passed 5 years ago. I remember it was hard for her to travel then. My uncle, her brother, passed away earlier this year and she could not travel to his funeral. This was the reason it was so important to me to go see her. I felt her getting to see some extended family might bring her some happiness.

After talking with her and reaching out to some other family members so that she could get some news she wanted to hear, I went into the other room with my cousin to talk.
Of course we told all the old familiar stories. I said that I needed to go say goodbye to my aunt and started to cry.

It’s increasingly difficult to watch family members age and pass away. I have one other aunt still living. I am so happy that I have stayed in touch with them even after I moved away.

OK let’s end on a happy note. This is a golf car, not a cart. There is a suburb of Phoenix where these are street legal and you see them out driving in regular traffic. I was a little startled at first and was told that those that drive these are a little crazier than other drivers. You have to really watch for them because they dart out into traffic and assume they always have the right of way. Wow!

Swooze

Double Wedding Ring Quilts

I think I own every single pattern and template there is to make a Double Wedding Ring quilt. I was driven by my mothers desire to own one. Ultimately, I bought an antique one and gifted it to her. She passed four years ago and that quilt is now in my collection.

In November of 2012 I pulled out a Double Wedding Ring quilt UFO that I bought at a garage sale and asked Mom to pick out the hideous purple pieces that were used as the background. She happily did so and sadly I came down with some sort of flu so we didn't spend much time together. At the time I did not know this would be the last project she and I would work on together before she passed the following May.

This is the background.

Here are my choices for a replacement. Preferences?

Here are all the choices together. Which do you prefer?

I bought the Accuquilt GO die. I hope the pieces are the same size. Will report back but help me choose first!

Hugs,

Swooze

I'm Booooored

I went to a quilting retreat in Wichita Falls over the weekend.  My friend overheard a young lady complaining that she was bored.  She mentioned it to me.  A short while later I saw this trio at the cutting table.  The girl was there with her mother and grandmother.  You could tell she was not happy.  I leaned over to  Grandma and said I hear that someone was bored while keeping my eyes on the girl.  The girl didn't really react to my comment.  I told her I had brought a project that she might like to work on.  That it was a minion pin cushion.

She perked up when I said this.  She asked her mother if it was ok for her to work on it and her mom agreed.  She followed me to my basket of goodies and I handed over the supplies and pattern.  I even told her that if she had questions to please let me know and I could show her pictures.  She went off with her new project in hand.

A while later I went to check on her and she was happily working away on the pin cushion.  I asked if she needed anything and she did not.  Not long after she came over asking for the picture.  I took my ipad to show her and grandmother seemed to be pretty involved.  I was concerned that the project was cutting into her time too.  I listened to the exchange between them and could tell she was offering guidance only.

The next day this is what resulted.  A cute pin cushion and a happy busy girl!  Best of all they live in the same town as I do and we exchanged info so I hope to sew with them again in the future!

Happy quilting!

swooze

Decluttering with the KonMari Method

I have spent a good amount of my life acquiring things.  But now I spend a good amount of my life de-cluttering things.  I find myself attached to the silliest of things.  I would get attached to my kids toys for example.  I at some point managed to let go of things.  I had to find a good steward of my things that I could entrust with these treasures.  It helped.  I told the recipients to never tell me when they let go of these items.

When my husband passed away I still had to find a good steward for my things.  But I was willing to let a lot more go because I knew that someone could make good use of his things NOW not later.  I let go of piles and piles of clothes and shoes to name a few.

Many of you  have heard of FlyLady. She has you work on your daily routine which includes dishes and quick swish of the toilet for example.  Then she has you work on a room a week going around the room in a methodical way sorting and getting rid of things for a specified amount of time.  She made sure you left time at the end of your session to properly take care of your sorted piles.  You repeated week after week until theoretically you were done.  I needed her when I first started getting rid of things.  I think she appealed to the depressed and overwhelmed.  She encouraged you to just do something, anything, but keep trying.  I was pretty good about following along with her weekly email reminders.  She was getting you to clean a bit as well.

When I had my house fire I had a big wipe the slate clean moment.  I moved back into my house and everything was freshly cleaned, painted and put back together again.  I had a garage full of boxes and 2 storage units filled with boxes and stuff.  My house had what I wanted in the rooms at the time.  I went to the task of getting all the things in the garage sorted and given away or put away.  I then had the daunting task of bringing everything from storage and putting it in my garage.  Actually it was all hauled out onto the driveway and was sorted into categories.  Some of the things I knew I wanted to keep or to spend more time sorting through were placed in the attic for storage.  Then there were the things that I could sort through relatively quickly and get rid of.  I still had too much.  This was in May of 2012.  This is when I started disposing of my husbands things in earnest..

I began bringing in boxes to be sorted from the garage.  I would put the boxes where I thought I wanted the contents ultimately stored.  It didn't take long to clutter things up again.  I did my best and tried to keep things grouped together.

The following year my mother passed away.  My Dad insisted that I take whatever I wanted of hers before I left town after the funeral.  I took what I could and gave away what I did not want.  I reasoned with Dad and he agreed to let me set aside the larger items to be picked up when I could return.  What I did bring back from those trips just added to the clutter.  More clothes, furniture, fabric and sewing paraphernalia.  The water was rising in an already over my head depth.  I continued to try to sort and give away.  The strong emotional attachment was there again.  Even worse than before.  But I continued to pick away at the clutter.

About 7 months after Mom passed I got a call from Dad that he was sick and had fallen at home.  I ultimately had to go to him to help sort his medical situation out and make some decisions about his future.  Long story short we packed up his house, sold it and he moved in with me along with all his stuff.  By the end of May he passed away.  Now I had all his stuff to deal with.  More furniture, clothes and stuff in general.  Not to mention all the paper and the estate to settle.  Again,  the picking and choosing of what to give away continued.  More stuff to the attic, more giving away of large objects.  Still identifying those good stewards of my parents precious things.

I am not exactly sure how I came across the KonMari method.  She is so totally different than FlyLady.  She has five categories that she wants you to work on.  The first of which is clothes.  She wants you to gather all your clothes into once place regardless of the season they are for.  She wants you to be shocked by how much stuff you have.  She then wants you to touch each item and if it "sparks joy" you keep it, otherwise you dispose of the item.  She encourages you to thank it for serving its purpose in your life.  She also encourages you to quickly move through this activity and stick with it until you have gone through all your clothes.

I have neither the energy nor time to gather ALL my clothing into one place and do a massive sort.  Not yet at least.  But I did realize that I had two laundry baskets piled high with socks.  I would start there.  How did I get so many socks?  Well there were Mark's socks that fit me and I liked to wear.  There were the socks that my mother did not like for either her or Dad and she passed them to me.  Then when they both passed I inherited their socks.  Ray's socks were mixed in there and so were my son's.  My daughter had a few cast offs but for the most part she manages her own socks.

I went through the basket and started pairing up things.  I then selected the socks that belonged to each person.  I chose a number for each person and more or less stopped picking the ones I liked when I hit it.  I still had a huge basket full of good, wearable socks that are now paired and sitting in a tote awaiting donation this weekend.  There were very few that I threw away because they were stained or holey.

The difference this time is that I was choosing what to keep rather than what to get rid of.  If I went with the philosophy of only keeping the good and tossing the bad then I was stuck in the cycle of still hanging on to too much.  For some reason choosing what to keep gave me the right mindset to let go of the excess good.  I still have socks that are mismatched.  Over time I will realize what is not mated and never will be and will toss them or donate them to someones sock puppet project.  But I can see how this change will make a huge difference for me.

T-shirt Quilt Revisited

I washed and dried the quilt and threw it on my daughter, in her bed.  She pulled it up on her and snuggled in for a longer sleep.  She must have been waking up and petting her quilt because not long after I heard her stirring she called out....."Mom, there's a hole in my quilt".

I went in to see what she was talking about.  Of course my heart sank.  What I discovered was two places where I had either missed the edge of the fabric or the thread failed me or who knows that.  I had gaps in the seam.  Something more highly surmountable than a hole in my opinion.

Here is what I saw.

My immediate thought is how do I fix this without making it look like it was fixed.  Whipstitching and top stitching would only enhance the fact that I had to do something to the quilt.  Not how I wanted to start out with this quilt.

I put a call out on the yahoo group Stashbuster and the Facebook group Quilting.  I had several suggestions.  The two that caught my interest were permanent fabric glue and ladder stitching.  Assuming I had enough of an edge on the fabric the ladder stitch should work.  On closer inspection it looked like the blue section would be fine and the red section would be close.  I went for it!  I ladder stitched.  Here is the result.

I think I got a good result and I learned a lesson.  I will be inspecting my seams a little more closely before the quilting!

Pfefferneuse Up Next

Remember Orca Bay?  I was gifted so many pieces and parts for that quilt.  When I finished the second quilt top I had hundreds of QSTs leftover.  I sat and thought about what to do with them.  I don't recall how I happened upon the Pfefferneuse quilt but decided that was where those extra pieces would go.

I looked at the quilt picture and counted how many broken dish units I would need.  I had a good number but not enough.  I created the 4 unit pieces you see here.  I think there are 84 or 88 of them.  At some point I realized my broken dish units were much smaller than what Bonnie's pattern balled for.  Because of this I probably have many more than her quilt calls for.  Remember my purpose was to use up the spare units I already had.

While I was making the broken dishes I began thinking about what color pinwheels I wanted.  I originally thought red but didn't have enough of the shade I was looking for.  As I look at this quilt I can't help but think of starlight candies.  I googled them and was surprised to see they come in a rainbow of colors.  I began selecting those colors but just was not in love with that idea.  I came upon a green in my stash that I loved.  Alas I did not have enough.  I should have shopped for similar shades but did not.  Rather than look through my stash and pull greens I just went to the store and bought three different greens.  I was going to use just one but have now cut from all three and even pulled a piece from mom's stash and have included it.  As I type this I know I have another green that will work and will throw it in.  They are all the same color green but have different patterns to add to the visual texture.

This quilt can be found in Bonnie Hunters "String Fling".  I am not making my pinwheels with strings.  The white in the pinwheel is all one fabric.  So off I go to make more pinwheels.  Be back with an update later this week.  My goal is to finish up all the pinwheels that I'm going to need.

Happy New Year

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year.  I hope its a good one.

I have been reading peoples accounting of their 2014 quilting accomplishments for 2014". While I did not accomplish as much as I would have liked I did more than I thought.  I competed 2 Harley Davidson quilts, both bed size.  I made a microwave bowl and I made great progress on my dd's t-shirt quilt.

In addition to quilting I managed to finish a crocheted afghan throw and completed a baby afghan my mother had started.  I also finished another of her afghans that was intended for my father.  I count it complete but still have lots of threads to weave in.  Mom had one more afghan that I am currently working on and hope to complete soon.

I started Bonnie Hunters mystery and just took her New Year mystery class at Fabric Fanatics.  I hope this will keep me going forward with my sewing into this year.

I will share pics going forward.  Hope you will comment to let me know you are still reading my blog.

Hugs,

Swooze

Together Again

Dad passed away quietly at my home Saturday the 31st.  I tried to will him to hang on until the 1st because I didn't want him to pass on my nephews birthday.  Alas, it was not meant to be.  Dad and Mom are together again with my baby sisters.

Rest in peace Dad.

Decision Made

Once we knew there was not going to be any further treatment for Dad and that he could not be left alone, my plan to return to Texas to get ready was out the window.  I had a job opportunity materiializing with no date set.  I decided that I wanted to be back in Texas by March 10th ready to report to work.  This did not mean that I wanted to be pulling into the driveway the night before either.  We called my brother and told him the plan and made at\\arrangements to fly him back to NY in the next few weeks.

I packed the house with the help of several cousins, friends and Ray.  We sold things that would not be making the trip,  Donated a lot of clothing items and anything else we felt would not sell.  When my brother arrived the majority of things had been packed.  The moving truck had been picked up and was sitting on the driveway.  We all got up the next morning and the guys loaded the truck.  I finished packing things and took care of closing the house down, so to speak.  None of this fun nor easy but necessary.

My Dad and I pulled out of the driveway as a big snow storm hit.  We had to drop off cable equipment and gas up.  Ray left in our vehicle with Dad's dog Buddy.  We were about an hour behind Ray.  I was letting Dad acts as my GPS but it quickly became apparent that was not going to work.  I was supposed to be travelling along the southern part of New York and somehow ended up in Rochester,  Dad had been showing signs of dementia and it was really showing itself with all the stress of the move.  He was trying to circle us back around and take us back home.  I turned on the real GPS.  We drove quite a ways and made it to Ohio.  I was near the halfway point when we stopped.  We spent the night and got up and drove to Texas the next day.  I was laying in my own bed the morning of Match 1st.  Ray arrived shortly after us. 

My brother left the day after we did doing some final packing and cleanup before hitting the road.  He went to his house and unloaded part of the items then delivered the rest to my house and unloaded then returned the moving truck.  I was never so happy to have all this over.  It was a nightmare that included me having to call EMS for help to get Dad into the hotel we stayed at.  I have said enough on that topic!

While packing I came across this UFO of my mothers.  She had started this for my Dad and quickly grew tired of it.  All the yarn was with it,  I could not tell what the original plan was.  I layed it out and chose the design and had to make 3 additional squares.  The joke between Mom and Dad was whether he would ever get his afghan.  I have the top together and am tying in all the loose ends.  I throw it on Dad when he needs a blanket.  I know I will edge it but at least he has it and uses it.  He got his afghan!

Another bit of happy news is that the day we arrived in Texas I had a text from the realtor telling me to check my email and respond by 5.  We had a sales offer on the house.  After a little back and forth we had a contract.  The house is sold!  The attorney handling the deal for us has Dad's POA and will represent him at the closing.  That chapter of our lives will soon come to a close sadly.  It is hard to let that house go but life is what it is.

Stay tuned.  I am almost caught up with everything.  I will get quilty again very soon!!

The Odyssey Begins

What happens next is all jumbled in my mind.  I'm not sure it matters the order so I will just share and let the chips fall where they may. 

Remember we are playing wait and see with Dad.  Somewhere between the first of the year and the 11th of January Dad has gone into the hospital been released and rehospitalized.  I had been waiting for an all day sit and sew to happen at the church and attended that.  I frustratingly did not accomplish much but did get the second Harley top together.  I tried to get the backing made for the first completed but that did not happen.  I put it together.  Too small.  Frogged it and got a plan in place to get it to the right size.  The retreat/sew-in was over.  

While I was there I talked to Dad and knew that it was time for me to go to him.  One of the consults we were waiting for had not materialized yet.  The dreaded diagnosis of cancer, the third time, had been made.  Dad was alone, missing Mom.  He was fInding it harder to care for himself.  I went home and prepped the kids and home for my departure.  I packed with the intention of leaving first thing Sunday a.m. The 12th.

 I was packed and ready for bed when Ray announced we were leaving now.  It was close to midnight.  I had thoughts of grabbing quilt something to work on. That did not happen.  I ended up grabbing an afghan I had been working on.  We left Texas and arrived in New York Monday morning.  We took a nap and drove to the hospital to see Dad.  It was a balmy -8 degrees.  Quite the shocker!  

We left our cooler outside overnight.  I called this my Texans ice sculpture!

This is going to get long if I go into too much detail.  Dad came home.  Had another fall and was rehospitalized.  The decision was to give radiation.  My hope was that at the end of the treatment I would leave and Dad would be well enough to stay alone while he got his house on the market for sale and I made arrangements in Texas for him to come live with me.  After 5 treatments it was apparent he could not tolerate the radiation and the decision was made to stop.  He had a stent put in his liver because the tumor was pressing on the duct closing off drainage plus had a huge gall stone removed that was also blocking things.  My brother had been to visit and gone home waiting to see what was needed.  In light of the decision for no more treatment we decided to pack Dads house up, put it on the market and move him to Texas.  

Here are some things that I got to work on while in NY.  I finished that afghan and have to tie in the thread ends.

I made a couple fabric bowls.  The first one I made was sort of flat but works well for some of the bowls I like to use.  I made another that fits this bowl more snugly.  I love them!  I have more cut out and ready to sew.

More of the story to come.  Stay tuned!

Hugs!

Swooze

A Bonnie New Year Tradition

Each Christmas my best friend asks me what I would like for a gift.  I have told her that I do not want anything but she won't accept that answer.  In 2013 I got the idea that I would like a quilt class and it just so happens that Bonnie Hunter comes and does her NYE mystery in Plano.  So I asked for a Bonnie Hunter class!  I have received this gift two years in a row now! 

The 2013 mystery resulted in Lazy Sunday which was published in Quiltmaker later that year.  For 2014 she came up with her next mystery.  This too will be published in Quiltmaker.  We are allowed to share the block pre-publication but not the quilt.  I got to meet Allison who you see Bonnie refer to on her blog from time to time.  You will hear more about Allison very soon.  This quilt was meant to be rainbow scrappy.  I pulled neutrals from both my stash and my mothers.  I then pulled the rainbow from mom's scraps and stash.  I am glad it turned out that way because I will have another quilt from my mom and I couldn't help but think about her the entire time I was putting this together.

Sadly I got news that same day, New Years Day, that my father had fallen at home and was taken to the hospital.  He lived in New York at the time and there was no way for me to get there in any hurry so I stayed for the class.  Dad and I discussed it and agreed that we would act in the "wait and see" mode. 

I have not progressed on that quilt since the class but I truly look forward to getting back to it.  More to come on Dad, Allison and this Bonnie NYE mystery quilt!
 

Design Wall Monday 6/24/2013

Do you recognize these fabrics?  These are blocks I made for a love quilt using the rectanbgles I showed previously.  I made two from Mom's stash and signed her name to them.  They are all on their way to be included in the top.

Next up is my Feedsack Patches top,  I made the inner border and have pinned the first one on to be sewn.  I broke the needle threader on my Janoime so wasted time with threading the machine.  Grr!!

I spent more time tweaking things in the sewing room.  Putting things away mainly.  At this rate I shoiuld be done by NEVER!  Ah well.  Progress is progress,  Trying to squelch the startitis and feed the finishitis!!

See more design walls at Judy's.

Quilty hugs.

Boxes and boxes and life lessons

I continued to open boxes and sort and put away and toss all weekend.  My version of taking a break was to work in my bedroom and go through my clothing to get rid of things I no longer wear or is damaged in some way, etc.  Not exactly the break I needed but it was different from opening boxes.  My boyfriend took me out for a ride on the motorcycle for a little while yesterday.  Of course all I could think about while we rode were those cursed boxes! 

I have decided to move everything into my garage that is probably going into the attic or out the door or needs a bigger sort once combined with it's like content boxes that are already in the garage.  There are two columns of boxes at least 5 feet tall waiting for my son to put out there.

Here is a bit of a history,,,,,

When I lost my husband I wasn't really forced to deal with all the stuff.  I pushed myself and donated a lot of things.  No where near enough but a good amount.  When the fire happened everything was taken out of the house and cleaned by someone else.  When it came time to bring it all back I was really forced to deal with things.  I did NOT want to cram it all back into the house.  I had a garage full and two storage units full that I could work in and bring back into the house only what I truly wanted.  I set a one month goal to get the smaller storage unit cleaned out.  I met that goal but also moved some of the items to the garage or the big storage unit.

I worked on the garage and got rid of a lot of big items.  I ultimately made enough room to empty the big storage unit onto my driveway.  That was another major sort that resulted in lots of items given away and a good amount put into the garage.  At that time a big stack of boxes were brought into the house for me to work on.  After this sort there was a months long break from working on this stuff.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago.  My boyfriend has moved in which resulted in me needing to make room for him.  He is squeezed in right now.  I asked him to just let me know if there is a certain area he wants me to work on and I will tackle it right away.  He's only asked for two areas and both were addressed.  He knew that I was going to grab boxes that I thought belonged in my sewing room and concentrate on those because it accounted for the majority of items that needed to be put away.  I made huge progress and even had the help of a neighbor to fold all the fabric.  I am being careful not to overstuff that room and know that I am reaching the end of the available space.

This whole process has been very frustrating and I ultimately agreed to put a large number of things from the garage into the attic so that I would have room to move around and I could continue to sort.  This resulted in over 2/3rds of the garage being emptied.  Now I find myself putting things back into the garage and feeling like this is a small step backwards.  I realize it isn't but can't help feel that way.

So there is a life lesson in here?  Are you ready? 

When my Mother passed away I took some clothing of hers, her jewelry and her sewing stash and patterns.  I was able to bring home the things I cared about the most in 2 13 gallon bags and a paper grocery sack.  There are two sewing machines that I will retrieve at a later date but that really isn't that much.  She has lots of nice, pretty things but when I was told by my father to get what I wanted because he was getting rid of everything that is what I took. 

This led me to talk to my kids about what is important to them in my belongings.  Apparently not much so my editing eye has really been opened and changed on what is important.  I let the kids know that just because it wasn't important to them didn't mean I was getting rid of it.  My daughter is ready to haul ALL of it away. 

Before Mom had passed I had already been through the contents  of many of my boxes and had chosen what was important to me.  Now I am going through these boxes again and some of the things I thought were important have lost their meaning to me.  I like many of these items but I just have so many.  I am really ready to let go of a lot more.  It has gotten easier to make these decisions.  I think that is the progress I should mark and be most proud of.

So this week I will still be sorting and culling and putting away but I am going to feel more relaxed about it.  I AM going to sew a little too.  Because that is important to me too.  No more talk of boxes unless I have quilty pics to share.  I promise!!

Quilty hugs!

MOM

My world will never be the same.  I received a call last week from the doctor at the hospital telling me I needed to get home to NY and not wait.  Mom went into the hospital on Friday for fluid build up and low blood pressure.  The treatment gave her a heart attack from which she could not recover.  They placed her on a ventilator and heart pump.

My brother and I both left Sunday a.m.  He from Louisiana and I from Texas arriving within 10 minutes of one another on Monday.  While she showed slight improvement it was clear that she would not recover and we removed her from life support on Wednesday.

We buried her yesterday on a beautiful sunny afternoon.  She is just down the hill from her parents and on the same road from her two baby daughters.  I smile when I think that she now has the opportunity to finish raising my sisters.  I will miss her.

If you click here you will find some stories that I wrote about her on my blog.  She was a great quilting buddy.  I always told her I got the best Mother.

Look Mom! I Sewed Something.

I went to sew at the church last night with my buddies.  Since I found my corners for this quilt I decided I would get that quilt top going again.  I put a quick call into my friend to borrow her featherweight since mine hasn't been unearthed yet. 

Sewed on the corners then went about cutting the borders.  The fabric is a patterned stripe that runs lengthwise.  I looked and measured an fiddled a little bit.  Then I consulted with some of my sewing buddies and set to cutting.  I got all the borders cut and decided that I would sew them on later.  Well that got me into trouble the last time so I went ahead and attached them.  I have to press the borders and then miter the corners.  Everyone was packing up to leave at this point so that WILL have to be done later.  At least I know exactly where the iron and board is!



Is barefoot sewing universal?  Anyone recognize that other set of toes?

Mom said to update my blog

So I did!!

Friday Night Sew In and Stahbuster Retreat

I had to stay in LA for work this weekend. It worked out well for me as I have extra time to sew on my most challenging UFO. These two sections make up almost half the quilt. I have started assembling the other corner as well and have three rows together. That leaves just 8 more rows to assemble and attach to the rest.

I hope to get the center of the top together and trimmed and to cut out the borders before I leave for home. This will put me in a very good position to have a completed top this month which is my goal for Judy L's UFO Challenge.

Thanks for all the help Mom. I would have had a hard time making this much progress without you!

Are you sewing this weekend?

Design Wall Monday

All 106 blocks are assembled. Yeah! Thanks Mom. I sewed and she trimmed and pressed. I have started assembling the rows. Looks like I will make my goal to have a completed top this month

Mother is Here!!

My parents arrived yesterday. I expected them about an hour later so didn't finish everything I planned before they arrived. I had a pile of scraps that sit on the floor in my living room and Mom made me organize it. Well, I had started...she made me finish. My sewing area looks good. We went out to dinner afterwards, came back and went to be. We were all tired from driving to get here.

Today we got up and went out to breakfast then set out on lots of errands. When we finished those I started sewing while Mom cat napped on the balcony and Dad in the recliner in front of TV. After a little while Mom joined in. We just finished up for the night about 30 minutes ago. More ripping than sewing was our clue to stop.

If you remember a few posts back I showed a bunch of bits sewn together. Below is a block we finished. And even further below is progress we made on the rest of the bits. I have 4 block sets in this quilt. Our goal is to finish a set and then take a break and do something else. Repeat til they are all done. This is my #1 UFO from Judy L's challenge. I am feeling hopeful that I will get this topped!

Friday Night Sew In

Last night was the sew in at the church with members from the Mesquite Quilt Guild and their friends. I took my bag of "Bloomers" parts with me (UFO #1) and started construction. I almost panicked because I did not have the pieces I needed for the first step. I knew I could do a lot of sewing without that part so for three hours I made the petals and leaves for the flowers.

Good news. I have sewed half of them. Bad news. I still have to press and trim them. So for a three hour investment I am on my way to making a dent in this quilt. Mom will be helping me later this month and it will go so much faster when she is here.

Here is my knitty project that I am working on. It is being knit on a Knifty Knitter long loom. I had to find another skein of yarn to complete it and was lucky to locate one on Ravelry that was sent on Wednesday and I had by Friday. It is a shawl for me.