My throat is on fire

And my sinuses feel like they are trying to find an escape route from my cheeks. Or like they've punched me in the face from the inside. Oh yeah, and it's 3 a.m. and I'm not asleep. This is very abnormal for me. Very. Abnormal. In order to explain just how abnormal, I'll tell you a little story. Skip the next paragraph if you don't care.

Here goes. In high school I was a wrestling cheerleader. This involved getting up very early on Saturday mornings and riding a school bus with a bunch of stinky wrestlers to a tournament. I think the minimum travel time was at least an hour. Like nearly towns would call the school and want to schedule a wrestling meet, and they said, "No, sorry, you're too close." So anyway, one particular Saturday, the school bus arrived at the tournament about 2 hours before the tournament began (this was typical, the wrestlers all had to be weighed and checked for ringworm). I had brought my pillow and blanket with me (wrestling is a winter sport, and school buses don't have the best heating systems), so I made a little nest for myself in the bleachers and fell asleep. So, I don't know, about 2 hours and 10 minutes later, I wake up to find the bleachers full of people. Full. Somehow I had slept through the arrival of about 1,000 wrestling fans. It was the regional tournament, afterall.

Long story short, I can usually sleep through just about anything.

Anywho, I'm going to try to go back to sleep. I've got a big day tomorrow (today?), as my goal is to make and quilt two quilts. Yes, you read that right. Two. One is already started, and the other is pretty simple, so we'll see.

Here's a blast from Christmas past. I'm guessing this picture was taken 1985-1987. I'm the third from the left. This picture is actually the inspiration for one of the quilts I plan to make today (tomorrow?). More on that later.

And one last thing, here is a quilt I hope to make in time for Christmas 2008. I think this is from Quiltmaker magazine, Dec. 2001, but I'm not sure. I just saved the pic, not the instructions.

Okay, off to bed!

Procrastination Station

That's my new nickname for my sewing room. The last few times I've been in there, I've just sort of wandered around, shuffled some papers and fabric, and walked out. Today, however, I finally got the borders on my red & white stack-n-whack quilt.

I really like how it turned out. It finished measurement is 48" x 48", so I'm thinking of using it for a Christmas wall hanging or maybe even a tree skirt for next year. There is no chance it is going to get quilted in time for this Christmas. Not that I have to use it for Christmas. I love red, so I will probably use it all year. As a matter of fact, I've been thinking of making a red & white quilt for our bedroom, so I could hang this stack-n-whack quilt in there. Hmmm.

I'm going to the Little Balkans Quilt Guild meeting in Pittsburg tonight to do a program, so come by if you're in the area. I'll be spending the rest of my afternoon getting ready for that, packing up quilts and merchandise to take with me. I'm having a quick lunch of cheese nips (the official cracker of Major League Soccer, according to the box) and Dr. Pepper, so I should be nice and carb'd up for tonight.

And just in case you need any help procrastinating, check this out. Hilarious and true. So true. I'm enrolling my husband tomorrow.

Perfect place

for the best hot chocolate ever, period.

These placemats are a Christmas gift. I need to make a couple more...maybe tonight. I got the idea and the measurements from the Bend the Rules Sewing book, but did something a little different for the top. The back is solid red Kona cotton. These went together very quickly. Quickly enough that I may make another set. Or maybe matching napkins. We'll see.

My mom, sister, nephew, & new niece are visiting this week. We went out and had a nice dinner last night (which is such a nice treat every once in a while). The baby slept until we were almost ready to leave, and my 3-year-old nephew stopped making engine noises long enough to behave like a little gentleman, so the adults were able to talk and enjoy themselves. Thank goodness for small miracles.

When we got home, my dinner had digested enough that I was ready for something sweet, so I made hot chocolate. Not just any hot chocolate...according to my husband, "the best hot chocolate I've ever had." Quite the compliment coming from this man. I'm afraid I can't take all of the credit, because this recipe was on the package. But I would like to think my special hot chocolate making technique kicks it up a notch.

The Best Hot Chocolate Ever (according to my husband):

1 pkg hot chocolate mix (or make your own if your just ambitious like that)

milk

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Pour the hot chocolate mix into a mug. Pour enough milk into the mug to just cover the hot chocolate mix. Stir until well-blended. It should be kind of thick at this point...the consistency of cake batter or melted milk chocolate. Add the vanilla (a "plop" of you're not a measurer) and the cinnamon (a sprinkling). Stir. Slowly add more milk, stirring as you go, until the mug is full. Microwave until hot. Enjoy!

Back from the dark side

Sorry about that. I had to take an unintended break from blogging to re-energize and re-group. I'm sure I'm not the first (or the last) person to experience a little drought of creativity, but there for a few weeks I just didn't have it in me. Well, I'm back, and I have the November quilt guild meeting to thank for snapping me out of it. Everyone showed their Underground Railroad quilts, and quite frankly, I was jealous. So the next day, I decided to finish my blocks.

(Sorry for the bad fluorescent lighting at the top of the picture.) Now I just have to decide how to set them together. The book shows quilts in a regular 3 x 4 block grid with sashing and cornerstones, but I'm thinking I want to do something a little different with mine. Something like this maybe? (Gotta love EQ6!)

Also, I've been wanting to learn how to do stack-n-whack properly for months. I did the blocks for this quilt, but I sort of just stumbled through it, not really knowing what I was doing. So another guild member came by the other day and helped me figure it out. Here is what I have to show for my efforts so far... a vast improvement over my previous project in terms of stack-n-whackiness.

Here's what the original fabric looked like before it was whacked:


And last but not least, a christmas gift in progress for a family member that doesn't read this blog (or at least I hope not)!

See, I have been a busy little bee! And that's not all I have to show you... more projects coming soon! So nice to be out of my crafting funk!

post-thanksgiving

So, how was everyone's Thanksgiving? Mine was blissfully unproductive. I visited my parents and sister in TN, and I spent the whole weekend snuggled up in my parents house. Even though it's not the house I grew up in (I have to stop and think where to get a glass or plate or silverware), it still sort of feels like home for me.

On Thursday, I alternated between helping my mom fix the big dinner and watching old home movies. My dad bought a dvd recorder, and he is in the process of transferring our VHS tapes to DVD. Unfortunately for him, my sister was quite the entertainer as a child, so he has quite a few hours of dances, piano recitals, and choir performances to watch.

On Friday & Saturday, we slept in, ate leftovers, and put up the Christmas tree. Oh yeah, and my nephew "made me pretty" with VCR sticker labels.

We opted not to hit the shops on Friday, some of which opened at 4 a.m. None of us are really early risers, and dragging everyone out of bed to go to a crowded store before the sun even comes up is not our idea of quality family time.

This is one of my new niece's rare waking moments. I suppose she's like most babies - only wakes up to eat or soil her diaper. But we sure think she's pretty special. I can't remember what she was getting ready to do in this picture, eat or soil.

Not too much happening on the craft front for me right now. I've been spending lots of time catching up on longarm quilting. I do have a few gifts to make before Christmas, so I've got lots to keep me busy. If you are looking for ideas for handmade gifts, hop on over to the Sew Mama Sew blog and check out their Handmade Holidays posts. Lots of good stuff.

It's a girl!

My new niece, Eva Ryanne (pronounced "Ryan" - it's my sister's middle name as well), was born at 3:50 this morning! Finally! She weighs 8 lbs, 6 ounces, and mom, dad, and baby are all doing well. Tired, but well. I can't wait to see her! However, I do need a few more days to whip up a quilt-y gift or two. I'll be sure and show you what I decide to do.

I don't have any pictures yet, but here's a dose of cuteness courtesy of my nephew. It's one of my favorite baby pics of him. I'll meet his sister next week when I visit for Thanksgiving. See ya then, my new homegirl!

Of course 5 minutes after I posted this, my dad sent me some pictures. Here she is!

How many UFOs can one girl have?

Seriously. I must be a glutton for punishment, because I can't seem to stop myself from starting new projects. And to make things worse, I have plans to start even more quilts to give as Christmas gifts. I started mentally counting my UFOs, but I couldn't finish that either. If I had to guess, I would say I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 unfinished projects. That includes quilting and crocheting, but I don't think that excuses me from the scolding I've been giving myself.

For instance, exhibit A:

This poor quilt only has borders on three sides. Why? I don't know. I must have been distracted while I was putting the borders on. There is one more border to add after this one, and then this top would be done. It's so pathetic that the only thing standing in the way of this quilt's completion is 5 more strips of fabric and four cornerstones.

Moving on, here we have exhibit B:

A friend of mine brought me a baby afghan book to look at, and I couldn't help starting another afghan. This one is pretty fun to do b/c it isn't just the same stitch over and over. It looks much harder than it really is, which is nice.

Add to the list this afghan, my project for this class, another crochet project, my redwork blocks...you get the idea.

Something I have accomplished over the last few days is longarm quilting this stack of quilts.

There are more tops to quilt where these came from, so I'm going to get back to it. Hopefully I'll have more finished projects to show you very soon!

Frenzied

That's how I'm feeling right now. With Christmas looming not-so-far in the distance, I'm longarm quilting like crazy and trying to stay on top of my own projects. It doesn't help that I keep starting new ones...I just can't help myself! Every time we get in a new shipment of fabric or a new magazine, I dream up yet another thing to occupy my time. So my goal for the rest of the month is to finish up what I've got before I move on to anything else. We'll see how that goes.

Here's what is going on with all of the red and white circles I appliqued last weekend.

This is my very first stack-n-whack quilt. The stack-n-whack blocks were suprisingly easy to put together. If you look too closely, you'll see that they don't line up perfectly, but you can't tell from a normal viewing distance =). I've got the fabric up on the shop's website, with the kit for this quilt coming soon.

Last week I had to make an impromptu trip to Wichita to have my longarm machine serviced, and I just happened to need some ribbon, so I stopped in Micheal's. While I was there, I took a spin through the yarn aisles and found Lion's new organic cotton yarn. This stuff is sooo soft. There are all kinds of free projects on the Lion website, but I decided to start another afghan.

The pattern is simple enough. It's single crochet, working in the back loops. It's going to be so snuggly when it's finished. However, the yarn was $6.99/skein, and it doesn't go very far. So this one will be snuggly but small. Maybe another afghan for my sister's newest addition to the family (any day now!). The quilt in the background is a Turning Twenty that was done in the Scrappy Dots line from Judy Rothermel...still one of my favorites. I love polka dots. In fact, I just got some new ones in the other day that are a-dorable...more on that in my next post.

Free piecing

Here's something I finally got a chance to start on. I think I've mentioned before that I'm taking an online class from Tonya on free piecing. I haven't quite decided exactly what I'm going to make, but one of the first assignments was just to practice making letters. So I started with my name. What do you think?

If you want to try this technique, there are lots of tutorials at Tonya's pages at Quiltville.com.

Happy Halloween!

Well, here are the Halloween costumes.
This picture wasn't taken until after we had been sitting for a little while, so I'm a little wrinkled, but you get the idea. My dress really went together pretty easily after I got over the initial problems. I put a zipper in the side of the dress, but I failed to make it long enough. Luckily, I could just barely get the darn thing on and off. My husband's costume was pretty easy also. The cape just had to be hemmed at the bottom and pleated a little at the top. His "man skirt," as he calls it, was a wrap around. The only snafu we had there was that the sticky-backed, heavy duty velcro I used for a closure came unstuck towards the end of the night, leaving him standing there momentarily in his boxers. Lucky for him, we had an extra safety pin, and I don't think anyone saw except a few close friends (closer now, I guess) that we were sitting with.

My Saturday evening and Sunday were occupied by hand applique-ing sixteen circles. I used a CD as a template, which worked better than I thought it would. More to come on this project later. I'm also in the process of attaching a scrappy binding to my Afternoon Tea quilt made from Heather Bailey's Freshcut fabric. Lots of hand sewing to do...perfect for a chilly Halloween night!

"If I knew you were comin' I'd a baked a cake..."

Yep, I baked. Just a regular ol' cake mix - nothing fancy. The Halloween sprinkles and cupcake papers are to blame. Who can resist sprinkles?

After the sprinkles and cupcake papers made their way into my shopping cart, I got the bright idea to make orange frosting, so I picked up some food coloring. The back of the box said to make orange, use 6 drops of yellow and 2 drops of red. To make a long story short, I would say about 600 yellow drops, 200 red drops, and 30 minutes of stirring later, I finally had orange frosting. I had no idea it was going to be such an ordeal.

I also frosted half of the cupcakes with chocolate, but there was a bit of an incident on the way to the car this morning, and the chocolate-frosted cupcakes are in no shape to have their picture taken.

And because I have nothing better to do (ha!), I started another ripple crochet project. I was going to teach myself how to knit, but I wasn't in the mood on Saturday night to learn anything new. I was, however, in the mood to crochet something, so this is what I started. I had put in some rows in other colors, but after much discussion my husband I decided I should just stick with blue & brown.

I was very excited today when the UPS man brought me this:
It's the new Sew Girls line from Loralie. I can't wait to make a bag or sewing kit or something out of this stuff - I think it's just hilarious. My favorite are the tomato pin-cushion and button bras. They're available in the shop's website, along with the You Golf Girl! panel.

Last but not least, I finished sewing down the binding on a quilt last night during Monday night football! I'm pretty sure I've shown you this quilt before, but that's when it was just a quilt top. I'm usually not a very flowery person, but I love the borders on this one. And the gingham in the star points.

While I was baking up a storm and cursing at the frosting last night, my husband was busy making chicken & wild rice soup. I didn't get a picture because it disappeared so fast. We were hungry, and it was good. I got the recipe from a recipe notebook I got as a wedding gift. Knowing that I'm not much of a cook (although I'm trying), my friend's mom (she's an amazing cook) put together a 3-ring binder of quick & easy recipes for me - everything from appetizers to desserts. So without further ado, here's the soup!

Chicken & Wild Rice soup:
1/2 c. shredded carrots
1/2 c. chopped celery
1/2 c. chopped green bell pepper
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 c. half and half
1 c. water
1 10oz. can condensed chicken broth
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups cooked wild rice (I got the kind you just microwave in the bag...it took 90 seconds)
2 tbsp butter or margarine
2-3 cups diced cooked chicken (I'm guessing here... we added this to the recipe).

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, and saute the carrots, celery, green bell pepper, & onion for about 5 minutes. Stir in the flour, salt, & pepper. Add the half & half, water, chicken broth, chicken, & rice. Bring to boil. Turn down the heat, and simmer for about 15 minutes. Delicioso!

This recipe says it makes 5 servings, but I would say it's more like 4. We're going to double the recipe next time, because we ended up using half an onion, half of the bell pepper, and (wait for it....) half of the half-and-half. Which felt like a waste. I always make extra anyway so we can have leftovers. I wouldn't want to have to cook two days in a row...

Back to the drawing board

Here is the halloween costume I made for myself. Sorry for the headless photo.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. It's HUGE. You're supposed to put elastic in the waist, which I haven't done, but it would still be really big. A better "belt" would help, but to me it looks more like a female Star Wars jedi than a Spartan lady. A Spartan lady wouldn't be wearing yellow-toed footie socks either, but I think the socks are the least of the problems with this. I'm very disappointed, because I don't feel like what I made looks anything like the picture on the pattern.

Maybe I'm just missing a cape and some hair extentions.

My husband suggested taking up the "sleeves" (it's supposed to be sleeveless). That helps, but then it gets all bunchy in the chest.

So I decided to just scrap the whole bodice and start over with something I'd done before that is more what I had in mind.

So this is the new bodice that I've made. Now I just have to figure out how to attach it to the back of the costume and take up the skirt about 4 inches. Oh, and put in a zipper or velcro or something because I won't be able to fit the costume over my head once I put this new, more fitted bodice on it.

On a happier, less frustrating note, I declared myself finished with my pink & white ripple afghan. Is it very big? No. It is square? Definitely not. (Although photoing it from the smaller end does make it look more square). Will it keep a baby warm? Certainly. I figure there's no sense it blocking it since it's just going to get washed so much. And I know my sister won't block it. That's just not something a mother of a toddler and a newborn has time for.

The ripple stitch pattern comes from this book. I can't remember exactly which stitch I used (and I don't have the book with me), but it was a crochet stitch shown in red, white, & green. I am definitely planning to make another project from this book sometime in the near future. This time, however, I might try knitting. I downloaded and printed this knitting tutorial the other day. Now all I need are knitting needles and time to practice (ha). There isn't a yarn shop anywhere near here, so I think I'll stop next time I go to visit my parents and get some good needles and yarn. I could order online, but I have no idea what to order. If there is one thing I've learned from crocheting, it's that yarn and fabric have something major in common...you get what you pay for. My Wal-mart yarn shopping is a thing of the past. Some bad habits are easier to break than others =)

Stay tuned...

I'm trying to post, and blogger won't let me upload pictures right now. So, I'll be posting as soon as I can. I promise!

More Halloween

Here is my pumpkin quilt with the borders added. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out, but I had a revelation this morning. While I was at the computer eating my cereal and reading blogs, I saw Tonya's latest post and thought to myself, "I should have put letters in the borders." So I think that's what I'm going to do. Inspiration has yet to hit me over the head with an idea for a project in her class, so I'm just going to start making letters with this quilt in mind. I'm not going to take the current borders off, however, until I have new borders ready to put back on it.

We went grocery shopping last night, and I went to a local home dec store this morning to by my mother-in-law and my dad birthday gifts. So I've done quite a bit more shopping than usual in the last 24 hours. Naturally, I picked up some things for myself along the way (I'm really bad about that.)

Clockwise from the left are:

1. The lastest issue of American Patchwork & Quilting, full of fun Christmas quilts.


2. Thank you cards that I couldn't resist buying for myself this morning at the home dec store.


3. Sticky notes (also from the home dec store) that say, "When you're on your third margarita, stay away from the phone. Never mind how I know this." I've never had a bad phone experience after drinking margaritas, but they are my favorite drink, so I had to have this notepad.


4. Bias tape for my Halloween costume (see #5).


5. A pattern for my Halloween costume. We have a costume party to go to at the end of the month. I wanted to be Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, but my husband didn't like that idea. We recently saw the movie 300, so he wanted to be Spartans. I grudgingly agreed. So now I'm going to attempt, with my very limited sewing skills, to make myself a Spartan wife costume. I'm going to make the longer one, but without the wrap. I'm thinking I can use bleached muslin for this, but we'll see. If you've never seen the movie, here's a picture of the queen. This is sort of what I'm going for, minus the cleavage.

Notice what the guy in the background is wearing? Yeah, well, we haven't really decided what my husband's costume is going to look like exactly. He doesn't have any leather underwear, and he wouldn't look that that guy in them even if he did, so we're going to improvise a bit. Don't worry, I'll definitely post pictures of us in costume on the big night.

Creative pumpkin juices

Nothing like 15 hours of sleep to help you get over a cold. Overdosing on cold medicine didn't hurt either. (I was taking 2 pills every 4 hours, instead of the recommended dosage of 1 pill, not to exceed 4 pills in a 24 hour period. Oops.) So that's pretty much all I did on Sunday. I also crocheted a little bit, beginning with the pink & white ripple afghan for my yet-to-be-born niece until I ran out of pink yarn, then on a multi-colored afghan I started for myself a loooong time ago. I'll try to remember to take some pics to show you.

Monday was spent catching up. The Kansas Quilters Organization (KQO) had its fall meeting in my town this weekend. Ami Simms was the featured speaker. I really wanted to go to her lectures, but I couldn't leave the shop (ah, the joys of being a shop owner =). I did a trunk show for them on Friday night, and they were a lot of fun. The spring meeting is in McPherson, so I'm hoping to be able to go.

I have so many projects I want to do. So many that I was feeling sort of bogged down and uninspired yesterday. So I just jumped in with something easy to try and get my creative juices flowing. This would be a great project for kids. I felt like I was doing a 1st grade art project. I traced the jack-o-lantern face shapes onto interfacing, roughly cut the shapes, and ironed them onto scraps of black. Then I played with the shapes until I had pumpkin faces I was happy with. I cut the shapes out a little more precisely, ironed them on, and top-stitched around them. The blocks are 10", so even with borders this will just be a wall-hanging. Which I'm okay with. Now I'm debating with myself on what to do for borders (but what else is new?). I do have patterns and fat quarter bundles for this project in the shop. Also, if you receive my newsletter by e-mail, this is the free pattern that came with October's newsletter.

Borders, quilting, and binding are on my agenda for the next couple of days. Not the sexiest part of quilting, but stuff that must be done. I'll keep you posted.

I found this link via Ami's website. Hilarious.

"I would walk 500 miles..."

Since my parents moved to the great state of TN, that song rings true to me. It's over 450 miles to my folks' new place. With a side trip to Memphis to go shopping, we logged over 1,000 miles on my car this past weekend. But it was a good trip...well worth the gas money (ouch!). And luckily, as we drive through southern Missouri on Hwy 60, we pass through the Ozark mountains, so the views are lovely no matter what time of year it is.

Other then driving, all I've really been able to accomplish that is blog-worthy is longarm quilting. I've been doing lots of paperwork and kit-cutting for the shop, so that's not much fun to tell you about. I did finally get October's newsletter sent out, so you should be receiving it in the next few days (or already if you're signed up by e-mail).

Anyway, on to quilting. This is my local quilt guild's opportunity quilt. It's made from the Quest for a Cure fabric from several years ago called "Say It With Roses." It's a very flowery and feminine quilt. The guild is getting pink t-shirts this year to kind of go along with the whole "Think Pink" theme.


Here's the whole quilt. It's very hard to get a good picture because it's SO big.
And a close up of the quilting on the back...
...and the front.
I really like this quilting pattern. It's a continuous feather pantograph (stencil). So I can longarm quilt feathers without having to learn & practice them first. Someday, I fully intend to explore free-hand longarm quilting a bit more, but for now the pantographs work.

I've managed to catch a bit of a cold, and I'm in that weird phase where I feel hot, but I've got goosebumps on my arms. My hubbie is coming to the rescue with cold medicine on his lunch hour, and I've got enough kleenex to last the rest of the afternoon, so I'll be fine. This weekend I am going to try to catch up in the class I'm taking from Tonya. I'm waaaaay behind, and it's really starting to bother me. Plus, I'm a little jealous of what all of the other students are accomplishing. Nothing like being out-done to light a fire under you, right?

Thread experiment

Hello, hello. Sorry I've been away for so long, but I've been extremely busy. I managed to make a couple of baby quilts last week to be auctioned off for a local school fundraiser (wouldn't you know that in my rush to get them finished and delivered, I forgot to take pictures!) and then vend at a local quilt guild show on Saturday. Sunday was spent recovering and rearranging the furniture in our bedroom to make room for a tv cabinet from another part of the house. That meant moving a dresser from our bedroom to a different bedroom and (eek!) purging some of our clothes to adjust to decrease in drawer space. It felt good to purge a little though. I have some jeans that I've "grown out of" that I'm going to give my sister to wear after she has her baby, but before she can fit back into her regular size 2 clothes (I know, it's sickening).

Anyway, I got sidetracked a little there. What I really want to tell you about is my thread experiment. First, our local Wal-mart stopped carrying embroidery floss, so I am now carrying it in the shop. But instead of DMC, I'm carrying a brand called Presencia. I had used some of their 100% cotton sewing thread before and loved it (very smooth and very little lint), but had never tried their embroidery floss. The sales rep told me that the quality of Presencia floss is better than DMC - no bleeding, colorfast, and even bleachfast! So what did I do....I did a little experiment to test their claims! Here's what happened...

I cut a skein of color 1906 (sort of a burgundy-ish red) into 4 sections. The first section was my control, meaning I didn't put it through any test. I put the second section in a bowl of lukewarm water and stirred it around a little. The water didn't change color, so I left it for about 10 minutes or so (keep in mind, my testing wasn't very scientific) and came back. The water was still clear. See?
And here's the third section in a bowl of water with a couple tablespoons of laundry detergent stirred in. Once again, I let it soak for 10 minutes or so (while I caught up on some of my blog reading), and once again, no bleeding.
The fourth section got the bleach test. I added two capfuls of bleach to my bowl of water (which I'm guessing was about 2 cups of water), stirred it around, and added the floss.Again, no bleeding.

Here are all of the sections (in order from top to bottom) after they dried. I kept them on the paper towel that I used to blot them dry so that you could see that they didn't bleed on the paper towel either.

As you can see, the colors stayed pretty much the same. The section that was soaked in bleach water faded a little bit, but not much.

Conclusion: I can wash my redwork quilts (assuming I ever finish one) without worrying about the red thread bleeding or fading too badly. Now, the red fabric may be a different story, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Kids & granddogs

This is what's on my design wall at the moment. I got this new fabric in the shop last week. I really wanted to make the full size quilt from the manufacturer's free project, but I decided that the table runner would get the point across. Now that I have the blocks done though, I'm really thinking this fabric will make the cut into a full size quilt. I love the rich colors. And it just so happens that we have a green couch in a our living room and a couple of pictures on the wall that have this dark red color in them...what a coincidence =)

I switched a couple of fabrics around when I made this, but I'm not going to tell you which ones. It looks just a good this way (and I wasn't about to re-make it), so it's going to stay this way for now. Maybe if I do the full quilt I'll do the "right" way.

My birthday is tomorrow, and I've really been thinking about it a lot. Not that I feel old, certainly not that, but maybe just not young anymore. You know, as in "Wow, I'm definitely not a kid anymore." Also, people are starting to ask about when we're going to have kids - like my biological clock is starting to tick or something. Well, it maybe ticking, but I don't hear it yet. My life is full and happy and just right for now.

After all, we do have a dog, and she's sort of like a kid. Here she is with some of the friends she made when we went to visit my friend, Nicole, and her family.

Our Heidi is the one on the right with her eye half-closed in anticipation of a playful bite from Riley. The cute little stinker in the middle is my friend's son, and the two dogs on the left are Nicole's (yes, there are two dogs there if you look closely). We tease Nicole's mom by calling them her "granddogs." She acts annoyed, but we know she secretly loves it.


And this picture (of a picture) simultaneously makes me want to have five boys and to not have kids at all! These boys are my adorable little nephew and his friends from daycare. They're all too cute, but boy, do they look like trouble or what!

More pink & brown

Well, I got my embroidery finished....
And here is the quilt!
I just meander quilted it - I wanted the fabrics and the embroidery to take center stage. I really like how it turned out. If my sister likes it, she may just get an identical one for her little bundle of joy that's set to arrive in November. (So, Sister, do you like it?) The binding isn't on yet, but given my track record with attaching binding, I figured I'd better go ahead and show this quilt to you without it.

Also, I have a favor to ask of all of you. If you would, please say this prayer for me:

Dear Lord,
Please help Tiffany as she teaches her beginner class tomorrow. Beginners are fun and it's very rewarding to see their progress, but Tiffany may need a little help from You at certain times. Also, please watch over the students to see that they don't damage their fingers with either the rotary cutter or sewing machine. And lastly, please give her husband the wisdom and good sense not to ask her what she is cooking for dinner when the class is over, and instead take her out for a nice dinner.
Amen. :)

Dear Kellogg corporation,

I have a bone to pick with you. I have been eating your cereal, Special K with red berries, for breakfast for the past six weeks or so, and I haven't lost any weight. Not even a little bit. Never mind that I've been eating twice the recommended serving of 8 ounces, because come on, who can face the day with just 8 ounces of cereal and a cup of coffee in their stomach? Oh yeah, and I don't use skim milk, because, well, I don't like it. And I may have cheated a couple of times by having cookies for breakfast instead. But other than that, I made a commitment to your product based on the advertising that said I would lose weight, and you're not holding up your end of the bargain.

I would return the unused portion of the product for a full refund, but I like the way it tastes, and it's got to be healther than the cereal I used to eat. However, I'm still upset about not losing any weight.

Sincerely,

Tiffany

Pink & brown

Remember yesterday how I was dreaming of all the possibilities of embroidery beyond redwork? And how a baby quilt for a friend of mine was on my to-do list? (The friend has since had her baby, and I still haven't finished a quilt.) Well, the light bulb went on yesterday after I posted.

Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I started a yellow brick road quilt at 4:00 yesterday. The good thing about this quilt is that I had the top done by 7:00. The pattern calls for borders, but I really like the way it looks without them, especially since it's just intended to be a baby quilt. Wondering where the embroidery comes in? In the larger, pink marbled squares, I'm going to embroider the baby's "stats" (for lack of a better word) in brown thread. Ya know, the name, weight, date of birth, etc. I got the idea from a customer's quilt that I quilted, and she said she got the idea from a book but couldn't remember which one. So I can't give proper credit to whoever deserves it, but I think it's a wonderful idea. I haven't started embroidering yet, and I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Here's a little more pink & brown love from a wedding we attended on Saturday night. I just love the cowboy theme!

I'm off to figure out the best way to mark and embroider on that quilt... wish me luck!