Back to the Real World

But before we get there I do need to share my birthday gift from DS and DIL: a visit to Alligator World.

Today I spent all day in the studio. I embroidered a Christmas shirt for me (I try to do one a year) and started on some free standing lace gift tags. I also started organizing my fabric strips as per Bonnie Hunter and cut and started sewing my minki throw. I enjoyed multi-tasking so much I even began cleaning up the cutting table and sewing room. Wow, writing about all that has left me exhausted.

On the left you will see a new give away picture. Daisy's Quilts has been online for one year and she is celebrating. I would encourage everyone to enter her give away but I really want to win so check it out but don't enter. lol

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has had as nice a Thanksgiving as we have. Our DS and DIL prepared a wonderful dinner and even have the Weight Watcher's points all figured out for us. We ate well and didn't go over our alloted points: what more could one ask for?

For the last year I have been involved in a "Birthday Project." I made pillows for every member of the family for their birthdays. Each pillow was made from a shirt and was embroidered with designs chosen especially for the person. The funny thing is that it began to seem like we had more family members than I remembered. However, last week I completed the last of the birthday pillows: front and back.

These were given to our DD, DIL, and DS on Wednesday. I really enjoyed making the pillows and shirt covers but was glad to see this project come to an end.

Tomorrow we will be celebrating my birthday (66) and then Saturday we will be headed home to put up Christmas decorations. I am also hoping for some quilting and sewing time as I always need that quiet time after being away on a trip.

This is how far I have gotten on my Christmas wall hanging. The reindeer are all appliqued, the trees are only stuck on. Unfortunately I am out of time. This piece will be background for our Christmas village which will go on the hearth when we get back from our son's (Thanksgiving and my birthday). So, we will admire it as is for this Christmas and then I will finish the applique and quilting. I only hope I get it done in January rather than waiting until next November.

Here are the fabrics I bought with my birthday discount. Here are the quilting fabrics: I see 4 different projects there.

Here are the Minki-like fabrics. I got the animal print last November and the coral now. Back to back they will make a great throw and possibly a couple of pillows. All of this will be after Christmas projects.

And now I need to get packed. My DH, DD, and I are leaving early tomorrow morning to travel to St. Augustine for a family Thanksgiving. This will be a first in a long time that my twins (now 40) will be together for this holiday and I am really looking forward to it. I don't know if I will be online while we are gone but will try to take pictures to share. Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow is another day

Despite all my good intentions, I have not been sewing. For the last three days I have made plans to spend time in the studio, working on a birthday gift and a Christmas quilt. And all three days I have gotten in my car and driven to NW FL. On Friday we, DH and I, drove the 60 miles down to one of my favorite fabric stores where I was able to use my birthday discount to purchase a minki-like fashion fabric plus some on sale quilting cotton. I love sale fabric! We also went to Lowes to get some plastic drawers for me to begin storing left over "squares, bricks, and strips" as per Bonnie Hunter.

Saturday, as I was preparing to enter the studio to sew, I decided that we hadn't done anything about Christmas gifts. So off we went, back to NW FL, where we did quite a lot of Christmas shopping and, just by chance, some us shopping, too. I have a fondness for dark wood antiques and couldn't resist this:

It is a hand-made secretary. The top part is about 4' tall and the whole thing is almost 8' tall. I don't know what I am going to display on the shelves but I am sure it will come to me.

I also bought a new/old lamp:

It was on sale, 80 % off, I think because it is so big, 4 1/2' high. But it is perfect for me and will be even better when I put some crystal fringe on it.

So on with my no-sewing story. Today we had to go back to NW FL because the secretary was too big to put in my car yesterday. Then when we got home I spent the afternoon rearranging the furniture to accomodate the new finds.

So as far as sewing goes, "tomorrow is another day."

Yea!!

Ready

Set

Going

Gone

Newfound Backyard

Update: The second half of the house has moved. It is not off the property but it has moved about 200' and is just waiting for the licensed truck driver to show up again. But for now the house is sitting next to my studio. I must say that I couldn't stay in the sewing room of the studio while it was going by: way too close for me.







The funny thing is that this truck has been around for so long (almost three weeks) that it is looking like part of the family parking lot.





And this is the best part, the view from my house. It is a little messy right now (and since it is going down to 25 tonight will probably stay that way for a while) but cleaned up and with grass won't this be a beautiful view?

Everything we can see from here is ours and I love it.


My sewing today consisted of shortening the pants I bought Saturday. I even got Petites and had to shorten the legs: it doesn't seem fair. But now I have 5 new pair that fit so I can go back to quilting tomorrow. I need to be working on the appliqued reindeer and have a table topper to quilt, already loaded on the frame. It's funny but living in the quilting world means there is always work to be done. Yea!

Wonderful Weekend

Positive things happened this weekend. Saturday my daughter and I went shopping. We were celebrating her 40th birthday and looking for smaller clothes for both of us due to significant weight loss through Weight Watchers. We shopped consignment and thrift stores, because we plan to loose even more, and had a great time.

And today there was significant movement in my yard. This may sound funny but two years ago we moved into a new house. We had a double wide mobile home that we continued to use for storage for a while and then tried to get rid of it. I offered it for free but no one wanted to try to move it. Then in August my SIL sold it for us: the bill of sale said it had to be moved by November 1. Well no one came to move it until the end of October. They worked on getting the tires on (30 years sitting) and finally on October 30 the parts were separated and the front half was moved from the backyard to the side. But because it was late it was decided that they would move everything the next day. So on the 31st I left for a meeting figuring that when I got home I would have an empty back yard (5 acres) to start working on. Well, was I surprised when I came home and everything was just like I left it. And it stayed that way until today: no one could find the mover. So today one half of the house is gone and who knows when the second half will follow. But I am concentrating on the progress of today and enjoying the empty space in the side yard.

A look back in (my) time.

In September 2007 my quilt guild invited Flavin Glover to teach a class. Until that time I had never made even one log cabin block. On that day I made four little blocks (Flavin uses very small strips for her blocks) and am just now getting ready to quilt a small table topper that has them in it. However, I did do a complete log cabin project.

I made several quilt blocks and stitched them onto a muslin jacket. I made the jacket pattern in PatternMaster Botique.

But on the way I had another idea:

I decided that I could make a jacket with removable sleeves: jacket/vest. And I did it. Now I can't tell you that the vest looks really good on me (really broad shoulders) but the idea is good and it is a great learning tool. And it was lots of fun to demo at guild.

I really enjoyed making the log cabin blocks and plan to make a quilt with them one day but it just seems like I keep coming up with new ideas that then push the old ideas

So many people post pictures of the Fall color, I thought I would do the same. Here, in the South, we mostly have green all year round. But, here and there are shots of color. This is in my front yard. We have several volunteer sugar maple trees scattered throughout the five acres and they give us a lot of color in the fall.

For some reason I have not been getting much done around here. It could be that my husband has been around more and keeps interrupting me. It also could be because we got a Wii and Wii Fit and have been playing with it. However, even with all these goings on, I have gotten 2 1/2 gifts done, am set up for the appliqueing on the reindeer, have the parts ready to sew together on a BOM and am almost ready to load a table topper for quilting. And, if it wasn't laundry day, I would be in the studio now getting someting done. So I better get off this computer, get some laundery loaded, and get busy.

Views of the Past

I am sewing and embroidering but nothing I can show right now, so I thought I would dredge up one of my older masterpieces to show.

This is done with swap blocks from my quilt guild. It was one where I suggested the design for the blocks and everyone was to use blue, yellow and white. The blocks were beautiful and I had told everyone I wanted them so when we drew for them, I won. Of course, like everyone else, they sat on a shelf for a while before I decided what to do with them. This is quite traditional but the first time I used a border fabric so I was trying something new.

I quilted circular feathers in the white spaces and meandered around them. The label is embroidered. I had planned to use this in the kitchen, perhaps on the table, but the yellow in there is more of a mustard color so it now graces my studio recliner.

I think I am coming down with a cold: frequent weather changes lately. Although I always have lots to do, I don't much feel like doing anything so I have been embroidering a little and sitting a little. And now, maybe I'll nap a little.

With no one home to hold the quilt up it was a little difficult to get pictures but here they are:

Front and Back

The quilt had gotten a little dark with the outside border but just adding the light binding decreased that effect. I figure that it will not get too dirty since it will only come out to play for one month a year. The back is left over fabric from this quilt and an internet Christmas quilt block swap I did this spring/summer. Those blocks have not been put together but I already had fabric for the back of it so I could use this. I'm not part of stashbusters (I do love buying fabric) but I have been trying to use as much of my stash as possible:

crowded shelves.

Today I am working on birthday gifts and a log cabin block for a guild swap. Right now I was going to make my bed but the dogs are already asleep on it so that will have to wait until later. I am also going to try to practice some of the quilt designs in Dawn Ramirez's Pajama Quilter Reloaded DVD I

just got. I loved watching it but now it is time to practice. She already taught me how "pebbling" is done so now it is time to

see if I can do it, on the white board. Then maybe later this week I will make and load a charity quilt to practice for real.

This was a very good quilting day. I completed my Christmas Disappearing 9 Patch, picture tomorrow, and got started on my Christmas wall hanging called Practicing:

I have decided I will have to do some fabric painting on the sky: too many moons. This is the top half and has only been ironed on.

Meanwhile, this is what was going on in the house...

I think they think I make quilts just for them.