Before

After

I can live with this now. There is an improvement for sure. I know everything that is here. I will be moving onto the next area which had that big pile of yarn in it. I really do plan to keep all my craft gear in one room but am contemplating moving the yarn out until I can tidy up some other things. More to come!

Here is the original BEFORE picture.

Yesterday's Post was an Eye Opener! I must say that I was very disappointed that my pictures didn't show more progress than there really is. The two that really show are my baker's rack and my fabric cabinet. There isn't as much fabric there as it appears since I didn't fold it to use the whole depth of the cabinet. I have a lot more fabric than what is shown there in other totes in the room. If you look under my sewing machine you can see two there.

To tell you just how disappointed I was I went straight to the room after posting and worked on it some more. When you walk into the room immediately to the left is my MIL's sewing machine and cabinet. Stacked on top are my batts, magazines and cross-stitch kits. Down on the floor are boxes of miscellaneous stuff and assorted baskets. I sat on the floor and sorted through those boxes. I am grouping things into like piles. I did this for about an hour and came out with a grocery sack of trash, a plastic cart that was falling apart and some empty boxes. I have put away most of what I sorted out. If I took a picture now I still don't think it would show much improvement. I now plan to just focus on that cabinet until I can get it looking spiffy (3rd picture in yesterday's post)! Stay tuned for more progress photos!

I decided that I am going to get up when my alarm first goes off or stay up if I get up before that time and work on something. This morning I spent trimming that love quilt. I should be able to sew the binding tonight. If I am going to preach 15 minutes a day I need to practice it.

Saturday Quilting. I finished quilting a love quilt over the weekend. I need to bind it and then there is one block that needs just a little TLC before I send it off. I will be posting a picture but want it to be received by the recipient first.

**** hint **** it's on the cutting table wink wink wink ****

My sewing room is really coming along. Most of you would see chaos but compared to what I had before it is so much better. Here are a couple of views. This is a work in progress for sure.

The Great State Fair of Texas. Our schools give the kids a day off and a ticket to the state fair. Monday was the day. My husband and I have gone every year since we have lived here with only 2 exceptions for me. We always take the kids. We went yesterday and ate our favorite foods, sampled the new food they were talking about on the news. This included funnel cake, fried peach cobbler, fried cookie dough and many others. It was all good!

Here is a picture of ds and a little lady that sells items from Peru. She has these tiny animal figures that she sells and ds always buys them from her when he finds some he doesn't already have. She is always happy to see us. It was amazing to see my son standing next to this lady. He has shopped with her since he was probably 4 or 5 and is now 14. Aren't they cute?

After we bought from her we were told by another vendor this is her last year at the fair. I hope that isn't true but we wish her the best!

There is another vendor there that makes sculptures of horned lizards aka horny toads. He have been buying a few pieces every year and this year was no exception. Here are some of our pieces. They are pewter and air brushed. Great works of art!

DH update. We have a doctor appointment on October 12th with a new Orthapedic surgeon. Our intention is to have him remove the hardware and let the infection clear then redo the replacement. If the need for the liver comes along in this process that obviously will take precedence.

Welcome to the third installment of my quilt gallery. I grew up in central NY and we regularly went to Lancaster, PA to eat at Good N' Plenty and Fine and Fancy. When I became a quilter Lancaster took on a different meaning. I wandered into one of the Amish stores with fabric with a quilt for my nephew in my plans. This was another step out for me in my quilting skills. Sadly my nephew's mother abandoned this quilt when she took my nephew and left my brother. My mother grabbed it and offered it back. I asked her to hold onto it until he has his own child and then we will give it back to him. The light is a pale lavendar.

This quilt is my first "art" quilt. My friends were having a boy and chose Noah's Ark. If you look closely you will see the animals are felt and removable from little pockets. This was a fun quilt to do.

This is it for now. I have to find more pictures to share. I do have quilts in my Flickr account. See the "My Quilts" link on the left of the blog. Hope you enjoyed looking!

More of My Quilts This quilt is the second pattern I tried. Donna Poster gave out this handout and I winged it. This is my all time favorite quilt. I just love the colors. I have been collecting reds and whites to make one for myself. This was a gift to my childhood friend for the birth of her first child. I told her I loved this quilt so much and how hard it was to let go. She said she would send it back. What a sweet gal!





This is the first quilt I made as a result of someone asking me to. I told them if they bought the materials I would do it. I was unsure of the colors and I think these were even poly blends (hmmm have to check those scraps!!). It taught me to be more specific when telling people what they needed to buy.





This quilt I made for a good friend that I worked with a lot. I was so happy to present it to her. When she opened it she said something to the effect that her son could use this as his "suck" blanket. I wasn't quite sure how to take that comment. As a result I am more particular about who I gift quilts to.





More pictures to come! Enjoy!!

Found Treasures. I have been working on decluttering and organizing my sewing room. Things are much improved but I still have a ways to go. When I was working in there this past weekend I unearthed what I thought to be a journal. It was kind of hard to grab but I finally decided to just get it up and off the floor. It wasn't a journal but a photo album of my first quilts and a quilt show I had attended.

This quilt is a queen size log cabin that I made for my mother. She washed it into tatters. I meant to look at it when I was up there this summer but forgot about it until the day before I was leaving. No time to deal with it. She is supposed to come down for a visit and I will ask her to bring the quilt to see if it is worth saving. This is from Eleanor Burns Quilt in a Day log cabin. If you remember a previous post I used 5/8" seams. Oops!

This quilt is a double size log cabin that I made for myself. I had it on a bed and a dog that I had at the time nibbled a hole in the border. I have the fabric scraps pulled and ready to repair it. I just need to do it. Darn that dog! This is very country. There are farm animals on the light side and the reds and blues have hearts on them. Another quilt that I used a 5/8" seam on. These are the only two....I swear it!

After these two quilts I took a class from a quilt store. I am trying to remember the name of it at this point. They closed the store and moved to PA. It was owned by Donna Poster. I think she is pretty well known in the quilting world. I took a class for Magnolia and Tumbling Blocks from her. She gave us the handouts for other strip quilts one of which was a Double Irish Chain. I have made a LOT of quilts from that pattern. She also allowed me to make the Peacock which is a model in one of her books. This pattern was only in the first edition of her book and not in the reprints.

As I unearth other photos I will share more pictures with you. Happy Quilting!

Waiting. Have been doing a lot of waiting this month. Waiting to get through all of dh's dental work which is sort of done. He needs to have some cavities addresssed but the critical work is done. DH had a blood test to see where he was on the liver issues. His score improved. I have calls into several doctors to find out what is next and what all this means. Hurry up and wait.... They scare the bejeebers out of you to tell you to hurry but they sure don't seem to be in a hurry. I must say that dh is getting around a bit better and acts as though he feels better. Amazing what taking care of your teeth can do for you!

More waiting. DS made the golf team! Yeah! Then we had to wait about two weeks for the schedule change. How aggravating to just be out in limbo. I like to be able to get a "status" on these things but school red tape isn't setup to accomodate that. I was a little disappointed that he dropped Jr ROTC but he did keep his language, Spanish. I think he is frustrated with me because he comes home trying to top me and asks how do you say some word in Spanish. So far I have known the answer. Sorry kiddo! Love ya!

While I am on the topic of waiting DD ordered gym clothes for athletics. First they lost her order. Then they found it and all the others that were lost. They turned them in and the store ran into some quality control issues with the fabrics. One of the coaches was so frustrated by the delay that she insisted the parents go to the store to pick up orders. Of course they were not ready but coincidentally they now had all they needed to complete them. So all this pressure made those folks stay late to fill all these gals orders. I was sick at the time and didn't appreciate being a pawn in her game. Such is life.

So now you are all done waiting for me to blog! Yeah! I am here!

Ok Debi L got sick of waiting for me to blog so she tagged me! That evil gal! LOL ! Well she also awarded me the "Make Me Smile award so she must not be too bad ;).

Here is the Meme....I have to use the letters of my name to share something about me.

S - smart



U - unusual ( see the W in swooze...synonym...weird)



Z - zany



E - effusive (I gush...can't help it)



T - tall



T - technical (work with computers...if I had an L I would have said logical)



E - exuberant

I have a funny, whacky, weird sense of humor. If you knew me you would understand! I won't tag anyone in particular for the Meme but I will say that the whole Stashbuster webring deserves the "Make Me Smile" award. I am so happy to have all of you particpate in our little webring and I love to read all of your blogs.

All grown up....or so they think Son is in JROTC this year. He had to wear his uniform today for the first time for inspection. Doesn't he look handsome? JROTC has been a big source of contention at our house. Hubby being a vet I thought he would be thrilled and supportive. That has not been the case. I am just trying to support my son in what he wants to do.

DD has not been a girly girl for a few years now. Jeans and T are the standard wear. Well that hasn't changed but now she wears contacts, makeup and fusses with her hair constantly. She is very independent and outspoken. Tough kid to parent but a great personality for making it in the world.

Still decluttering! Still FMQing! I have really been trying to figure out how I was going to shift all my stuff without spreading it everywhere in the house. I went in my room last night and started pulling the layers away. I sorted, filed and trashed as I went. I was happy to see that most of what I wanted to keep was containerized and would be easy to move. Two drawers of the dresser are empty and the other drawers don't have too much in them. I will get the new cabinets in there easily! Yeah!!

I am plugging away at my free motion quilting. I have one more little section to do before I can finish up the outside border. That border is confetti covered. I was going to try to loop around each piece but I think that will be too much. I am think of just choosing a certain shape and/or color to loop around to simplify it. So close to a finish! I am learning so much. I am having some issues with restarting once I stop. I either skip stitches or wobble. I shared my woes on quiltchat and got some suggestions. I even got a suggestion to chew gum to help with my rythm. What a great idea! I will report back on that one!

Back to our regularly scheduled programming. I have really been working on my organization in my sewing room. If you recall my previous post my sewing had oozed out into the rest of the house. Now I have most of that semi-organized on a 5 tier bakers rack that my best friend bought me for my birthday. It is a lot better but I can still improve. So I pick away at things a little everytime I sew. I will post "after" pics soon. They will be more along my journey pics though....



Saturday a.m. I was thrilled when I went to Wal-mart and found some cabinets that I really wanted marked about 45% off. They are the big white cabinets with doors. About 30" wide 20" deep and 72" high. I bought two. I am now working hard to clear the spot where these will go. This will help get so much more stuff up and put away! Yeah! Dang, each cabinet weighs 130 lbs. I got ds out there to help me get them out of the truck and onto the patio. I was toying with the idea of setting them up in one area and loading them to get a space cleared, then moving them to their final place. NOT! Just gotta clean out. That is all there is to it.



You saw my RR row that I added. My next project was to practice FMQ on my Janome 6500. I had bought bolts of baby panels and muslin and thought they would be perfect for this type of practice. I started Saturday and am almost done with the first one. I will just say I suck less at FMQ now! LOL! I think it looks pretty good. I vowed to not unpick any of it but had to go back on that and pick out a thread nest that happened at the end of the bobbin. Not too bad. I am ready to move onto a "love" quilt that I inherited to finish. My confidence is high. I am getting a little bored with the baby panel but will persevere on the panel since the love quilt will take a lot of thread changes. I just have to relax and enjoy my journey.

The 300 Pound Gorilla in my house. I have not blogged about this before but may have hinted at it a bit. It is depressing so just feel free to pass this by.

In 1990 my husband had donated blood while in college. We got a notice from them that my husband was deferred. He had Hepatitis C. We didn't really understand the impact at the time and I am not sure we did anything about it at the time. I think we may have heard there really wasn't a cure or that is was only 50% effective at the time.

Fast forward 10 years to 1998. My husband had blood in his urine. We went to a urologist and they did surgery. They pushed us to go to a gastroenterologist about the Hep C so we did. He went and had a liver biopsy. Diagnosed with cirrhosis. They talked about varicies and wanted to do an endoscope and banding. Hubby declined that procedure. We went to the gastroenterologist to see about treatment for the Hep C. They told us the process and said they were now seeing about a 66% cure rate. Hubby decided that he didn't have time to devote to a year long treatment that would have meant weekly doc visits and lab work.

Let me add as an aside that my dh does not have the best oral hygiene. He goes to the dentist when there is a problem only which usually includes pain. I tried repeatedly to get him in to the dentist for cleanings. While having the other issues addressed they did tell him he had gum disease and would need planing and scaling. Let me tell you, this did not happen.

Along with this lovely issue my hubby has a bad right knee. Over the course of many years since the early 90's until nine he had 6 arthroscopic surgeries to fix meniscus tears. He got to the point where there was no meniscus left. He began courting orthopedic doctors to find one that would do a knee replacement on him since he was so young. A little over two years ago he found one and got his knee replacement. He was told he would need to get his teeth taken care of as the infection could spread to the joint. More unheeded advice.

Hubby made it almost a year in good shape. The knee felt great. He felt great. Good mobility. One day he hopped out of bed and looked down to see a very swollen knee. We went over and over in our minds as to what happened. We could find no good answer. My husband developed a lump on the side of his knee. He went to the family doc and he checked that bump. There was some dry skin there and the doc knocked it off while examining him to expose a sac that had formed. He sent dh straight to the hospital and put him on antibiotics. They cultured it but didn't find anything. The spot responded and went away.

Somehow the message was lost on dh that he needed to be seen by an infectious disease doctor. Long story short(er) the spot came back, we went to the infectious disease doc and they ordered surgery to have a port inserted in his chest. He was then placed on mega antiobiotics. Much of this runs together but the port was removed and the problem recurred.

Back to the ortho doc and he decided to open up the knee, remove the spacer and clean it out. Once that was done they put him on antibiotics to try to kill any infection there might be. The doctor didn't see anything in the joint to indicate infection. As a precaution we did the port again and the mega antibiotics. As soon as he was off our friendly little lump came back.

This time the infectious disease doc opened the wound and encouraged dh to keep it open so it could heal from inside out. They also placed him on an oral antibiotic to be taken daily for the rest of his life. They were suppressing the infection. This started late last year.

Last summer dh went to Baylor to work with the liver transplant team and go through the process of being placed on the list. He was given some things to address and he addressed those. In the meantime they monitored his MELD score and we watched it go up and down with each course of lab work. This score determines your placement on the list and how ill you are.

While going through all this dh was fired from his job. To tell you how bad he is he was declared disabled and now draws social security disability.

This past summer dh was driving and slammed on the brake. Not much longer after this the knee swelled again. Went to the ortho. Ortho told him he had osteolysis which means the bone was growing away from the knee replacement. He wanted to do another surgery but wanted dh to be cleared by the transplant team. We had not heard much from the team until this point except for the letter ordering tests and then the results letter. We went and met the new hepatologist. He had lab work just before we saw her. While we were sitting there she got his labs. His MELD was now a 20 and their sickest person was a 22. She had a lot of questions about his knee and the meds. We had been providing all these details as we are required to do. She told him he needed to get his teeth cleaned immediately to clear the infection. She presented his case and came back to tell us that he would need to have his right leg amputated above the knee since the infection could not be cleared. Both of these need to get him listed and get a liver.

I called our dentist and desparately begged them to take care of him. They did not have room in their schedule. They referred us to an endontist. I called and explained the situation to them. They said their computer was down and they could not help us for a few days until it was resolved. I got a call back almost immediately. The dentist said get him in the next day. We were there with bells on. They did their assessment but could not clean since they needed more info from the transplant team. We went back the next day and had half his mouth done. He has two more appointments and will be done on the 10th. He has to have two teeth pulled as well. Two weeks later the dentist will clear him of infection in his mouth.

We saw the vascular surgeon yesterday. We were resigned to the need for the amputation. Our orthopedic went to bat for us but the hepatologist didn't think we could wait (what have we been doing all this time?). He asked us for the history of the situation. We told him and he asked if we didn't think this was a bit extreme and that he didn't want to do it. We said yes we don't want to either. This doc is going to go to the transplant team and go to bat for us to see if they can try the alternative out orthopedic gave which was to take the hardware out, place a spacer, clear the infection. Get the transplant. Then when he was well enough redo the knee replacement.

I cannot tell you the stress I have been under. There is so much more to this story. I will share more as I know it. Not blogging this topic has kept me from blogging at all. I had to tell about it so I can get on with my blogging.

If you have read this far please collect your gold star! Thanks for listening.

Labor Day Sewing. I had several items I wanted to work on but only managed to finish my row (triangles) on this Round Robin for my friend Beth in MD. I saw a quilt at the Plano quilt show and took my inspiration from the border. And what a small world....that quilt was quilted by our very own Bonnie Hunter! Here is the quilt and quiltmaker that inspired the border for Beth's RR. Karen collected the left over HSTs from her guilds quilts and made this. In fact she said she took everyone's blocks and trimmed them for the quilter in return for getting the HST's. It is truly an awesome quilt!

Please stay tuned. I will be posting this weekend and catch you all up on my going's on. My life is a little upside down right now and have been trying to decide if I tell more or not.....

The Bagsket

Why Did That Baby Irish Chain Become a UFO? I intend to share this info with each UFO I finish but forgot to do so this time around. I actually bought this top off ebay from a gal I know in Maine. She had hand quilted it about half way. I didn't want to finish it by hand so picked all those stitches out and machine quilted it. In fact this is the first quilt I quilted on my new Janome 6500. She quite working on it because she felt it took too long to do and wanted to work on faster things. What a shame. It was so close and her quilting was great!

I will be posting another pic with the recipient of the quilt as soon as I meet him!

We Have a Finish!! I was 4th in line for the Queen of UFOs on Stashbuster. But I had a finish to prevent my reign!

Weekend Accomplishment. Here is my first paper piecing experience. This is for a round robin I am in and belongs to Jane in Kansas. I really enjoyed doing paper piecing and look forward to trying more.

What I did for summer vacation. I went to visit my folks for 8 days. DD went with me. While I was there I made a "Scrappysak", a "Grace Smartbag" with cover, finished a squiggly hotpad and made two helmet hats. To me it was heaven to sit and craft and visit.

Here is my other part of a great vacation. My mother hosted a picnic at her house and invited all my aunts and uncles over. This is her side of the family. There were several cousins and my aunt from my Dad's side as well.

Sorry I am So Quiet. I will be back before too long....

Happy 49th Birthday To My Dear Hubby Mark!! Watch out Salley O'Malley! He is gonna have you next year. Don't think he likes to Kick! Stretch! and Kick! though.

Wow! Where Have I Been? To be honest I am overwhelmed with a lot of things. Last Sunday I had to take hubby to the ER with hiccups. He had them for almost a week and was so weakened by them that he started having breathing troubles. Too add to this poor sleep and almost not eating anything. In addition he had aggravated his knee the week before and it was just becoming worse and worse. They got rid of the hiccups in the ER only to have them come back a few minutes after we left there. The "fix" was Haldol in the ER and Thorazine at home. These are both "psych" drugs. They knocked him for a loop and made him extremely low functioning. He was so bad that I asked permission to either work from home or take leave of absence last week. Boss allowed me to work. It is really hard to be a caretaker. I admire all those that do this full time. To add to all this my son, who is a type 1 diabetic, had a touch of the flu. When it rains it pours.

On the work front it is mid year and that means appraisal writing time. I tried to do that from home last week buit with conference calls and caring for others it just was not possible to complete. Plus I had an overdue proposal to complete. I stayed up until after 11:00 p.m. and got that one done last night. I will have to concentrate and get these appraisals done this week since I have to get them all administered this week.

Then on the crafty front, I have many things I owe. Let me just call them overdue. I spent all weekend working to get a round robin done and to get the prep work done on a second round robin. Here are the fruits of my labor. Scroll through the pictures to see more detail. The picture in this post is the completed RR. Lot's of hand work on this one. The second one is paper piecing. I haven't done this before but have found lot's of great tutorials. Now to get the RR off in the mail.

On a fun note. I joined up for a White Elephant exchange on the Stashbuster yahoo group. I had a moment of regret at first since I felt it was a waste of money from the perspective of the shipping and return of contents in the box. I got the box over the weekend and boy was I pleasantly surprised. There was lots of nice things in there. I chose 6 items that I really liked. Now I have to find at least 6 things to place in the box and send it on to the next person. Assume that a pattern costs $9. I got more than my money's worth. Fun, fun, fun! PLUS! I tracked down Sharon-UK in Oregon and we had a nice chat! She is such a sweetie! Love that gal!

Serendipity

ser·en·dip·i·ty Spelled Pronunciation[ser-uhn-dip-i-tee]

• –noun
  an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.

Four or five years ago I "worked" with a gal at quiltchat.com. We were both OP's in the room. Her nickname was nimblethimble. I loved this gal. We exchanged gifts, did swaps together and chatted our heads off! What a great gal. Then one day she disappeared. I tried her e-mail address and it was no longer active. Just lost touch.

The other day I was surfing the QuiltStudio webring and came upon a gals post about her friend suddenly dying. I posted my condolences. Not long after this I had a comment on my blog from someone who's blog name I didn't recognize. By now you have probably guessed it was from my long lost friend. I am floating on air! She has come to chat with me a few times and we are catching up on lost time. She has an awesome blog and I am in awe of her talents!

Faith, I am glad we happened across one another again! I am so happy to have you back in my life!

PAY IT FORWARD. OK I signed up to do this on Sarah's blog and Kim's blog. Let's see how it goes. The first three people that leave a comment and pledge to pay it forward to three (make that six) others on their blog will receive a handmade gift from me within one year of this posting.

Please help out and give your favorite colors and an email address.

Happy 48th Wedding Anniversary Mom and Dad! I am the luckiest gal in the world to have you as my parents! I love you!

Reflecting on May and June.... It doesn't seem that I have accomplished a lot these two months. I can't really recall what I spent my time doing but it wasn't major quilting accomplishments.

• Round Robin center completed and mailed off
• Three tote bags
• Row on my first round robin that I received almost completed. Have to sew on a few buttons and do a bit of embroidery on it.
• Quilted the peach and blue Ninepatch.
• Quilted the baby Irish Chain
• Pulled up all the durn carpet! Now I remember!

All in all not too bad.

Stashbuster Topic of the Week: What get's in the way of my quilty progress? Well I can look around and blame all sorts of things. I work, a LOT. I have the family to attend to and on and on. But, I am also a big proponent of squeeking in 15 minutes here and there to accomplish things.

I made a good deal of progress a couple weeks ago when I turned out three tote bags. Then after that not too much. I continued to sketch and plan my Round Robin row. I have been doing this for weeks! Then it hit me. I worried that it wouldn't be perfect so I was afraid to start until I knew it would be "right". Well now this is my design so who is to say what is right?

This realization was a slap in the face. I immediately got up and went into my sewing room and completed the first two sides of my round. I proudly showed my friends in #quiltchat. They all gave me design "suggestions" after asking about my plans. Some of their thinking was similar to mine and actually meant a better product I think. My initial reaction was to re-draw it. I said no, I am going to just sew it. I went into work on the last two sides. The top was easy, a plain strip. The bottom I had originally planned a full row of pickets across the front. This changed to leave an opening in the fence to lead to the front of the house. I marked my sewing lines and cut my rails shorter and sewed it on. I then sewed pickets on to find that the rails were too long. No big deal, I unpicked the end from the back, trimmed it and sewed the last picket down. Repeat for the other side. See the pics below. I think it turned out great! Just a few more items to add and it is done done.

So what gets in your way?

More Round Robin. I am done with the fence. I plan to add a bunny in a corner from the FQs pictured. Probably the pink. Will add a flower on the opposite corner. Might add a bird at top center with a small ribbon in it's beak. Stay tuned!

Sneak Peek My first round robin. Here is what I have done so far.....

Mesquite Quilt Show Loot I didn'y buy fabric as I am on No Buy. But let me tell you I actually felt a little down thinking of all the things I had at home that I really needed to get done. Curbed my appetite! So here is what I did buy. Some templates, pins, bobbins, a batt and a "tool box". I did buy one tote pattern. This will help me use up some of the pre-quilted fabric I accumulated one year.

Yes there is a DVD there too. I bought these patterns several years ago. I could never remember all the tips given to make the item. I broke down and bought the DVD. No more excuses!

High Five! Here is my first post on the new computer! So much better! Check this out... He is 7 months old and we taught him this trick in just 2 days.

New Toys. Hubby bought me a new computer last Sunday. I spent most evenings on conference calls and did not feel like setting it up and managing those calls as well. Saturday a.m. I planned to get up and get to it but we had a service repairman that came to work on the equipment that supports our internet. I didn't want to be working on the computer in the middle of that. As soon as he left I set the new machine up and started loading the software. I got the internet connectivity going and downloaded several pieces of software. It went pretty well. Now I have to download data from the old machine that I want to save and move it over. Less urgency to get that done.

The other new toy is a floor model Ott lamp. I have the table top model. I bought another using my 40% off coupon as there was not much to choose from. I went to a bigger store and they had the floor lamp for $100. That was better than using the 40% coupon. I set it up pretty easily and think it will be great. I found some reviews from people that complain it is too short. I just need it to shine light over my shoulder while I am seated. I am sure it will be great for that!

And yes, I promised to take more pictures. Haven't tried that out yet with the new computer.....I know I know. Cut me some slack. Another weekend of conference calls. I want my evenings and weekends back!

Tree of life. This tree is in my front yard. When dh and I bought the house in 1986 his mother would come to visit quite often. She bought us three trees. They all looked like sticks in the ground. I can't remember if she paid $5 or $15 for each of them. One of them died but the other two just flourished. The other is a Bradford Pear and is in the back yard. This is a red oak.

His mother died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1989. It was a shock but I must tell you that through this tree I feel she is still with us. It has grown big and strong. It produces a lot of acorns and we are always pulling up saplings from the yard. I should share these with the neighborhood as many people have scrub trees that have begun to die off.

We talk about moving all the time and one thing that dh and I always agree on. We will take acorns and saplings with us so that his mom can continue to be with us.

My Quilting Assistant. Here is my quilting assistant, Rascal. Hubby rescued him from a pound in Tulsa, OK. Hubby saw him on a website and arranged for someone to drive that dog down to Texas. He went and met the lady in Sherman, TX and happily drove him home. I am not sure what hubby saw in this dog but he sure wanted him. He even looked just like his sister and we considered adopting both of them. We were told that he was a mix of Australian Shepherd and Jack Russell Terrier. By his appearance we thought the Jack Russell size would be a heavy influence and he would be our little dog. We already owned one Australian Chow mix and three purebred Australian Shepherds. These dogs were right around the 50 pound mark and I had been used to smaller dogs. I was so happy to have a little dog again.

When he arrived we gave the kids strict orders to not hold him all the time. Every time I went to sit or lie down I had that dog in my arms or on my chest. I was reminded and teased regularly what a hypocrite I was. Yes I know, but I couldn't help it. I am not quite sure when or how it happened but this tiny little boy grew to be our biggest dog. He hovers around 70 pounds. How did a 50 pound breed and a 30 pound breed yield a 70 pound dog. Shouldn't I have gotten an average and not a breed plus breed weight?? Sheesh. Rascal has been with us for about 5 years. I had not spent much time sewing when he arrived but really got back to my sewing and sewing room last summer. I noticed that whenever I went in there that Rascal would jump on the couch and peak through the french door to watch. He sure was interested in what I was doing in there. This progressed to him standing at the door and "knocking" on it and crying to be let in. It just became habit to call and let him in immediately rather than hearing him cry and having to stop what I was doing to let him in.

He has been "locked out" so much that this year he doesn't even cry. He just works on that door handle or door edge until he gets it open and lets himself in. He has lovingly become known as Mom's quilting dog. His door opening ability was amusing up until several weeks ago when he was "helping" me by holding the floor down. One of my other dogs decided to sit at the door and whine because she felt she needed to be in the sewing room as well. I chose to ignore her pleas and called to the family asking them to distract her. Next thing I know Rascal jumped up and opened the door to let her in. I could not believe it. I will just have to tolerate all this company I suppose. Even though he gets up and down and wraps himself around my legs everytime I move I still love his company and his help. I did not think I could love a big dog as much as I love him!

Totes and more totes! I had a busy productive weekend. I had finished one tote earlier this week and finished two more over the weekend. This was in spite of working all through the weekend. When I finished up the totes I picked up my round robin I need to add a round to and continued sketching out the design. I really spend a lot of time planning before cutting. I even practiced sewing some ribbon onto fabric to see what I would be facing. It was easy. Now to quit putting off actually doing the row!

Good news! As you have seen I am not good about posting pictures. There is a reason for this. My computer is so slow. It takes forever to upload the pics from my camera to my computer then edit and load to my blog. It makes me nuts. It also locks up my computer and I cannot do much else. Well, dh and I went out and bought a new computer for me. I have to time moving over to the new machine but will do that this week. You should see more pictures from me soon!

Hope you had a quilty weekend!

What can you do with 30 minutes? I am not sure if I accomplished a lot or a little. This is mainly an observation. I do know that regardless of what I accomplished it had to be done to make progress.

• setup the ironing board
• pressed the already cut 4 strips for one tote
• trimmed and pressed another 4 previously cut 4 strips for another tote
• trimmed and pressed the fusible webbing (already cut to width) to all 8 strips
• put away the project and ironing board

Is that a lot? I don't know. I was surprised it took me that long but I also piddle along the way. I am sure the dogs had to go out at least once and I was called over to look at something on the tv.

Stashbuster Topic of the Week. Are you a hand, machine or send out to be quilted quilter. For the most part I am a machine quilter. I sent out a King size quilt this year to be quilted as I knew that it would be too hard for me to quilt by machine myself. I have dabbled in hand quilting. I felt so frustrated as it seemed to be too slow. I decided to pick it out and was amazed at what I had accomplished in the short time I spent! What an eye opener! So mostly I am a machiner with basic skills and I am working on branching out into free motion.

Quilty Weekend. I am an all or nothing kind of girl. I am always seeking balance. I think I managed that well over the weekend. I kept up with chores, decluttering, sewing and relaxing. Stress free fun. I finished a totebag that I have been working on and cut out two more of another pattern of my own. I washed some fabric for other projects and frogged an RR that I am working on.

While I was working on these projects I thought how easy it would be to just pull out a UFO and work on it for a few minutes in between steps. Even within my quilting I need balance! I made a list of projects that I need to accomplish in the near term and was please with my progress against that list.

Sorry no pics...the tote is a gift but I will add it later this week.

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.