My son has a girlfriend and I am forced to clean!!

My youngest son, recently age 16, has a new girlfriend.    He had her over to the house about 2 weeks back, and well needles to say, I am not a Miss Clean by any means.  I would rather be doing my hobbies than cleaning everyday.  I also work full-time.  That said, I am the only female in a house of 3 males who would rather be doing anything else besides cleaning as well.   I feel resentful sometimes when they are all sitting back relaxing in the evenings and I am doing chores, so I have learned to slack off a little bit more.

Back to the girlfriend visiting.  There was no way we could have a new friend over without cleaning first.  I mean, I even tell my family to call before coming over so we can have a run-through-the-house-and-shove-things-in-other-rooms cleaning spree.  But this was different.  We knew she was coming, so we cleaned rather than shove.  It actually felt pretty good to declutter and tidy up.  It got the rest of the family involved with the cleaning as well.   Of course, we did not do it so it was spotless - our house is lived in, not a showcase.  It has remained fairly tidy for the past 2 weeks, but she is coming back today after school.

Guess what I will try to do in small spurts while working from home today?  Redding up (it's a Pittsburgh term that I grew up with) and couple of loads of laundry (wushing, as I call it - another 'burgh term), but I will probably feel better after it's done.  His girlfriend might turn out to be a good thing for me too - more estrogen in the house and a little neater home.

Missing in action

I knew that I had not been posting but did not realize that it was May since I was last here!  My gosh how time flies.    I've been busy working, taking a child to summer practices, and going on a few day trips with the family with my Mother's Day present.  (see previous post for that story)  I have also been nursing an injured left knee for a few months, also a result of one of those day trips riding ATVs with the family.

 Me at the end of a long day.  Everything needed hosed down - twice!

Pics from the end of the day after we decided to have some fun riding through the mud puddles. So much fun!!!  My DH and eldest son.

Memorial Day weekend we went riding for about 8 hours and I got a little over zealous and took a bend a little too quickly and almost turned over, but I caught myself.  Unfortunately, I pulled something in my knee and at times it was just too painful to walk for more than 10 minutes at the most, but with a few months of rest, I am happy to say I am about 95% better. 

I have still been making time for sewing and working on a year-long project that is (hopefully) just about done.  Here are a few teaser pics.

I'm in the quilting stages of this project and trying to free motion quilt this on my  home sewing machine has proven very frustrating at times, but I hope to have this one finished within the next 2 weeks.   

And I have been working on this:

 These are wild and goosey blocks, a pattern that was in the May/June issue of Quiltmaker patterned by Bonnie Hunter.  More on this one to come as well.  

Well, that's what I've been up to.  Hopefully, now that the weather is cooling down, I'll post a little more frequently.  Thanks for visiting!

Be careful what you don't wish for

For years off and on, I have been thinking of purchasing an embroidery sewing machine.  First I think it'll be so much fun to have one and then I think about how much it will cost in ratio to how much I would actually use it, and lastly I think about where I would put yet another sewing machine since years ago we moved from a 2-story house into a new double-wide mobile home planning for retirement (yes, I was only 36 at the time and hubby was 41, but he does construction for a living and absolutely did not want to think about having to use those stairs in his old age).  

A few months ago the subject came up again while I was teasing my hubby about another gun purchase in comparison to my hobbies and he said he knew what I was going to get for Mother's Day this year.  I guessed what he was thinking, and I finally put my foot down and said that I no longer wanted an embroidery machine until I retire and actually have time to use it.  He then came up with an alternative to the sewing machine...

This is what I got for Mother's Day!!! At least that was the excuse he used to validate the purchase.

 

Don't get me wrong - I love riding quads.  We had one already and my older son has one, but there are 4 of us in the family counting another teenage son.  My husband thought that if we had 1 more quad that we could spend time riding together as a family.  So far, we have ventured out once and had a great day spending time together.  This upcoming weekend here's an open house at an off-road park and we'll be heading there for a day of riding with my cute butterfly helmet for protection. Of course, there will be a quilty traveling project for the road trip to and from! 

Re-thinking a project

Have you ever started a project thinking you were happy with the fabric choices only to discover down the road that well, maybe you are not as happy with them as you thought you were before??   The next dilemma is then - do I keep on going with my choices hoping that I will be happy in the end or do I change up my choices so that I want to keep working on this project? 

I posted about this  My Portable Project not too long ago.  I love working on it, really I do, but the gray background that I chose was nagging at me.  I kept thinking it would be wonderful, but at the same time I was thinking maybe it was a little depressing and sad looking.  After much thinking on this, I decided to swap out the gray for a cream tone-on-tone print to perk up the quilt a little bit.  I am glad I chose now to change background colors with only a little ripping or unpicking to do. 

Usually I am pretty good with my fabric choices, but this time I just could not see finishing the project unless I changed it out.  I wonder how many people have unfinished projects because they are not happy with the fabrics in them.  Has this ever happened to you?

On a side note, this is a picture of a purse I finished about a month ago.  The pattern is a Lazy Girl Design.  It is called the Towne Purse and it went together fairly quickly in an evening.  The thing that surprised me the most about carrying it is that it is so much lighter than carrying my leather purse.  I love it!  You can find the pattern here -Lazy Girl Designs

I have a confession... I am a fabric addict

You know there's a problem of having too much fabric when you know you bought fabric to back a quilt but you can't find it in your house anywhere.   Actually, I have two projects that I am working on that I can't find the fabric for.  The first is a wedding quilt.  I am to the point where I am ready to get the backing together and then get everything layered for quilting (hand or machine? still undetermined), but my backing fabric that I bought is not quite long enough, so I thought I would piece an insert to get to the correct length.  Problem is - I can't for the life of me figure out where I stashed the extra material from piecing the quilt together. ugh...  I have searched high and low to no avail.

I decided to give myself a break from the stress of that problem to move onto a simpler project.  I have a few smaller quilts that need backing, batting, and then quilted.  I pulled a quilt top out that I knew I had bought fabric for the backing and low and behold - I can't find the fabric again!  I have searched and searched, all but one spot, but that will have to wait until later in the day.  I have to move about 8 sewing machines to get to the bin.

At this point, I am almost convinced that the extra fabrics from these two projects are hiding out together.  I have too much fabric to keep in one closet, thus the multiple locations, which then leads to days like this.  

Wanna know something else??  I was actually thinking about visiting a local quilt shop later today to see what was new.  I think I will put that idea on hold for a while longer.  I have enough problems keeping track of the fabrics I have in the house already.

My portable project

 My husband and I are auction junkies on the weekends, but I find myself lately missing some valuable weekend sewing time and thinking of all the projects that I could start or work on or even maybe finish with those missing 4 or 5 hours of auction time.  There had to be a compromise - handwork!! English paper piecing to be exact.

About 15 years ago, I tried my hand at making hexagons for a grandmother's flower garden quilt that never happened (I got bored and abandoned it before I could even see any progress on it).  I watched a video on You Tube (English paper piecing with quilt patis) and decided to give paper piecing another go.  I would not put any pressure on myself; this was just supposed to be a take-along project for those auction adventures. I decided on 6-pointed, 60-degree diamond "flowers".  

I then had to decide what would be my background fabric (the dark gray small print won), and I was not sure if I wanted to piece the flowers and then applique them centered onto a square of fabric or piece them together with contrasting fabric. 

I decided to make diamonds from the gray print and piece the contrast between the 6-pointed flowers.

My first attempt at organization for this project was this cardboard box.  I have since then visited the dollar store and found plastic storage containers with lids to contain it all.

At the dollar store, I also found these plastic chopping mats that I thought would be great for reusable piecing diamonds (and they are - if you don't need a lot at one time), but have since switched to making the diamonds out of card stock, first drawing the pattern and then cutting out with scissors.  I think I have roughly 600 cut out now with about 20 flowers pieced together and a lot more basted and waiting to be stitched together. 

On the books

Do you love to read? I sure do.  In fact, I've been reading more these past few years since being introduced to the Kindle.  First, it was just the basic Kindle with the keyboard that I used for a year or so, and then

it was the Kindle Fire with color, Netflix capability, magazine reading, a ton of apps to choose from, and so much more!   

I love the backlight of the Kindle Fire, but I still prefer the basic Kindle when out in the daylight since there is no glare on the screen.   These little babies have enabled me to clear out some major book clutter.  I have hundreds of books stored on them, and I add to them regularly.  In fact, what I am reading now is this- Beautiful Creatures.

 The movie trailers intrigued me, but being the person who waits for the movie to come out on DVD instead of visiting the movie theater, I decided to read the book first.  It's a book written for young adults, but being a Twilight series fan, I thought it was worth a read, and I was right.  I am only a few chapters in, but I am hooked!  A brief synopsis from Amazon is below.

"Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything."

 

 

On the quilting front, I am working on some new small quilts. Right now I am hooked on flying geese.  Pics to follow soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking back in time

As time rushes by these days, I often think I am not accomplishing much with my spare time.  Then one day I look into the photo albums and the memories of old projects come rushing back of what I have actually done with my love of sewing/quilting. 

Below, is a picture of the very first quilt I ever made.  This was an Amish style quilt I made for my husband's grandmother when we were first married.  I gave it to her as a Christmas present and it was returned to me after she passed.  When I see this quilt, I see and remember her.

Ever want to try a new technique? I do, I do!  This was my first attempt at foundation piecing.  It finished at approximately 16 x 16 inches.  See those little squares in the center of each block?  They measure about 1/2 inch after sewn into the block.  I discovered my love of foundation piecing with this little quilt.

The quilt below came from an insert in American Patchwork and Quilting magazine from I think the mid 1990s.  I really enjoyed making all the different blocks and using calico fabrics that I had tea-dyed to age them.  What I learned from making this quilt is not to be afraid to use the wrong side of the fabric for a quilt.  That's right - I said the wrong side.  I needed another light/neutral fabric for one of the flag blocks and I was trying not to repeat my fabrics too often and the right side of a particular fabric was a little too loud, so I took a look at the back side and it fit in perfectly!   

The above quilt was entered in a local farm show and won a blue ribbon!!  I was surprised as all get out and very proud also. 


So, please take pictures of all of your projects completed, and when you think perhaps you are not getting as much done as you would like, take a moment and look at those photos and relive the memories.  It's not always about how much or how fast we accomplish. 

Baby Quilts

Morgan is the little girl whose parents are friends with my oldest son.  She was born in the fall of 2011.  I thought a baby quilt was in order, and it was a good time to experiment with the disappearing nine patch pattern.   I can’t be exactly sure, but I think from start to finish, this quilt took about 2 weeks of working for a few hours in the evenings.  The quilting was an allover large meandering pattern.  And the backing, well that was the first time I experimented with a pieced backing.  I really liked how it came out.   This quilt was started and completed in October 2011.

The next baby quilt was for a young woman whom I had met while she was cutting my hair.   We just hit it off and had a very pleasant conversation.  Usually I am pretty quiet in the chair while getting a hair cut, but not this day.  The conversation flowed and we had a lot in common even though we were separated by about a 20-year age difference.  She was pregnant and being a single mother, I wanted to do something nice for her and the baby.  What better than a quilt for them to snuggle with.  

I had no idea of the sex of the baby and I wanted the quilt to be a surprise, so I couldn’t ask.  Besides I was a virtual stranger to this person. She might think I was crazy!    Okay, green and yellow it was.  I did have to make a trip to the store for this quilt, as I do not keep much in the way of children's prints in my stash piles.   P.S. Love the monkeys!!!

Again, a disappearing nine-patch was the pattern selected since they go together so effortlessly and look so complicated.  It was machine quilted in an allover large square pattern.  The backing was the solid celadon green fabric.   It was started and completed in August 2012. 

I hope both babies are enjoying the warmth of their quilts. 

There's beauty in small things too.

Some days, I think about just wanting to be able to start and finish a project within a few days' time (okay, at my pace more like a week) and small quilts are just the thing.  I have made many wall-hanging quilts, 95% of them are larger than 18" in smallest dimension.  While browsing and catching up on daily blog reading, I came across the Abundance quilt along.  I thought it was just a great little project to use some of my reproduction fabrics on.

This is my finished doll quilt top.  It was fairly easy, yet still a little challenging what with those smaller pieces and trying to stay accurate.     It is now basted and sitting atop my pile of hand sewing projects to be hand quilted while watching television.    The hand sewing projects pile is starting to grow too, but more on that another time!

Meanwhile, winter is still holding on - freezing rain, sleet, and possibly snow for today before turning into all rain.  My mother has been wanting to put out a hit on the groundhog that predicted an early spring - I'm starting to agree with her! 

What's a gal to do?

when there's a fabric sale??  Well, this gal threw in the towel and went shopping!!  Just by chance I checked the fabric.com website and behold - fabric on sale for $4.95 per yard.  In the past few years of cotton prices rising, my fabric buying has fallen off, but when I saw the sale, well I could not pass it up.  I mean, after all I'm worth it right? 

The first picture is of some fabrics that I have a plan in mind for.  I would like to do a maple leaf quilt to replace one that I had made some 15 years ago and had given as a wedding gift to my youngest son's preschool teacher. 

In this next pic, the first two fabrics, one black and one blue, are Dear Jane II fabrics.  The bottom one is a deep dark blue with a golden-orange medallion print.  

This last picture is of "just because" fabrics.  I bought them just because I liked them and I knew they would be very happy at home with the rest of my fabrics.   The one on the far right is from the Elm Creek Quilt collection.  Ever hear of the books by Jennifer Chiaverini?  You can read all about them here - http://elmcreek.net/books.  I have a few on my Kindle that I plan to read.  

That's my haul, plus 2 lengths sports nylon for basketball shorts for my son who likes them long, as sometimes we have a hard time finding them to fit his 6 ft 4-inch height just right.