Yesterday's quilting project

This was yesterday's quilting effort:



A cute little Dick and Jane quilt, about 51 in. square, made by a friend.

I quilted it with the "Bubbles" pantograph....a happy pattern for a happy little quilt.

Day not going quite as planned

Actually, things not going as planned started last night. I decided it was time to ditch the Eudora e-mail client since it's been discontinued and hasn't been updated in at least four years. So I did a Google search for new clients and started trying them out. One of them decided to re-send all the old e-mails that were still in my "sent" file. So, if anyone's had a strange message from me, it's not because of a virus and you're not crazy, it's just an e-mail program gone berserk. I finally settled on Thunderbird, it's improved some since the last time I tried it and I'm determined to get used to it. I tried IncrediMail. I guess it's cute but all that cuteness got annoying real fast.....like in half an hour. There was one called Nirvana and I thought it would be really cool to have an e-mail program called Nirvana, but it's not available for download yet. Bummer.

This morning I got a bunch of red, blue, white/cream fabrics out to start working on some patriotic string signature blocks when I realized my cat was having a problem that turned out to be bladder infection so I had to take her to the vet...the closest is about 25 mi. away. She had to get into a pet carrier, ride in a car to a strange place.......and strangers touched her. My God, you should have heard the protests. After listening to the protests all the way there I expected her to try to take someone's arm off trying to get her out of the carrier, but no, once she's there she's perfectly composed, doesn't try to escape or anything. Never protested being squeezed and prodded by the vet. Didn't even seem to notice the shot. Always amazes me.

Now back to the blocks and then it'll be time to make supper.

Progress

The next step of the QOV quilt done. Now it's on to pressing and slicing/dicing.



Finished 22 out of 24 last night & whipped out the last two this morning. For some reason when I was cutting fabric I was thinking 30 blocks instead of 24 so I have pieces for another 17 blocks cut. The start of another quilt???

I find if I keep posting here it keeps me motivated to get the next step done. Prepare to be bored.

Now I have to go quilt a customer quilt. I've been pushing buttons this morning and need to earn some money to pay for it all. Be prepared to see a mountain of fabric soon.(And I had just emptied out ONE space on my shelves.)Maybe I should be making the effort to find a few more customers. LOLOL

Busy Sunday

It was clear out and the sun was shining this morning, so I knew it would be a good day. Certainly a major improvement over the clouds and cold northwest wind of yesterday.

I delivered the two QAYG quilts to the benefit for the family who had the house fire two weeks ago and ate a late breakfast there. Then home to do a few chores(there's always the dishwasher to unload & load again, and there's always cat hair to vacuum up) and fix my DH some fish for lunch. He could have gone with me to the benefit but he'd rather tinker with his lawn mowers.

After lunch I decided I had some sort of bug on my laptop so started running tools to clean that off. Every one of those fake anti-virus bugs is different, this one changed the DNS server setting. While that was happening I worked on cutting out my next quilt:



I'll let you guess what this will be. I've already found the next quilt I want to try after this one....a strip quilt variation that looks like fun. I also have the main fabrics piled up for Bonnie Hunter's Orange Crush......so many projects, so little time.

Oh, yeah. I also got a quilt loaded on the Premier. It's been awhile. I had to partially re-thread the machine and had to get out the manual. LOLOL

2nd QAYG finished

Friday I finished the 2nd QAYG quilt from blocks we brought home from the sew-in last week.




The sashing looks kind of pink in the photo, but it's kind of a cream/tan tone-on-tone. Last night I printed out some Heartstrings labels and tonight I stuck them on with Heat 'n Bond. Cheating I know, but Ole Arthur is making my fingers hurt to much for hand sewing. It'll have to do.

Tomorrow I'll take them to the fundraiser for the family whose home burned and that project will be done.

What next? Maybe put together the Bricks & Stepping Stones I started will over a year ago? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Heartstrings QAYG finished

Jennie and I each brought a set of QAYG blocks home from the sew-in last Saturday to finish for the family who lost their home to fire. I buckled down and got this one finished today.



This is the first one of these QAYG quilts I have put together and it took some concentration. Sewing with wrong sides together goes contrary to everything I've been taught in 40 some years of sewing.

Going somewhere and sewing with friends is lots of fun but it's so much easier to work at home with the sewing machine setting down in its cabinet so there's a flat surface to the left. Everything "pulls" when the machine sets up on a table.

Weenie Roast Anyone???

Today's main event in my neighborhood was the Fire Dept. burning down an old house just across the backyards from mine.



A dear, older friend lived there for years. It had sat empty for a few years after she had to go to a nursing home and with just a dirt cellar under it the floors had rotted and the last renters trashed it. I suppose it's best that it's gone but it will take a while to get used to the empty spot across the yards.

Great Quilting Day

National Quilting Day started out dark and early at 5am to leave for Fremont by 6am for the Heartstrings Nebraska sew-in at Keene Memorial Library. For the first day of Spring it felt pretty un-Spring-like with the cold wind. Still, we had a good turn-out with quilters from SD, MN, KS/MO and even Hawaii as well as Nebraskans.

We had a fun and productive day working on QAYG blocks and setting tops together, Jay served an excellent lunch, and a few of us made a trip to the quilt shop. We drooled over the quilting machines on display, admired all the wonderful fabrics and demonstrated considerable restraint in purchasing. :-)

Being a librarian, I had to take a little self-guided tour of the library and visited with one of the staff a little bit. I intended to get back up to the genealogy section to look through a couple of the Germans to America books, but that didn't happen. Maybe next time.

Here are a few pictures of our hard-working group. Mary has some on her blog so I'll try not to post repeats. Others will probably show up on other blogs as well.









Darn, I see I didn't get a picture of our host, but I know he's in a couple of the pictures on Mary's blog.

I enjoyed meeting a great bunch of quilters and working on a worthwhile project. I don't get up at 5am for just anything!!!!

Sewed...........sad ocassion

The good news............I sewed Saturday after work. The bad news..............it was blocks for a quilt for a family who had a house fire that afternoon. They are all safe......they were at the State basketball tournament in Lincoln. My brother-in-law the Fire Chief thinks the house is most likely beyond repair. Later in the evening they were moving some things out, but who knows what was salvageable.... the fire probably smoldered for quit a while and the house was completely filled with oily black smoke by the time the firemen got in and I could see flames in the dining room through the bay window about that time. Sad, sad day.

Winter Wonderland.......again

This is what my world looked like when I came home from work around 3pm:

And here's some snow with action:

It's still snowing, but much lighter now. It was really pretty for awhile. Don't you find it amazing that I can still fine snow pretty after all we've had this winter?

Pink!!!!!!

I have no idea why this picture turned out so pink. Must have had something to do with the lighting and the pale pink cutting mat interacting with the flash. Yeah, that must be it. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

That little computer on the right is what I spent most of my day working on today. Isn't it cute? It wouldn't boot up any more so it's mama brought it to me. The whole operation would have gone pretty well if the driver disk would have worked in my external DVD drive. You know how you used to get that driver disk with all computers and never used it because everything was included on the Windows disk? Well, on these little guys you need it. Otherwise no sound, no wi-fi, no ethernet, no graphics adjustments...in other words, lots of things don't work without those drivers. Sooooooo....after a certain amount of stubborn-ness and frustration I used my laptop to search the Internet for the drivers, downloaded them, burned them to a disk that would work in the DVD drive and got them installed. Whew. Then added anti-virus, anti-spyware, Adobe Reader, Flash, Shockwave and Windows updates. Finally done!!

These little things are cute but not all that practical for everyday use. They don't have CD-ROM or DVD drives and this one only has a 8GB hard-drive. Typing on it is tricky....everything is kind of scrunched together, the shift keys are small and some keys are in different places.  My old laptop looks huge and cumbersome beside the little cutie but I think I'll stick with it. Much more practical for the things I do.

I got to play with a little netbook and tomorrow it can go back to it's mama....we'll both be happy.

Not much sewing going on here

     As you can see, my cutting table is now my computer desk.

 

     Just move the tubs of fabric, take the table down off its bed risers and abracadabra, my cutting table is a computer desk. Course that means I'm not doing any cutting and sewing, but it's time to do some genealogy work. 

     First off I had to re-enter some stuff  I inexplicably lost last fall. Then work on entering some material received from a kind gentleman in the Netherlands on my DH's elusive Veenker family. He sent me so much, and so detailed. I decided that after a certain point I would only enter the direct line ancestors in my database and then keep his file for reference.  I don't know of a single soul in the family who would be interested in all those collateral lines. 

      Then there was more information from a website that includes the descendents of DH's great-grandfather's sister. I've contacted the site owner, asking her to share some of the information about still living people that aren't included in the online version. I hope she responds favorably because I am willing to share what I have if she can use any of it.  

     Through the contacts I've made in the last few months there's finally been some progress. Once all this information is in my database I want to start trying to figure out how "our" Veenkers might be connected to the ones in Iowa. I feel sure they are, somehow. I also want to scan a lot of pictures and find Census images and copies of original records to include in the database. There's always plenty to do.

What a day!

The sun is shining AND it's snowing at the same time. Only in Nebraska!!  :-D

More Snow

Yesterday was such a beautiful, sunny day. And relatively warm too. I actually walked from the library to the post office wearing a light fleece jacket and it was just right.  Felt like Spring might be just around the corner. However, later in the afternoon the clouds came back and by 4:00 it started snowing again and was still snowing when I went to bed around 11:30. This morning it's snowing again.

 

At least the wind isn't howling, but this is Nebraska so it can start up any time.  Ole Man Winter just can't loosen his grip on us.

I wish I had taken my camera to Tues. night's Quilt club meeting.  We were quilting machines!!!  The project was working on a quilt for our friend who banged her head in a fall on the ice & has spent much of the past month in the hospital. By a little before 10:00pm we had the blocks all made, most of the sashing made and rows sewn together. Jennie took it home to finish up and quilt. She thought she might be able to get it to Linda P. yet this week. 

Ahhhhh, just now the sun is peeking through a little bit. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the snow is finished for this round.

Still listening to the wind howl

I'm still sitting here listening to the wind howl........at times almost a bad as last night and the night before...and all day yesterday and today. Enough already!!!  Many highways & roads in the area are closed to normal traffic...one way for emergency traffic only. At this rate they will all be drifted shut again by morning. One closing notice said the road would be closed until further notice. June, maybe??

Since all the schools in the surrounding area were closed today and the wind chill at 8:30 this morning was around 18-20 below zero I called a snow day for the library too and stayed warm inside out of the vicious wind. I didn't see any sense in struggling through the blowing snow & bone-chilling cold to get to the library to babysit a bunch of bored kids playing games on the computers.  It's not like they'd actually check out books to read or anything constructive like that. Let their parents enjoy their company.

Sunday while I listened to the wind I did the machine applique on a couple blocks for a friend in Quilt Club who wants them for a quilt for a grandson getting married soon. I think at tomorrow night's meeting we will be doing something for her. Not to long after our last meeting she fell on the ice and hit her head. She's been in the hospital & rehab ever since.

 

This afternoon I got myself moving to iron the pillowcases I made and washed for the Million Pillowcase challenge so they are all ready to be donated now. It was a great way to use up a bit more than 20 yds. of stash.

Some of the wind gusts make the whole house shudder.  Makes me feel cold. It must be time to go crawl under the quilts & flannel sheets and try to sleep, but the wind noise makes it hard.

From your roving weather reporter

Though it seems I don't rove to far from the recliner when the weather is like this. COLD and WINDY with light snow. Please refer to earlier photos on the blog. I look at pictures of the snow-buried east coast and am thankful we haven't gotten that much all at one time.

Tonight is our Quilt Club meeting at the library. I sure hope the weather doesn't mess it up. I need the inspiration of seeing and hearing about what everyone else is working on. We've had so much gray, gloomy weather that I just don't have much ambition for doing any more than what's absolutely necessary each day. Must be the "winter blues." Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

What I've Been Craving

I haven't made Cranberry Nut Bread for a couple years now.  I used to make up a big batch every year for the FCE Club bake sale, which we haven't had for the last couple years.  I've been craving it so today was the day:

A quadruple batch fresh from the oven. As soon as it was cool enough I cut off a good sized chunk, spread it with butter and enjoyed. Yummm!!  Love that crunchy crust.

Usually I grind the fresh cranberries but experimented with using them whole today. Still good, but I prefer them ground up. The cranberry goodness is more spread out through the loaf that way and you don't bite into a large tart berry.

I made roast beef for supper yesterday and today I used the leftovers to make Beef Vegetable Soup for supper. I sometimes make it with browned hamburger but think the flavor is so much better from leftover roast. My lunch for work tomorrow will be the soup and a couple of slices of Cranberry Nut Bread.

Yesterday and through most of today we had bright, sunny weather. Wow, BRIGHT!!  We're just not used to that any more. By about 3pm today  the heavy clouds reappeared. Now it's very damp out and we may be in for some more snow. I hope it doesn't get too carried away.

Small Things

Just getting a few small things done. I've always been afraid that someday Bonnie Hunter's great web site would suddenly disappear from the Internet. She has so many great quilt patterns on her site, many of which I'd like to make someday. So gradually I printed off my favorites & have them in a big ring binder.(I have lots of favorites. LOL) Leafing through it looking for a specific pattern can be a pain so Sunday I started putting index tabs on the first page of each pattern. Still have to make the little labels that go in the tabs, but it's a start.

And here is a pile of pillowcases all washed & ready to iron before donating. With postage costing so much I think I'll sort out some for Alycia's QOV project and take the rest to the Quilter's Candy Shoppe in O'Neill. They are participating in the Million Pillowcase challenge as a drop-off point.

Lately I've been spending way to much time on the computer & it has affected my sewing time & book reading time as well. I got sucked into a great travel blog.  It's written by a retired gentleman who realized he couldn't afford to live in his home state of Calif. on his Social Security alone, so he used his modest savings to buy and equip a small, used RV and set off to become a "Vagabond-Supreme."  He spends at least six months a year traveling around in Mexico because it it less expensive to live there, finding places to camp for free. His motto is "never pay rent." His blog has lots of pictures and descriptions of the places he visits. It will make you see Mexico in a whole new light. Very interesting. The blog is The Adventures of Tioga and George, starting in 2003 & continuing to the present. He's fixed it up so it's very easy to navigate and has a little calendar that breaks it up into quarterly segments so you can easily start & stop anywhere. Just don't blame me if you get hooked too. LOL

It's about time.........

......that I did a blog post. The problem is that I haven't done anything blog-worthy.  I don't think anyone really wants to hear about the time I spend reading other people's blogs.....quilting, RVing, scrapbooking and genealogy blogs. All interesting, but time consuming.

At this point I will share a picture of what my world looks like today...and yesterday and the day before and probably into next week sometime.

Notice the glaze of ice over everything. It's been really foggy almost every night so the trees got covered with a heavy layer of frost. Mix in a little freezing drizzle and everything gets crunchy. Today it's freezing rain and wind with sleet and snow to come. Only an inch or two of snow is predicted but with the high winds also predicted it's supposed to be blizzard conditions in places. Yuck. From what I read on the blogs the weather is frightful all over the country, even down south where the RVer's go to get away from such miserable weather so I don't feel like I should complain too much.

Do you think a picture like the one above would qualify for my DDIL's photography class assignment to take pictures representing the "winter blues"?? I would think so, especially since it just goes on and on and on.

So, you'd think I would get lots of quilting done. Not really. I've had several people tell me that when the weather is so miserable they really don't feel like doing much. And when it's really bad they spend time going from window to window just looking out. I'm glad I'm not the only one. The only thing I finished for a while now is some QAYG blocks for Jay. I didn't even have my head together enough to take a picture of the blocks........just the box they were mailed in.

I have another five pillowcases cut out and I WILL work on finishing them today. [Notice the Scarlett O'Hara tone here.] Maybe I can mention too that January has been a paperwork month so far. Annual state library report, the next form in line for the E-rate application and so on and so on. Plus working on computers.

When I got to work yesterday there was a note that some of the computers couldn't get on the Internet. That was an easy enough fix....the electrical cord to the switch had been knocked loose just enough to not make a connection but not enough to be easily noticed by looking at it. Pushed in the plug all the way and all was well. One computer wasn't so well though and it took reinstalling Windows to fix it, then reinstalling the programs and settings. Luckily it is a public use computer and there weren't any important files to lose. Wednesday night a friend brought me her laptop that was infected with one of those fake anti-virus viruses, plus a couple other things, and I cleaned that up. I've done several that were infected with this type of virus and each time it's a little bit different though it does seem that with every boot-up it attaches to more files. So, keep your Anti-Virus program up to date. Also Spybot Search and Destroy....use the immunize feature.... and Ad-Aware. I'm careful about all these and very rarely have a problem. Also, if you use the Firefox browser, get the Ad Blocker add on.

Stay warm, stay dry and watch your step on the ice. Oh yeah, keep the bugs off your computers so I can keep reading your blogs.

Heat wave

Wow, it warmed all the way to -5 today.  I hear it might get up into the teens tomorrow.  Guess I'll have to go to work, won't I? Actually it will be good to get out and go somewhere.  I haven't been out since Monday and that's getting a bit much even if I am a hermit at heart. Most of the blogs I've read lately talk about the cold and show snow pictures. I'm skipping the pictures, but if you want to see snow just refer to JenniferQuilts and DakotaCityQuilter.  It looks pretty much the same here.

I keep doing a little more sewing....made 18 QAYG blocks yesterday and cut out another five pillowcases today. Then I got side-tracked by genealogy. A friend called & we talked genealogy for awhile. Then I had to spend some time doing a little searching........my, time flies when you're on the computer. LOL  I did find an obituary for someone in a family that I would like a little more information on....well, a lot of information really.. After that branch of the Veenker family moved to Oregon the trail gets pretty slim.  I looked up the widow's address & will have to write to her.

Sewing and the computer have really cut down on my reading time. So I've started putting audio books on my MP3 player and listening while I sew, play on the computer and do things around the house. I get frustrated with the player though because the bookmark feature is worthless....or maybe I'm too dumb to figure it out. I have found though that if I just shut it off, when I turn it back on it starts up where it left off....as long as I don't push any buttons.

Well, that's about it here.  Spring can't come soon enough to suit me.