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. :)

Goodbye, Nuey

Yesterday we lost one of our kitties. Very sudden. Just the day before he'd been running around and playing like a kitten, though he had lost most of his hearing over the winter.

He came to us as a half-starved stray at least 8 or 10 years ago but turned into a very handsome boy once he was getting regular meals. His favorite place to take a snooze was on a quilt. I'm going to miss him....he was my alarm clock every morning....who could sleep through that loud meowing??  He made it his business to get his share of my breakfast most mornings, now I only have one cat to silently stare at me until I give her a little bit.  Rest in peace, buddy.

Design Wall Friday :)

Ready for borders.

 I know, I know, it's not the official Design Wall day and this is a Design Floor, but we work with what we have, right?

P.S. My couch is covered with quilts because one of my cats loves to use it as a scratching post if it's left uncovered. With quilts over it he leaves it alone. 

Confirmation Quilt & What I'm Reading

Sunday was #2 Granddaughter's confirmation.  Here she is with the quilt I made for her to match her room.  I've never quite warmed up to that color combination but she seemed pleased with it. Anyway she was telling everyone she liked it and that it matched her room.

Little brother (there in the lower left corner) wanted to know when he gets his quilt. When I told him in four years for confirmation he was disappointed. His room has been recently redone so maybe he'll have to get his sooner.  The girls didn't get their rooms redone to their specifications until 8th grade so that's when they got their quilts.

Currently, I'm reading The Feast Nearby by Robin Mather. After she was divorced and lost her job she moved to rural Michigan and learned how to live on a $40 a week food budget and still eat well by using more locally grown foods. I've only read a few chapters so far and am enjoying it.  She admits that keeping the price down meant not going organic and that some things, like coffee and sugar, can't be produced locally but she goes out of her way to find the most natural products and buys "fair trade" coffee produced by coffee farmers who are paid a fair price for their product.


I'm making good progress on the next quilt....all the blocks are sewed.

Now to get them all laid out to suit me and get them sewn together.  The next part....borders... is where I lose steam. I did find a nice brown w/lavender flowers on it for the outer border. Inner border is still to be decided.  Maybe just a rather plain cream tone-on-tone to set it off from the cream print used as the background. We will see. I think the binding will be strips of the various lavenders sewn together. Backing will be the cream print, same as the background.

Cuttin' Up

Most of the day yesterday was spent cutting out the blocks for the next quilt and getting them all kitted up, ready to sew.

 

I think I'm going to have to go fabric shopping.....imagine that!!!!  My "good" browns are pretty much used up after making several quilts with brown in them.  I ordered some backing fabric for this quilt and now I need to get some for the outer border.  I know I saw a collection online of chocolate browns and purples. Now I just need to find it again.

I Told You......

...there was some quilting going on at my house!

 I call this one "Scrappy Stars".  It is being donated for the silent auction at my brother-in-law's benefit in Brunswick on June 1 at the auditorium. Fabrics are cotton, batting is Hobbs Polydown, 80" X 98", machine pieced, machine quilted.
 

This one is for my #2  Granddaughter for her confirmation. Orange & a teal blue with lime green binding. She will either love it or hate it. Haven't measured it since I finished it, but it should be a more-than-generous double-bed size.  I'm just calling it "Framed Nine-Patch", though I have called it "the monstrosity."   I must say I like it better with the lime green binding on than I did without it.

Now I'm on to the next one using the BQ Quilt pattern redrafted to a 12" size in dusty purple, chocolate brown and a light print with a cream background and some purple, brown & a little green. I wouldn't have thought to put purple & brown together, but that is what was requested. I think it will look fine in the bedroom it's destined for.

Happy Mother's Day

.....to all the Mom's out there

Yesterday was #1 Granddaughter's high school graduation. I just made like a grandma and enjoyed.  Didn't even take my camera.  Told my daughter she was the mom and could take the pictures. :)  Their ceremony was really nice and done in under an hour and a half; they had it all planned to move quickly.  The party was at their house and I love the colors they decorated with....purple, pink, orange and lime green.  Food and company were good too.

There's been some quilting going on but no pictures yet. #2 Granddaughter's quilt for her confirmation is finished and the one for the silent auction at my brother-in-law's benefit just needs binding.  I tell you, standing on a cement floor for a few hours at the quilting machine just makes my whole body ache.  Am I getting old?????