Design Wall

Not sure I am meant to do scrappy.....

.......I will keep working at it.

Stash Report

As soon as I gave my updated stash report I noticed a tote I bought at Walmart earlier this year and remembered there was something not reported in there.....

Something to the tune of 28 yards. So much for breaking even!

Back to Texas I Go

Part of travelling back and forth is making sure I carry whatever I need from one place to the other. I am always carrying some quilty thing with the desire to work on it but never seem to deliver. Two weekends ago I made huge progress on all the fleece blankets that I carried home with me. Every one finished and delivered to it's recipient.

I am heading home today and packed last night. I was tempted to take my "It's a Wrap" with me but didn't want to mess up my layout. So I decided to take dd's quilt I am making for her birthday. I have carried it back and forth so many times and not sewn a stitch yet. I caught myself reaching for other things to take too. I stopped myself and added the RR I need to work on plus my accessories. I must finish this quilt. I plan on a sewing marathon. Want to join me?

I have also been on a sorting, tossing, organizing mission. When I am not sewing I will be sorting, tossing and organizing. I am still missing two pieces of fabric that I had pulled out to kit up earlier this year. What the heck did I do with that stuff????

Come sew or organize with me over this long weekend! I may toss something your way.

Layout 2

I think I got a good distribution.

Test Layout

Any glaring lump of one color? What do you think?

Goals for 2009

Do you read Judy L's blog? She has a great post talking about your goals for the year and where you are on them. I am trying to remember if I set any goals....going to go look on the blog...brb...

Yep I did. Here they are from end of December.

• make and donate a QOV
• make a scrappy quilt
• make a blooming 9 patch for ds
• make one of dd's quilts
• finish what I start within a reasonable time frame
• low buy. I accumulated too much this year
• organize and cull my sewing room/supplies
• continue kitting fabric and patterns

The QOV was done as well as the blooming ninepatch. You saw my stash report. I am breaking even there. I didn't want to just collect fabric that doesn't get used for ages so tracking my habits has helped there. I am working on organization often and am considering selling or swapping books I bought early on that I have since outgrown. I do make a kit now and again but have been working from the kits I made late last year.

Life got in the way in a BIG way this year. But I think I have done well with getting to sew. Recently I have spent more time at it and have seen some real progress. DD's quilt is one of the three that I mentioned having cut and started. Looks like I need to move that up on the priority list with her birthday in October.

How are you progressing on your goals?

Design Wall Monday

My first design wall post. Here are a few of my blocks. The bow tops are done. I will finish the bows tonight. The boxes should go together quickly after that.

Here is the top Mom and I made while I was visiting my parents in July.

Week 35, 2009 Stash Report

I have had 4 finishes this past week and 2 the week before. I may be tweaking the report as I go since I haven't updated it since May.

Used this Week: 11-1/3 yards
Used year to Date: 72-1/3 yards

Added this Week: nothing but I did buy a bolt of black Kona bay earlier this year!
Added Year to Date: 73 yards

Net Used for 2009: -2/3 yards

I think I am doing rather well. Have several tops in progress and plan to have more finishes this year.

Finished the Fourth

This is a blanket I made earlier this year for a friend battling cancer. I have finished four of these blankets since last Saturday and they are all now gifted. Now to finish mine waiting for me in LA.

Checking In

No pictures at the moment but I didn't want to let that prevent me from checking in. I had the kids with me in LA for 2 weeks. We returned last Thursday so we had a little extra time to finish up the school preparations. So kids are in school now and all seems well.

I have managed to get some sewing in. I layered 5 fleece blankets while I was in LA and brought 4 of them back to TX with me. All 4 are sewn and three have been fringed and gifted now. Two baby gifts and one birthday gift. The last will be fringed and gifted before I go back to LA. The fifth is mine and I will fringe it next week.

Of course with back to school I had to hem pants. Ick. I got three pair done in LA and was up early this a.m. to get another pair ready for today. I have two more to go and will get them done tonight. I hope this is it but dd's friends mother heard I can hem pants and asked me to help her. Sigh....lol... My reward for hemming those last two pair of pants will be fun sewing on my quilts I brought home with me. I will get pics of those to share soon!

3 Quilts Cut Out?

Did I really say that? Hmmm.

I have "It's a Wrap" totally cut out. Mom and I made her top together while I was visiting in NY. I cut mine out asvI cut hers. I did most of the sewing as well so putting mine together should go quickly. I sewed a few pieces together last night so it appears I am starting here.

Then I have "Bamboo and Pinwheels" cut out. This is a two for one quilt. As you cut and sew the leftovers are used to make a second quilt. I think I am stuck on this one due to having to randomly pull pieces and sew them together. Maybe it will be easier since I had to choose fabrics similarly for the "It's a Wrap". I should get this sewn soon since I am not sure I have enough Asian FQ's and will be in Dallas next week where there is an abundance available.

The third...oh yes. This is the Moda pattern Pampered Pooch that I am making with the Pampered Pooch line in Red, White and Blue. I am not sure I have enough of my background so I am a little blocked on this one. I really should get sewing since it may be harder to find the fabric the longer I wait.

Cyber Friends

I love it when I get to meet my internet friends. This is Melissa aka dulciquilt from #quiltchat. I have known her for a long time. She does beautiful work.



My dd took a picture of herself on her cell phone about 2 years ago. I love the picture of her and it is my cell phone and PC screen saver. Well it was on my PC til she put Hugh Jackman on there. OK, he can stay. Some people ask me if she is "goth". I don't see that...I see an artsy pic. I asked dulci to make this pic into an art quilt for me. I love it!

Bud

Mom and Dad's dog. Love the whiskers and eyebrows.

Chevron Daisy Finished

I have been toting this quilt between Texas and Louisiana for a few months now trying to get the binding on. I got serious and finished it this past weekend. Look at the closeup and you will see all over daisies quilted with basketweave on the corners. Then the borders are outlining of the flower garlands. My friend quilted this for me. One of my favorite quilts to date.

Spring Breeze

I managed to finish this quilt today. Another quilt that I have been carrying back and forth trying to get finished. The first two pictures show the "star" quilted in the blocks and then the use of the flower in the fabric that was then quilted into the border. Also quilted by my friend.

Flooding and Produce

On a trip back to Mesquite there was quite a bit of rain. We took these photos of a park nearby. I am not sure if you can see it but there is a baseball backstop down there. Amazingly it was back to normal 24 hours later.

At my June sew-in meeting at tirane's I was the lucky recipient of a fresh eggplant from her garden. DD and I took it back to Monroe and had fun cooking and then eating it. We have since made eggplant parmesan but none of them were as good as this one straight from the garden.

Some great mother-daughter time cooking a new to her dish.

Hi Folks



I sat down to blog and started having issues with my laptop freezing. I am trying to work through those but then also started to fret over how to catch up from not having blogged for 6 weeks. Donna in LA suggested I just tell you "Here I am" and go on with it. And I can sprinkle in the catch-up stories going forward. So for now, Here I am! Going to go work on that silly laptop a little more and hope to be back in the groove very soon!

The Shopping Expedition

One of the stops dd and I made that first weekend was to Antique Alley in West Monroe. I had seen a Bradbury Handcrank machine several weeks ago on my last excursion there. I knew very little about hand crank machines and decided to leave it there even though the owner made me a great deal on it. I went straight home and researched the machine thoroughly. I had tried the crank and the motion was smooth. Everything appeared to be in good order. When I looked it up I found it uses a shuttle instead of a bobbin and I knew it was in the tray with the machine. I decided to not go get it at that time.

Fast forward and this machine is still on my mind. I decided that if it was still there and I was given the same deal as before I would buy it. I present you with my new machine.

I have since found out that the pressure foot is frozen but hope a little oiling and encouragement will remedy that situation.

After the hospital

DH was released on Saturday and I knew he would panic if I returned to LA the next day. So I waited until Monday a.m. so that he could contact the doc about some concerns. DD was planning to return with me to start her summer and was chomping at the bit to get on the road.

We had a nice drive and I worked from home the rest of that day so that she wouldn't be left alone in a strange place the first day. We made lists of things needed to setup her room and got the menu list made for the weeks meals. I told her she needed to be patient and that we would get her room setup in good time.

Friday I was allowed to leave work early since my boss felt we were at a good stopping point. I went and got DD and off we went to shop. Over the weekend we managed to take in a movie and shopped til we dropped. It was so hot and we were up and down stairs during the hardest part of the day. Her bed frame was so heavy that we had to open the box downstairs and carry the pieces upstairs. We were up until after midnight putting everything together. It looks really nice in there. My only concern was that she wanted a twin bed and has a full at home. I was up early Sunday having some alone time. All of a sudden I heard a big THUD. I was able to lean over and look down the hall to see that she had fallen out of bed. I hurried in there and she had a confused look on her face. I knew she wasn't sure where she was and what had happened. I think she is used to the bed now. No more thuds...and you didn't hear this from me!!

I will be back tomorrow with more catching up!

Catching Up!!

My hubby's body must know when my quilt guild meetings are.

I attended the meeting on the 4th. It was great! We were shown a demo on QTC's or as I know them ATC's. Artist's trading cards. At the end of the presentation we were all allowed to choose one from a tray to keep.

Show and tell was wonderful as well. Here are some of the challenge round robin quilts and other quilts shared.

So why the comment about hubby? Throughout the meeting my phone was ringing like crazy. It was my daughter calling. I texted her telling her I was in a meeting hoping she would text back to tell me what was going on. She did not. She chose to call and call. I thought it couldn't be that important.

The joke was on me. When I finished at the meeting I called her to see what was up. She informed me that dh was in extreme pain and needed to go to the ER. I told them don't wait on me because 4 hours was too long to wait. The neighbor took him. He was having such severe cramping that he was screaming in pain. According to my neighbor he was scaring the nurses with his screams. They gave him a shot of demerol but it didn't help. They finally gave him an antianxiety pill. That relaxed him to and allowed the demerol to do it's job.

I was dealing with an eye infection and did not feel comfortable driving that night so I got up and drove home first thing in the a.m. It was the kids last day of school. They slept at home and managed to get themselves up and to the neighbors so that they could get a ride to school. I got home and worked a little while then reached dh.

I am not going to go into all the details but basically he was admitted for 9 days. The docs spent that time to fine tune his meds. We expressed our stress over the cramping that did not seem to happen when he was in the hospital. No one could explain it but I think all that is resolved. He is still deferred from the transplant list until he can have some testing at the end of July. Hopefully all will be resolved. Unfortunately his MELD score that tells where he is on the list is even higher. I hope he can stay out of the hospital until the actual transplant. He does seem to be managing much better.

My Postcard

This is the first fabric postcard I have ever received and I love it. It came with my bear. I show the back below so you can see Ele's doodling. I love it! Now I have a little sample and will finally attempt my own!

Hug in the Mail


Last Saturday I got a nice little surprise in the mail. My dear friend Ele made this for me. I named her Daisy.







I also received my frst ever fabric postcard from Ele. I will post that later.