Don't You Just LOVE Swapping??

WHAT??  You say you have never tried swapping??  Why not?  I have done several trades using Flickr groups and they have been amazing!  I know I have talked about this before but I did some serious swapping recently.  One woman that I swapped with previously had a dragon print listed in her ISO, but no photo of the print.  I FM (Flickr Mailed) her but I just *knew* it was the print I had in a tub in the basement.  Sure enough, it was!  So we swapped.  I sent her that print and some other things and a few $$ and lookie what I got in return!

An entire FQ set of AMH Loulouthi!!! I was beyond THRILLED!! If you haven't seen it in person let me tell you some of these prints are fabulous!! I like it so much more IRL than I even did from the pictures of it. I'm especially in love with the jelly fish looking print (the three in the front on the left) and that zig zag stripe is so cool!!

If that wasn't enough another person was ISO something that I happened to have also and she was so generous with what I had a choice of swapping for too. These beauties are what I ended up with.

Both swaps were so great! So if you haven't tried swapping maybe you should think about doing it. There are 2 Flickr groups (that I know of) a Destash group and a Designer Swap group. You need a Flickr account. List your ISO (In Search Of) in your profile. You can either talk about things you have to swap or post pictures of what you have/want. People will be in touch if they have/want what you post about. Sometimes it helps to look at other's ISO's in their profiles too.

I was sewing on my quilt for Jacquie last night and on the couch behind me was this:


"What? I was just trying to keep your fabric warm? Is that a problem?"
"No Aiden, no problem!"

"All right then, I'm just going to snuggle in here and nap!"

And someone told me I manage my pet hair well, LOL! See all the plastic bags?? THAT's how I manage my pet hair!! That and I lay my quilts out somewhere other than my own house. I tried the floor and it is ok especially the wood floor because I can vacuum first, BUT all the cats and the dog feel like they need to walk through or roll around on whatever I have there. It makes it tough. So that couch you saw Aiden on? I usually lay the blocks on that, although I still have to shoo cats off of it. Sheesh, they think I put all that out for them. I wish I could have shown you Aiden this morning as I was leaving for work. She was rolling all over my cutting mat, wanting me to pet her belly. Now when I go home, before I can work, I will have to wipe all the cat hair off the mat. Mosen was on it last night too and I got some really cute pics of him but they have the new quilt in them too so I can't share them yet.

Hope you have a great Thursday and how do you manage your pet hair issues?? ~XOP~

Imagine My Excitement

I was getting ready to go to bed last night and decided to check my phone one last time.  OMgosh!!  There was an email from Heather Ross.  YES *the* Heather Ross.


I was so excited.  I put the quilt top together for Project Special Delivery and had it quilted by LTW then sent it off to her just recently.  There was a whole Flickr group devoted to making this beautiful quilt for her first baby.  Anyway, she sent me such a nice note to thank me personally for all my effort in making this quilt for her.  This was the last line in the note,

"It's the most special thing I have in the whole world, and I love it." 

Well, we love you and your work and it was a nice way for all of us to let you know how special you are to all of us!

I just wanted to share with all of you what a wonderful person Heather is.  She has personal thank you's going out (snail mail) to everyone in the group that contributed to the quilt too.  I am thrilled that I got to be a part of making this special gift for her and her new little one!  ~XOP~

Home Again, Home Again.

I wanted to let you all know how much I appreciated all your kind words and prayers.  My dad is feeling better but still not 100%.  As a nice surprise my DH came with my DD1 to help do some of the work.  She was passing through to a friend's house and dropped my husband off with me.  He worked down the basement and did an amazing job!  He cleared one of the pantries of really, really old food, some cans from the 80's!  I think he took out over 20 garbage bags too.  I took my sister grocery shopping and then came home and cooked for them.  I mopped the kitchen floor, cleaned some walls, washed the bathroom rugs, and all the bedding as well as several other loads of laundry.  I think we finally loaded up the car and headed home around 10pm ish.  I am exhausted!!  I called him today and he was thrilled to have left overs to eat!!  He is still short of breath and has a very low resting heart rate, but he will heal better at home.

I apologize that my blog, usually full of quilty goodness has been overrun by health issues, but sometimes that's just how life goes.  I was able to go to work on Thursday and *finally* able to give the Castle Peeps quilt away to my friend that had the baby this ast January.  She LOVED it.  I'm so glad.  Here she is with the quilt.

I wrote directly on the quilt for the label. Usually I put the label in a bottom corner, but I thought it was better in an upper corner where the castle quilting is upright.

I spent most of the day today cleaning up around my house and then grocery shopping with DH. He made the most amazing Sloppy Joes using a recipe from an Amish cookbook. He made them from scratch using some ground burger, YUMMO!!

I did manage to get some sewing done today. I have 108 pieces to make before I can even begin to do something with it. I got 18 done. LOL. I like how it is coming along, but I really need to put my head down and try to get the rest of them done tomorrow. Housework is highly overrated isn't it? I really want to get the parts done so I can play with the rest of it. ~XOP~

Just Checking In

I thought you might like to know that my dad came home from the hospital yesterday.  They are still not sure about what caused his problems but he was no longer dizzy and feeling ill.  They changed his meds and I took him home.  He took some of his new medicine and guess what?  Within about 45 minutes it made him light headed and dizzy!!  So I called the doctor's office and he is medicine free for the rest of the weekend.  They will need to reevaluate him on Tues so we will see how that goes.

It is so difficult being over 2 hours away.  I know you all remember the BIG clean up I did awhile ago at his house, well it is getting really grungy in here again.  I began cleaning around 6 and didn't stop until I fell into bed around 11!!  You can now see the counter top, at least.  I finally had a talk with him about possibly getting someone in to clean regularly for them.  Thank goodness he is open to that!  I will have to make a list of places and call them next week to get some pricing.  It is going to be expensive if I have the kind of cleaning done I would like, but I just can't do it all by myself.  I hate to impose on friends to help too because it is so bad.  We're talking the walls need washing, the bathrooms are a mess and I am overwhelmed.  First though I need to cut through some more of the clutter so they can even come in and clean!!  I find it seriously amazing that my own family doesn't understand why I hate it so much when my own house is cluttered!!  I grew up in this kind of a mess and it has just gotten worse since it is just my dad and sister.  He just can't do it and neither can she.  

OK, so sorry for all this but I needed to get it out.  I sure did appreciate all the love and support from all of you!!  My blog friends are the BEST!!  Actually my friend, Holly is one of the BEST too.  Through out this whole time she has been texting and has offered to take time out of her schedule to come here in a few weeks and help me work through some of the mess.  She came here and helped me with this after my mom died too.  I don't know what I would have done without her help.  My family has come here and we have done a lot more too but once we come in and clean for only  a day it just isn't enough.  I almost broke down and called the Hoarders show, LOL.  If I didn't think my dad would flip out it would be a thought, although the house is probably not bad enough for that, thank goodness!!

I do have something to show you guys though.  I finished a birdie stitches block recently and have not had the time to show it to you.  I was not sure how I was going to like this one but it turned out cute!

Here is a close up of the stitching. I added a butterfly, lady bug, snail and bee. Although after I took the picture I realized I still need to put the black in the bumble bee, LOL.

I brought the next block with me in case I had to be at the hospital for awhile but fortunately no. I need to do more cleaning so the embroidery is going to have to wait. I have all my stuff cut for the quilt for Jacquie too but that is just going to have to wait until I get home too. I am *dying* to get started on that one too.

I did get to give the Castle Peeps quilt away and will show you more on that when I can upload photos to my computer (no wireless here so I am on my dad's desktop).

Thanks for the love and prayers. I hope I will get to talk to you all soon.
~XOP~

It's Never Good When The Phone Rings At 3am

My phone was ringing at quarter to 3 am today.  I was upstairs and it was downstairs.  It wasn't a ring from one of my kids, whew, but it was ringing.  Do I race downstairs or just let it ring?  How likely is it to be a wrong number?  DH made the decision and went downstairs to see who had called.  He came upstairs and said, "It's your dad's number".  CRAP!  That's about all I had to say about that.  How can that be good?  So I went downstairs and called it back.  My sister answered and told me that she called 9-1-1 this morning for my dad.  CRAP!  She heard him bump into a door around 2am and got up to check on him.  He was lying on the floor in the bathroom, very weak and I'll spare you the details, suffice it to say he needed help.  So she called the neighbors and then called 9-1-1.  Why didn't she call 9-1-1 first?  Who knows, but we will be having that talk tomorrow when I go there.

She did not know what hospital he was being taken to so I told her to call me back.  Ok, a little bit later she called and told me.  I went back to bed.  CRAP!  Who can sleep now?  My dad is 84.  My younger sister lives with him, she has Cerebral Palsy.  They take care of each other.  My older sister is retarded and schizophrenic, with a touch of Bipolar.  I know that he is not going to be around forever.  I am dreading the day all this responsibility lands in my lap.  There is no one else to take care of them but me.  I keep saying, "Just 10 more years, dad, just hang on."  In reality? I don't want to lose him ever, I love him so much, but I also don't want to take over my sisters care.  I guess no one asked me what I wanted to do right?  We do what we have to and make it work, don't we?  That's what we do.  That's what I will have to do.

I called the hospital at 5am and found him.  He answered, "Holly"?  "No dad, it's Pam."  "How did you find out about this?"  I laughed.  I told him Holly called me.  I asked him if he wanted/needed me there today.  He said "No you shouldn't drive here.  It's a long drive and you'll be tired."  LOL, I'm already tired.  He is in good spirits and seems ok for the moment.  Concerned that he was going to miss his golf date with a friend today.  Typical. 

They will admit him and run tests and ultimately probably not know what really happened.  He is aging, he probably doesn't eat like he should and he was out late to a baseball game with my sister last night.  I suspect his body just couldn't take so much at one time.  He told me they are thinking that they will discharge him sometime tomorrow.  He has someone to stay with my sister tonight.  He was concerned about not having clothes for tomorrow or a way home.  "Don't worry dad, I'll be there to bring you clothes, pick you up and make sure you get home.  I'll stay with you and Holly and make sure you guys are ok."

I love you dad.

Don't worry, I got this!  ~XOP~

Wedding Party!

My nephew got married in a destination wedding last Dec.  You may recall the tumbler quilt I made for their wedding gift.  I blogged about it here.  The reception/party to celebrate the wedding was on Saturday.  It was held at my SIL house in their back yard.  They had a tent, good food, an open bar and a DJ.  It was a lot of fun.  Here is my nephew and his wife with my MIL and FIL

We got to meet our other nephew's new girlfriend too and she was a real sweetie.

My SIL and BIL brought their 4 kids, who we hardly get to see. You may remember Jessie, I made her a graduation quilt from the LCQAL. This is the 4 cousins with my DD2 in the middle of all of them. They were making somores.
My DD1 brought her BF and I managed to actually get a nice shot of them together.

And just because he might feel left out, this is my son (in the white) with his cousin. The two of them are always together at family functions!

I thought you might like to see what I did for the label on the tumbler quilt too. I had made a two row strip across the back and there happened to be one white tumbler. I used that for the label!

I put a Gaelic saying on it too:

Beannachd Dia dhuit! 

OR

Blessings of God be with you!

I'm told the bride cried when she read the label. My favorite response to gifting a quilt! How about you? What kind of reaction do you like to see? ~XOP~

Exciting Times

I have way too much to put into one post but I am afraid I am going to forget something.  I also like to have things to say every day so I am going to just do some talking and the rest will have to wait till tomorrow, *sigh*.
First my friend Craig has entered the McCall's design star contest.  He made it into the first challenge round and now needs people to go and vote for his amazing quilt.  Voting is here, and you can vote once a day for the next 2 weeks.  So what are you waiting for?  Go, NOW!!  Just make sure you come back because I have more stuff to tell you about, k?

Next up, remember that incredible improv quilt I had the opportunity to put together? 

Well, it has finally arrived at it's new home and the proud owner is...

HEATHER ROSS!!!

Yes, she is expecting her first baby in July and this amazing quilt was done for her new baby by a group of Flickr friends.  She sent a note today to the person that facilitated the quilt and let us know that she had received it and was so thrilled!  I guess she cried when she saw it and especially when she read the label we had done. 

 

 She said the quote we used (one of hers) was especially dear to her.  How amazing is that?  Faith (in charge of our group) put together a book that had each block and a note from each person to her, as well as photos of the quilt etc.  I am thrilled that I got to be a part of something so incredible.  Everyone in the group did an amazing job with their block, PTM did her usual fantastic job embroidering the label and doing the binding and LTW's quilting was great!!  So now you know who the quilt was for!!

I still want to tell you about my nephew's wedding reception on Sat but that is going to have to wait for a little bit.  Hope you are all having a great Tuesday, ~XOP~

Sauder Village

On Friday DH and I continued our exploits at Sauder Village in Archbold Ohio.  It is an historic village and there are some shops there as well.  Most notable for me, a quilt shop.  I was fascinated with the broom shop though.  I have to tell you the woman making brooms was amazing.  I knew I found my ride home, LOL.  They make them from broom corn.  (did you know there was a corn like that??)  It has seeds on it which they comb off and then use the stalky part to put with other stalky parts to make the broom.  After they put them together and stitch through them they lay it down and give it a hair cut to make the bottom even.  It was very interesting.  I bought a cobweb broom.   You can see the ones that still have the seeds on, they are the ones tied up with the bows and just below, on the table are what they look like with the seeds off.  It takes 60 stalks to make one broom.  The lady told us it takes her about an hour and a half to make the brooms.  Glad it's her and not me!!

Just outside the quilt shop was a museum and a display of old sewing machines. My DH came into the quilt shop to get me to go and see them. He was even more impressed at how clean my new old Featherweight is!!

Speaking of the quilt shop, I found some old Prints Charming fabrics, which I love and are some of the softest fabrics I have ever felt!

I also managed to get some pink(s) of Henna Garden. I know that the Spring one is HTF, so I got some and hope I can use it for swapping too.

We seem to see quilts everywhere don't we? When we went into the glass blowers shop he had some amazing glass spheres. Do you see what I see?

I know they are a little blurry, but I had to take it through the glass. Beautiful though no?

I think that takes me up to Saturday and the wedding reception so more about that tomorrow.  I did manage to get some sewing done too, as well as some cutting.  I can show you the sewing but not the cutting!!  HAHA, that's for Jacquie's quilt.  Even she doesn't know I am putting in a surprise element!!  BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!  ~XOP~

I Don't Even Know Where To Begin

I know I have been awol lately but I have been BUSY!!  The fun began on Wednesday when I received the Featherweight that I bought on Ebay.  I am in love with her.  So beautiful!  Here let me introduce you to her.

She is a beauty!! She also came with a ton of accessories!

I bet you want to know if she can sew though, right? Well after a LOT of time trying to get the bobbin thread to come up I finally got a chance to try her out. She did not disappoint! Perfect stitch!!

I barely had time to play with her and I had to leave for Wed night quilting. I didn't stay long though as DH and I were going to go to Shipshewana on Thursday...early! Time to pack.

We got up early and headed out. It is about a 2 and a half hour drive but we really enjoy going and spending the day. I usually spend a lot of time at the quilt shops, but I did pretty well this trip. I did visit the shops but I didn't spend much. I had just recently bought from several places and didn't feel that I needed a lot. I was looking for some navies to use in an upcoming project though and managed to score a few great finds on this trip. Shipshewana also had a quilt show going on that weekend so I have loads of photos from the show. I won't be able to upload them all here but if you go to my Flickr you can see them all and who they were made by too. I think we will start with pictures from the show.
This quilt and this one were made by the same woman, Rosemary Youngs of Walker, Michigan (where I grew up!!) The first one was quilted by Tammy Finkler, the other one by Rosemary.

This quilt won the best in show award. It was beautiful! By Barbara Perrin, Pullman Michigan. You need to see this up close on my Flickr.

Those were the ones I liked the best, but there are a whole lot more in Flickr. Now more of my trip. WE found the best doughnut shop (Bread Box Bakery) and here is DH enjoying his.

There were flowers, fairy gardens and buggies everywhere. Even quilts hung all over the Davis Mercantile!

I even found this young lady waiting for a dip! I LOL right in the shop when I spotted her!

DH even managed to snap my picture too, as we were going into the Fairy Garden.

Everyone kept asking us if we were from Lansing and we couldn't figure it out until we realized that he was wearing his Spartan hat and I had on my Spartan jacket!! HAHA

Ok, I kept you waiting long enough, here are the things I got while there:


We ended up leaving there and heading over to Sauder Village in Ohio to spend the night. I will pick up there tomorrow. I still have LOTS more to tell you but I need to go and clean the bathroom. We are having some company tonight. I am also hoping to get into the sewing room to do some cutting today. Have a good Sunday! ~XOP~

Prince Charming

I don't know how many of you are in love with the new fabric line by Tula Pink called Prince Charming but I am totally head over heels over this new line.  Have you seen it?  It is like Hushabye and Neptune had a baby!! LOL  The froggy is especially adorable

Don't discount the snails either.   They are AMAZING!! Probs my second favorite in the line.

My friend Cori at Crazy Quilt Girl is selling this fabric.  You really need to go and get some, oh and tell her she really needs to just get the entire line!!   The hand of the Free Spirit fabrics is so soft, you are going to LOVE these prints, they really are Charming! LOL.

As nuts as I am over this fabric my friend Katy, may be even more so.  Here is Tula's latest artwork shown in another form.

I know she just got this a day ago but isn't it cool?? She needs to get it colored in yet but it is awesome (and I am not really a tattoo fan, but you gotta give it up for such a cool one!!)  In fact if you go to her blog, you will see some of her other amazing tattoos too.  Like Tula Pink's owl from Hushabye. 

All in all run over to Cori's shop and order yourself up some incredible Prince Charming.  We all need a little Prince Charming in our lives don't we?  ~XOP~