Dad and other stuff

Who is this handsome man? This is my father as he was when I was a toddler. He has been gone for 19 years and today would have been his 89^th birthday. Happy Birthday Dad.

So far this has been a very productive week. First I finished quilting Purple Rails, a comfort quilt.

I had a lot of tension problems but when I decided to quilt it unregulated, the problems went away. I am not sure why it worked that way but it did. The other problem I had was that I positioned the panto about 4” down from the top so I had to go back and fill it in so it looked like I knew what I was doing. I still have to make the binding and get it bound but it has moved back down the “to do” list for the time being.

The 5^th Jelly Roll Sampler block was announced Monday and here is mine, today.

Once again, I was not impressed with the block when it was presented, but with these fabrics it really looks good. When it was done I just had to see how it looks with the other blocks and this is what I have.

I am not sure how many blocks we will be doing but it should be interesting to figure out a layout.

And as though I didn’t have enough projects going on all at one time, I got these out to start another.

Design Wall & Birthday parties

Today's Design Wall is a hodge-podge of blocks. On the left are two string blocks. I decided to use up some of my saved strips and start a string quilt. This will be my first one and I decided to work on them while I was embroidering the shirts I posted about on Wednesday. Next to the strings is the third of the borders for my sampler quilt. It is ready for flowers and now I only have one last border to sew stems on. Do you think I will ever get this quilt done? I still have my Jelly Roll Sampler block on the wall and it is next to the Bunny Hill BOM block #2.

No other sewing/quilting was done this week. Thursday we attended a high school Dinner Theater (Romeo, You Idiot), and on Friday we attended a Community College play (Stand & Deliver). Saturday we went to the first of two birthday parties for our great grandson, Skylar.



While he waited for the party to begin he shot a little pool.

And then it was time to blow out the candle on his cake. Wasn't it nice of our granddaughter to get a sugar free cake?

Then it was time to open presents. Here he is amid all of the gifts he got from Uncle Jamie.

And then came the big moment his grandma and grandpa had waited for. They have been looking forward to getting him this truck for several months. It is electric, goes forward and back and I am told it will go 3.5 mph. Because of the storm we got to see it work up close and personal inside the house.

On Sunday it was time for birthday party #2. This one came about because his Daddy was working on Saturday and his Mommy wanted Daddy to enjoy the fun, too.

And once again Skylar got a lot of help blowing out his candle.

We had both pizza and cake and Sky enjoyed it, both inside and out.

And the afternoon was capped off by fun and frolic in the lake. You know, it is really fun to watch both the children and the adults having fun. And I didn't have to do anything except come, have fun, and take pictures.

This is the second of the two shirts I have embroidered for our great grandson's second birthday on Saturday. I love this little bear and Sky loves fishing. And what we found out tonight is that the birthday party is a fishing theme. Isn't that great?

These two shirts comprise my first "finish" for OPAM for this month.

I have been working on 3 BOMs and one new quilt as well as two tops but I fear this will be another month on no finished quilts. One day I will have several, if they all get done at once.

And this is one more thing I have finished. I read this book in two sittings. I found this to be one of her best books. She incorperated a lot of Hawaiian history and by the time I finished the book I really wanted to make a quilt in the Hawaiian style. Excellent!

Design Wall, embroidery, and….well….

My design wall would have been empty if I hadn’t had a Jelly Roll Sampler block ready to sew together. Isn’t it beautiful? I wasn’t too excited about this block when I first saw it but didn’t it turn out nice. This is really going to be a beautiful quilt.

Be sure to stop by Judy's blog to see what other's are doing.

I also worked on appliquéing some stems but that is so boring (both doing and looking at) so I won’t show pictures until the flowers start to show up.

I did, however, do some embroidery work. Here are two of six new kitchen towels I am working on. I haven’t had any new towels for about 7 years and although most of what I have are still serviceable, I decided we needed something fresh. The designs are from Artistic Thread Works.

The other embroidery is a shirt for our great grandson’s second birthday later this month. Here it is on the heater in my studio: I don’t have a child sized mannequin.
The color in this close up is not too good but I wanted to show the windows. I used plastic so they look more like a real window. I chose the truck because he is getting an electric riding truck from my DD and DSIL and I wanted this shirt to fit their gift. I have one more shirt to do before the big day arrives.

And lastly. On Saturday the postman delivered this to DH. Since he had not sent for anything he was intrigued, an especially when he saw what it was. It seems that this is what his mother-in-law sent him as a belated birthday gift. Interesting! But to better understand a person would have to know that for Christmas DH sent her a “travel emergency kit” which was a small box with a miniature corn cob in it. Some family I have, huh?

No Sewing

This is how my day starts. I wake up with this puppy, snuggling.

Then I am greated with "Mornin' Mom" and lots of playing.

Up for breakfast and then off for our morning walk. We have a 23' leash. She runs ahead, finds something to check out and falls behind but usually as soon as there is even a slight tension on the leash, she comes running past me and is out in front again. We have been walking the 2 mile trail around the community college and we switch the direction every other day. AND, I did walk my 5 times last week so I am one quarter of the way to my new shoes.

However, when we get home I have a choice of doing the regular housework or this:

And since I still have this to do, I guess I will get off the computer and get back to this.

Sewing/quilting starts again on Thursday afternoon, I hope.

Edit: 4/15/10 = DONE!! After I finished figuring everything out we decided to take it to an accountant who found additional deductions....yea!! I spent all this morning cleaning to keep my mind off of what she was doing but then took myself out to lunch after dropping the envelopes (AL has income tax, too) at the post office. Sewing, here I come!!

Great Outdoors

Disign wall Monday, again. And this week I have something new.

I was picking up "stuff" and came across the leftovers of The City of Roses. When I looked at the pices of strata I began to see the makings of a new purse.

And this is how far I have gotten. On the left is the body of the purse including a front pocket. The next picture is the lining. The front, lining, and batting are all put together and quilted.

Check

Judy's blog for other projects.

This is a close up of the quilting. And now I really want a computerized quilting system. This was done by machine embroidery, four hoopings. This are the best feathers I will ever do. ;-)

I once again tried quilting Purple Rail and this is the panto I am using.

I really like how it looks but I am having problems with tension, thread breaking and so this is all I have gotten done, so far. I have cleaned the bobbin case, under the throat plate, changed the needle, and tried everything I can think of. It has gotten a little better but for some reason it is not working as well as usual.

So Sunday afternoon DH and I put this gazebo together and spent the rest of the day reading in the shade.

Top Done

This part of this labor of love is DONE! I finished putting on the borders this afternoon and now this poor thing will go into the "to be quilted" room. Never since I started quilting have I had quilt tops lined up for quilting but now there are three. Opps!

I am including this picture of my walking shoes. I want a pair of sketchers but decided that since I have not been doing any form of exercise (no excuses) I had no good reason to buy them. So..... I decided that I would allow myself to get them IF I walked 5 days a week for 4 weeks.... in a row. As of today, I have walked 2 miles a day for 3 days. And now I am off to buy pizza.

Design Wall, etc.

This is still on my design wall. This picture shows the first row and first sashing sewn when in truth I have the second row and sashing also sewn and am almost done with the third. It is not as easy as usual because the lace is "slinky" and travels. After fighting with it for a while, I remembered that I had invested in fabric glue sticks. Now I am glueing the ends of each sashing piece before sewing them down. Then I am pinning the sides out of the way while I sew the sashing to the blocks, glueing the sides down and then stitching the sides of the lace to the sashing. To say this is time consuming would be an understatement. But in the end this will be a delightful, girly, quilt.

I have my comfort quilt rail fence on the frame and even have basted the top on. However, I am having tension issues, and low frustration tolerance issues, so it is still sitting there, unquilted. I will try again either today or tomorrow.

My quilt guild is having their end of the year dinner party in May and someone told me I was in charge of finding out what large dining rooms are available in our town. I don't know how that happened but part of my sewing time will be taken up with checking that out and making a list for consideration at the next meeting.

And lastly, but certainly not leastly, is the final product of our "first rose bud of spring." This beauty came out on Easter Sunday Morning. Isn't she beautiful? And now there are several more buds on the bushes so shortly we will have an abundance of color. Of course, all this spring growth has also produced growth in the yard so one day this week I will have to get the lawn mower out and get busy: the dogs are beginning to get lost out there. ;-)

Dew on the Bud

Everyone who calls me asks "what are you doing?" I know this is because they don't want to bother me if I am busy. However, for the last two days this has not been a problem. No matter what I have started working on, no matter whether it is in the house or the studio, I seem to find myself out on the deck with a book in my hand. If this keeps up there will be no new design wall on Monday and the quilt I just put on the frame will look no different than it did when I laid it on the batting yesterday. However, the weather has been perfect and the books have been fun reads. I hope everyone else is enjoying spring: I sure am.