Last Day Of The Year

Wishing everyone a safe, healthy, prosperous 2012.

Gotta Love Dr. Seuss

Lottsa Sewing

Got quite a bit accomplished in a couple of mostly uninterrupted afternoons of sewing. It may not look like much in the picture, but those little piles represent a lot of cutting, sewing, pressing and trimming.

All the components are put together now and the next time I get back to this the blocks can be put together. Unfortunately, that won't be today as it's back to work for me. I'll have to work this evening too.

There's a really nice extra benefit of the holidays....plenty of leftovers so I don't have to cook, the house is nice and clean, and days off from work so there's that uninterrupted sewing time.

Lunch Break!!

Time for a late lunch of more Christmas dinner leftovers. I think we'll finish them off for supper. And that's a good thing because as good as they are we're getting a little tired of the same things for every meal. :)

Now that Christmas is in the rear view mirror I got back to sewing.  After a couple good nights sleep and late rising mornings I felt ready to tackle something other than Christmas preparations.  Sooooooo......I pulled out the quilt I had started cutting strips for just after Thanksgiving. Yesterday I cut, cut, cut. Today I have sewed, sewed, sewed and this is what I have to press, press, press and trim, trim, trim before I can sew some more.

Yes, another Bonnie Hunter pattern. Christmas Lights.

I tolerate the cutting, love pushing unit after unit through the machine, pressing....not so much. But, I'm having some lovely dark chocolate for dessert after my leftover pork roast sandwich so that might help me get through it. :)

And now it's over.........

Christmas 2011 that is. After all the time spent preparing it's over in no time at all. We'll barely recover before it's time to start thinking about it all a over again.  Here's a peek at this year's festivities.

When can we rip 'em open?

How many are there anyway?

Best gift of the day?

Keeping this one for blackmail purposes.

Can you see me now?

The end.

Hope you all had a great Christmas too.  Best wishes for the New Year.

Merry Christmas To All

Merry Christmas, Blogger friends. I hope you all have a very nice holiday with family and/or friends.

Lookin' more like Christmas

Goals for today:

   1.  Wrap presents.

   2.  Get cards ready to mail.

   3.  Get a load of wash done.

Presents are wrapped. They kind of disappear into the quilts covering the couch.

  

And here's the tree my women's club set up at the Library as a Giving Tree.  The hats, gloves and scarves will get donated to the schools in Orchard and Clearwater for the kids who come to school without so they can still go out and enjoy recess.  (Do kids still get recess??)

Last One For The Year

I finished this one last night. It's in the washer now and will be packed up with the RWB Heartstrings quilt I showed previously to be sent to Alycia in Co for QOV.

The Heartstrings one was going to be sent off last month, but then I remembered these extra blocks and the little cut-off black & white triangles from another project and put this together.  There is room in the box for two, so I waited.

Are you ready for Christmas?  I still have to wrap presents and then do the boring stuff like cleaning.  This year I'm shaking up the Christmas Dinner menu a bit. For the 20-25 years I've done Christmas Dinner, ever since my mom quite doing it, we've had turkey and all the trimmings.  I'm ready for something different so I'm doing pork loin roast and scalloped potatoes along with pies and dinner rolls. The kids can bring the sides.  I'm sure there will be protest, but as long as there's pumpkin pie I doubt if they'll leave before eating. :)

Be Careful Out There

Afternoon Project

Good grief, it took me the better part of the afternoon to make a tea cozy. Admittedly,  it was my very first one, but I've made entire quilts with less futzing around. Do you suppose that's why they're so expensive to buy??

To Do....To Do

What the heck....maybe if I put it in writing it'll get done. :)

1.  Get a load of laundry done.
2.  Get quilt top for QOV finished. Backing made, batting cut. Ready to load on quilting machine.
3.  Get returns packaged up.  Just before I crawled into bed.
4.  Make Blueberry Sour Cream Pie before sour cream goes bad.  Yum.
5.  Put roast in oven for supper.  Leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

I think that's enough goals for one day, don't you?

Turkey Day

Teenager!!! & QOV Quilt

Yep, Granddaughter #2 is a teenager now. Heaven help us!!

And Friday she broke her wrist in basketball practice. No matter what she's doing she gives it all she's got. We keep telling her to "slow down", but that's just not who she is.

Another QOV quilt finished. This one is from the blocks I did back in May. Instead of spending six hours on the road to go to the Fremont Heartstrings Sew-in I stayed home and sewed blocks.  The quilt is in the washer as I type and will be off in the mail to Alycia in CO on Monday or Tuesday. (Hopefully. LOL)

Quilt Club Christmas Party.....

.....in pictures.

Maxine went all out to make it special for us.

Prezzies!!

The feast!!

Show and Tell

More Show and Tell

Lots of friendship, food, games and visiting.  Now we're in the spirit to start the holiday season.

Recent Finishes

These will be my Show & Tell at Quilt Club tonight.

On the left is a table runner project done at Quilt Club a couple months ago. On the right is also a Quilt Club project.....from more than 10 years ago.

This was either a Quilt Club project or a class at Cornerstone Quilts. I remember there was a group of us and we all brought strips of fabric to trade. I don't remember the name of the pattern, but I think it was in the Fons & Porter magazine.

Orange Crush. A Bonnie Hunter mystery pattern. LOTS of pieces.

Roll Roll Cotton Boll. Another Bonnie Hunter mystery pattern. Even MORE piecing...and it's BIG. I think it will serve as my Christmas quilt this year.

The last ten pints of squash that I intend to can this year are finished. Now on to putting together the chicken casserole and broccoli salad for the Quilt Club potluck tonight. Tomorrow morning I'm off to a meeting of the Antelope County librarians...I get to go the round about way to Clearwater.  Will that bridge EVER get rebuilt???

I'm Keeping Busy....

...but the results don't really look like much:

14 pints of squash done on Friday

Small Christmas gift projects

NONE of these buttons work for these table runners. Drat!!!

I really couldn't believe that NONE of these buttons matched the table runners. And I thought I had bought buttons to match any project the last time I was in Hobby Lobby. Maybe I'll pay them another visit?? It isn't even easy to find buttons anymore. Doesn't anybody sew clothes??

Working on canning more squash today...another 10-15 pints. DH had a bumper crop and we've already given lots away and once I get what I want we'll give more away.

I have some more finished projects to show but it will have to wait until I get around to "staging" them and take some pictures.

Boo!!

HAPPY  HALLOWEEN  !!

Memory Lane

Tonight I took myself down to the basement and pulled the box of scraps off the shelf to  sort out blues for Jamestown Landing. Found a nice batch, too.  It turns out the box was full of scraps from the days when I made craft items to sell at area craft shows back in the 80s and early 90s. All those country blues, mauve, peach and seafoam green, plus the earthtones that were so popular then. Quite the trip down memory lane.

Those craft shows just aren't what they used to be. Now the majority of the tables are home businesses selling manufactured products. In a way that's kind of nice, too.  I hate going to the products parties at friends' homes because I always feel obligated to buy something, even if there's nothing I really want. At a show I can cruise around the room and look to my heart's content and not feel guilty if I don't buy a thing. Times change and change isn't all bad.

Next Up.........

..........RRCB!!

Made some good progress on quilting this today. Have had more thread breakage problems than usual. Don't know what's up with that....could be the machine or the needle or maybe just me.  I suspect it's the same problem as with lots of things we buy...the price goes up and the quality goes down since I'm using thread that I just bought. Anyway, it's time to take a break and fix supper, then it's Book Club at the library. I wonder if anyone other than me will show up.

Quilt Inspectors.....

.....on the job.

The quilts in the background cover the sofa. The yellow cat will scratch the heck out of the sofa unless I keep it covered with quilts. Crazy cat!!

Drum Roll Please

My Roll Roll Cotton Boll is now a top!  Just finished it after supper. It always surprises me that a quilt with so many pieces actually comes out the way it's supposed to. I have to admire Bonnie H.'s pattern writing skill. The pieced border is a little finicky and can need some adjustment so the corner pieces fit properly.

I didn't get the binding attached to the Orange Crush yesterday so that was first on the list this morning.  I finish my bindings by machine following Judy L.'s method so it shouldn't take to long to finish once I sit down at the machine to do it.

I thought I'd show you the results of my foray into knitting on the round looms:

Actually I made four hats. One is the same as the middle one, only bigger. Actually I made it a little too big so might tear it out and do it over. We'll see. It's fast and addictive. Since I got rid of yarn collections twice over the years I need to exercise a little self-restraint and not start buying yarn again.

CPD 23 -- Week 17

Thing 12 -- Final Reflection

Thank-you to the Nebraska Library Commission for offering the opportunity to participate in CPD 23.  When I look back at how much has changed in the library world in the past ten years and look ahead to how much change is no doubt still to come I want to encourage everyone to take advantage of opportunities like this.

When I first saw that CPD 23 was being offered my reaction was, "Not again." Then I reconsidered for a couple of reasons. (1) There are always new things I can learn and what better way to be nudged into it than a structured program. (2)  There are useful things available the I wouldn't even hear about except for a program like this. (3) 15 hours of CE credit for free with no driving is nothing to be sneezed at.  Most CE opportunities involve a 2-hr. round trip, at least, for me.

Some of the "Things" at the beginning of the program were a review of some things included in Nebraska 2.0, but having the memory refreshed is never a bad thing. I know some of the software programs I'll never use, but knowing about them isn't a bad thing.  I have started using Dropbox as backup for my genealogy database.

The thing I miss about online learning is not having the other participants to talk with. It's just me and my computer. But still, as fast as things change, online learning makes a lot of sense. One thing about working in a library is that you have to make an effort to keep up with new developments, as overwhelming as it seems at times.

CPD23 -- Week 16 -- Things 21 & 22

Thing 21 -- Promoting Yourself

This "Thing" presented many good tips on figuring out what one wants to do, what one wants in a job and how to promote oneself when applying for a job.  I haven't had to do this very much in the past, and actually, probably won't have to again because I'm the "Library Lady" and the board and patrons have threatened to keep me until I expire. :)  Anyway as good as all these suggestions are, I'm beginning to look forward more to retirement than promoting myself into even more work.  I'm kind of wanting to stay home and make quilts and research family history and actually have time to read all those good books instead of just ordering them, cataloging them, checking them out to others and re-shelving them over and over (my least favorite library job.) I think this particular "Thing" would be much more beneficial for someone at the beginning of their career than for someone like me who is looking forward to the end of a career.

Thing 22 --  Volunteering to Gain Experience

I guess you could say the volunteering I did in my high school library when I was a student there gave me the library experience needed to get a job at my current library as a library assistant.  From there I moved up to director....mostly because none of the other applicants had any library experience at all.  However, all the experience I've gained in my years of library work is not going to get me a decent job in a bigger library because they all want a college degree if not a Masters in Library Science, neither of which I have.

My opinion is that volunteering might get you some experience to get your foot in the door, but you have to be careful not to overdo it.  I know the thinking, especially in small town libraries and probably in larger one too, is that if you can get the work done for free why pay somebody to do it.  It can be a fine line.

On To The Next One

The next top to be quilted is loaded on the machine.  It had been languishing in a box under my bed for ten years or more, but its time has finally come.

I'm hoping to finish making the binding for the previous one.....and maybe even get it attached before the end of the day.  Who really cares if there is laundry to be done, dishes to go in the dishwasher and pears & squash that need to have something done with them?  I'm in a mood to sew and quilt so sew and quilt I shall!!!

Appreciate Your Plumbing

How's that for a title?  You know, none of us truly appreciate plumbing until it doesn't work.  Friday after work my DH threw his work clothes in the washer, started it up and went outside to do whatever it is that DHs do when they go outside.  I was in the house and it was quiet and after a while I heard gurgle, gurgle, gurgle coming from the bathroom. Having had this experience many times since living in this house, I immediately knew the drain was backing up and dashed for the basement to shut off the washer. Too late, the water was already spreading.

Now, late Friday afternoon was the beginning of the Columbus Day long weekend, so that was one strike against me. I did get the town maintenance guy to come look at the sewer line under the street, but he didn't want to get the jet truck to jet the line because he was clocked out for the weekend and would be back to work on Tues.  Our regular drain routering guy was gone because they'd just had a baby and the baby was having some issues. Strike two.  So I called another  guy who had done our drains before. He wasn't home either but I left a message which never got returned. Strike three.

So this morning I set my alarm for bright and early and called no. 3 at about 7:15 and he agreed to send someone to my house by mid-morning. Then called guy no. 1 to make sure he remembered he was going to jet the main sewer line this morning. He did and he did. Guy no. 3's guy showed up and routered the line from the house to the main and all is well.  So, appreciate your plumbing. I appreciate mine more than I did last week.  You just don't realize how much you run water until you can only run a very small amount once in a great while.

After all that drama I decided I was going to get a quilt loaded on the Premier and do a little quilting.  The poor machine was probably thinking I'd totally abandoned it since it's been so long since I quilted anything.

Orange Crush loaded on the machine

I have more tops to do and hope the momentum will last until I get at least a couple more done.

CPD23 -- Week 15 -- Career

I always say I fell into a library career by accident.

I always liked to read but never set foot in a public  library until I was probably a senior in high school. When I was a high school sophmore I started volunteering in the school library because too many study halls were too boring.  By the time I was a senior I'd read everything in the school library and branched out to the public library.....and found that the librarian (the proverbial little old lady) thought I should only be reading the juvenile books, which kind of turned me off.

After high school I didn't have the opportunity to attend college, my parents thought it was a waste of money---especially for a girl. So I spent a summer working as a clerk in the County Treasurer's office.  Later that fall I got married and started working as a waitress in a small town cafe for a while, followed by staying home for several years with my kids. By the time my youngest was about three I was thinking about finding a job. There weren't too many choices in this small town and I knew I didn't want to waitress, tend bar or drive a fertilizer truck. I also knew I didn't want to drive 25 miles to work in a nursing home. So when a job in the local library opened up I applied and got it.  And that is where I've been ever since.

Libraries and librarians have seen lots of changes since then and I have had to learn so much -- the introduction of computers, the Internet, computer circulation & catalog systems, supervising a library enlargement, writing grants to pay for the new things,  -- learn, learn, learn.  I guess it's a good thing I like to learn new things.

CPD23 -- Week 14 --Thing 17 -- Prezi & Slideshare

Prezi -- I'm happy to learn that there is a more dynamic alternative to PowerPoint. I think I only ever worked with PowerPoint one time when a little 4-Her came into the library needing to make a PowerPoint presentation for the fair. Talk about the blind leading the blind -- but between her, her mother and me we got 'er done.

I've always thought PowerPoint presentations were boring, boring, boring.  Prezi allows a presenter to put on a much better show. After watching the demonstration videos on how to do a Prezi I think it would take me quite a while to get my brain around the process.  However, since I don't do presentations it's unlikely I'll ever do much with either Prezi or PowerPoint.

Two other  services mentioned in the Prezi page were ZamZou for free online photo format conversion and Picnik for online photo editing.  I played a little with both of them and they are pretty slick.

Slideshare    This would be a great service for someone doing lots of different presentations, especially if one traveled a lot doing so.  It's a service that hosts your presentations all in one place where they will be available on any computer with online access. How great would that be if you arrived at your destination and found that the file on your computer was corrupted?  It also makes your presentations available for others to find and share.  Can it be used for Prezis?  I didn't see anywhere that it said if it could or not.

Prezi, Picnik and SlideShare all have limited free versions. If you want a little more they all cost money. Prezi - $59 yr., Picnik - $2.08 mo., SlideShare - $0 - $249 mo. with special pricing for non-profits.  I think I'm seeing a trend here -- the programs we use being "in the cloud" and us needing to keep paying a monthly or yearly fee to use them.  When will all this become too expensive for the average working person to afford?  Think about it -- every program you need to use to do word processing, bookkeeping, play music or videos, edit & store pictures, manage your family tree -- all in the "cloud" and demanding monthly or yearly fees to use & have access to your material.  I don't think I want to go there.

Holiday Decorating

In years past I have gone all out with decorations for the various holidays. There are boxes & boxes of stuff in the basement. Last year I was working on my kitchen so nothing got put out for Fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving and very little for Christmas. Lo and behold, I discovered that more is NOT better and I like the simpler look. Here's my effort for Halloween this year.

My Halloween decorating effort

Just a few things on top of the entertainment center, a pair of painted wood pumpkins leaning against the side, a small decoration on the front door, and a little ceramic jack-o-lantern on the end table.  It's enough.  At the end of the month I'll just switch out the Halloween things for a few Thanksgiving things.

Last year my Christmas tree didn't go up until just a couple of days before the big day  with just lights and few colored globes. I liked it. (Other years I have always had the tree completely covered with ornaments collected over the years.)  Added a few of my Santas on top of the entertainment center, Santa's hat over the corner of a picture frame & decorating was done. I'm thinking maybe I'll do the same thing and just add a very few of the collected ornaments to the tree this year.

Somehow, so much of the holiday decorations just seem like clutter to me anymore. I'm seriously thinking of going through everything, picking out my very favorites, and hauling the rest off to Good Will.

Yesterday I Sewed....

....all afternoon and got this done...

....the pieced border sections for Roll Roll Cotton Boll. One of these days I'll have to shove all my living room furniture back out of the way and lay out the blocks. The end is in sight and I'd really like to have this completely done and on my bed for the Christmas season. It has enough red and green in it to pass for a Christmas quilt I think. Bonnie H. has already mentioned the next mystery quilt on her blog so it's time to finish this one up.

I suppose the next thing on my agenda though will have to be getting caught up on the 23 Things library course again. Somehow I always find myself getting behind and then doing a marathon session to catch up.  Is that a personality flaw??

Mission Accomplished

Still need to trim the dog ears then on to assembling the border strips.

It's Been a While

It's DEFINITELY been a while since you saw anything quilty from me so here's a little tidbit.

Yesterday I cut the brown triangles for the pieced borders on Roll Roll Cotton Boll. This quilt was my summer project and now summer's over so I should get busy and get the top finished at least.  This afternoon I intend to get those triangles sewed to the pink/green parts.

Something new

My women's club is planning to collect hats, gloves/mittens and scarves for a Giving Tree at the Library for Christmas. Member Jennie brought in her knitting looms and some yarn to show us how to make hats. After vowing to not start any new craft I came home from Norfolk with THIS on Wednesday:

That's right....a knitting loom set and a couple skeins of yarn. And just today I kicked myself for forgetting to take along my 40% off coupon for Hobby Lobby. Those looms would have been QUITE a bit cheaper if I had.  Now let's see what sort of hats I can come up with.