Progress

Yes this seems to be the word of the moment!

  I am making progress on some things in my life. 

 I feel like a weight has been lifted from me having my dad so close. 

 I have gone every day to see him.  

My daughter and son have been over to see him and 

my daughter even brought her peacock over on Sat morning and made them all breakfast! 

 I still have a lot of follow up to do where he is concerned but I feel like I finally have a little wiggle room. 

 I have LOTS of "stuff" of his go go through now but that will not go anywhere so I will get to it. 

 I went through a whole box of pictures and letters already. 

 Do you feel guilty when you throw photos out? 

 If I kept every photo from my dad's home there would be no room for anyone in our house!!!

Last night, as hubby was watching pre race shows on TV

 I retreated into the sewing room and worked on stitching around all those Onsie's.  

I got them all finished too!!!

  Here is  close up of the ones that were "built" rather than made from pre printed fabric.

  I really love these so much!

After the peacock this whale is my favorite!  

Those water sprays were tough to do on that knit.  

These were the first eyes I tried on the machine.

Anything that went onto the knit was tricky to do.

This jelly fish is pretty adorable too.

So someone asked me to tell how I did these. 

 I think most of you know about fusible so that't what I used to fuse the design to the Onise.

  My machine sits flush in the table so I had to raise it up and expose the free arm. 

 I put the free arm through the neck of the Onsie so I was only sewing on one layer. 

 I used Auriful thread as it is nice and fine, to do the outlining. 

 I put my applique foot on, dropped the feed dogs and used some Grabaroos gloves.  

Those gloves worked so well. 

 I didn't use them on the first ones but once I remembered to use them it made things so much easier! 

 I basically did free motion stitching around the designs. 

 I went around each design twice (except the jelly fish's legs). 

 If you have specific questions please email me and I can elaborate.

I am hoping to work on a quilt today.

  I feel like it's been so long!  

Enjoy your day!!

~XOP~

Baby Shower and Dad Update

The big day of the baby shower (and the move) was on Saturday.  

I had all my Onsie's prepped and ready to go. 

 I gathered up the food I needed to bring and got all the games ready too. 

 Here was where the food was going to go.  

My SIL did a great job decorating over this table too.  

Wait until you see the adorable centerpieces she made!

Here is a view of the room as we were setting up.  

That's the dad to be in the far back. 

You can see that I put each Onsie in a bag and hung them on a clothesline.  

That way each applique was with it's Onsie and could be done as a little kit.  

When finished each Onsie would be hung back up on the clothesline.

We played a few fun games.  

The first one was using 10 jars of unlabeled baby foods numbered 1-10 guess what was inside.  

No one got the first one...Guava!!  

ahahahaha.  

That was funny.  

Then we had Liz (the mama to be) take a tray of items all around the room and 

had everyone use their powers of observation.  

After she had gone to all the tables and back out of the room, 

I proceeded to ask them all about what Liz had been wearing!  

More fun. 

 Lastly they had to use crete paper to determine how large the baby belly was.  

My very creative SIL made these centerpieces for all the tables.  

The bottom layer on some of them are afghans that she knitted.

Same SIL had alphabet pages for us to draw a picture on and color.  

Then put our name and what we drew.  

She was going to get them laminated and make a book for the baby too.

Here is my page.

I had a little ironing board set up and everyone chose a bag and 

came over to me to either build and fuse their applique or just fuse. 

 I made up some of both kinds.  

One of Liz's friends made the jellyfish.

Here they are all fused and ready for me to stitch around.  

The ones that were built will be cuter when they get their faces sewn on!

I made a chenille blanket for the baby too.  

I think she liked it!

Last but not least thank you to everyone for your concern for me and for my dad. 

 I left the baby shower and drove home to drive to GR for the big move.  

It was quite a day!  

I drove a car, my daughter and her boy friend drove her Jeep Liberty and my hubby 

and son took our truck and the snowmobile trailer.  

We made quite the caravan!  

We spent the night and drove to the apt on Sunday morning to begin the packing.  

Eric (BF) and I went to get the cart and 

we had just gotten back into the apt when we were told the elevator had stopped working.  

OMG how were we going to move an entire 2 bedroom apt on the second floor with no elevator??  Those three guys carried every single box down the stairs and into the vehicles.  

Meanwhile all the elderly of the building were stuck on the first floor as they can't do the stairs. 

 Since we didn't know how long that would be my hubby told my daughter to t

ake Gizmo (her peacock) down stairs and entertain the masses. 

Meanwhile more packing and carrying of stuff.  

At some point (in the million degree apt) we were down to the furniture. 

 What to do, what to do? 

 Thank God the elevator got fixed! 

Seriously I offered up a prayer at this point. 

We got all the big items downstairs and loaded up. 

 Last to load was my dad's chair.  

We put the peacock in his lap while we were packing and the both fell asleep. 

 Dad and bird had a BIG day!

After we finally got on the road we were about 20 minutes into the 2.5 hour drive home 

and he asked me if we were there yet!  

When we finally arrived he told me it was a million miles away and

 he didn't think we would ever get there!  

As it turns out the boxes I needed got packed first so he had shirts but no pants! 

I still have to get to all those boxes but I went shopping in the mean time. 

I have been over to his new place the last 2 days after work and he is settling in quite nicely.  

He likes the people and the food, which is good.  

He told me yesterday that whenever he needs/wants something someone immediately gets it for him and he really likes that!!! 

 So fingers crossed this will be a good move for everyone.  

He did ask me how long he has to stay here. 

 I told him forever. 

 Hopefully that's ok. 

 I am looking forward to being able to see him more and spend time visiting rather than running around and cleaning and doing errands.  

(See his shirt?  I cross stitched the MSU emblem on it)

I appreciate all the support I have received from all my online (as well as my real life) friends. 

 I will keep you posted.  

~XOP~

Just Had To Share

I just had to share this video of my daughter's boyfriend and her indoor peacock.. 

 For some reason Blogger is not letting me upload the video so here is the link to watch it.

I also made a peacock Onsie for her to give as part of her shower gift today. 

 As I said before I took line drawings and made appliques from them.

 I will show them as I finish stitching around them probably next week if you want to see them. 

 Here is the peacock.

I decided to free motion around this one instead of blanket stitch. 

 It was much quicker and I really love how it came out too. 

 Although my stitching is not amazing and knit is difficult to stitch on with no stabalizer!

My daughter loved it.  

I hope the mother-to-be likes it as much as I do!!

I will take pictures at the shower and post them soon.

Moving my dad tomorrow. 

 Can;t wait to have him closer!!

~XOP~

Baby Shower Prep

I am co-hosting a baby shower for my niece.  

She and my nephew are expecting their first baby in the near future.  

Her MIL (my SIL) asked if I would help host the shower.  

I got to plan the games.  

I am excited about that!  

I have to bring some food too. 

 I didn't feel like I was doing very much when the idea hit me.

ONSIE DECORATING PARTY!!!

So I bought a bunch of Onsie's and then the fun part.  

Figuring out what to put on them.  

I did a combination of things.  

I found some great fabric with animals and things on them. 

 I fused Steam-A Seam to the fabric and cut out the animals.  

All they will have to do is choose an animal and a Onsie and press it on.  

I also went to some free coloring book places online and got simple animals from their sites.  

I printed the pages I liked, traced to fusible, and rough cut out the shapes.  

I then fused those to fabric and rough cut out the shapes.  

I will bag them up individually with their picture and 

have those available for those that are a little more adventurous.

Here are some of my favorites

I will have to bring them all home and sew around the designs but that will be fine.  

The mom-to-be is in a PhD program for Neuroscience at the U of M (where I work too). 

 I felt a "special" onsie design coming on.

Yup, one big science nerd over here!  

Welcome to the family sweet little one!

~XOP~

A2MQG Retreat at Howell Nature Center

I took some much needed rest this past weekend and 

attended the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild retreat.  

It was held at the Howell Nature Center in Howell, MI.  

What a GREAT place for a retreat!  

The sewing space was HUGE, the view was fantastic and the company was the BEST! 

 When I arrived some people were already set up and one side of the room was kind of full 

so I set up by a window on the other side of the room. 

 Funny thing was there were 3 Pam's there including me.

 I shared a table with one of the Pams and the other one was set up behind us. 

 It was the Pam corner, for sure! 

 I meant to get a photo but just forgot what with all the sewing and everything going on. 

 We ate well, we shared some wine, played Cards Against Humanity, watched movies, sewed, went on nature walks and even did yoga!! 

 It was an amazing few days.  

I had hoped, when I signed up, to work on some UFO's but as it turned out 

I needed to make some baby quilts for some friends that are having babies. 

 I finished 2 chenille blankets and a baby quilt top.  

Here was our sewing space.  

(As viewed from Pam's machine, not my machine)

I went out for a walk and you can see the Grindley Lodge through the trees.

I walked down by the lake and there were many geese and this one lone swan. 

 He was beautiful! 

 Excuse the photo, it was gray, and snowing and I was using my iPhone.  

It was so quiet, peaceful, beautiful and calm.

This was the other side of the room from where I was.  

I was sitting at the table near those three windows but only took a photo after I was packed up and the tables were down.

I took these fabrics...

And turned them into this! 

 I LOVE the binding on this one!

I also made a second one

 How cute are those scuba divers?

The baby top was from a pattern on the Moda Bake Shop.  

It was an easy quilt to make but doing the applique around all the letters would have been much easier if I could have used my knee lift.  

If you have one and are not using it you are CRAZY!!

  Hook that bad baby up and get on it, you will be so glad you did!

Here is the baby quilt top.  

I made the back once I got home so it is off to the quilter today.  

The background is an Art Gallery fabric and it was so nice to work with!

I was working on the second baby quilt top on Sunday when I got home but it was a little difficult to work with my "helper"

She likes to lay there when I sew because it is so close to the lamp that keeps her warm.

When the thread was going fast, she would peek over the top to see what I was doing.

I hope you had a good weekend too.  

The next 2 weeks are going to be difficult ones. 

 I have made the decision to move my dad closer to where I am and into a group home.  

I had no idea those even existed for the elderly.  

I look at one more tomorrow and then will be making a decision as to which one. 

 I basically will have 2 weeks to get him and all his stuff moved from where he is now, as I had to give them 30 days notice and hubby will be out of town the last week of this month.  

I guess that's good as it makes me get right on it though, right? 

 I have not broken the news to him yet.  

I think that will be this Friday when we go there as we will have to begin moving "stuff" around.  

Wish me luck and keep us in your prayers. 

 I think I am going to need all the help I can get!!  

~XOP~