Name picked!...

Well I should say that Sue picked the name and I'm not sure if she knew she did. In her comment she mentioned "A Proud Flock", but Sue, I don't know if you offered that up as a name or just a comment. Either way, as soon as I saw it, it worked perfectly. I had kept saying birds of a feather... flock together in my mind...and running over using flock but couldn't get anything from it. I think it describes the way I think about the quilt perfectly..I'm certainly proud of the quilt and my work, and it's a whole flock of birds. SO there you go...

Just so you don't think I've been sitting aimlessly, I got started again on my Christmas Sampler blocks. I just had to get some blocks ready for sewing and I was back in business. Angel girl got done and ready to join the others. I searched Cheri's book to find some substitutions for a few blocks I don't care for and I need to re-size those today and draw up the patterns. I've also been steady hand quilting the Shirley, Goodness and Mercy wall hanging but showing you another row of stitches seems a little anti-climatic, don't ya think?

Well back to the sewing machine!

Many. many thanks...

I must have the weirdest cat alive...I think anyway. He just loves the smell of sweaty feet shoes. Eww! He lays on them every chance he gets.

Wow, I am so overwhelmed! You all saw this quilt come along over the 8 months or so that I made the blocks, and I bet that you thought I'd never finish. Even I thought that once or twice. Thank You, thank you, thank you, for all the lovely comments and praise. I am rather proud of myself for getting this all done. It really was a complete joy to make each and every block. I'm still thinking of a proper name. I really didn't just want to leave the pattern name as it's official name because I want something more personal to me. I like when quilts are named after where you were when you made them, or what was going on in your life...or better yet, what the maker sees when looking at the quilt.

So I stared at it for a while. It wasn't made during any particular time in my life...just sitting on the couch sewing. I do see the birds and colors..but what I see the most when I look at it is that I made it all by HAND. Yes, there are machine pieced blocks, and it's machine quilted. But otherwise every tiny piece was traced, cut, shaped and stitched using nothing but a needle and thread by hand....my hands. No glue or starch or freezer paper...all excellent methods. Just that needle and my fingers guiding every seam under to just the right place, curve, dip or point. I think that's what amazes me the most. *I* did this entire thing by hand. Me. I know I sound like I invented the wheel...far from it. But it's a first for me and I loved every minute of it...still do. SO I think the name will reflect that. Something to do with needle turn and tiny stitches, and the beginning of what is sure to be a life long love affair with this particular art form. I'll let you know when I find the right one.

Now I'm off to make some lunch and try to get some sewing done. I planned to sew this morning but calling in 2 refills (which should have taken 5 minutes) turned into an hour and a half conversation on the phone with the medicine company and a resulting call to the doctors office to replace the script the mail order med place canceled when trying AGAIN to replace my thyroid meds with generics. It's really infuriating how their weasel brains can amass all the ways to try and sneak those cheaper meds in there. Hopefully it's all straight now, but it used up my sewing time

It's finally up and on the wall...

Birds of a Feather*
65 x 78

I will say that I am so glad that it's finally up and done. What started out as a well planned attack went south pretty quick. I didn't explain the procedure to hubby beforehand and he got frustrated not understanding what we were doing. Once we got over the hump of holding this 25 lb.(?) piece of wood over our heads at about 13 ft off the ground on 2 ladders plus the level on top, we drew a line and proceeded to mark the spots for the brackets. Luckily we were able to hit studs on both ends...I did mention this sucker is heavy, right. We got the screws in one brackets and decided to check just to be sure we had the level line perfect. Nope...good thing we checked. Fixed that and put up the second bracket. Now we are in business! Up the ladders we go and I pull my end to the bracket only to hear..."I hope you aren't lined up where you need to be" That is never a good thing to hear. Um, yes dear, where else would I be? Well, then somethings wrong.

The instructions are very clear. Find the center and go 32" left and 32" right...well that means 64 inches apart, right?. Nope. Hubby measures and there's 61 and 3/4 or something like that between the brackets on the hanger. Factory messed up something. Hubby had spent 20 minutes hand turning the last of those screws into the wall studs by sheer force and NOW we have to move them? No way. We took down the holder and moved the bracket on the back of it instead. It was wonderful to have it slip into place.

Okay so Sharon, if you read this please give me any tips for getting a big quilt up on that hanger. Funny but the lady on tv made it look sooo easy. Not so much! We wrestled but up it went, finally with 4 hands and about 8 minutes of fidgeting. Turns out it's not so easy to get a big quilt up on the hanger but with 2 people it can be done...eventually. So it's done and I love it. I know it seems very immodest, but I'm proud of this quilt. This isn't the final picture, but I think it's good enough for today.

On another note, I realized that I have been getting nothing done recently. I started watching a movie yesterday to sew binding by and after 2 hours the movie was over and I never went and got the quilt! I just sat there watching. I think maybe I need to check the thyroid meds. Nothing stays in my brain. I should be getting more blocks done, but the thought fly out as easily as they pop in. SO I apologize for the lack of anything quilty. I am going to devise some sort of system to have things ready to go at all times and try and stay attentive to what I am doing at the present moment. Next up with be to assemble the top for the Tumbler quilt. I have the first two rows on the design wall ready to be cut down and sewn together. You also might notice that I changed a few things on the side bar listing of current projects. The quilt that I was making called Road Less Travelled is on hold for a while. I lost all steam for the blocks and they are so tiny it takes forever to put them together. I decided to focus on the Christmas Sampler and try getting that done before Christmas this year! Plus 2 other homespun quilts I have in the works. I'll keep you updated.

* I need a name for this quilt! That's the hardest part for me..naming quilts. Any suggestions would be welcome, toss them right out. I'll have to look at it a while to see what name it needs. It also isn't that rippled at the bottom. That was the side that was folded the worst and it has to hang out.

Oscar the cat...

Anyone who has cats knows how smart they really are. My sweetie found this article online and shared it with me...I thought it was worth sharing with all of you.

Oscar the Cat

PS: **By the way, subsequent reports have him up to being correct 28 times in a row.

Quickie Post...

At exactly 6:18 last night I put the last quilting stitch in the Birds of a Feather quilt! Insert the hallelujah chorus and "angels singing".... It's done.

The bias strips are cut and waiting for me to sew them together, then I have to unload the big table and trim, sew down the strips and start hand sewing the binding. I couldn't begin to get a real picture of the finished product, so I'll wait until Saturday when it goes ON THE WALL!!! Yes, the quilt rack is finally going up under penalty of serious harm and the quilt goes on the wall.

So many thanks to everyone for understanding how insanely frustrating it is to have to deal with people who don't even realize the impact they can have on someones life. Don't worry about someone having to step in for my mom and champion her cause..we will. But she has a sharper tongue than I do. She's gotten worse...worse? or better? as she got older. I think that's where I get it from and why I've gotten worse more vocal as I've gotten older. She takes nothing off anyone, and when I see her getting silent I know she's getting broken and depressed and giving up...and it takes a load of crap to get her to that point and THAT makes my blood boil.

Now off to sew...Happy Quilting!

Hospital rant...

I have to get this out, so if you don't want to hear me complain feel free to click on by. You will not hurt my feelings.

The one thing I hate worse than anything is incompetence. Peoples incompetence at their jobs and how it effects other people. I think I mentioned that I took Mom to chemo last Friday already, well before she started chemo they gave her the option of putting in a picc port. It's a contraption that is surgically implanted into her left upper arm so that they don't have to find a vein every week and stick her. They use what can only be described as a giant thumb tack to access her vein and get started. Hers has hurt since the day they inserted it. She's had horrible pains down her arm and it's only been used once. Well Friday we went and they couldn't get into the port. She held my hand and squeeze so tight I almost started crying. Second nurse came and again, no luck. It's very hard to feel your mother go through such agony and keep from kicking the nurse right in the face, let me tell you. Finally they determined that the port had flipped over and they were essentially trying to stick the needle into the hard plastic/metal backing...that's why it wouldn't go in. So we made an appointment to go back into the hospital for another procedure to flip it back right side up.

That was yesterday. I couldn't go because the new bed was coming to be installed, so my 2 sister's went. She had to be there at 10am. At 11:20 they take her downstairs where she proceeds to sit for 3 1/2 hours on the gurney waiting. My sister calls about 3:45 to say they called and they are just now taking her back for surgery. Turns out they had emergencies and kept thinking they'd would be ready in 20 mins and wouldn't let the gal bring her back upstairs to wait in her room. Finally she wakes up and they say they did NOTHING! The left arm is twisted multiple times and that's why it hurt so badly. They were going to move it to the right arm and that arm has horrid veins and can't be used. SO the doctor decided that he didn't feel comfortable to do the fix on the left arm since the other guy did it first, so her just closed her up and sent her BACK! to wait for the original doctor when he comes back from vacation. WHY did he even attempt it if he was going to punk out and throw up his hands? Why put her through that? He just didn't feel like doing it. Hope he likes NOT getting paid.

She's so depressed now I think they have finally just about broken her spirit. She went into this very strong and ready to go and time after time, stupid doctors, stupid office workers and stupid mistakes have been made that just keep beating her down. At some point she's going to just give up and once that happens she will be defeated. A positive attitude is very important in this whole fight and little by little they are just beating it out of her. She feels horrid, we tried to explain that they were going slow with the chemo and just because she felt fine the first 2 weeks she wouldn't always feel that great. Now with 3 weeks of poison in her...{lets face it that's what chemo is...poison} she feels sick, tired and can't sleep. I have to beg her to take the nausea pills, she thinks it's better to just tough it out. Her hair is coming out in handfuls and even though she said it wouldn't bother her, it is...as we knew it would.

I am just so mad that one more incompetent jerk had to lay on another layer of pain and frustration. Worst yet I can't do anything about it...but boy would I love to give some people a piece of my mind. But I have her to think about and that's worse. Just makes my blood boil. Thanks for listening if you got this far. I'm going back to try and finish this quilt. Quilting is always a good place to retreat to!

Checking in...

Can't believe that it's been so long since I posted! We've had company from California and I've been out almost every night, then when home I've been on a mission to finish the quilting on my Birds of a Feather quilt. I do have to take breaks as otherwise I'd be severely cripple. But I've also been taking my turns with Mom. We did Chemo Friday and then got lunch and picked up a few things for her and brought them back to the house. Today I had doctors appointments for me and grocery shopping for her and I ran out to get her meds. So my days have been pretty busy. She's doing well, but getting more tired as she goes along and the hair is about to leave for good and she's not taking it as well as she thought she would. But she has a wig already and plenty of cool scarves, so when she's ready I'll bring over the clippers and shave it all off.

One reason I posted was I wanted to show a few posters pictures that I promised I would take. Several people emailed and asked how on earth a big quilt fits on a little domestic machine. Well pretty easily...This pic shows the right side rolled and the block I am beginning to work on is right in the center of the quilt. Notice that I have plenty more room under that arm. I could still get a few more turns of the roll under there.Make sure to get all the quilt pulled up and make a nice puddle on the left side and in the back so that nothing drags against your needle. My hands are ready and once I put the camera down my right hand will go on the side and I will be able to move the quilt right where I need it to go. I do use the gloves with the rubber nubs on the palm to give me some grip.Then the very most important thing to remember is to make a nice puddle of quilt on your lap. If that quilt drags on the table front it will feel like it's glued down! You can see the nice loose puddle I have in my lap!

Lastly, I went to read Sharon's post about her latest projects and saw Clyde's picture and immediately thought of Noodle! He lays like that all the time on the off chance that as you walk by him you will take pity and lean down to scratch his belly. Simpleton has a good idea...it seems to work every time! Who could resist that??

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be sitting and sewing the binding down on the quilt. I only have 3 borders to quilt and it will go very quickly once I get to sew. Our new bed arrives tomorrow!! Yippee! A wonderful Sleep Number bed. I didn't realize how awful our mattress was until I went to Primitives and didn't have back pain for 5 days! Back home....hello pain! New bed should do the trick!

Hey! Look at me!...

Well not me. That's what I call these little babies! My "Hey, Look at Me" Pins. I got the idea from a dvd that I bought a few years ago by Paula Reid called Fluff and Stuff about machine quilting...the gal who does all of Alex Anderson's machine quilting. I knew a lot of the stuff she covers in the video, but some of it was new. Her idea to move your quilting table into a corner was brilliant. I had forever struggled having my whole quilt fall off the back edge of the table and automatically start to drag against the needle. Anyway , back to the pins, she gave me this idea! Her pins have a special plastic covering that fits over the pin, but I had no idea where to find those so I improvised. I tied a small amount of ribbon on the top, non used side of the pin and Ta-Da...the Hey Look at Me Pins!

Now, what are they for? Well, anything that needs attention! A place that gets messed up and needs to be fixed later, or in this case, I marked where I had stopped sewing for the day. I ran out of bobbin and that was as good a place to stop as any. But without the pin, I would have looked for about 10 minutes to find the place where I left off. Normally I end by finishing my stitches very small and making a wide loop, but when the bobbin runs out, you don't get that option and the stitches have to be covered again with a start and anchored so they don't come out again.

I moved on to quilting the green areas yesterday, working with an amazing color Libby recommended from Aurifil. It is the nicest Army green color, but changes to suit whatever color fabric you are quilting over. I even used it one the brown areas with great results. I added a few of the blocks just to show you I am making progress. The first block has everything done but the red bird. The leaves were small so I just made a little vein in each leaf to anchor it down.

The next picture is dark on purpose, so that the quilting stitches show up better. This has really been a joy to quilt and easy so far. In the larger leaves I have just traced the outer edge, and the biggest leaves got loose feathers working with a spine on the right side and making feathers to the left. I think I got 6 feathers in the bigger leaves. Sorry the picture didn't pick up those stitches.
But it's coming along and I hope to have all the green done today! Maybe even start on the red parts! One reason I wanted to show the machine quilting was that someone asked in a comment on Kathy's Pink Chalk Studio about how on earth to quilt a king sized quilt on a home sewing machine. She just knew she would have to send it out. You don't! Really. All you ever have to fit under that machine arm is half of your quilt. Try rolling up that side and sliding it under. I bet you have room. Please before you get someone else to quilt something YOU want to do yourself, look at a few books or borrow a dvd and see if you can do it. Meandering is very simple with a small amount of practice. Try it. I hate to see someone feel they can't do it, when they really want to try.

Now to a different issue: Internet Security...

I promised someone I'd write this post a week back and now I can't remember who asked me to, and I am so sorry. It was another poor soul who recently had their credit card hi-jacked and used for some else's personal fun. You might have read that we had the same thing happen a few months ago. Luckily for me and the credit card people, the Primitives gals had tried to run my card to pay for classes and couldn't, so she called me. Luckily the company was able to stop all payments and the thieves were out of luck. Nasty people. Now yesterday I click on lovely Jan's Be*mused blog and read that she had similar issues with someone from Nigeria changing her address and password from eBay and bidding on items. Not once but twice in the same day!

Jan already mentioned that changing your passwords frequently is very important. I never did before our info was stolen. I used something very simple that I knew I could remember. Not good. Your passwords need to have upper and lower case letters intermixed with plenty of numbers. Write it down somewhere safe if you must, but change it often. What my friend whose name I can't remember...asked me to write about is removing your personal information from your computer at regular intervals.

Do you have cookies set up on your sites and often just hit the first letter of your name and have everything pop up? Well guess what? So can the thief. Did you know that all MasterCard's start with a 5...and all Visa's start with a 4? Some time when you are getting ready to list your numbers to pay for something you have ordered, hit the first number and see what happens. The whole number pops up!! The whole credit card number. No lie. That's why it's very important to remove all the pre-existing data about once a week. Yes, it will suck to have to enter all your passwords all the time for every site, but not as much as hearing that your credit card is at the limit when you didn't charge anything yourself. If a thief can log in as you, he will see all that data. How hard is it for him to punch in one number and have your whole card number come up? Not very hard at all.

Most computers have this feature located under the Tools tab on your top bar of your computer program. On FireFox, I click on Tools and it has the listing for Clear Private Data. Hit that and it will ask you if you really want to do this and I click YES! There is something similar on most programs.

It's really up to you. I am just sick of other people trying to steal our money when they didn't do anything to earn it. No reason to make it easier on them to steal it. That's my lesson for today. *G* Back to the fun stuff...quilting!

Happy 25th Anniversary!

25 years ago I married the most wonderful man who soon became my best friend. It's all gone so quickly...too quickly really. We don't do huge celebrations. Even though it's a pretty special anniversary...25 years. We're spent a nice night at home and eating my favorite chinese take out!

I've been with him longer than I was without him. I don't actually remember the time without him that much, he's just always been there. I hope he always is. Here's to 25 more babe!

** This is my favorite picture of us taken about 6/7 years ago at my nieces wedding. Sorry for the quality but it's a scan.

Update: I started working at 9:30 am and quit as I ran out of the 6th bobbin of the day at 6pm. Another plus for longarmers...bigger bobbins! Arggg! I got more than 3/4 of the quilt done! Done!! Done!! Done!! Boy do I love that easy meandering. I will actually get to start on the colors and applique tomorrow!

Working hard...

Just thought I'd stop by and show you what I've been doing for the last few days...other than keeping quiet while hubby slept yesterday after working overnight. This is where I have been all day.

It's kinda blurry and too big for a proper picture, but I love how the borders turned out. The dark reds kinda envelope the lighter inside and drew it all together. I have the back ironed and laid out and I'm smoothing out the batting...can the pins be far behind. I don't mind the pinning, but my back has other thoughts on the matter. It goes slow but gets done. Hopefully by days end it will be pinned and ready for quilting! Can't wait to get it on the wall.

Finally a Quilt...

Did you think I didn't make those anymore? Strange as it seems, I still have tons of projects and kits that will get done over the next few months. But I also have quilts to do and tops that I didn't even remember until looking in the folder of pictures for Finished Projects...like my Union Star quilt top. I loved making that...how did I forget that the tops was done and waiting for quilting.

SO anyway, I finally got the binding sewn and the picnic quilt is all done.

Ready for the quilt stack. I think that red floral gets brighter every time I see it! This is truly a scrap quilt made from what some of you gals are doing now...orphan blocks. Left over 30's prints and 9 patches, that I expanded and that wild red print! Along with the desire to try the free style letters. I love the date...2006. I'll have to mention the real date that it was finished on the label, as opposed to the date the top was done. All ready for a picnic!

PS...I left the bottom in the picture so you could see daddy's helpers peeking in there!

Flower Bed...

I do have a finished quilt to show...but I'm still sewing the binding and I'd rather wait until I get it all down to take the picture. So for now I'll show you my finished first block of the Flower Bed quilt by Sue Spargo...oh yea, and ME!

All sewn down and ready for assembling. I'm going to wait until I have the top together before adding embellishments and beads.

I did have to teach myself that sewing down wool is a totally different animal that needleturn. When I do traditional needleturn with cottons I slide that needle right up to the folded edge of the applique piece and the tip the needle to the right...making the tip of the needle go left and plant about 1/16th of an inch under the edge of the fold. It helps hide the stitches really well. When I started sewing the Americana Mat in the first class I realized that doing that made the thin one strand of thread cut into the wool with each stitch and it looked horrid. So now I use 2 strands or Sue's wool thread....yummy!...and make sure to put the needle tip in about a good 1/16th to the right of the edge of the wool piece, which holds it down beautifully without marring the edge of the wool. It's fun to learn new tricks!

I decided too this morning to cut out all 11 backgrounds for the quilt so I can plan the layout and which block works best on which background. As you might be able to tell, my backgrounds are all greens and purples. I think I got a very good shot of the true colors in the wool for once.

Now back to sewing binding and putting borders on the Birds of a Feather quilt. Finishing might not be as much fun as starting new projects but I am getting it done one piece at a time as Patti recommended. Go visit her blog. She has a great tutorial on how to make her easy Mile a Minute blocks that's super fast and very easy!

The girls are done....

Something about this picture looks very weird. Small and weird. It's a rather tall picture and I had to flip it and crop it and...well it just looks rather odd. But it will have to do for now.

Didin't get as much done today as I wanted to but I'll have these girls ready tomorrow to start the quilting and I'll show you a nice close up of Goodness..with her lovely hat and flower.

The movie was fantastic! Very loud and exciting. I took lots of tissues for the ending and was quite glad that they did it in such a way as to not make me bust out crying in sobs. Unless you have read the book, you won't understand what the heck I am talking about and I won't explain further and spoil it for the rest who haven't seen the movie. Can't wait for the last book to come out in a few weeks. Now I just have to wait for the DVD so I can watch it non stop and slow motion it to death!!

Gotta help hubby! Back in the morning!

And finally Goodness...

She's a very prim lady or so the story goes, with such a nice hat and flower.

Harry Potter Day arrives....

HARRY POTTER DAY!!

Apologies to anyone who hates the books or doesn't get the excitement. To each his own. But I love them and I always have a standard date with hubby to see the new movie on the very first day! Normally we see the FIRST movie on the FIRST day, but 9AM was too much for me. So I Fandango'ed some tickets for the 3:20 showing and hubby is taking a half day off to take me on a movie date!

I have lots of finishes to show you, but I'll write about those later today. I spent Monday on the couch with a serious sinus headache sleeping and about 5PM finally started a bit of sewing and realized that it was getting awful warm in the house. A look at the thermostat showed 80 when it was supposed to be 74. Nothing coming out but warm air. it didn't help that the past 2 days here have been over 96 and with a heat index in the 100's with almost 100% humidity. So I turned on every fan and started calling. Strangely all the places that claim to have 24 hour emergency service...don't. But I got one to get me right in for yesterday and they were here at 1:30. Took 20 minutes to replace the ??capacitor?? who knows, and we were back in business. Of course when your house is 86 degrees it takes a very long time to cool it down again, especially when all the nooks and crannies are so hot too. Like the laundry room and closets. Finally about 10:30PM it got to 76 and turned off. I survived, but you don't sew in that heat, or use the very hot computer. You sit under 3 fans and try to read as quietly as possible.

Right now, I'm needed at the machine to get a few things done before the movies! Afterwards will be hand sewing time, so I like to get as much machine time as I can now!

Back again later!

And now Mercy!...

Finished her up last night, and got her side strips all sewn down this morning...ready to add her at the end of the 3 lovely ladies. Somehow Goodness got skipped. I think because she requires less needle turn and more wool..whatever the reason, she's almost done too. I am loving the gals HAIR. No matter which way you style it...it just looks goofy and hilarious!

I spent several hours yesterday fulfilling my duty to myself that I was going to finish up all the quilts laying around from the last several months that have just a bit left to get them completed. it's infuriating to have them 95% done and then shoved into a corner in favor of something new. Bad habit that needs to be broken right now. So I pulled out the Tisket Tasket Quilt and started quilting again. I stopped because I couldn't figure out what to do on the white squares. I got hung up and froze. Well after an hour of trying things on paper I fell back the the old standard of meandering and got that part all done quickly. Now I have a few squiggles to do on the blue section borders and then trim, and binding and it will be done. It's just a scrap picnic quilt...something to be tossed on the ground and eaten on so it doesn't have to be a masterpiece. I'll try to get a picture up as soon as it's finished.

Back to quilting!

Shirley's finished...

Got the first block done for Lynda Hall's class called Shirley, Goodness and Mercy. This is Shirley...don't you just love the hair?

I realized this morning that I would rather have the block sewn together on top of each other, instead of side by side. SO I'll wait for them to all be done before I put them all together.

I started some new blocks today...just as a test. I saw the quilt at the retreat and just loved it. So I went to EQ and started figuring it out. Like I really need another quilt to start at the moment. But I wanted to see how the blocks would make up and well curiosity can't be stopped. Two blocks and I finally think I have the right size square to cut for the four corners. I'll show them when I get the time to really start making them...after I get some things finished FIRST!

Itty bitty rick rack...

I got a new pattern the other day and it has a bit of embroidery on the main piece, so about 6pm I wandered out for a quick run to JoAnn's to pick up some floss. Just in case I might want to start the work on it at some point this weekend. The trip turned into a gold mine!

When Sue Spargo taught our class she showed us scads of innovative things we could use to embellish and couch onto the funky little quilts, all sorts of weird yarns, ribbons, beads, cording, etc. As I went in, making my way back to the DMC floss I passed by the rick rack holder and the lime green caught my eye! Lime green in JoAnn's?
Not just lime green, but hot pink, lemon yellow, and two shades of teal..all in very tiny rickrack. On the right of the picture are the pieces I bought from Sue at the workshop. Regular rickrack and velvet rickrack. What a hoot to see such tiny rick rack in JoAnn's! I scooped up one of each. It's perfect for making stems, embellishing leaves..oh all sorts of things. And best yet it's 4 yards for $1.29. Nothing to break the bank.

I also found this funky yard in the back and wondered how it would look around flower petals, or as stems. It's main colors are orange, hot pink, teal, and lime!
Very cool! I think JoAnn's is moving up in the world of embellishments. Now if I could only find a great source for beads locally, I'd be all set.

Saturday Class...

So are you sick of my trip yet? Buck up..last day. Saturday was one I was again looking forward to since I think I have about 15 Lynda Hall patterns in my collection. What a great person. She was fun, super nice, happy about everything we did and just as supportive as anyone could ask for in a teacher. Mind you the one class I took the teacher chastised and made fun of me because I don't like to rip fabric the whole time. SO this was a breath of fresh air. It was quite funny seeing some ladies get very perplexed over her explanation that nothing would fit, we'd be chopping off rows to make things work, and sewing on strips in a wacky way and then trimming them .."crooked"! I loved it! I was even able to show Lynda something she had never seen before...cutting hst's from strips pre-sewn together!! She thought that was the coolest technique ever. Her class was a lovely table runner/wallhanging called Shirley, Goodness and Mercy.

So let's meet the ladies keeping in mind they are not even sewn yet! Shirley still gets some hair and a halo, and more embellishments before she finally gets another row of strips .

Goodness' hat will be sewn down (maybe another color too) and her collar fixed, and her hat flowers added along with lots more work to come, before she looks pretty enough for another outing.
Mercy ended up with a brown face and she seems good that way. She also has loads of good things left to do to her, hair, eyes, as well as sewing her down before she's ready for another debut. I'll let you know when the gals are ready to play. You can see a picture of the finished project here. About a week after arriving home I finally got my last goodies box of the stuff I bought the final night at Quilter's Station. Just like having a surprise come in the mail. I knew everything I bought but it was fun to see it all again and show it off to my sweetie!

ON the left you can see the Sue Spargo Needleroll Kit for the class I didn't get to take that day. Luckily Sue had a few extra kits and I snapped one up quickly. It will be very fun to make that too. I also got another stack of wonderful homespuns in tan, greens and reds that will go right into my collection of FQ plaids. IN their back corner I found the best grouping of fabrics by Lisa Liffick Designs called Honey and Me that look dipped in coffee and tea! They are so warm and primitive that I had to have a few yards before heading home. I got the cutest ones.

Then wanting one more thing to use for carrying stuff to class I picked up the wooden painted box that had an insert with the word Liberty stitched into the lid. All I have to add is a closure and it will be ready for stuffing with sewing items.

Lastly, I forgot to show you 2 kits that I bought on the first night! The first by Country Lore Designs called #6 9 slice of Summer, should be great for next years summer season.


And then the cutest Uncle Sam wall hanging from Pieces from my Heart called #343 Tip Your Hat! I loved the red white and blue flowers coming up out of Uncle Sam's Hat. I know it looks pink but it's really a very small red and white check. Too late to be up this year, but certainly it will be done by next year!
Sunday we loaded up the car and headed for the airport and home. It was so much fun but I really missed being home. Not enough to keep me from going again next year though! Thanks for putting up with all these long posts. I'm in for the rest of the summer and I have more than enough to keep me busy until Christmas!

New fridge...

A few months ago our fridge compressor died on our still new, barely 2 year old fabulous fridge. SO the guy came out and installed a booster that would help the compressor kick on. Worked like a charm. Friday morning as I was getting ready for Mom's appointment to the oncologist, the power kept flipping off and on, off and on...about 10 times. I bumped the a/c up so that wouldn't suffer and turned off the computer, but the fridge was running and what??? you can't unplug the thing. I had no idea when I would get back home.

So I haul in about 3 o'clock and I don't pay attention to the fridge, the waters cold, that's all I cared about. At about 6 I grabbed a frozen bag of pasta and made dinner and just afterwards I grabbed an icy for dessert and I hear "slosh, slosh"...not what a FROZEN icy is supposed to sound like. That's when I realized it was all thawed in the freezer. We backed it out and unplugged it...waited, then plugged it in and it started. Cool, every thing's fine. Saturday morning when I got up it was still running..what turned out to be the fan, but everything was warm and melted and my brand new barely 2 year old fridge was DEAD.

So off to Lowes, where I picked something IN STOCK that could be delivered the next day. Luckily they had one and delivered it yesterday. The guys come in and start telling me how I almost didn't get a fridge today because the ones they had were damaged. One got opened and the side was ruined and dented, the next one had a huge dent in the door. They couldn't find another one so they were going to call me and break the bad news. Only the driver said he refused to call, since the Manager had been the one who sold us the fridge. So they got the idea to replace the dented door on the good fridge and bring it to me. You are lucky he said, you wouldn't have gotten anything today otherwise. I looked right at the delivery guy and said "well it's a good thing they didn't call me, because I specifically asked for the models he knew he had in stock because I had NO fridge and I WOULD have had a fridge that day even if the manager had to empty out his own fridge and drive it on over. I thought the guy was gonna die laughing. I was dead serious. Who accepts stock and doesn't check it? You don't mess with a women who hasn't had a fridge in 2 days.

So I had to wait all day for the thing to freeze up good before I headed out this morning to put frozen stuff back into the new freezer. We lost everything because it had sat overnight without us knowing, so out it all went. Luckily because I was out of town the freezer was almost empty. But it sucked having to buy ketsup, mustard, mayo...etc. to replace what's gone. It also sucks that the freezer is half the size of the old one.

To pass along what the repair guy and the delivery guys told us yesterday...NEVER buy a Frigidaire! They are awful these days and don't hold up. They said they often don't make it to the 2 year warranty stage, ours lasted just past warranty. We didn't buy another one...the repair guy will be pleased.

After lunch.... the last day and the rest of my goodies!