I've been away!

I know, I know! This flu bug virus thing is just awful! It's been so hard keeping up on anything. I'm going into week three! And DH is worse if anything. He was stuck in bed all day yesterday and again today. It's really put a wrench in my quilting because I need him to help me baste!
The good news is that I have photos for you. At the Quilting Board, I am currently part of a Secret Santa, 70+ people strong this year, amazing hu? Well in spite being being poor, I went ahead and joined in. I'm not going to tell you anything about my person, because I don't want that person to guess their stuff! :) I made an advent calendar above you can see it rolled up (I figure it's so pretty it doesn't need wrapped), each little pocket has a stuffed Santa inside and as you count down the days the Santa for that day goes up at the top where you can see the Redwork Santas. I made it old fashioned in the sense that you see Santa getting up out of bed and then going out to deliver goodies to all the good girls and boys. I made my person one extra Santa for "just in case" who lives right up at the top until he is needed. There are five different Santa faces including one wearing sunglasses! I made five of each so there is a certain amount of opportunity to play with it. My person will also be getting five fat quarters, wont that make for a wonderful little package? For my embroideries, I have found a great website, called AnntheGran.com they have thousands of patterns, so far I've only been going there for redwork, but I'm telling you the stuff stitches out beautifully, just look at the details on the Santas, it looks hand stitched!
My thread order arrived already! I ordered it LATE Sunday night and it was here first thing this morning. What service! This is the second time I've ordered from allstitch.com and I continue to be pleased with their service. As you can see from my little photo I'm in the process of replacing my odds and ends of thread with Madeira's 1100 yard Polyneon, I like the strength and it's so silky. The navy blue and the Pink (on each end) are the worst matched of the two. One is dark-purpley-blue and the pink is NEON, not bold. Ah well I'm certain to use them, and perhaps this will make me happier needing to spend 5 bucks on a color chart that I didn't think I needed. In spite of all that the thread is here so I will soon be back to the Blue Christmas quilt, the blue colored redwork side borders are half done!
I also bought some DK5, after a near disaster trying to get the spray-on adhesive off the sewing machine, I thought I might give this a try. As with anything if I love it I'll let you know, and if I hate it, I'll be sure to mention that as well. Acetone worked well in getting what is called over spray off my hoops, but a true no-no for the sewing machine. As always they tell you to do a little test spot for a reason. Nov. 19th update: DK5 is amazing stuff! You spray the stuck on glue, you spray a paper towel, and count to ten. Then wipe. It's simply amazing how easily it wipes off, never again will I slave away with the rubbing alcohol trying to get glue off my table. This stuff only takes a minute. The smell is a bit different than anything I'm used to but it clears away, leaving a beautifully clean surface!
Today I'm including a photo of the new fridge. We happily call it the Cold Monster, as it's bigger than the old fridge and certainly seems to keep things cold, I've had to bump down the temp. twice! I heard somewhere that you can learn a thing or two about a person based on their fridge. I don't know what mine tells you, that I'm a family person perhaps? That I have a child? Or maybe it's like looking inside some one's medicine cabinet? You have to see inside to really know? Well unless you're coming over to my house you don't get to see inside. I'm not really used to owning a side-by-side, I'm always struggling with where to put stuff (in spite it being bigger). An entire shelf is my different kinds of flours! Crazy I know! I only have, Unbleached white, whole wheat, and self rising! LOL! I think the powered sugar and the bird food is up there too, oh and pickles. How's that for a self on a fridge?

You want to know about my medicine cabinet too? Okay well here's the scoop. It's not big enough to keep all my stuff, how about that? Sunny wanted to make sure you found your way out of the bathroom and back to the fridge.

The Red Christmas Star Quilt is Done (flimsy)

Okay so the top is done, but that's a huge switch from the block I was suffering from as recently as two days ago! The points went so quickly I can't help but wonder why I kept away from it for so long. I did build in a bit of "insurance" into my points, letting a little extra material cling to the long side of the triangles, rather than cutting it down. It worked splendidly. The final dimensions are 102" by 105", of course it still needs quilted, but that shouldn't take much time at all.

A picture? Oh I'd love to show you a picture! But I haven't even been able to see the full of it myself! How is it I can have the top done and not have seen it? Well it's so big I don't have anywhere to lay it out to see it, and even my husband can't hold it up for me to get the full effect. My bed is only a double that's why when you look back at this very quilt when the center was done (at 70") it fit my bed rather well. But now those 16 points are on it... Don't worry I'll figure out a way, somehow. The quilt is lovely, I worried about it a bit since I was changing the colors so much from the pattern ones, taking it from a multi tonal quilt to a two color quilt. It was worth the extra work of ripping out all those points cutting them down and redoing them. A word of warning: "When doubling a pattern, always remember you're also doubling the seam allowance" Does that mean you sew at 1/2"? I don't know I mostly worked around it, and it only bit me on the points, but it's worth mentioning. Here is the Center of the Red Quilt as it looked in August.

I'm still working on the embroidered flowers for the double sided blue Christmas quilt, I may have mentioned that the nineteen I made wasn't enough and the quilt needed nine more. Currently I've done five more, so that's coming along nicely as well.

Would you believe I'm trying to have that nasty bug a second time around? Yep, I'm back to the beginning two days of runny nose and then the cough. The chills earlier had me in the kitchen baking. As long as someone else takes the cookies and the pizza out and serves it, all the germs died in the oven. I'm rather tired so I'm hoping clean up will also fall to someone else. Upkeep on my cleaning has fallen by the wayside, I really need to give the place a good cleaning out. Hopefully this second bout wont be so bad and I can get to that in the next day or so. Okay next couple of days.

Croke!

Today I am a frog. I was one last night, and this afternoon too. Where the handsome prince to break the crokie-ness of my voice? My DH? He's not a prince so the kiss didn't work. Mean little sniffle-ing bug. Everyone in my house has it now. It's even settled in Rob's lungs, so please spare him any happy thoughts you might have. He's prone the pneumonia, so it's a constant fear when something like this happens. Since I don't have to talk to blog I can feel free to share my day with all of you.

First things first. The reveal. I made all 12 rosebud blocks, only to discover I really needed 15 or 16, so I'll have to get on that tomorrow. Here is the layout plan. The embroidery at the bottom is white on white and will go all around the quilt. I'm thinking about a blue border between the white of the basket and the natural muslin of the rosebud blocks and then a second between the rosebuds and the embroidery. DH thinks perhaps the center white background should be cut down a bit smaller and that I should add more butterflies. What does everyone else think? I'm personally inclined to agree with him, hopefully now that I've found some more freebie butterflies that wont be a problem. As always you can click on the image to see it better. I encourage this because you can even see the details of the white on white fabric in this photo.

Tonight I'm showing off my daughter as she headed for bed. She is sporting the pj shorts I made for her, aren't they darling? I'm afraid they wont fit her much longer. Why is it she seems to out grow the things I make so quickly? Is it just that I love them more? Oh no her teeth aren't really like that, she just enjoys being silly for the camera. If you click on her you can see those big baby brown eyes! Whoever would have dreamed that my hazel eyed husband and my blued eyed self would have a child, the namesake of a Green eyed woman grow up to have brown eyes?!?! Oh well there's no more denying it now, hazel maybe, blue never, and certainly not green.

What do you see?

Here we have Chains... What do you see? Do you see scraps of fabric strung together or do you see the beauty of the blocks they will become? I was working on the rosebud blocks chaining them all together, when I discovered what a pretty pile I had in my lap.

The pants are done. I washed the stabilizer out and added some sequins, I think in spite of my struggles they turned out nicely. Remember I didn't make the pants. I just fixed them with the new embroidery, the embroidery you see on the front leg is original. Do you see the front pocket detail? I'm very pleased with that, I took out the chain o' sequins, and replaced them with beading. The sequins I then used on the back detail.


As an extra I have included my most recent bib, which is sort of a "reclaim" project. Together with the "backs" of the ones I'd made before.

Bibs Today!

Today I was looking online for some snowflake lace embroidery, (I found some but only ended up making one, as Jessica thought it was the prettiest thing and has already made out with it). It currently can't be found, or else I'd photograph it for you, maybe later.

In my searching I found a website offering a reversiable bib pattern, of course the link didn't work, but I used one of Jessica's and made my own from it.

As you can see I made four. The Elephant says "Me Too!" The Zebra say's "Let's Graze", the Tiger say's "Hear me ROAR!" and the Snake says "Smells Superb". They are flannel and dual sided. Sorry I didn't get the backs in the photo, it's a brownish background with crazy jungle animals on the back side. No embroidery there. As always if you can't see them very well you can click on them to see them bigger.

The sewing machine was a true dream not giving me any trouble as it sailed through. Jessica and I are well on our way to being sick. We're snuffy, and I feel it trying to move to my throat. Poor Jessica has a funny voice and a fever. It's a bit hard to understand her, and you just want to say "oh darlin'!" Don't worry about us we'll be better soon. Take care.

My first Bargello is Completed!

I was so excited to be showing you my sister's pants repair, I got ahead of myself. The pants should show up for you to see in the next post or two. I want to put some sequins on the butterfly, and I have to rip out all my basting seams. They will hopefully be worth the wait.

THE BARGELLO IS DONE! Truly. Here it is on my double bed.

A photo like that never seems to capture the little details of something scrappy like this so here is a close up.
This is the drape on the bottom corner. This quilt is quite long being 100+" by 84", I think it might end up on the bed sideways so DH and I will have more to fight over.
I wanted to use all the little scraps to make the binding, but all those little pieces kept going this way and that. I'll be using them in the scrap rug I'm planning instead. Mary has a tutorial posted at the Quilting Board on it, I'm just waiting for a pause between projects. Oh my, how I bird walked on that one! So Scrappy Bindings! LOL! I used the extra strips I was planning to use to make matching shams to make the scrappy binding instead, here I have folded the quilt so you can see the scrappy.
Perhaps in that last photo you can see the natural muslin sticking out. This quilt has a traditional Amish backing. That means I used Natural undyed unbleached muslin for the back. A traditional binding would use the extra material on the sides to pull up and around from the back to make the binding. I have used this method one time, I always seem to have a hard time cutting the batting without nicking the back. Perhaps that is because I always use adhesive spray to baste my quilts. I find it is quicker and less likely to bunch or shift when I do.

This quilt was made using a sew as you go technique, which means that when your done sewing the top together you are nearly done with the quilting too, hence it is quilted vertically. I honestly didn't like doing it this way. I think it would have gone faster to sew it normally as a top and then quilt all together.

The border is called Tie Dye Red and it's a snuggle flannel from Joann's. I lusted after it until it went on sale a couple of weeks ago and I snapped up two yards. This quilt ate up least a yard and a half to do the border. Isn't it funny, I never would have dreamed it for this quilt. Or in fact a red border on this quilt at all. As a wise woman once told me "The quilt knows what it wants to be". I take that to heart every time a quilt surprises me.

As always Sew Happy!

Another Day without a Dollar

Have you ever heard of Junket desserts? I have a coupon for 50% off my first order. I know not bad at all. Their prices seem very reasonable. They carry things like custard and ice cream mixes. They also have these things called rennet tablets, which are used in cheese making. Seriously my brain feels like it learned something today, while exploring a use for that coupon. If you too are interested you can visit Junket Desserts. Be sure and drop me a note if you want to place an order and I'll hook you up with a coupon code as well. I'll have to wait to place an order until we feel a bit more flush.

Now... Projectie things. My sister's pants are nearly mended, I had a heck of a time with them, and all I can say is good thing I removed the belt loops and then reattached them because it helps to hide what I had to do to get the butterfly to cover the hole. The pocket hole was much easier. Have I told you yet that I removed the sequins that were falling off the pockets and used smooth round beads and barrel beds stitched on two different ways instead. Personally I think it gives a great touch. Photos when I'm done.

I found a new website for free embroidery patterns. Embroidery Designs Offers your choice of three free patterns per week. They have at least 60 pages of designs to pick and choose from! This week I collected three butterfly patterns from them, and they stitched out beautifully, I will be using them again! I think next week I'll be downloading their Christmas snowflake ornaments!

I'm considering another quilt. I know sometimes my own brain runs away from me! Currently at the Quilting Board they are doing a blue and white star block swap. Where each person makes 12 star blocks all the same and then they get swapped amongst everyone so you get 12 different stars, or you can swap 24 and get 24 different ones back. I've been wanting to do a sampler to help push on my knowledge base, and what better place to start than a couple of stars I've never made. After the block challenge swap I don't think I'm up to swapping again, but perhaps I can make my own from the sidelines. As for the block challenge I made the second log cabin block, which brings me up to 11 done. Leaving just that paper pieced Hunter's Star left.

My oh my...

I have a minor upper ankle sprain, don't worry it's completely stable. My on the other hand, I seem to respond to "rest and don't push it" by doing everything that needs done. Yesterday I cleaned the main house, and went shopping with mom. Then I came home and worked on my sister's pants. I can not believe how much trouble I'm having dealing with those. ACK! I've drawn three embroidery files and I still don't have one I can use, not to mention all the ones I downloaded that I can't use.

After I gave up on that I worked on the Bargello quilt, It has half the border sewed on and is waiting for the other half. I put Jessica to bed and then picked up all her toys. I killed two huge wolf spiders. ACK! One was within a foot of her sitting on her potty! Being a mom gives you consitition! Grit your teeth and deal, no matter how AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh! You might feel.

This morning I've been up since 7:15, a new Pet Store is opening near us and I felt the need to send Rob out to get one of the free gift cards they offered to the first 50 customers. I've washed, dried and folded laundry, cleaned the addition, cleaned the kitchen, and run the vac around a bit, not really in that order.

I've also sat and enjoyed two episodes of "Sabrina: the Teenage Witch" (I have always liked Melissa Joan Hart) and an oldie of "Step by Step", who remembers that show? Wow, I used to sit and watch it with my mom, I'd even seen that one, but it was early then and Jessica wasn't up yet.

Rob of course is out and about. I do like to not have him around when I clean. He loves to say things like "I said I'd do that for you." Uh hu. All that and it's only 10:30! Okay so life is happening again. TTFN!

What a time of it!

Good Morning Folks! This morning I was awoken by the ringing phone. My favorite sound in the morning not! Just when I was trying so hard to keep my eyes shut tight against the day (in spite of all that Jessica was doing to get me up). And who should it be? Well there's no telling, because the phone in the bedroom is dead. I race to find another phone throwing off the covers and chasing down the hall. Oh crud it's the Sears Repair guy, "HELLO!!?!?!?" Nope he's gone. Drat. I hurry to get dressed and pull a brush through my hair that has gotten annoying long. Then my eyes aloft on the rest of the house. ACK! The kitchen is covered in last night's trial of the New Mexican place down the road.

Bell Peppers make me sick and so I put myself to bed shortly after dinner. Rob's old boss asked him to come back, so he was off to work (overnight, ugh). The toys where a mess, oh it was just awful. So I race to dress Jessica, I race to pick up her toys. Oh no it's 8:30 AM when I call my mother. "Hello? Mom?" More racing to clean the goo off the dishes and hide them in the dishwasher. Race, Race, Race. Kitchen is okay, living room is okay, bedroom - we'll just close the door. Oh but what if he comes in through the front door? ACK! Oh well can't help it now. Off to the bathroom, YUcky, there's poo in the potty. UGH... Dealing... Talking on the phone... The things we do.

It's 9:00AM and I'm off the phone, no husband yet... Check emails... Do I have that book? Ummmmmmmm.... So I head off to Jessica's room. It's nice in there karmic precision has been obtained. Serenity now! Oh it's marvelous. My hair that never made it up is hanging in sweaty strands. Oh there's the book... That's nice, oh there's a bit of a breeze, I can feel it now. I love this room... I'll just sit here until something happens. Of course that was when the Sears guy drove past.

Why did I even need him you ask? Well they over torqued the cover on the water filter at the factory when they put the filter in, best get the part now, while I can still say it arrived that way.

Perhaps I forgot to mention? Sears tried so many times to fix the old fridge they were out 6 times in 3 weeks. After they changed out the compressed things went from bad to awful, and the entire fridge stopped working. Everything in there that hadn't already been lost by the freeze/thaw things that the freezer was doing was completely ruined when everything completely melted mere hours after the repair person left. Somewhere along the line, thank goodness the lemon clause kicked in and I got a completely new fridge. I feel a bit like Vana White. Look at the beautiful new REFRIGERATOR.

Which brings you up to the broken little cover thing at delivery. Hopefully that will be the end of the big bad fridge story. Currently we are all calling the new one the Big Cold Monster, as it it quite a bit bigger than the old one. The length and width measurements were the same, but somewhere someone fibbed, as it's taking up at least an extra inch or two of the hall way. No matter it's so cold I've turned it down twice. The seal on it is so strong you have to use two hands sometimes to get it open! EEEK!

After Rob got home and went to bed I fell twisted my ankle (the good one) on the last step into Jessica's room. It was a book completely hidden under her little rug that caused it. Hopefully it wont effect my luncheon when my mom on Friday.

Quilts? Oh you want to talk about what I did yesterday after the post? Well I told you about dinner. Before dinner I had Trusty Gem out. That's the name I've been auditioning for the 2001 Brother ULT. And I put the prettiest little butterfly near the basket of roses that I hand pieced for that blue quilt. So pretty. I'm going to do another in slightly different colors on the other side. Good thing everything I want to do today has me sitting, hu?

Notice anything New?

I've put a little time into the ole' blog. I like the new look.

WOWSER the Bargello is comming along AMAZINGLY, do you agree? It is all done except for the border and a bit of extra quilting I'd like to put on it. I'm going to take the extra "scraps" from the quilt and make a scrappy binding. A tip I picked up from my new book that DH bought for me "A Quilt for Every Season", by Eleanor Burns. What a lovely book.

Today I made pillow case extenders. I added a bit of fabric to my pillow cases to help them stay on the pillows. If they work half as good as they look I'll be adding them to other pillow cases here very soon.

I have done ALL the embroidered blocks for the Blue Christmas quilt, I want to get a bit further along it before I start showing off photos. All that work leaves the butterfly to embroider on the handle, and those rosebud blocks... UGH. I don't know why but I've become impatient making the same thing over and over. Some would call it soothing, and perhaps someday I will too, but for now it's like "that old thing?" I have to do it again?

And of course we're not talking about the red quilt. It remains in the same state it has been for a month. SHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh..... It's on the UFO Challenge list, I'll get 'er done!

We're having quite a rain storm this afternoon. It's been pouring for about 20 minutes. What a lovely breeze it has brough with it.

This Morning's Humor Train

Perhaps you recall how I am doing a bit of repair sewing for my sister? Well today I was working on them when my daughter says:

"Her butt is naked without her pants!"
"No honey she has more than one pair of pants, just like you wear a different pair of pants everyday."

She didn't see fit to comment about that. From the mouths of babes!

Caught ya Cutting!

The Perinatal quilts are boxed up and ready to go. Just between me and the rest of the world I hope I get a thank you note.

Today my husband cut fabric. Yes, it's true, he cut felt for the wooden hobby box he made. It's this amazing blue color. Now if I could just convince him to cut my fabric too! The camera is oddly "missing" so I don't even have a photo to show for it.

I've been kitten sitting a little bit. Mom's new Kitten Lilly has been to see us. Can you believe Jessica is more clingy now that Lilly is here? ACK, honey that's mommy's neck!

Tonight is movie date night. I have a date with my husband to be on the bed with popcorn and a movie. It's called "How to Make An American Quilt" I'll let you know how it goes. The movie the date perhaps not so much.

I had been working like a crazy person, but all I sewed today was one rosebud block and I'm not terribly happy with it, so there. Tomorrow the order I placed from an embroidery store online is suppose to arrive. YIPPIE SKIPPY FOR ME! I ordered 100 needles, I'm so sick of them breaking and leaving me low on needles. Some other stuff too. Lilac thread, because one of the flowers I'm embroidering requires TWO purples and I only have one. More green, you would not believe how much green gets eaten up making embroidery plants. LOL, and some wash out stabilizer, so I can make beautiful ornaments for Christmas to make you drool.

Now here's a bit of philosophy, or some such. Isn't it strange how we all have a certain level of trust? A trust in our abilities to read people, a trust that were we are and what we do is "safe" both on and off the Internet. Sometimes that trust is deserved, and sometimes it's broken, but all the same we continue for the most part to be ourselves? And then once in a while... We meet a blast from the past, and because of our sense of self, of what we trust and what we don't, that we find ourselves completely unable to trust the person from our past? Perhaps it's a case of "you're not the person I knew". I'm not certain. When you figure it out, explain it to me, so we'll both know.