My DD Turns 25 Today

I can't believe that my DD is 25 years old today. She was three days late in arriving into this world and is usually late for most things. She cried all the time and NEVER slept...EVER!! I think we slept through the night exactly twice during the first year of her life. She has the BEST personality and is so easy going, sometimes too much so. She loves animals, WOW and zombie movies. I love her with all my heart!
We happened to be at the grocery store this weekend and she chose a cake (I usually make one) because it had a dragon on it.


One of the gifts I was going to give her was to teach her to knit. OK STOP laughing! I think I remember how to knit, not purl mind you but knit. So I found a pattern for those wrist/hand warmers at JAF that was free and chose some yarn and needles and headed home. I thought I should try it so today, instead of gardening or cleaning she asked me to sit and watch movies with her and her dad. Hey, HUGE Type A personality here, but I did it. While we were watching movies though I began to knit. I got both hand warmer things knitted and taken off the needle (no small task considering the last time I knitted I was probably 9 or so! Now I need to get a needle so I can sew them together. I kind of enjoyed doing it too. I think I may want to learn how to knit socks next. AND I will teach her how to do it too! Please don't laugh, but here is my first attempt at knitting in many years.

I did manage to get most of my son's tee shirts fused to interfacing today also. I did realize that I need more interfacing and I need more of his lax shirts. I also managed to find something in my stash I was looking for and was going to surprise someone with if I found it. Notice Autumn guarding it for me! Hope you are not alergic to cat hair!!

I am just showing a peek so the person I am sending it to will have to guess who they are!!
I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I didn't manage to get as much done as I had hoped but sometimes that's how it goes, right?

Announcing...

You may (or may not) remember back in March (wow that long ago?) when I won some awesome fabric scraps from Cherry House. I have been quite busy making something from these scraps, actually I have designed an entire quilt around them. Do you remember my "peeks", here and here? I had the top almost finished but needed to do some border work and then make a back. Well this is the finished top. I really want to know if anyone likes it and if you think anyone would purchase this pattern if I take the time to write it up. (I'll be holding my breath...)

I decided to make a pieced back too using up the leftover blocks I had. I ended up using every bit of the fabric I had won and used the blue dot and the white from my stash. Here is an up close of one of the blocks.

I do have a picture of the back but I need to re-take it as my shadow is in the way, LOL. I will show you a close up of the back and you can either A)imagine the blue on the sides extends all the way out or B)if you really *need* to see it go to my Flickr account and view it with my shadow all over it, lol.

If I decide to write up a pattern it will need a name. Any suggestions? I may have a little something for the person that suggests the name I choose, you never know with me!

With EQ7 coming out I *finally* loaded EQ6 on my computer so I think I will play with writing this pattern up in it and see how it goes. I ordered the EQ7 upgrade so I guess I had better get moving and figure the earlier version out, huh?

Now just to show you the kind of "helpers" I happen to have here is Aiedn in her favorite "spot". I usually sit in this big green chair with my lap top on the left arm of the chair. She stalks me waiting for me to sit down and then assumes this position. Usually with her head on the arm of the chair just under the bottom of the lap top and her paw extended up kneading me as she purrs contentedly. Like so:

Yesterday though her brother who had been sleeping quite contentedly here

in an old pajama grams container decided that I actually needed another cat on my right side between my hip and the right arm of the chair like so:

I am quite happy to admit that this is OK now that there is actual space between my giant arse and the arm of the chair! I have managed to lose another pound this week bringing the grand total up to just under 36 pounds total since I began!

I would be most appreciative to you all if you will help me choose a name and then let me know if this should become a "real" pattern. I have thought about altering it to work with Jelly Rolls too, what do you think about that? I hope you are all enjoying your time off, I know I am. My boys came home from Canada on Friday and so my house is in chaos again, sigh. I really need to mulch today and do some more weeding (it was much more fun to sew yesterday as it was soooooo HOT here) today is a little cooler so may have to make my way outside.

Happy Memorial day to everyone in the US. Thanks to our brave men and women that have fought and who are still fighting to keep us free!!

The Flamingo Quilt

A long time ago (2005) I made this quilt for my DD2. She loves flamingos. This is one of the first big quilts I ever made. It is a Yellow Brick Road. I got to see the quilt recently and decided to take some photos to share with you all.


I happened to find a great flannel with flamingos on it too so I used that for the back. She loves flannel on the back of her quilts! Don't you just love the flamingo fabric in the border? I didn't know how to miter my borders back then (really, not now either, since I have never done it!, TRUE CONFESSIONS = )


I am interested in what you think of this!

JRQAL

I have been having a busy week with the boys gone. I have been a cleaning fool! And a planting fool. It has been good to be able to do what I want and not worrying about what I need to do for the family. Does that seem weird? I did manage to get all my plants in the ground. Now I need to mulch, and I need to finish weeding. DD1 and I did manage to clean out the freezer this week too!

We now have 3 baby chicks at our house. The first one is a silver/blue one and then we had a bluff one. The bluff one is so sweet. It just wants a friend. The blue one is so MEAN! It pecks the buff one all the time. So DD separated them and the buff one just *screamed*. So dd took it out and held it and it was quiet. Finally she put them together again with a paper partition and we had another buff chick hatch. She put the two buff chicks together and the blue on the other side of the paper. When we got home from work they were all friends. Funny story though, the first buff that hatched saw the new chick and ran over to it and laid on it as if to say, "Thank goodness you are here and I have a friend.

So I did work on my next JRQAL block (7). I love how it came out! Are you participating in the JRQAL?

Working in the Garden

Today was a very busy day. It was DH's birthday but we had to celebrate last night because he and DS left early this morning for Canada. If you have been with me for awhile you may remember his going off last year and the year before. His grandfather bought some land about 10 hours from us in Canada (Mewburn lake , not sure if I spelled that right). You have to go down old logging roads and then you abruptly dead end at a lake. Not the one the cabin is on though, oh no. You need to put all your stuff in the small boat, having brought the motor with you of course, then you motor across the lake, get out, portage across some land (carrying your stuff, the boat and the motor) and motor across another lake to the cabin. How do I know all this you ask? Well, 27 years ago, right when we were first married, I went there. It is a beautiful place but once was enough for me. You pump the water up from the lake to drink, there is an outhouse and the leeches in the lake are like 8 inches long. Have fun boys!

All that being said, and you all know he is a pilot for a living so is gone a LOT, but I struggle when he goes to Canada. No phone, yep, no cell phones where they are going. Great for him, anxiety producing for me. Why when he is gone for a living, I have no idea. I just HATE it. So my goal is to be super busy the whole time he is away. So, let me share my day with you, ok?

He got up at 6am so I got up at 6am to "help" him pack. Finally got them on their way around 8am. Tried to go back to bed but I was ready for the day to begin. I actually just putzed around for awhile on the computer. Our baby chick hatched so had to ooo and ahh over it. Isn't it adorable now that it is fluffy?? Seriously, DD1 could not be more excited.

I decided I needed to eat and then it was time to work in the garden. I had sooo much to do and there was NO rain today so it was perfect. I have 5 garden areas to take care of around the house plus the gazebo area. I got the front garden all planted and wood chipped. I got the side garden mostly weeded, planted but not wood chipped. I was sweating BUCKETS!! DD2 decided to come home and help me, THANK God!! One of the gardens is hers. DD1 wanted to go see How to Train Your Dragon, again, so since DD2 needed to go out and get boots we went to the movie (I had to shower first). Love this movie. Really, really cute!
We came home and DD2 was almost finished weeding her garden. About 2 hours of weeding. So I planted the 3 Stargazer Lillies that I got for only $1 each!!!, another group of lillies I got for 50 cents and the Impatients. Still needs woodchips. I got most of the containers planted too. Just need to do some clean up of those. As I was re potting on the table outside, I happened to look down and here is what I saw:

This is a fishing spider and this one was about 2 inches in diameter! UGH!!! Spiders, please stop following me. I looked around and the calicos had come out to help too. What's up with that? They don't even like each other!

That's Hallie on the left and Autumn on the right. Oh yes and there were a TON of these although this is one of the bigger ones, all over everywhere.

Anyhoo, I still have to 2 biggest gardens left to week and beat back the lemon balm in. I will stop for some wood chips and a few other things on the way home tomorrow. I did find a weird fungus on the bricks in the gazebo area but forgot to take pictures of that, maybe tomorrow. Then you can tell me how to get rid of it!

Re heated smoked chicken and had some potato salad I had made yesterday for dinner tonight. Had a shower, and am now on my third load of laundry. I'm a little tired.

One of the highlights of the day? Bringing in this beautiful boquet from my garden (the peonies are from the neighbor and YES I did ask her before I cut them) Aren't they lovely?

I hope you all had a good weekend too! I'm beat but still need to pack a bag for the gym in the morning. Oh yes...about that. I gained 0.4 this past week. Darn it!

Our First chicken Hatching

We have some fertile eggs from LTW's farm. We had expected one of them to hatch yesterday and it did. It finally emerged around 3am. My DD1 has the incubator in her room and woke up in time to get this video of the chick making it's entrance into the world. It is a Polish chicken so will have a pom pom on it's little head. Welcome baby chick!

Blogger's Quilt Festival Begins TODAY!!!

Yep you read that correctly. The Blogger's Quilt Festival begins today over on Amy's Blog. If you have a quilt that you want to share with everyone this is the place to do it. She also has an amazing list of sponsors for fabulous prizes. I have a quilt to share with you. I have blogged about this quilt already but would love to share it again.

When my DD2 graduated from high school we had a party, duh like everyone else does. I decided to make some white squares and put them in a basket with some fabric pens with instructions for everyone to write their thoughts and well wishes on for my DD as she was leaving for college. I knew I would make it into a quilt eventually. Of course I had no idea what I was going to do but knew I would figure it out later.

Both her HS and university use a block "S" as a symbol of the school. Her HS colors were royal blue and white and the university's were green and white. Have you ever had one of those "ah ha" moments? Well I did. I had a friend make DD2's party invites with a block "S" split diagonally and colored blue and green with her senior picture in the center. I decided to make a block "S" out of the white squares and diagonally split the background into blue and green.



I finished the top a few months ago and decided to use flannel for the back (she adores flannel on the back of her quilts) I happened to find Michigan State University flannel, woot, woot, so I used that.

My good friend and excellent quilter LTW did an amazing job and quilted a block "S" into each and every block.

This is what I wrote to her on my square:

I made the decision to give it to her upon her recent graduation from university. She graduated a few weekends ago with honors. We are so proud of her! So I labeled it and presented her with it the day of her graduation (only 4 years later than the initial squares were made)

She was moving to an apt in another city the following week but she pulled me aside as we were leaving to ask if she could keep the quilt overnight because she wanted to sleep under it. She called me the next day to tell me that as she read the things people had said to her from 4 years ago it made her a little sad, she felt like she should have tried harder but we both knew she always tries her best and she did graduate with honors. We talked about it and she was so grateful to have such a wonderful reminder of both her high school and university years!

Thank you, Amy, for allowing me to share this story and my quilt. I love the Blogger's Quilt Festival!!

I found a new blog

Now I know that some of you don't like the political side of my blog so if that's you...STOP reading right now. I found a great new (to me) blog called Chicks on the Right. They have a wonderful style of writing, kind of a humorous yet sarcastic style. It really suits my personality, LOL. If you are up for some informative and witty information stop by and give them a read.

I will be back to quilty content soon = )

Bravo Mr. McClintock, Bravo

After the president of Mexico spoke to our congress and called us out on our immigration policies and after some of our own congressmen and women applauded his doing so, Tom McClintock (R) of California had this to say:



I agree whole heartedly with what he has to say. Thanks for sharing what many Americans have in their hearts!

POKE-N-STAB Reunion

Last night there was a reunion of many of the people from the church quilt group, the POKE-N-STAB quilters. It was hosted by the woman that ran the group before me, Jeanne. I decided to go and see all the ladies that no longer attend the group (me now included in that list).
I did snap a few pics and thought I would share with you all. Here are a few group pictures showing some of the "used to attend" with the current attendees.



Here are Pilar and Kim (with baby Weston). Pilar is now running the group with Ruth Ann, and I think Kim is the youngest in the group. The photo next to this one is Ruth Ann and Cori. Ruth Ann is the tall one and Cori is the one that owns her own online quilt shop. (You should go and check it out, her prices on pre-cuts is better than most other shops and she is a really good friend and a genuinely nice person)

So I know you are all *dying* to see me, right so here is a photo with Cori, Allie (Ruth Ann's granddaughter), Stacy and Me. As I write this I realize my name is the only one that doesn't end in i or y!

This is the first time I had met Allie and she is a really sweet girl. I'm glad RA brought her along. We had a nice time chatting.
Jeanne had a surprise for us, a woman that does work in Ghana with the women there. She has taught them how to make soap and how to dye their own fabrics so they can sell them and have money for their families. It was an interesting presentation and the fabric was beautiful. I have no photos of the fabric though as when I came inside (outside with Kim and a fussy baby) most of it was either bought or packed up = ( I think they would like to market the fabric more so the women can make more money but are not sure how to go about doing that. If anyone has any ideas please email me. Cori and I ended up staying talking with Jeanne and her sister, Kathy until 11pm! It was a wonderful night.

Anyway, I also wanted to let you all know that I have lost another 10 inches bringing the grand total up to 33 inches lost (and 35.4 pounds) so far. Thanks for the encouragement!

Gardening with my Friends

I have needed to get out in the garden for so long now and beat the weeds under control but it has been so wet out that I haven't been able to do anything lately. Yesterday I finally had a nice sunny day and also some great helpers (or at least one really good helper). DD2 happened to come home and told me she would help me weed (not a job anyone else will help me to do) so we gloved up and went out in the front yard first. I didn't get any before pictures but trust me it needed to be weeded! As we were weeding we saw this beauty, just hanging out on a bush.

It was beautiful and about as big as my hand! It stayed there quite awhile. We also saw a million toads! We were moving the rocks and re-doing them as the grass grows between them and they sink in so every spring I pull the grass and move them around a bit. I didn't think to take any pics of the toads either, or the billion wolf spiders with their egg sacs (you're welcome). DD2 decided to work under some of the bushes moving rocks around.

Nice shot of her by our Mustang.
The BIGGEST helper though was Hallie. She was the Hosta inspector first.

Next she made a wonderful look out cat.

Followed by some very patient weed flattening. A difficult job to be sure.

I have more gardening adventures planned for today. I need to take advantage of the sunshine and lack of rain while I can.

The Sixth block in the Jelly roll Quilt-A-Long

You would not think that I should have had sooooo much trouble with this block. It's only straight lines. So I put it together and thought, "There, I'm done." I went to put it with the others and realized I forgot the borders.
See? No outside borders.
I took a minute and cut the borders. Did I actually *read* the directions? No I did not so guess what? The second set was not cut the correct size, *sigh*. I can fix this, I'll just have to sew some together, and there will be a seam, that's OK, right? So I attached them. Notice anything wrong with this block?
Sure you do, the pink print goes one way in the blocks and one way on the border. It has been amazing to discover just how much of the Verna line is actually directional. It makes it a lot more challenging to work with, that's for sure! I had to ask myself, how much will this actually bother me? You be the judge.

Enough to rip it apart and re-do the 4 patch units then sew it back together again.

Now it's right and I am a happy little bunny.


On a positive note, I switched my weigh in at WW to Sat morning so it will be the same as at the gym. Well, I lost another 4 pounds this past week bringing the grand total to 35.4 pounds lost so far.

Well DD2 is home and I need to get out in the garden and pull some weeds. Hope you all have a wonderful day today and enjoy your day!

Thursday Stuff

I went with DD1 yesterday after work to a place called Sham Pooch to bathe out dog. They provide everything you need to do it but you do it yourself. We were both wet (since we forgot to put the vinyl aprons on first, DUH) when we were finished. They had this amazing high powered dryer thing that worked like the high powered dryer at the car wash. It just literally blew the water off her. Amazing! It was about half the cost of taking her in to have it done too. Clever people, great idea.

I thought you might like to see how my flowers have been opening up. They are truly beautiful now! Thanks, kids!

I went to quilting last night and decided I wanted to do the embroidery on the first 2 Tisket A Tasket (TAT from now on) blocks. I think they came out quite well. I just need to do the embelishments which I will do after it is quilted. I now have Jan and Feb done. I have fused March and April and will work on those next.


I have to make caramel brownies for one of my best friend's birthday for tomorrow so I will try to remember to take some photos of them. They are AMAZING!! Have a wonderful evening.

I Was Being Baaaaaaad!

Well not me, exactly but Sunshine the goat we got for LTW's farm. LTW was on the computer and then stepped away and snapped this series of photos for our enjoyment.

"Who me? I'm not being baaaad!"

"Hmmm, now what's in here that might be tasty??"

So she is a pencil thief! I laughed so hard when LTW sent these to me. Oh naughty little Sunshine!! We all know you should not jump down with a pencil in your mouth, silly goat!!

Comic relief brought to you courtesy of LTW!!