Yesterday

Nicole and I walked to the Ann Arbor farmer's market yesterday and I bought this beautiful bouquet of flowers for only $4!!


Here is a view from the top. It is about 8 inches in diameter. They are just beautiful and they smell great too. I also got 2 beautiful heads of leaf lettuce one green and one red for $1.50 each! I think we need to go every Wednesday!

Last night was quilting at CHV. I brought several things to work on and this was one of them. I needed to hand turn the binding on my "Cats in the Cabin" wall hanging. I got about 3/4ths done and had to stop as my left arm was killing me! So Pauline kindly finished the rest for me. Thanks, Pauline!! I found the cat pattern online but designed the rest fo the quilt around that. I like how it turned out.

I participated in the Designer Mystery BOM at the Fat Quarter Shop this past year. Here is my finished top. It was a great experience and if you are interested they are doing another one this time with stars. Hope over and visit them. The star one is done with Glace by three Sisters (Moda). It looks really nice and is only $9.99 per month including shipping. I did buy the finishing kit which included all the material for the sashing and borders.


Now, I really want to do a Spooktacular swap. If you are interested please contact me at mamaspark@gmail.com I have 5 people and I need 7 more to make this work. You can see the link to the details in the post from yesterday. You would not have to have your blocks to me until september 1st either. C'mon, what are you waiting for??

Also over the weekend

My friend, Suzanne, that lives in Texas is always so nice and keeps DS supplied in UT wear. For those of you who don't know, UT played in the Fiesta bowl and these beauties arrived from Suzanne on Friday. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH SUZANNE!! You are the BEST! I'm not sure how much if at all she ever followed MSU but I am turning her into a covert Spartan fan too!! As soon as I get a break in the lacrosse action I will be scouting for some MSU basketball t-shirts to send off to Texas! Second in the nation is still pretty awesome!!



The same day I received the shirts, I received this amazing gift in the mail from Michelle. I remember commenting on her owl fabric and look what showed up at my house!! Aren't they just the cutest?? She sent a nice note and apparently she sent this as a pick me up to reward me for my hard work cleaning my dad's house. What a sweetheart you are Michelle. My Blogland friends have been so kind and supportive of me! I appreciate all the wonderful people I have met via my blog!

LTW had given me this whole cloth quilt and told me to color it ala Irena Bluhm so here is my first attempt at doing just that. I really like how the leaves turned out but need to do some fine tuning on the pumpkins. I decided to add some darker shading and ended up not liking it so I "erased it" using a q-tip. The colored pencil seemed to blend but when I put the textile setting stuff on it all the dark lines showed up. Oh well, it has been fun to experiment with and will still look OK when I'm finished. Maybe a wall hanging or maybe a giveaway...??? Who knows, but it needs to be finished. See how much trouble I can get into when I am avoiding working on the quilt for Karen??

This quilt was made by one of the ladies in my second quilt group, the one at Cherry Hill Village. I am putting it up so you can see the amazing quilting done by our famous LTW. The front looks really cool, especially the curly wool on the lamb!

But the back is where the amazing quilting shows up. All hand guided. Many starts and stops and many thread color changes. She sure does fabulous work!!

My friend, Cori has an online quilt shop. I called her and went by and picked up a couple of cut fabrics from her. I got Sweet and Soiree. They are such beautiful lines!! Go to her online shop and check out her stuff. (Also listed in my sidebar) She charges less than some of the other Moda cut goods stores online and her customer service is the BEST!! If you order be sure and tell her I sent you!!

Yesterday our lacrosse game was canceled so I thought I would stay home from the CHV group and work on Karen's quilt. I had layed it out at the church on Tues night so it was ready to sew the blocks into rows. I am so happy to *finally* be done with those blocks!! I got 2 blocks sewn together when one of the CHv ladies called. "I have a quilt from X I could drive it to you or what are you doing tonight?" No it's OK, I'll come and pick it up, *sigh*...so much for my planned evening. I did manage to get 1 row done, woo hoo!!! We have lacrosse tonight and again on Sat and both are home games so we will see how much I get done (oh yes, and it is Easter!! so I will have the entire family over, guess I better get cleaning, ugh!)

BTW I follow Kellie's blog and she has the cutest Honey Bunny tutorial over on her blog. You should go and check her blog out too. Her work in truly inspiring! I will be making "Honey" for sure!!

My Weekend

My friend, Ruth-Ann No Blog was taking me to task for not entering anything new on my blog.  Here is how my weekend went.  I came home from work and changed my clothes. (Dinner was ready because I made white chicken chili in the crock pot).   I really needed dog food so was going to head to the pet store to get some.  Well, DH decided he wanted to tag along.  Why? I asked, Because I want to spend time with you, he answered.  At the pet store??  Whatever.  So of we went.  Then I got home and needed to bring a pen over to Charlotte's house.  I got the pen and some other stuff I needed to give her and went over to her house.  About an hour later I was on my way home.  By this time it is after 9pm.  I did some laundry and a little cleaning and watched Stargate Atlantis and then at 11pm went to bed.

Saturday.  I had to get up at 7am because DS had detention at school and had to be there by 8am.  And DD2 was coming home.  I had to head to the LQS to get the Shop Hop passes for myself and Charlotte.  I went to the shop and bought our passes and our bus passes too for the November 15th Shop Hop.  It should be fun.  I left the shop and decided to stop back at home to see if DD was there yet.  I had a hair appointment at 1:30 and it was 1pm and it takes me about 20 minutes to get to the salon.  She was not there and the door was locked.  Where was DH??  There were messages on the phone, better listen.  DD was indeed home but locked out, and BTW I left my cell phone at the LQS (15 minutes in the opposite direction of the salon).  Called Dd from the house phone and asked her to go and get it while I was gone.  Remember that MSU was supposed to play football at 3:30 too which I wanted to watch.  Ended up at the salon and 3 hours later, yes I said THREE HOURS LATER, a cut and color takes that long.  I was on my way home.  Got home only to find out that DD could not find the LQS (said DD could not find her way out of a paper bag either, but I digress) so this necessitated a trip to the LQS (I made DD go with me so she will know where it is!)  Got my phone and was on my way back to my home.  Walked in the door to the Texas and Oklohoma  game (DS is a HUGE Texas fan).  Had to wait for that game to finish before I could watch the MSU game.  FINE, did dishes while waiting, let the dog out and did some laundry.  *Finally* I got to watch the DVR'ed game.  We had dinner plans with my friend Shelby and her boyfriend, Ray, so I had to stop watching the game and get ready.  It was a *nice* resturant so I had to dress up (or dress up for me).  We left around 6pm and got to his house around 6:30.  We went out and had a nice ( and ungodly expensive) dinner.  Left for home around 10pm.  Fell into bed exhausted.  

On to Sunday.  DD wanted to go shopping.  We ended up at MANY stores until I was ready to cry uncle.  We did manage to find some of the things she was looking for.  Came home and had to begin to get dinner ready.  Ate dinner and bundled her off and back up to school.  Much too short of a visit.  I really miss her!  Now it is about 6pm and I am whipped, but I go to the sewing room and work on the second MSU quilt, which is coming along nicely.  So that's how my weekend went.  I had NO time to blog.  

Monday was a lacrosse meeting at 7pm until about 9pm, Tuesday was quilting with the CL's from 7-9 and tonight is quilting with the CHV quilters until 9:30 (which I may have to leave early to get home and watch the debate, although I don't know why since I already know who I will be voting for!)  Thursday I have another lax meeting and Friday I may take off work to do something "fun" for myself!  I complained about being tired last night and DH suggested I quilt less, pfttt as if!

Anyway, here I am blogging at work (hahaha) no one is here today and most of the things I need to do today are already finished so...

Here is another 5 yard challenge quilt made by...you guessed it, LTW.  Aren't the cranes great??


I don't know how many of you remember this quilt?  Shirley from the CL's made it and her joke was that she would die before ever finishing it.  Well, here she is with the quilt displayed at the CHV Theater.  It is a beauty!

You may or may not remember a few months ago when a really nice man, Jack, dropped off a crap ton of quilting "stuff" at the church.  His mom had passed away and he was hoping we could use the stuff.  Among the stuff were several boxes of almost completed quilts.  So I decided that I will pull a bag each week and see what we have.  Grace, one of the CL's, is interested in putting them together so Grace, here ya go!  It is interesting to see someone else's quilt pieces and to try to figure out what they intended for them.  Here is the one I did last night.  I think I got it right.  There were 15 main blocks with stuff to make the 16th.  This is all hand pieced too.  I think the colored fabric was from old sheets as there are borders and they are not pieced but all one piece.  Alternatively, I guess she could have cut them length wise, but they feel like sheets.  What do you think?  I think it is really neat.  I know that my friend, Yuki, would appreciate all the flying geese in this one!

So for inquiring minds, there is the update!!  What was your weekend like??

Cherry Hill Village Quilt Night and the Secret Ocean Quilt

Last night I had quilting again.  This time it was with the Cherry Hill Village Quilters (CHVQ).  We meet in the CHV Theatre.  It is a huge room and they set up tables for us and provide coffee too.  Last night some big band (think Tommy Dorsey, or if you are too young for that Big Bad Voo-Doo Daddy).  That was awesome!  My dad (now 82) still plays in a Big Band (General Assembly).  He plays the baritone sax.  So needless to say, I have grown up with Big Band music!  I love it and strangely enough so does DD2.  

Many of the same people from the CL group are also a part of the CHVQ group (and , yes, I am in charge of that group too!)  The CHVQ group does not need me as a leader so I get to do some actual sewing, shocking, huh?  Well, I am always on the look out for good group projects for the CL group and I had found the Chubby Chicks pattern (it is kind of a bad photo of the pattern but...)  So I had mentioned to the CL's on Tues about this one and asked if anyone had any lime green fabric we could use.  Ruth-Ann (who tells me I am not posting nearly frequently enough, btw) came through, BIG time!  Here is her stash of lime green and she donated it all to us to use, isn't that fab??  It should be a cute quilt when finished.  The CL's (some of them) don't like to applique, in fact they call it the "A" word, lol!  so this has both applique and piecing. 
Here is what I was working on last night.  My Fresh Squeezed blocks.  Yes, they are still not finished yet, but they are now 21 blocks closer to finished!
This is the Secret Ocean quilt that I can show you but can't tell you who it is for!  The CL's all worked on this as a group project.  Isn't it beautiful?  I love blue and greens together anyway but this one is just exceptional.  The photo truly does not do it justice.

Here is a close up of the quilting.  LTW did Water World on in with varigated blue thread.

It's a stunner!

Tonight I have someone coming to give me an estimate on new carpet for the stairway and upstairs hall and DS's room.  I hope it is affordable, we really need new carpet in those areas.

Have a wonderful day!!

Week Catch Up

It has been a very busy week both at work and at home!  Quilting with the CL's has changed to Tuesday nights and the new Cherry Hill Village Quilters evening edition has begun on Wednesday evenings.  We had our first meeting last night.  I hope it will be a successful group.  I did manage to spread out the FS quilt blocks that I have done, in no particular order.  The photo is kind of yellow, I'm not sure why that is but here it is.


I really like how it is turning out.  I have like 30 some odd blocks finished but there are a total of 120 to make so I have a ways to go.  I found a pattern for a block that looks like a jar.  I have seen these done with different bugs, food and things like that.  I decided to try one with Halloween fabrics, so I got most of that cut out last night.  I still need to cut out the lids.  I have NO idea why I am starting another project, lol.  I will use it for our Christmas Bazar at the church to raise money for that group.  

I know, I know, I need to get back to Karen's quilt but...I just HATE making those blocks.  I think I will have to make myself make one or two before I allow myself to work on the FS or jar project.  I feel like a magpie, ohhhh, look over her at the shiny bauble!!

Lacrosse is beginning again and with it some of the left over drama is rearing it's ugly head.  i am so done with drama in my life!  I'm not quite sure how to handle it I have been prayerfully considering what to do and how to do it.  Please keep me in your prayers for guidance.  As the president of the club my role is so complex and I need to wear so many different hats.  I just hate all the drama, I guess I had my fill in HS!!  Anyway, I digress!!

My DD2's 20th birthday is on Sat, the same day we have the wedding so I will get to see her on that day at least.  Her bike got run over (by her room mate, accidently) so we are getting her a new one for her birthday.

Talk to you all soon!!