Goodbye 2013.....Hello 2014!

Best wishes for the New Year!  Here's a little quote I came across on another blog that might be a good thing to remember in the coming year when we are in danger of doing too much, accumulating too much.

"Living life fully doesn't mean having it all, going everywhere,
doing everything, and being all things to all people. 
Many of us are beginning to see that too much is too much."
                                            --Elaine St. James

Season's Greeting

Almost Ready for Christmas

The tree is decorated, though with less lights than I wanted. I forgot I threw some worn out strings away last year when I took the tree down. It works anyway. Santas have been set out. I'm trying not to think about the cleaning. :)

Gifts have been ordered and have mostly been delivered. So far I did my Christmas shopping without ever setting foot in an actual store. I need to make some deer jerky for a couple of the guys, make some microwave bowl potholders and get DH's hunting/fishing license & I will be done (as long as a couple more things get delivered). That's always a good feeling.....finding something for everyone always stresses me out. Hope I haven't jinxed myself by saying I'm pretty much finished.

My quilting group had our Christmas Potluck &  gift exchange for our Nov. meeting and my women's club had ours Friday night.  Both were very enjoyable and much less stress than the family Christmas. 

Maybe I should watch "Christmas Vacation" tonight?!?

It would be nice to be as relaxed about it all as this guy:

Turkey Day....and I'm Movin' a Little Slow :)

 

Happy Sunday!!

Blue skies, sunshine, chilly and windy.  It could be a lot worse.

So many things to get done and I don't even know where to start.  I need to get some Christmas shopping done, but don't have the slightest idea what anyone wants. Guess it will be small things and gift cards. There are a few that I don't even have any ideas  for the small things. Add the fact that I positively HATE wandering around stores hoping something catches my eye and it's HIGH STRESS time. My family doesn't expect hugely expensive gifts, but they give nice gifts and just aren't always impressed with my handmade things.

Enough of that. Here's some progress on QOV quilts. Three tops made, three backings made, three bindings made, batting at the ready.

These need to be finished and mailed off within the next couple of weeks.

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving week.

A Good Quilting Day

Today was such a nice day outside, but I was inside sewing.  Got the borders on a QOV quilt, cut out the blocks for another one and have some of the sewing done.  I find it really relaxing to have pieces cut and then just push them through the machine one after the other.  There just haven't been too many sewing days during the past few weeks and today was a good one.

Christmas Comes Early

Last night was our Quilt Club's Christmas party, held at Luanne's home this year.  We enjoyed a delicious and varied potluck supper, games and a gift exchange plus some wonderful visiting.  Luanne's granddaughter brought her new baby over for all of us to spoil....though she was so sound asleep she never knew all those ladies were loving on her.

I forgot to take a camera last night so here is the only picture I have to mark the ocassion.

Christmas party loot

A good time was had by all....and now the crazy season begins!! Are you ready?

Today I have absolutely nothing scheduled, so I'm sewing. Hopefully I'll get a set of QOV blocks sewn together into a top. Will I get borders put on? Don't know...at least want to get them cut.

Today & tomorrow are the days for the national terror attack on the electrical grid drill. Not trusting the gov't to do anything right, I came home from the party last night and ran some water to save.  Laundry was all caught up. Dishes were clean. Car gas tank filled. Propane tanks for grill, camp stove & Buddy Heater full. E-reader, laptop and camera batteries charged. Wind-up flashlight wound up.  My husband just shakes his head and looks a little disgusted with my preparations, but I bet he'd be happy for a drink of water, a little heat and some light & hot food if the power did go out for more than a few hours. 

Now, some lunch and then back to sewing.

Gone To The Dogs

Happy Halloween!!

 

I'm Such An On and Off Again Blogger...

....So make yourself comfortable and get ready for a long catch-up post with lots of pictures.  I hardly know where to start so I may blather on a bit. :)

Here's a recent Grand-baby picture. Hayden and Holden. They're growing so fast.

And a picture of the older Grand-kids, just to keep everything fair.  :)

 

 Ashley, Tyler and Hailey after Tyler's last football game for the season at the Y.

  I've been doing some sewing, just haven't finished anything.

These blocks got finished today and just need to be de-papered.  The Heartstrings Quilt Project group likes their string blocks done on muslin and when I do blocks for them that's the way I do it. But, I have to buy muslin and I have a large roll of paper banquet table cover so that's what I use when I make quilts that will be donated elsewhere. It takes a little more time, but it's cheaper.

I've been doing some canning too. Tomatoes & tomato juice, some deer from last fall that I thawed out and canned,  vegetable beef soup,  chokecherry juice from berries I put in the freezer back in July.

Veggie beef soup.

This coming week's canning project will be chicken. Soooo much cheaper than buying the little cans that are sometimes mostly broth.  Did you know that is legal?  I looked it up and as long as the contents of the can weigh what the label says it doesn't matter if they forget to put the meat in.

Thawing chicken. Bought on sale.

It's really hard to get good butterfly pictures. Earlier I missed a really pretty blue one. I saw it, ran into the house for the camera, but it was gone when I got back outside.  These two were sitting on the side of the garage.....the garage that badly needs a paint job.  Just ignore the peeling paint.

These are both cropped to make them
show up much at all.  I wish I could take pictures like the beautiful ones I see on some blogs...and not blurry.






OK, let's move on to some cat pictures now.

Mister Kitty. I know, so original. He doesn't care what we call his as long as we feed him.

Up in a tree. See that tail hanging down right there in the middle of the picture?  It's not easy getting a picture of a cat way up in a tree when he won't stay still long enough for the camera to focus.

Click the picture to the right to make it bigger. He's there, right in the middle.  He must have been about 15-20 feet up in that really big mulberry tree.  I was hoping he knew how to climb down trees as well as up.

What????? You still there with that camera?  Enough, already!

                                                                      THE END!

Grand-baby update

Sunday we went to spoil the twin grand-babies some more. It had only been a week and a half, but I think they were even cuter. :)  They've gained back the weight they lost after being born and have grown a half inch.  The little cheeks are starting to look chubby. Adorable!! And I'm not a bit biased!

Hayden.  You might think this is blurry.  Not so. It's an action shot! Her hands & feet move fast.

Holden.  Wearing the cute little jeans his Grandma bought him.

New Arrivals

Holden Allen, 6 lbs 11oz, 20"

Hayden Marie, 6 lbs 4oz, 19.5"

    With Daddy

. We'll catch Mommy later. The anesthetic was making her sick.   

Catching Up

It's hard to believe my last post was on Sept. 3. Time just goes by too fast. So, what have I been doing?  Going to work, of course, as well as meetings and picking tomatoes, canning tomatoes, making tomato juice, canning tomato juice, and sewing blocks for Alycia's Big Blockbuster Block Drive for blocks for Quilts of Valor Quilts.  I have ten or so to trim yet and think I'll put together a couple more for an even fifty.

 

I think I'll wait a little before sending them off, what with all the flooding in Colorado. Alycia said on her blog that there are a lot of roads and bridges washed out near them. That will have to affect mail delivery.

Quilted this lovely.  Sorry to say it isn't mine, I love the colors.

 

I quilted it in the "Timeless Hearts" pattern. That's the one I've used on all the baby quilts I've quilted this year.  It just seems to work so well.

Tuesday night our quilt group met and I was lucky enough to win the door prize.

Made by my friend Jane.  I had just been thinking I needed to make one for my machine to protect it from dust. (Dust in my house?!? Can't be!!)  Now I won't have to.  There was also a cute notepad and a couple Fall dish towels in the bag. Thanks, Jane. The only catch is that I have to come up with a door prize for next month....that meeting is going to come all to fast.

Such a gloomy day today, the third one in a row.  Weather like this just makes me want to go take a nap. Can't do that though. Tonight is our women's club meeting, it's supposed to be a picnic at a member's home, though I think it's going to be a bit chilly for that. I'm down for providing dessert so need to put a pie together. There's a container of sour cream in the fridge and frozen blueberries in the freezer so I'm making Sour Cream Blueberry Pie....one of my favorites.  I'd make two and keep one for at home, but alas, only one container of sour cream in the fridge and I don't feel like going downtown for more.

Labor Day Project

We couldn't have had a more beautiful day yesterday for Labor Day. And where was I??  In my sewing room making R/W/B  string blocks for the Big Block Blowout Drive for Quilts of Valor quilts at AlyciaQuilts.

Twenty-one done. Thought I was working on twenty, but miscounted.  :)

My mess!!

I enjoyed my day of sewing. Hope everyone got to do something they enjoy this past weekend.  Today I need to get a baby quilt loaded and quilted for a rapidly approaching deadline.  Now though, I think I'll fix myself a BLT for lunch and make a pan of apple crisp.

Vintage Top is now a Quilt

I got the binding put on this yesterday and right now it's soaking in the washing machine. Hopefully a few small stains will come out.

I'm calling it "Square in a Square 9-Patch".

It's a hand-pieced vintage top I bought off eBay several years ago and has been mellowing in a box under my bed ever since. Judging from the fabrics I'd say it was made sometime in the 1930s, though there are a couple pink patches that give me pause.  They feel like polyester, but I suppose the owner could have made repairs before selling it. I used Hobbs 80/20 batting and 100% cotton '30s repros for the back and binding. It's quilted in the "Plumage" pattern by Jody Beamish. I wanted fairly dense quilting to help support the old fabrics and hand-stitched seams.  If it survives being laundered it will be donated to a benefit for a cancer patient in a neighboring town. Keep your fingers crossed!!

Today's the Day......

.....that we make the switch from Dish to DirecTV. Dish got way too expensive, especially with so many channels we will never watch.  We've had it since about 1997 and the only update that was ever done was a new satellite dish when the local channels became available. No updates to outdated receivers, no rewards for being long-time customers, nothing. So when we had an offer to switch, at quite a monthly savings, we took it. I hope we'll be happy with it. I at least hope the hubby will quite complaining about not getting the channels he's paying for. I rarely turn the TV on.

The baby quilts for the twins are finished. We're just waiting for them to make their appearance. Hopefully they will wait another month at least. We want them to get off to a good start.

Owls front & back, just as requested.

And here's picture of the cat who thinks he is now ours.  He's had to stay out on the porch, but he REALLY wants to be a house cat.  He knows that other cat is in the house and doesn't understand why he can't come in and live here too.  SHE DOES NOT WANT HIM TO LIVE HERE!!!  It took her years to get rid of the other interloper.  :)

Never mind the cat, aren't the flowers pretty?

What I'm Reading Tuesday

America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great  by Dr. Benjamin Carson.

He starts the book out with a review of our country's history...how hard our ancestors fought for their freedoms and the intelligence and foresight of the founding fathers in creating the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, setting up our form of government the way they did.

Then he goes on to talk about the things that made this country great...morality, education, hard work....and what has gone wrong to cause the problems of today.  He goes on to offer suggestions of what needs to be done to get us back on the right path....most of them just common sense. Which isn't so common these days. Most of his suggestions would also require more work and sweat than our entitlement addled society wants to put forth.  He doesn't believe in victims.  He grew up in poverty and is where he is today because of his own efforts and isn't bashful about saying that is how the average person will improve their lot....not by collecting every benefit they can apply for.

Some have put his name forth as a viable presidential candidate for 2016.  I suspect he's too smart  a man to want a job where he would have to constantly battle Congress for every little thing.  Members of Congress are too divided along party lines to ever do anything that smacked of common sense...especially if it didn't make them or their wealthy campaign donors even wealthier.

A book well worth reading.

On the sewing front I've trimmed the baby quilts and made backings this morning.  I got out a new package of batting, but on second thought maybe I should check my larger scraps. There might just be pieces that are wide enough.  Quilt Club is tonight so I'll take the tops along to show them off....who knows when those babies will decide to be born, even though we hope they wait until at least the middle of September.

Damn Cancer Wins Again

Early yesterday morning we lost yet another family member to cancer, my brother-in-law, Stan Risinger.

First his mother, then his sister, and now him.  When will it end?  Too many families have lost too many to this incredibly cruel disease.  For Stan there is no more chemo, no more suffering. May he rest in peace.  We'll always miss him.

Mostly Pictures

Grandson stayed with us this past weekend while his parents and #2 granddaughter were at the State softball tournament in Hastings.

Driving the "Beast."

Grandson relaxing.

Grand-dog relaxing.

Quilted & bound over the weekend.

 The baby quilts went in a whole new direction today.  I was doing a Bowtie and a Dresden Plate with owl fabric on the back.  Allen wants owls in the quilts.  Then I saw this pattern on Mary's blog and it went from there. They're not the traditional blocks I usually do for baby quilts, but by gosh those owls are in the front AND the back!!!

Smile.....

This is the kind of goofy stuff I find to post when I don't have anything to post.

How many times did we hear Jean Luc Picard say that?!?  :)

Have a great sewing week, everyone.

Another Holiday

 

I think mine will be quiet & relaxing.   Maybe I'll sew a little. Maybe I'll pull some weeds out of my brick patio.........or maybe not!  :)  I'm just really enjoying having four days in a row off work.

Lots of dollars worth of fireworks being shot off this week.  Every night after dark it sounds like a war going on.  Be safe out there.

Sunday Afternoon

I just spent about three pleasant hours this afternoon de-papering some string blocks accompanied by Bonnie Hunter on Quilt-Cam followed by some Bon Jovi. The little Panda Speaker is amazing.  Maybe not if you're the type that likes your music so loud it blasts you out of your chair, but perfect for me.  The laptop battery actually lasted until I was almost finished de-papering.

This might be something nobody knows about me, but I really don't like most Country music.  The upbeat songs are fine, but so much of it sounds so whiny to me.  I like good old, upbeat Rock 'n Roll.  Just a child of the 60s and 70s I guess.  I'm fond of Celtic and Andean music too, so I suppose that just makes me weird?  So be it.

I had to go out driving around before lunch and see the storm damage around town. Several complete trees down and lots of smaller branches.  I woke up in the night when the power started cutting in and out and shutting the fan off, letting it just start up, then shut it off again before going off completely. I finally just shut it off and opened the window.  Then I could hear the wind coming. When it hit it blew stuff off the dresser and off the window sill in the kitchen, but it was over in just a couple minutes.  Maybe it was even stronger than I thought????  No damage here except for a small branch blown into the yard and one shingle laying on the lawn.....not real sure where that came from since I looked and couldn't see any missing from our roofs.

The First Day of Summer

Kinda says it all.

Only One Word Needed

 DONE!!!!

Teaser

The next one up.

 

Loaded, lined up and ready for that first pass.  I'll post a picture of the whole thing once it's all finished.

Next up is the mess of fish DH and his cousin brought home yesterday.

 

 

Now there's not room in the fridge for anything else even though he gave his brother a roaster full of fillets.

Time to make supper....I think it will be lasagne. :)