Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

If you are not having fun.....

Warning! Picture Heavy post!

I just discovered something that I think is great! I can type my post is Word and have my spell check on and change my fonts and do all the “normal stuff” I do when I type – and THEN copy it over to my post. This is great because, the internet connection is not always the greatest and I like playing with fonts and I am not thrilled with Blogger’s spell check and they don’t have grammar check. ( that was a lot of ANDs J) I also have a tendency to capitalized two letters in a word (holding down the shift too long) and Word fixes that for me. I am liking this!
Have you been following the Bowls with Borders?
if not, you should!


I was getting a wee bit worried about making my bowls- I was NOT having fun! I wasn’t doing something right. My motto is “if you are not having fun, you aren’t doing it right!” I ripped out so many stitches that I wore out the fabric 3 times. Sherman was complaining- "Didn't we just stitch this seam?" NOT FUN! It didn’t help that I thought my day was the 13th (because my day for RWB was the 13th and my day for Think Christmas was 31st) so I was kinda freaking out and thinkin’ “there is no way I will be ready.” I wanted to give up but admitting defeat does not come easy! Thanks to Regina’s help, Carol’s “I am not an expert” post,and the tutorial over at Madamme Samm's the light bulb finally turned on, I got my bowls done and I was having fun too!  I am not good at paper piecing yet but I can now say I am enjoying the learning process. I have a Craftsy class that CaMom sent me and I was so frustrated that I was just not looking forward to taking it- now I can’t wait! I have a few finishing touches I want to add to my bowls and I am excited to say, the plan I had in mind when I first saw these bowls is coming together and they will be ready for the 23rd- which is my day! Until then, visit these blogs for their bowls or you can visit Carol’s blog for the whole schedule.
 August 14th

Oh yeah! I said this was gonna be a picture heavy post- I think its a WORD heavy  post :)
Last weekend, My SweetMommie and I went to a quilt show during Franklin Grove’s Harvest Fest. We made Fredly come too- he was chief photographer and stuff carrier. We also took my friend Christa (who recently asked me to teach her to quilt. She is 8 years old.) Harvest Fest is also when the Chaplin Creek Historic Site is open, so we went there as well. These pictures were taken by Fredly and MySweetMommie- I will save the ones on my camera for another post!




I love the quilting on this! I may have a picture of the front
of it on my camera


I admire cross stitch amd embroidery-
It is not my favorite thing to do but it sure looks great


This one made me smile- the ants are carrying food all around the edges
I have a few other pictures of this one on my camera

There were quite a few vintage quilts and some reproductions too

Kettle Corn being made in a Kettle ( good place to make it)

Yum! Yum!


Pincushion in the Salt box house-
 I will have to look up the dates but I believe its from late 1800's
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Friday, June 22, 2012

It's still Friday!


Most Fridays, I stop at Stitches In Time on my way to MySweetMommie's and I usually buy at least a fat quarter. Because y'know I always NEED more fabric.Tonight I stopped in and lo and behold they had a basket of scraps that you could fill a bag with for 5 bucks! I started digging and these weren't  justany  small scraps. There were four inch squares, jelly roll strips and layer cake squares, fat quarters and some pieces were even larger! I ended up with 4 bags of amazing scraps! The only rule was the bag had to close. My bags were closed just long enough to count. I was so excited to show Mom what I got that I forgot to take pictures of the other two bags. They were stuffed to the gills!

    







Here's all that was in there!


almost a full layer cake!


I see more RWB for my block hop blocks!

a nice stack of 4inch squares and even some pinwheels
already put together!







This was just way too much fun! Thanks Rebecca for all your help!


MySweetMommie and I are Left handed and I guess I just got used to using right handed tools in my left hand. Tonight I realized that my rotary cutter could be switched over for left handed use! It works even better now! All I had to do was unscrew the blade  and move it to the other side!
Mom hasn't figured out what she is making yet but it's starting to look purty!
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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Wednesday Already!?

UPDATE: Due to Computer Issues Yesterday, Wednesday's Post did not get finished or Posted!! I apologize for the misssing pictures. Check back this afternoon for Thursday's Traveling Stash update and Teacup!


Wow! I have had a sedulous weekend! Friday night I left work a few minutes early so that I could stop at the LQS before it closed. I was still looking for fabric for "the pillow turned quilt" I had a great time chatting with the shop owner and found exactly what I needed. Then, I decided I should go to Wally's since I was half way there anyway and found some fabric (I can hear you fabric purists groaning out there, but it's not for my quilt) on clearance for $1.00 per yard and found more leafy camo fabric (that is for the quilt but in small doses) Our Wal-mart is one of the few that still carry fabric on bolts for which I am grateful- otherwise it's a 30-45 minute drive to the nearest fabric type store! Of course, I knew that once I got home I would have to restrain myself from using said fabric- I had culottes to finish! When I did arrive home I had two fun packages awaiting.

The top one  is the Traveling Stash that I won from Danny over at Mommy For Reals (more on that later!) and the other gimungous box is from CaMom. It was filled to the brim with stuff for SisterMine, stuff for My SweetMommie and the rest was all for me! Fabric, patterns, books, more fat quarters, a lovely battenburg lace tablecloth, all sorts of fun stuff! After getting to the bottom of the boxes, I started sewing culottes and I got all five pair stitched except for the hem and waist bands in no time at all. Sherman did great and just purred away.
   



On Saturday, after working at the store, I rushed home to make the house presentable. MySweetMommie and Fredly came over and Fredly cleaned out my flower weed bed and added flowers. I grilled chuck eye steaks on my handy dandy George Foreman's (I just got a *new* one for 2.99!) and MySweetMommie made Potato Salad. The steaks turned out great! I marinaded them in Raspberry vinegrette dressing and raspberry soda! We ate outside and enjoyed the summer weather. Fredly did  a great job on the flower bed. Some are already blooming! MySweetMommie also received packages from CaMom, so we got to share our goodies. I do believe CaMom is my fairy CaMother! Instead of saying Bippity Boppity Boo, she says "let's send this to Bobbalou!" *tee hee hee* 
     Just as Mom and Fred were leaving, the owls made a special appearance- they are so amazing to watch.




Sunday afternoon was spent sewing- I assembly lined the hemming and waistband casing process. Then I decided to see if there was an easier way to put the stinkin' elastic in- I fought with one pair of culottes for an hour before church- safety pin opened in mid-shove and got stuck, then it got caught in the pleats and then I repeated the process- I was a snarlin' n spittin' before it was through. I found this link  and wow! What a Difference! I put the elastic in 3 pair of culottes in less time than it took me to do the one last pair! (I had to do the last pair the old way because I already had sewn the casing- I should have just unstitched that casing!) I don't think I will EVER do elastic the old way again! Thank You Sherrie!!!!!  Anyway, the culottes were done on time  and the girls are at camp - hopefully my sewing is holding up! :)
      Monday mornings I usually go to SisterMine's but they went to camp as well, so I had Monday morning all to myself. I worked on the grad "pillow turned quilt" and I am loving how it is coming together.





I also worked on the other grad pillow (that isn't turning into a quilt) and made 64 half square triangles using this speedy 8 at a time method!  After working at the store, I played around with the cute little HSTs and came up with a plan for them.









Then Tuesday morning, I changed it a bit and as of Tuesday evening, I have the flimsy almost finished!

CaMom asked if was an Aunt Sukey's Choice block- I said nope- it's an Aunt Bobbie's Choice! I believe I will add one more skinny yellow border and then a wide blue swirly dot and it will be ready for quilting. What are you working on?


Be sure to check back tomorrow TODAY!!- I will have a tea cup to share and a traveling stash giveaway!






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Friday, June 1, 2012

hodge podge

I was hoping to be able to show you a finish from the squares I cut out on Wednesday. However, I left them in the car and decided it was too much work to go back out and get them. So I decided to go a different direction with Aunt Sukey- I am really loving the name Sukey- such fun to say.  I looked up Sukey and it is a diminuative of Susan, means lily and was popular in the 18th century.  The Kalona Quilt Block Walking Tour pamphlet  states that Aunt Sukey's Choice was featured in the Ladies Art Company mail order catalog in the 30's and 40's. I decided to make my block red, black and white. Of course, after working both jobs, my brain was rather deadish so I couldn't remember how many extra inches to add to the block to do the easy four patch or the 4 in one half square triangle. I looked up the four patch in my book - no problem! got those all cut out. Went to look up the easy 4 HST's and totally forgot where I had found it, couldn't even remember which quilt block I had been looking up when I stumbled across it (I switched phones and had bookmarked it on the old phone- that was dead and waaay in the other room) so I searched for "HST 4 at a time" and discovered how to make 8 at a time! Way too cool! After straining my over tired brain to do the calculations (that were actually already done for me- I just could not get my poor noggin wrapped around it)  I managed to get those squares cut. After all that brain overuse, I didn't have enough oomph left to actually make the HST's. BUT if my calculations are correct- I should have those babies whipped up by the time supper is ready tonight! (MySweetMommie cooks yummy food for me on Quilt Class Nights- that's her class fee!) I will let you know how they turn out!

I found this V.I.P.  Snow White Doll panel at the thrift store the other day, while looking for the batting- it was only 99cents. She is much larger than I originally thought. She's about 18 inches tall and has movable arms and legs. I believe AbbyDoo will enjoy making her. 



















SunshineBoy was unusually adventurous! He even held a frog!

As promised here are some pictures from the Memorial Day Picnic. The park that we like to go to is amazing! Great trails, a fabulous spring fed creek, fishing lake, and playgrounds. There are also poles for a volleyball net- We played quite a Crazy game of volleyball.  I love Volleyball- we used to play EVERY Tuesday night when I was a teenager, in the church parking lot, on the asphalt. NOT a good place to dive for the ball. Playing in the grass is much better for the knees! Of course, my favorite place to play would be the beach, but the beaches in Illinois are few and far between. :)






Determination
  One of the highlights of the park is the pump. The kids would play around it all day, or at least until someone is ready to take them down the trail to the creek. EmmaBean was so determined that she could make it work! "The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul!" I love the look of pure joy when she finally gets the water to pump!
and success!







I told the boys to make their scariest faces


and then their happiest faces

MySweetMommie will be putting all of her blocks together to finish the quilt top tonight- we may even get to the borders.... maybe!
More on that next week! Have a Great Weekend!
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Thursday, October 27, 2011

Teacup Thursday

 Since last Saturday was so October Bright Blue I decided to take a wee jaunt to check out a tea shop I found online. Mommie and I left her house around 2:30 in the afternoon and enjoyed a leisurely drive up to William's Bay Wisconsin.  Although, the directions tried really hard to misdirect, We actually didn't get lost at all!! If you know my history at all- that is IMPRESSIVE!! Lou and I decided it was because she wasn't with me! We always get lost together- even when we aren't the ones driving- the car we are in will get lost!  Any way-  it was a perfect day for a drive!  It only took a little over 1.5 hours.   As you can tell, there were lots of pretties at the shop for me to oooh and aaah over!









Mom enjoyed a cuppa White Ginger Orange Peach  and I sipped Lavender Earl Grey. We had a delightful time chatting with Charlotte Wheatley and then we perused the Antique shop next door. 



The road to the Bay was closed, so we meandered to Lakeshore Drive and Fontana, where we wandered by the docks and played on the playground. I will be taking my niece to Osh Kosh in November and we plan to stop and have  Tea with Wheatley again! If you are in the area, Tea with Wheatley is hosting a Hat Tea on October 29th!




Others Who Are Participating in
Teacup Thursday!

Mommie's fav Teapot

Miss Spencer's
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Thursday, October 13, 2011

Its Wednesday!


As I was walking out the door to go to work
 I remembered it was thursday!

Well it was Wednesday when I started,  but time got away from me so now it is time for Teacup Thursday! In honor of  Cynthia's Giveaway    I have put together a little bitty  tea party!(Hop on over to Cynthia's to see this adorable bakers rack- havent figured out how to add her pix to my blog but   Tales from an OC COTTAGE did it so I'm sure it can be done. )
 My bears and bunny usually enjoy their tea next to my bookshelf at home, but were glad to get out of the house and join me at work today! I love being able to edit my pictures- you can't even tell I took them at work!





You shoulda seen me running around "oh I need this - dont forget that!"
 









Mom is having way too much
fun test driving this long arm machine!







My mom and I went to the Petunia City Quilters Quilt show and had a blast! I got an autographed quilt book and learned a neato way to make a four patch square! We also got to test drive a long arm quilter- oooh I want one!I have been quilting and sewing and gluing up a storm but did I remember to take pictures--- nope! I will endeavor to post some tomorrow! ( hey it's tomorrow- if you look closely at the quilt squares my bears and bunny are sitting on you will see the "Scrappy Trails to You" blocks I have been working on. Thank you Donna for my new book.) 



My bears are enjoying their tea withAlice in Wonder land and Narnia!
Others who are joining the TeaParty!


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