Today's Activities

It's often difficult to gauge how much to do or not to do when you are feeling well. 

I got up this morning and decided that I would try some sewing at my machine.

I had a chenille blanket all basted and ready to stitch so thought that would be a good choice to begin. 

No standing to press anything. 

So I sat down and sewed for 2 hours and made all the channels.

I got some of the cutting done too.

That takes so long but I finally got that finished too.

Then I thought about binding it. 

The fabric I wanted to use was in the basement and I was not allowed to climb those again today so I had to see what I could find in my sewing room that would work.

I came across some hot pink Free Spirit solid that was perfect!!

So soft! 

It would be perfect for a baby blanket.

I made the binding and attached it to the chenille.

DH decided that we should take a quick trip to the local market.

We ran into my daughter's old swim coach and his family.

It was very mice to catch up. 

We kept up our shopping and about 20 minutes into the trip I was getting very light headed. 

So we checked out and came home. 

This is what greeted me as I entered the house.

I love my cats!

Have a wonderful night!!

~XOP~

Every Day Is A Better Day

Today was even better than yesterday! 
I was able to go the whole day without any pain medicine! 
I was kind of tired and needed to nap but no pain meds were necessary!!
Woo Hoo!!
I even had a visitor today.
My friend Pauline came over to see me and brought me some patterns I had ordered from Crazy Quilt Girl.
I will take some photos tomorrow to show you. 
Cori is going to be carrying some Australian designer patterns so be sure to stop over to her shop and check them out over the next few days.
She may not have them listed yet, as she has been crazy busy, but soon.

I also got the cutest get well card in the mail today too.
Thanks Dianne!! 
That kitty looks just like Captain Jack!
It is so nice to know that my friends are wishing me well!!

If that wasn't enough, I received my order from Hawthorne Threads today too.
OHHHH so cute!!

Have you seen Backyard Baby?
If you have not, you are in for a treat.
I fell in love with the forest but the bug jars are a close second. 
I think I will be buying more of this line.
Not only is it beautiful but some of the softest fabric I have ever felt!

I have come to the conclusion that I need all the Lizzy House pearl bracelets in all the colors.

Sounds easy enough, right? Well it isn't.

So far every tie I find it they are out of stock.

I did manage to find some of the light orange and then added a little bit of Out Foxed.

LOVE all of it!

Anyone else like these lines? Or have tips where I might find good deals on them?

I got these at Hawthorne Threads. I am a big fan of theirs. 

Fabric.com carries them too but they are out of stock right now.

I know I am healing when I am finding it difficult to sit still and "relax". 

ACK how I hate that word.

I don't know how to do that very well. 

So this afternoon when it was just me and the cats I hauled out DD1's Halloween Tumbler quilt and hand stitched the binding down on that quilt!

It's all finished!!

I just need to stamp a label on it and it is ready to wash and hand over!!

That's my kind of relaxing! Hope you are all doing fun stuff.

My stamina is not back to normal yet so forgive me if I haven't commented on your blogs of late.

I will get there.

~XOP~

I'm Home and Well

Just wanted to let you know that everything went well and I am home.
In fact I am feeling pretty good. 
Maybe it's the pain meds on board LOL.

I was a winner on a blog hop recently and the gift was a surprise.
It came today. 
Wanna see it?

It is a mini quilt. The bottom part is chenille, too cute.

Remember those daisies I showed you?

Well Ayumi found the royal blue ones!!

She is still waiting to come across the cream and the dark green ones for me.

She was so sweet to go out of her way to look for me. 

She has a great little ETSY shop called the Pink Penguin. 

You should go and check out her shop.

She has some of the Kerchief girls I love so I bought some of those too.

She tucked a few little surprises into my bag too. 

Thank you Ayumi, for being so generous!

I'm happy to be home and will write again when I am a little more recovered!! 

~XOP~

Here Goes Nothing

The day for surgery has finally come.
I am excited and a little nervous too.
Yesterday the surgical nurse called and after our conversation she told me no jewelry.
What??  I can't get my wedding ring and diamond off my fingers anymore.
So on the way home from work yesterday, I stopped at a local jewelry store and had them cut off.
  I haven't had those rings off my fingers for 28 years!!

I was OK with getting the Iolite ring cut off but for some reason cutting off my wedding band was really hard for me.

I plan on getting them resized though when I am healed.

I have diamonds from my mom, grandma and great grandma so I am thinking about having them all set together.

Could be a cool ring!

OK folks this blog will be quiet for a few days at least. I'm home sometime tomorrow.

I will put up a post when I can to let you know how it went.

I am looking forward to this being done and beginning a new era in my life.

Children are wonderful but the birthing process wreaks havoc, LOL.

So until I return, make lots of cool things for me to be inspired by!!

~XOP~

New Fabrics

UH OH, I told myself I wasn't going to buy anything much new this year.
LOL, so much for that resolution!
I found the Suzuko Koseki daisies and it was all over. 
These are so beautiful! 
Here see for yourself.

I told you! 

Now don't blame me if you get bitten by the Suzuko bug too. 

I did make a friend online that lives in Japan and she found the royal blue colorway for me.

If I *need* all of them I will still need the dark green and the cream. 

I'm pretty sure that I do need those.

Then Hawthorne Threads sent me an email telling me that some fabric I have been drooling over that was out of stock is now back in stock so...well...you all know what that means right. 

It is on it's way to my house too.

Have you ever ordered from them? I love them. 

My first choice is always Crazy Quilt Girl (although she is currently closed as her mom just had knee surgery) but sometimes she doesn't have the things I am after so the next place is Hawthorne Threads or Fabric.com. 

Sometimes the prices are similar and HT almost always has a better selection.

Any new lines out there that you all are excited about?

I have a couple I am lusting after. 

Most of them are not even out yet!! 

Haha, so still time to save my pennies.

~XOP~

My Fortune Said So

We got Chinese food last night for dinner and this was my fortune:

I had to laugh, because my plan for today was to be super productive!

I had a lot to do today and even more to do tomorrow before my surgery on Tuesday. 

So I was up early, and began the wash. 

Then I cleaned up my bedroom, dumped both cat boxes, vacuumed the entire downstairs and did some more laundry. 

The one thing I really wanted to get to today was to cut out the quilt I am pattern testing for Jacquie of Tallgrass Prairie Studio. 

I am making 2 sizes of the pattern so I got to choose 2 different colorways.

I am totally in love with this color way. 

Not a usual one I would choose but beautiful none the less. 

I can't show the pattern but I can show you the colors! Excited? 

Me too!!

I even labelled them all so eventually if you want to make one just like mine you will know which colors to run right out and buy! 

OK now I would love to know what you think of this color combo.

I am so proud of myself for getting lots of things ready for myself to do while I am recovering! 

I have loads of bindings to do, and 3 quilts to sew together! 

I ordered some books to read and a couple of new magazines are on their way here too.

I am considering getting the Game of Thrones books too. 

Anyone read them?

I just got home from practicing Zumba with my instructor and am really sweaty so need to shower and do a few more things then bed.

DH even had home made chicken noodle soup and home made biscuits waiting for me when I got home, 

YUM!!

Have a wonderful evening!!

~XOP

Geese In A Ring

WHEW!  I finally have all 7 of my Geese In a Ring blocks ready to send out in the mail!!
We all chose the colors we wanted to have made for us.
Here is a photo of all of the blocks.
Tell me what you think.

I made three rainbow blocks, one orange and aqua, one green and purple, one pinks and reds and one pink, yellow and green. 

I LOVE how all of these blocks came out.

They take a LOT of time but are so beautiful.

I never tire of looking at these blocks!

What about you?  What are you working on?

~XOP~

Presents From Friends

Who doesn't love a gift right?
  I was blessed by some unexpected gifts this week.  First up was this adorable bag from a friend of mine that I work with.
She is such a sweetie!

A little while ago I met a reader and she was longing for one of the DS quilts lines so I offered to get them and send them to her.

I've done this for a few other folks too.

Really not a biggie.

She lives in the UK.

Lookie at what she sent as a thank you!

Have you seen this magazine? It's FULL of eye candy!! Thank you Gil!

The third gift arrived in the mail today all the way from Australia. I "me" Lesley when my DD1 went over to Australia to stay with her daughter. My DD1 stayed with her daughter for 6 weeks. Later her daughter came here. I wanted to get to know the family before I sent my DD1 all the way over there and it turns out the mom, Lesley, is a quilter!! Small world eh? I am sending her a little giftie along with my DD1's gifties for her friend and she isn't done shopping!! It will arrive eventually. In the meantime I will show you the patterns she sent me by Aussie designer Natalie Lymer

What great friends I have!! I have some more to share but it will have to wait until tomorrow

. ~XOP~

SOPA and PIPA

I know I'm a day late posting about the black out that happened yesterday to highlight the importance of contacting your legislators.
I wasn't going to post about this but my DD1 begged me to please post so folks that might not know about this important issue.
SOPA and PIPA are legislation introduced to deal with piracy issues.
Good intentions to be sure the the overreaching that is allowed to occur without due process is unacceptable. 
You may have noticed black outs or interruptions in service around the internet yesterday on sites like Flickr, Wikipedia, Google, Twitter, Mozilla and several other sites that allow user contributed content.  Here is the Wiki link if you want to read more about these bills and how you can work toward stopping them!! 

I have emailed my senator and congress people.  I also intend to call them.  

Wikipedia had this to say about the response of "we the people":

"More than 162 million people saw our message asking if you could imagine a world without free knowledge.
You said no.
You shut down Congress’s switchboards.
You melted their servers.
From all around the world your messages dominated social media and the news.
Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet."

But we can't stop now.
PIPA is up for a vote on January 24th.
It is extremely important to keep the pressure on our legislators.
Tell them you do not support censorship of the internet and they shouldn't either.
  Most of us, after we have blogged long enough, have had something pirated.
I had a photo re-posted with out my permission.
I just stumbled upon it.
What if someone else linked to that photo?
Both the person that linked and the person that posted the pirated photo could be sued, have their content taken down or worse.
What if someone didn't want you posting about something.
They could link up to your blog with the pirated content and guess what?
YOU would be the one in trouble!
No questions asked and you have to police everyone that may link to you.
CRAZY!!!

This link has an article that really explains all the issues with these two bills way better than I can.  

Wiki also says:

"I don't live in the United States. What's the best way for me to help?

Contact your country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar government agency. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and any similar legislation. SOPA and PIPA will affect websites outside of the United States, and even sites inside the United States (like Wikipedia) that also affect non-American readers -- like you. Calling your own government will also let them know you don't want them to create their own bad anti-Internet legislation."

As my DD1 always says, "point of the story?" 

If you like all of the freedom of content you have access to while using the internet please, please go to the Wiki link, find the contact info for your legislators and EMAIL OR CALL THEM  or BOTH!!!

OK off my soapbox now.

This is really important to all of us that use the internets (all of them, LOL).

I promise some quilty content later tonight, after I get some dinner. 

~XOP~

OOPSIE Here's What Happens When You Rush

I was making geese blocks like crazy and then I began to take the paper off.
UGH!  Look at this one.

See it there in the upper left hand corner?

The paper was white and the fabric is white and I just didn't even see it until I took the paper off. 

I ended up having to make over 2 blocks. 

But I got all the geese made, now I just need to take off all the paper and sew them into blocks. 

That's the plan for this week so I can ship by the weekend.

I did manage to get one entire block sewn too, the one for Mary Catherine. 

She wanted pink, green and yellow.

Of course I had some help.

Have a wonderful day!

~XOP~

Got 6 Hours?

That's how long it took me to make the components of 3 Geese In A Ring blocks!
I am in a swap group and need to get my blocks done to put in the mail but have not had any time since before Christmas to make them.
It takes so long to make one block though.
If they weren't so amazing I would probably have given up by now, LOL.
Here are the three I managed to make yesterday.

This one is for my friend Jeannette.

I was especially pleased to have been able to center the bunny and the yellow henna garden.

Now I have to take the paper off the blocks and sew them together.

Then I need to start on the last 3.

One is reds and pinks, one is pink, yellow and green and the last one is for me!!

In aqua and lime green!!

Well, I had best get my behind in gear, haha.

I'm watching Rome with my DH and I hate to go into the sewing room just now, but I am going to go shortly, as soon as this episode is finished. Have any of you seen the series?

It is wonderful! 

So happy sewing everyone and tell me if you have any tv series you like watching.

~XOP~

Two Quilts Ready For Binding

I got two quilts back from my LAQ this past week.
I managed to get them trimmed up and now need to machine sew some binding on.
I am trying really hard to get some things ready to work on while I am home recovering from my surgery.
I think hand sewing will be on the list!

The first quilt is one I have made several times, I really like the pattern.
It is from Evelyn Sloppy's book called 40 Fabulous Quick Cut Quilts.
I made a quilt similar to this one for my DD2's BFF in high school and then one in completely different colors for my in-laws.
I called this the Water Quilt. 
I knew when I made the first one I would make another one for my DD1, who was a swimmer all through high school and into college.

I am totally in love with this quilt. 

It had been with LTW for so long I even forgot what I had used for the back.

I suggested she quilt mermaids on it with bubbles around the outside (in the bubble fabric, LOL). Turns out I was thinking about mermaids when I put the back together! 

Sparkly ones too!!!

Close ups of the quilting

I plan on binding with a blue/green/white stripe fabric I have in my stash.

The second quilt I got back is a Crazy Rail pattern I bought when I was in Madison IN.

I love making this pattern as it is a non-thinking one, just sew! 

This was made using up the small mish mash of left over flannels I had from previous baby quilts. 

I really love how it came out too.

LTW quilted a star pattern on it. Love that too.

I used up some additional baby flannel I had for the back too.

Quilting close up

I am going to search my stash for some binding fabric. 

I'm hoping for some dark purple or maybe some pink. We will see how that ends up.

I hope you are having a wonderful day! 

~XOP~