Random Catching Up

Time for one of those rambling posts covering all sorts of stuff you aren't interested in....

1.  Still waiting to hear from my boss about work next summer.  As with the past several years, I'm also curious about a couple of parks that are within a day's drive from here, because....

2.  We will be interviewing 'certified waiver option providers' for the boys next week.  Letting go is hard.  It will be a good thing, since DH and I will get more free time, but handing the boys over to strangers is still scary.  Wish the fam and friends would get certified....



3.  Trying to get some sewing time in.  I'm doing a free quilt-along block of the month (heretofore referred to as either the QAL or the BoM for you non-quilty types).  The BoM is a free class from Craftsy.  My first blocks are done, and I'm quite pleased.  The plan is to do 2 new blocks each month, and ending up with a lap quilt in December.  I'm using up Christmas stash, and am making 2 blocks of each type.  Depending on my mood next December, I'll either make one giant quilt or two smaller ones.  If I do that I'll keep one and donate one to the Whitehouse Library for a fund-raiser. 

Anybody else doing this one?  Nice instructor, easy directions, cute project.  And FREE!  (Thanks to several of you who suggested links for me.)

I also signed up for a mini-quilt swap this morning, thru The Quilting Gallery.  I've never done this before, but I've seen what so many of you are doing with swaps, that I thought I'd try it.  This is a one shot deal, so if I don't like it, I'm done, and if I don't have time this summer, no one will be disappointed.  Any body doing that one?

January block 2

January Block 1

New organizing idea.  Each quilt or project is now in a zippered bag from which linens come. This is the Christmas stuff.  Since I had to buy all new linens for the boys, given that we upgraded them from twin beds to fulls, I had lots of bags.  I've also been stashing them, knowing they were too good to pitch, but having no idea what I'd do with 'em.  Now I know. Win.

4.  I dug thru my patterns looking for the new doggie coat one I just bought. You'd think it would be on the top of a heap since it's brand new and with several other patterns (yeah, 99 cent patterns at HoAnnes a couple of weeks ago), but noooo, I can't find the damn thing for the life of me.  By the time I do, my neighbor's doggies won't need the coats.  I did find a table runner pattern, one of a yearly series.  I decided to do the February one, and set to work.

Lemme tell ya, the directions sucked.  I'm so glad I didn't pay full price for the pattern.  Good thing I knew what to do, otherwise I'd have a huge mess on my hands.  I did get one finished.  Now I'm curious to find the couple of other patterns in the series that I own and see what kind of mess those will be.  I'll post a pic soon.  It's okay.

5.  I made a mess of mug rugs that I'll give away at Girl Scout Service Unit Meetings. Why, do you ask, would I do that?  I got suckered into being the Training Consultant (a volunteer) for my local Service Unit--the Little Turtle unit of the Maumee Valley Region of the Girl Scouts of Western Ohio.  I'm the training nazi now.  My job is mainly to be sure as many our our volunteers get trained as possible. Turns out in our SU it's pretty easy.  Yeah.

Part of the reason I'm doing this is. . .

6.  My word of the year is Mentor.  As in "to mentor" and "be mentored."  I have talents I can share, and things I want to learn.  So there ya go.

7.  Found a couple of other random pics I wanted to share.  This is one is the sum total of wrapping trash we generated at home this year.  I make super-simple bags out of Christmas material, and in the past 15 years or so, I've amassed quite a collection.  So much beautiful fabric, so few places to use it.  The bags satisfy my love of new fabric, and solve a ton of other problems.  The best thing, and one that I didn't anticipate is that they are sooooo quiet!  Easy to wrap without having to be quiet and thus detected by the snoopers, and so quiet to open.  Since FTD has big time noise issues, it's also a bonus.  In the past, I've given away bags for fun.  Lots of folks have asked me to sell them, but I'd have to charge so much it'd be silly.  And then it would be work, not fun. By the way, the bag shown here is only about half full. There is cardboard, but that all goes into the recycle bin. Win-win.


The other pic is of a really cute thingie DD made at school.  I've seen this before, but never got around to making one.  

  How's that for random? 

A Week of Threadbanger Heaven!

DD found my upload cord, right where it should have been, and right where we looked for days and days.  So here's a whole mess of stuff from the past week.  I also cut the first of the shrunk-felted sweaters.  It's tough on my rotary cutters--time to see if BadAmy can order me some from her wholesale distributor.

Upload cord~~found.

What you get after a week of fun in the crafty corner.  Even the scraps are cute~

Top:  Quilt my Grandmother made for me (1960ish) and bottom is one I'll be giving to a Great-niece for Christmas.

The one I'll give to the Great-niece.

Some of these quilts will go to a charity and some will go to the arts show I'm doing with BadAmy.

Fun to do girly stuff for a change.

This one has a real binding.  Bad idea.  I self-bound the others, sooooooo much better!

Backs of a couple.

And the fronts.  The McColls pattern fabric is from JoAnnes.

4Patches4Hope blocks. Gotta get them in the mail soon.

Pine cone bags for FTD's sale.

The unglamorous part of the relaxer packs.  I used rice for the base.  Some will have lavender, chamomile, peppermint in various combinations.  Some will be plain.  If you are a female member of my family, pretend you don't see these.

Outsides of relaxer packs.  Some are in Manly Man colors. I'm working on all sorts of ties.

Pre-printed placemats for the sale. 6 of 'em.

Pre-printed mug rugs.  They're supposed to be used as gift tags, but I went with mug rugs.

And some dolly fleece blankets for sale and charity.

Friday Night Sew In!

Heidi, of Handmade by fame is again hosting the Friday Night Sew In, and she picked my birthday to have it.  Well, okay it's always the 3rd Friday of the month.  I've been able to join in the fun several times, and tomorrow . . . I'll be busy but I've been sewing several evenings this week, so I'm counting myself in.  My birthday present to me.

So.  I've signed up for my first 'craft' sale.  Our little village is having an Arts Show and I'm going to take a few things over and BadAmy is providing some of her good stuff.  Her stock is a little on the low side this year, since she's been so busy with her sock clubs.  I'm working on some mellow relaxer packs, and have the inner packs done and now am working on the outer bags.  The pattern I found needs some tweaking, so a-tweaking I will go.  I want to give them a quilted feel, hence the tweaking.

I did get lots of little dolly quilts and fleece blankies made this week. My virtual friend, the Impera Magna, found a quilter who was working with some wood workers who are working on dolly cradles, which need little quilts.  My little quilts will go to Church for the ChristChild boxes we make for kids.  And since my camera upload cord is still hiding somewhere I can't post the pics.  Sheesh.  When I find the dang thing I'll do a post of just pics.  One of the little quilts turned out really nicely--just the look I was looking for, because of its similarity to a doll quilt my Grandmother made for me, 6 nine patches set in sashing and self-bound.  I'll be giving this to one of my little great-nieces for Christmas this year.


I also dug all of my Christmas stash out and drooled all over it again.  I found a pattern I like for a couch size quilt, but naturally I was 4 fabrics short.  No problem, I had a huge fist full of coupons, so off I went to HoAnne's.  Didn't pay more than 60% on the full price of anything.  Dang, I'm good. In my stash,  I also found some pre-printed stocking and tags fabric that I got for free last year on quilt shop hop.  I've got the tags nearly done as mug rugs and the stockings cut out.  The reason it was free was that candle wax dripped all over into a basket of fabric during the shop hop--too many crazed women crammed into a small space, ya know.  Somebody knocked it in the basket.  Rather than try to salvage it themselves, the owners just put it out and said if you want it, take it.  I spent a long time going thru the basket and picked up some winning fabric.  Sweet.

So for the daytime/night time sew in, I'll be finishing some snowman pre-printed placemats I found last winter, and the stockings, and the relaxer dealies.  That will keep me busy.  Then next week, I need to finish up the Green Hats pink pajama bottoms, so they'll be ready for our party.

But the big news is that I've decided to have FTD's log cabin quilt bound by someone else.  I think I can get the binding machine sewed on, but I want it hand bound.  No can do, so I'll see if the LAQ in Whitehouse can do it for me.  It deserves to be done properly.

Whew.  Lots to do.  And that doesn't include DD's train club activities.  More on that later.

Lights, Threadbanger, Action!

Pics will follow someday----after I find the camera upload cord which has gone walkabout.  Sheesh. 


Yea!  DH got the lights up in the Crafty Corner, helped me up the 'ceiling' back up, sorta put his tools away, and I re-organized the sewing crafty crap and Viola!  I actually got to sew tonight.

I think I might also be in hyper-drive.  Which I will regret tomorrow.


I took a good look at my Crafty Corner, trying to figure out what wasn't quite right about it.  My sewing area is fine, even though it took me a while to remember where all the stuff goes--between moving it all to put the lights up, and putting stuff away that I took out west, I really had to put my puny grey cells to work.  Arg.

And then it dawned on me.  My Crafty Table, a great find at the Habitat Re-Store was way over there, not over here.  So I conned DD (who was home sick today, after being off for conferences for 5, count 'em, 5 days) into helping me move the old oak Sunday School table that-a-way, and then the chairs and love seat from hell with it, followed by moving the Crafty Table closer to the sewing area.  Wow.  Makes a whole heck of a lot more sense.

One of the local libraries is having 2 fund-raisers this weekend, which involves folks from the community each decorating a dinner table for 8.  I'm calling mine "My Yellowstone Cabin."  Very funny since we don't have a cabin, and never in a million years would I be able to set the table nicely.  Anywho.  I had already made napkins out of red ticking, but only had 6.... I need 8.  So back to the store I go for fabric, and now I have 8 in one size and 6 in the other.  Cute.  (My Mom hated ticking.  Only the poor people had to use ticking.)  I just made squares, then fringed the edges.  So lazy am I that I even used the selvages for one side.

Then I made 6 more bags for DD's trains.  I found (dirt cheap) really cool pre-quilted train fabric.  I used black store bought bias tape around the top edges and then just folded them over for the bags.  Way too easy.  And really helpful when we're moving trains from place to place.

Hmmm, then I made patches for a project I heard about from the Impera Magna Herself.  It's called 4Patches4Hope.  Easy breezy 4 patches.  I got a fat quarters of red, white, and blue, and presto-bingo 49 patches done.  Okay, that took a couple of hours, but still, pretty darn quick.

Next week's project~~another cool thing that the Impera Magna found--quilty doll quilts for charity.  So cute!  I won't get back to the threadbanger until next week likely, but I can start plotting the doll quilts now.  Then I'll be settled into my groove, and will get serious and finish up some other special projects--especially B&L's quilt.  

And since we're having nutty wacky warm weather, I worked on putting lights outside so I can see the boys standing outside at 6:dark:30 waiting for the bus.  I use Christmas lights and checked them before sticking them up.  They hate me.  A section in the middle is now out. Crap.

I'm whipped, but in a good way.  Yea!

Quilting in West Yell

Last summer, I asked my peep and colleague Dr. D if he knew if any of the ladies at his Church were quilters.  He's a member of the LDS Ward~~Morman Church to you eastern folks~~which is the biggest Church in West Yell.  Some other time I'll delve into the mysteries of Churches and the stories that go around about most of them, but for now it's quiltin' time.

So anywho, Dr. D called his lovely bride and she said Mrs. L is the go-to gal for the quilters.  And I gotta tell ya, I love Mrs. L..  She's been hand quilting for something like 60 of her 80+ years.  Never in a gazillion years would I have tagged her at over 72ish.  Seriously, what a sweetie!  When she and her hubby built their house, I think in the 60s, he told her that he'd be sure there was quilting space.  And there is.  The basement is finished so she can set up 2 king sized quilts down there. Her quilting frame is the darn simplest thing ever--soooo wish I had taken pictures, but I didn't want to invade her world.  She doesn't own a computer and doesn't want to, but her daughter does have an etsy shop called Sweaterheads--ya gotta check it out!

After I finally got around to making the calls she said she'd be more than happy to get some of the girls together and work on FTD's log cabin quilt. And did they ever.  DH and I went over and helped her put the quilt on the frame, since it involves shoving thumb tacks into pine boards, which is something my arthritic thumbs can't do.  Now mind you, I totally understand the hows and whys of quilting, but I've only just started machine quilting.  I've pieced a lot of tops, have tied-off comforters, and sent stuff to the long arm quilter, but real hand quilting is a whole new ballgame for me. 

The sheer simplicity of it is my favorite thing about it.  Mrs. L would just pick up 5 or 6 stitches and pull them through.  Since FTD's quilt is the log cabin quilt, Mrs. L said the best way to quilt it was to just stitch in the ditches. Said she, "It's quick and easy.  Anyone can do it."  Anyone but me.....

Corner details on FTD's Log Cabin Quilt.Yeah, I know you're sick of looking at these pictures.

Mrs. L suggested I start by quilting along an edge of the quilt.  I realize now that the stuff I did likely won't show after I bind it (or in my case, screw up the binding).  I watched and watched how Mrs. L picked up the stitches, itty bitty stitches I must say, and just keep right on going.  I tried it.  I gave up.  I could get maybe 2 stitches on the needle to her 5 or even 6.  I tried the up-with-one-hand, down-with the-other-hand system.  Also sucked at that.  But Mrs. L kept chuckling and saying over and over, "But remember, I've been doing this for a long time--you'll get it after you keep at it."  Such a beautiful optimist.  One of the reasons I'm crazy about her.

I managed to get over to her house a couple of times while she and the girls were working on it.  It's really nice when you work seasonally to get away from work.  Seasonal NPS work is very, very intense so any chance to get my head 'out' of the park was refreshing.  And being in a real home of a real person was super nice. Having friends in the community where you work who are not fellow employees gives the summer gig a more permanent feel somehow.  Hard to explain, too.

After maybe 10 days or so, Mrs. L called and said it was done. She had been worried that it would take a long time and that she'd have to mail it to me when they finished.  Holy cow!! Done!  Just like that!  It takes months to get something back from the LAQ and here she's done in just over a week!

I had discussed with Dr. D the fact that I was worried that she wouldn't take any money so we worked out a game plan.  But alas, there's already a plan in place for this group of quilters.  They keep track of the hours, then charge what amounts to about $3/hour and then say, "But that's so much.  So how about this much amount instead, if that's okay"~~which ends up being about $2/hour.  The money though goes to a charity, usually one of the Ward's interests.  I knew the BS Troop in town is chartered by the Ward, so I was going to suggest that they take a bunch of my money and give it to them.  But Mrs. L beat me to the punch, because a young man from the congregation had just been diagnosed with cancer and was beginning treatments, and would it be okay if they gave my money to that cause....?  Would it be okay?!?  Of course it's okay!!!!!  I also gave them what amounted to just under $4/hour, which is way cheaper than the LAQ.  I think they were also going to give a bit of it to the Troop.  Win win win, win win win.  In case you're wondering, they spent a total of 78 woman hours on it.

That's a lot of woman power.

Messing Around with Online Quilty Stuff.... again

I'm trying this again.  I do so love this quilt, so I thought I'd totally embarrass myself by putting it in the contest.  I don't know if I put this one up before or not.... don't care either.  So if you're bored, click on over to the quilt site and vote for me.  Actually, there are a couple of quilts I like better than mine!  Arg!!!!

http://quiltinggallery.com/2011/10/07/fall-splendour-quilts/

Sewing Blitz

I am counting the days now.  It's sort of a wasted effort until my fingerprints clear, which they won't.  But I'll be adjudicated yet again, so let's hurry up and do that, eh?

Sally Seam Rip-Her, #5/8, and her proud Mama

Knowing that I'll have to close up the crafty corner soon, I sewed like a mad woman over the week end.  And then BadAmy and Sally Seam Rip-Her made me go to the fabric shop with our stash of coupons.  I'll need to have fabric when I get home, doncha know. 






 First off, FTD's teeth came out okay.  He went back to school today, even though last night his eyes turned black and green and he looked like he'd been in a bar fight.  But he got through the day with some tylenol.

Sleepin' and droolin' like a baby. Thank goodness for iPods.

Next up, Bad Amy got her second yarn club shipment out, to rave reviews once again.  This one is called La Violeta Stripe.  Want some?  Too bad, it's a club exclusive.  So unless you're on Ravelry and can sweet talk someone out of a skein, ya ain't gunna git any.

Now to the sewing extravaganza.  I finished the log cabin squares for pillows.  Each one is quilted differently, as I'm trying to find ways to machine quilt without A) spending hours doing that and B) falling asleep at the wheel.  BadAmy hates the color.  She says the yellow is burn your eyes out yellow.  Hrumph.  See if she gets a pillow present any time soon....






The next project was a bunny.  It's a panel print by Benartex called Montana Modern.  I just added batting and backing, stitched around each block and in a couple other places, put on a binding and done.  I'm going to hang this at the office in our never ending attempts to class the place up.

















Lessee, then there are the ones that I have to get done and quilted and bound before we leave.  This is how the pillow thing got started.  Making the strips for log cabin blocks is like eating chips and dip.  Sometimes you run out of chips first and need more dip.  Then you have left over dip, so you need more chips.  Okay, so I had a few left over strips.  Then I didn't quite have enough.. . and on and on.  I also couldn't decide on which icons for the border.....these are for my retiring ranger peeps remember.  I was talking with my niece "Sally" and suddenly had the idea.  Then I needed just the right fabric.  Then we spent a couple hours at the store. Then I didn't even use the fabric I picked out.  So there you have the creative process.  These are 'heat-n-bonded' on, and I was hoping they wouldn't need to be appliqued but yes they sure do.  That's tomorrow's project.  Did I mention that there are two of these?

Last but not least is a new batch of Kind Hearted Lady Lives Here mug rugs.  I found this calico and fell in love with the soft, girly colors.  You know the Calico Cat...

I made five variations of this for five fabulous friends.  I'm also on a stripey binding kick.

Bestest Ever Friend Ginny and her hubby stopped by this evening for a precious hour on their way home from Arizona to Michigan.  We try to get more time together, but this is all we could squeak out this year.  Sigh.  Ginny now has her Calico kitty.   They should be pulling in the drive way right about now. 

     The Duel

THE gingham dog and the calico cat

Side by side on the table sat;

'Twas half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)

Nor one nor t'other had slept a wink!

The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate

Appeared to know as sure as fate

There was going to be a terrible spat.

       (I wasn't there; I simply state

       What was told to me by the Chinese plate!) 

The gingham dog went "bow-wow-wow!"

And the calico cat replied "mee-ow!"

The air was littered, an hour or so,

With bits of gingham and calico,

While the old Dutch clock in the chimney-place

Up with its hands before its face,

For it always dreaded a family row!

       (Never mind: I'm only telling you

       What the old Dutch clock declares is true!)

The Chinese plate looked very blue,

And wailed, "Oh, dear! what shall we do!"

But the gingham dog and calico cat

Wallowed this way and tumbled that,

Employing every tooth and claw

In the awfullest way you ever saw-

And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew!

       (Don't fancy I exaggerate-

       I got my news from the Chinese plate!)

Next morning where the two had sat

They found no trace of the dog or cat;

And some folks think unto this day

That burglars stole that pair away!

But the truth about the cat and pup

Is this: they ate each other up!

Now what do you really think of that!

       (The old Dutch clock it told me so,

       And that is how I came to know.)

Eugene Field

http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/field01.html

Obsesssion

Seriously. I'm obsessed. Since I don't get to sew for 4 months of the year, it's like I'm trying to make up for lost time now. (I have decided to take the long strips out west for when I need fabric therapy. No thinking required, just a zillion strips to stick together.)

So instead of posting about how autism sucks--we got a full 'dose' of it this week, what with dentist appointments and all (all being taking both boys to the family doc and the eye doctor~~my nephew David, that is) or about the programs I'm thinking up for next summer, or of the ideas we've got for our GS Council's 100th Anniversary Celebrations, I'll just post these.

Table runner done~~quilted and bound. Yea. The quilt from this material is at a long arm quilter here in my hometown. She's been doing this for 3 years, but I just heard about her. I hope I like her work on the big ol' Gammil.

Loopy's bird butt mug rug is ready for the mail--thanks to another wonderful little bird who flew in with his address. He's been kinda blue lately what with all the crap that's going on with our state and federal elected officials acting like 7 year olds. Naw, that gives 7 year olds a bad rap...

So with all these done, I got some beautiful yellow and blue log cabin squares cut and sewed for presents for certain retired rangers. And there's lots of material left in strips so who knows what will happen with that.

Lest You Think I've Been Slacking

Naw. Just to lazy to upload pics is all. (Is there a bulk loader for blogspot that will do more than 3 pics at a time? Sheesh.) (And would it be too much to ask to be able to place the pics where I want them in the text instead of all at the top?)


What have I been up to? Hmmm.. doing the laundry. Nope. Vacccuumming? Pish. Dusting? Yeah right. Messing around in the crafty corner? Uh, yeah.

This was my "do something you've never tried before week." First up, I won a jelly roll of batiks at the retreat last year. I'm not much of a batik girl (yes, I hear several of you gasping) but there it is. And I also had no idea what to do with a jelly roll. I googled all over the place and decided to try a strippy quilt. But alas. After a way too long search, I realized there isn't enough material in a jelly roll for a decent size, use-as-a-quilt quilt. So I searched my stash and found some stuff left over from my Three Bears Quilt. So I cut strip after strip after strip...... I found a pattern for a strippy quilt as you go deal, and that was my original plan. Till I realized how big I really had made this thing. So here's the strips, on my design floor. I'm not quite done messing the the arrangement, but you get the idea. That's a cheapo sheet set that I'll use for backing.





The Enablers at Joanne's sent me a raft of coupons last week, so I used some on fat quarters in springy colors. I'm not much of a pink/purple girl, either, so this was pretty far outside my comfort zone. I already had a fat quarter of a really cute, sorta retro robins/lilacs material so I used that for center blocks. I wanted a lot of blocks, so instead of fussy cutting it, and making myself nuts in the process, I just whacked it up. The rest of the FQs went to strips too. (Ohhh, I can't wait to get my Vagabond cutter..... ) I realized that to make this pattern work, one of the border sections would have to be whacked too, but oh well. From a distance it looks okay. A real quilter would have whacked all the doo dads. Ha. (So I used the word so in each the first four sentences in this paragraph. So ya wanna make something of it?)

So here it is on the design wall. My question is: To sash or not to sash? Please advise. And if you're in the sash it camp, what color??? Oh, and I decided not to give it a pattern. I actually had to work pretty hard not to match too many of the border chunks. I haven't really looked at this, but I will probably futz with the blocks a little.
I also ended up with one extra block, and a good thing too. This will get made into a mug rug for a certain blogger who only manages to get pictures of bird butts. But said blogger needs to send me a snail mail address. You know who you are, Loopy.

As well as not being able to think in colors, I also don't think in numbers, and I had a ton of the border chunks left. Some of them went into this. Again, purely random. But drat, there are those 2 that line up. Too late. I was reeeealy tired by the time I got to this.

I did make a nicer table topper which is machine quilted in little echo stitched clover leaves, and backed with a pretty striped fabric, which I will also use for the bigger one. I also machine bound them. Woot! For some reason I didn't take a pic of the one that is pretty dang good. Later, gator.


Lessee, what else, oh yeah. Last week I decided to take down my big Santa flag and put up something springy. I found a panel of a bunny and figured I'd just back it the easy way--inside out style. I was going to use a white sheet--I buy them every time I see them at garage sales. Then I found an old damask tablecloth, complete with little holes and stuff. Perfect, I thought. Ever try to cut a straight edge on an old damask tablecloth? omg, what a pain. Anywho, I finally got it done, but that turned a 20 minute project into a 90 minute one. Sheesh.

But he's cute and has a spring in his step.

Girls Weekend In! April 15, 16, 17

I've been thinking about this for a long time. It hinged on DH and the boys being gone. They're going to go to the lake so we'll over-run my house with estrogen!!!!! What a pleasant difference!

So. Friday April 15 after 6 p.m. until Sunday April 17 at noon, we get the house all to ourselves. Sa-weet. Stay for the whole weekend or come and go as you please. Bring what ever crafty stuff you like, I'll have a table or two that we can set up for sewing machines, etc., my cutting table is always up, as is my ironing board. Bring a pillow and sleeping bag, junk food, drink, computer, whatever floats your boat. Maybe I'll have FTD show me how to use the Wii so I can kick your butt at the Slice-n-Dice game. We can go for walks, do nothing, make prank phone calls, whatever we want.

This will pretty much be the last time I'll have to play with my sewing stuff, since I have to be packed and ready to go out west just 2 weeks after this. So come on over! Email me at my regular edress to lemme know what your plans are.

A Lazy Sunday and Half Square Triangles

Sunday mornings have become laundry time for us. Since I decided last month that I can't stand doing the boys' laundry anymore, I've been taking them to the laundromat so they can do their own. At home, it takes forever: since we're on a well, we don't have the pressure needed to quickly fill the washer, and since we use a geothermal heat pump we are an all-electric home, so the dryer doesn't get all that hot. Subsequently, it takes forever to get one load of laundry done, start to finish. Both of the boys figured ways to get out of various parts of the routine. I was still doing almost all of the work. New plan: Laundromat. Yeah, it costs twice as much as doing it at home, but I'M not the one doing it!

The first couple of weeks, I would help with the proper settings and folding and stuff. Today, DD did his all by himself. Completely. Whoo hooooooo!!!!!! The big draw for him is that the laundromat is next to the train tracks. So he gets to railfan and do his laundry all at once. While he's doing that, I read or do computer work. (Today it was my new Evening Program on bison. Got quite a bit done. Wish they had wifi at the laundro, though.)

FTD opted to do his here, while I had pesky brother out of the house. DH helped him and they said it's all done. (I haven't checked his closet yet......) DH even did some of his own laundry. He does it sometimes while I 'work' out west, but hasn't done much here, because apparently, I don't 'work' here. Grrrr.....


Grown up time
We spent the afternoon with two other couples, which was a nice change of pace for me. We drove over to Fremont, Indiana to visit a small vineyard. Yes, it is possible to make decent wine in the midwest. We got to taste ten different wines, which was interesting. As usual, I liked the odd ones. Then we went to a nice family style Italian restaurant for dinner.

Half Square Triangles?
Oh, yeah, I found a new blog from the Empress's blog: Quilter in the Gap, who is a Michigander who has transplanted to Cumberland Gap, TN. You'll know this story: a friend of hers was in a swap, and ended up not making the quilt. So Friend One gave Friend Two the triangles. And now Friend Two has decided to pass them along. Pick me! Pick me! I hate cutting triangles, but want to get good at pinwheel blocks. So yeah, I'll take a pile o' triangles off your hands.


Coolest Quilter
And here's some really cool news. My college room mate, Jan-Bob, is an art teacher and quilter. She is in several virtual 'Bees' and starting on January 1 of this year, she has been making a block a day. She's using all solids and she just grabs the material that floats her boat that day and sews them into to all sorts of interesting patterns. Well, now, I knew this, but another blogger for the East Bay Modern Quilt Guild in San Fran CA, found Jan-Bob's blog and said it's genius. Well, I coulda told 'em that. But now I'm telling you.

Just One Star

On Tuesday, March 15, the flags of the United States of America will fly at half-staff in memory of Mr. Frank Buckles, the last of the US Soldiers who fought in the War to End All Wars. How grand that folks of that time thought it would be the last war, not the first World War. As we send more men and women into harms way under new and devastating circumstances, there is something we can do on the home front to attempt to alleviate some of the suffering.


Make just one quilt block.


Moda Fabrics is coordinating an effort to create quilts for soldiers who are wounded in action. Read about it HERE.

Tomorrow, I will make a star. In memory of Mr. Buckles.

I will make one star in memory of Cpl. Frank Britt, WWII US Army. My Daddy.

I will make one star in memory of Lt. Jessie Alice West Britt, WWII US Army. My Mom.

I will make one star in honor of Sgt. Brian Rozick, USAF/180th Fighter Wing. My Friend.

I will make one star in honor of Gen. Mark Bartman, USAF/Ohio Air National Guard. My Friend.

For whom will you make
just one star?

Another Birdy, Quilty, Winding Weekend

We've reached the gray days of March, so we're all running a little on empty here. And I managed to catch FTD's cold, just as he was getting rid of it. How lucky for me. He missed another 4 days of school last week. Drat.

I've been winding, er unwinding yarn for BadAmy. I'm using the warping board, which means it takes me 28 to 32 minutes to get a skein of yarn from the 'normal' length (a loop about 4 feet around) to dying distance loops, nearly 30 feet around. She has several contraptions in her basement for the winding/unwinding/rewinding stuff. I don't have the time (or inclination) to drive to West Toledo every day to help over at BadAmy HQ, so we're trying it here. I can realistically only do 4 skeins a day, max, which only helps a little. We might set up a big, honkin' contraption here like she has there. I'd post pics, but I've been sworn to secrecy so as not to give away any company secrets. Hmmm..... are all indie dyers like this??

I needed some fabric therapy after all the winding, so I hauled out the stuff to make more blocks for DD's Hobo Quilt. I got 10 more blocks done last night--5 new block patterns. I'm finding that I really love thinking up new ways to use machine applique instead of the piecing patterns that came with the book. Seriously, I'll do anything to avoid all those itty bitty triangles.

And I actually got out of the house for a while~~just me and DH, for a nice change. We've had a couple of reports of a Bald Eagle in the neighborhood and we went to check it out. There's a golf course 3 miles north of us, across the street from the northern boundary of the Park, and the pro there said he has seen eagles carrying sticks to trees in the middle of the course. There's a nice oak woods there. We spent a good amount of time looking for eagle evidence, but alas, none. There have also been reports of an eagle in the cemetery next to the golf course. We looked and looked over there, but no luck. Then we parked on an old Park road and walked back along Swan Creek, hoping that maybe the birds were nesting back there. Alas, no luck on that run either. But it is good for DH's soul to get back off the main drag in the Park. Me, too.

I'm off today for my annual "What's wrong with MBD's old, fat body this year" testing. The good news is that my blood work rocks~~again~~and we're not looking for anything weird. Whew.

Contest time! Vote for me!

I've been spending too much of my off-duty time reading all the quilty blogs and found the Quilting Gallery. She has a weekly contest, and I keep entering quilts for fun. So this week the theme is Nursery Rhyme quilts, so I entered the Three Bears Quilt. I'll keep entering it in all sorts of categories, just for the silliness of it. Anywho, here's where you can go to vote. (I think I'm going to vote for the Three Pigs--a quilt of pig butts is hard to beat!)

http://quiltinggallery.com/2011/03/11/vote-now-nursery-rhymes-quilts/

Here's the back-link to my post about this quilt.

Train Club Quilt~~Done!

I did it! I put a binding on a quilt, and it doesn't make me want to poke my eyes out with the seam ripper! Woo hoo! I did Aubrey's quilt a couple of weeks ago, and that turned out okay, but this one actually looks pretty darn good!

Why, you ask? I frantically spent the entire morning looking for tutorials on-line for ways to machine bind a quilt. It just wasn't working for me. Then I found Crazy Short Cut Quilts! Hooray! With a couple of great hints, it was like sewing magic. So here's the practice version, complete with spiral machine quilting and will you look at that point on the star! Freakin' awesome! I also made 6 smaller versions of that block for another quilt and one of the 6 is perfect. Sweet. (Yeah, I found some tuts on half square triangles, too.)

Crafty, Snowy, Birdy Days

First, I need a yard or so of Royal Stewart Tartan in shirt weight. For the life of me, I can't find any in the US this week! I googled it every which way I could and nada, zip, nuthin'. So if you've got some in your stash, I need some a.s.a.p. to finish a quilt for a really-coming-up-quickly wedding. ::begging begging begging:: Fun facts to know and tell: a real tartan has the same stripe pattern in each direction. When tartans are registered, the designer only submits the pattern in one direction. When they don't match, it's a plaid. See what you learn going to a liberal arts college where the mascot is the Scot?

Next, it's snowing again. Between doctors appointments, snow, ice, and Presidents Day, my boys have only been in school for 6 hours this week. Crap. That really puts a dent in my crafty time.

Also spent the afternoon yesterday with the boys' current caseworker and their next caseworker (they change when the kids leave school~~since we're considering pulling them from the glorified babysitting thing they call school now...... ) well, let's just say we're looking at options. More on that later. And if any of you are involved with using Ohio Waivers for your adult kids with disabilities, lemme know how that's working for you.

And birders~~you should see the feeders of NW Ohio this week. We picked up a new feeder bird for us~~Purple Finches. Because our deck is also the bird feeder, it takes some of the birds a while to find our feeders. Lots and lots of folks get Purple Finches (and their infamous twins, House Finches) at their feeders, but this is a first for us at this house. My sis lives 4 miles east of us on the other side of the park. She has a large grassy lot and water-feature mini-pond next to her house, along with 3 more acres of pines, and you should see the cardinals! She can easily have 15 or 20 at a pop. She also had a beautiful little Carolina Wren visiting a suet feeder right up at her window. I suppose if I were to stop reading all of the birder blogs I'd have more birding time.

Today, I'm hoping to get some sewing time in. I suppose if I were to stop reading all of the sewing blogs I'd have more sewing time. Sheesh.

I Had a Feeling About This One

We've had interesting weather this winter. We've had real snow. Here in NW Ohio, snow is often a hit or miss deal. Or we get hit, it looks pretty for a day or two, then it turns yucky looking, then it melts, and we start over again. But this year, it snowed in mid-December, and we've had snow cover since then. Somewhat colder than usual, too.


A local forecaster, who really should get a hobby, spent a good part of the winter forecasting gloom and doom. It's pretty much reached the point where you automatically subtract 6 inches of snow off his prediction. (He works at a tv station with the coolest new predicting toys and programs, so you'd think he'd be better at it.....) He also completely, totally missed the biggest snowfall of the season, but the other forecasters weren't that close either.

Late last week, they started saying~~finally~~well, we don't know what's going to happen with the next system. What happened was we got hammered with a crappy, rotten ice storm. Here at our house we had a nice snow, followed by hard pouring rain and some sleet, then more snow, then really quickly freezing temps. At our daughter's home in West Toledo, a scant 20 miles from here, they got a little snow, then freezing rain and sleet, followed by more freezing rain and sleet, and then some snow and freezing temps. It was down to 9 this morning. She's been without power now for 48 hours. We put them up in a hotel for the first night and they stayed last night also. There were so many trees and branches down over on that side of town that walking around was flat out dangerous--you never knew when a branch or power line would be coming your way. The elementary school in her neighborhood is still closed, as are all the schools in SE Michigan.

Our Red Cross Chapter set up a warming station at a local YMCA and there have been some folks staying there. The motels are all full, and many of our other friends and family are shacking up with other folks. The up side is that BadAmy and hubby will be able to clean the 'fridge and freezer..... and completely restock it. Everything had to go. Bummer.

I took the crappy weather as an opportunity to sew. Our power was out for about 3 hours in the morning, but that's no big deal. The temp in the house only dropped about 2 degrees. Let's hear it for super-insulation! I was sewing downstairs while my niece and her year-old son were here--their house was powerless for about 18 hours, but she didn't want to chase the baby around, flashlight in hand, so they came and stayed with us. So anywho, as I was madly working on blocks, the lights kept flickering, but they stayed on--yea!

I also went beserk and decided to make a wall hanging for some friends who are getting married. I found out yesterday that they set the date: March 4. This year. Holy crap! They are very interesting folks with wildly divergent backgrounds so the quilt with be pretty much off the wall (har har--get it? Wall hanging? Off the wall? Yea, it's late. Er, early. Either way, it's the middle of the night.) I'll get pics later today and post them. So far all the material came from my stash, but I'll need 2 more materials to finish it the way I want. Okay, maybe 4 more..... Then I promised DD I'd get back to his quilt. But I also need to get a flannel scrappy quilt done for the kid that will be bornt sometime this July--gotta do that now, since I get very, very little time to sew in the summer. And I'll definitely need to go to the store for that one.

The boys have an appointment with the shrink today, I'll have to decide if they go to school for the rest of the day or not. I'm inclined to just bring them home. So very much simpler and easier for everyone. DH will have a cow, but oh well. We'll see....

Friday Night Sew In Sorta!

Last night was the Friday Night Sew In (FNSI). I had projects lined up. I was restraining from cookies--gotta fit back into that uniform in a few months. Boys were all fine, DH was gone, the stars were aligned.

Then I fell asleep.

Holy cow. Yep, I fell sound asleep on the couch.

The good news is that I was really rested up this morning! I started working on some more Kind Hearted Lady mug rugs. I'm trying to decide how I really like them, so I've been messing with different stuff like how much machine quilting to put on 'em, I accidentally zig zagged thru the batting on some (like the look as it turns out), and blah blah blah. For some reason it took me half as long to sew them today, so I'm trying to figure out what I did better this time. Hmph.

I left my camera at the club where DH's Rotary Club is having the Dinner Dance tonight, so I can't upload pics just yet. Conceited girl that I am, I took pics of all the centerpieces we made with my stash. I'll post those, along with the new stack of mug rugs.

I'd go sew now, too, but I have to do yet more computer work for the Rotarians. I'm thinking I should auction off computer/graphics lessons to some of the old farts.......

Back to Crafty Stuff

Gee, whiz, this is supposed to be the quiet time of the year~~no such thing around our house. (I just wish I could figure a way to get paid for having this much fun. Got it covered 4 months of the year, but that leaves 8 unpaid-yet-working-my-ass-off months. Hmmmmm....)

Yep, let's see, last weekend organized and ran a first-time-for-us Winterfest with Barb. It was a grand success. Did I mention that? Well, it's worth mentioning again. Did I mention the hundreds of people who attended?

This weekend is DH's Rotary Club's annual fund-raiser. I'm in charge of decorations, most of which will come out of my stash. For at least the past 30 years, the Club has done an auction. When DH and I met, they rented a tent and had the auction in the parking lot of our beloved Swanton Super Valu. That's where The Romantic picked up my engagement gift: a chain saw. No diamond for me, looooong story there. Then about 15 years ago, the club moved the auction inside, and it was still fun, but not as wacky as the parking lot ones. But the auction as they were doing it has run its course. This year they are going to try a higher class, $40/head affair. The local country club is donating the room, which is really, really nice of them. There will be grazing stations, silent auction, and afterwards dancing. We'll see how this goes. Swantucky really isn't a $40 a plate kinda town, but apparently ticket sales are going pretty well.

For the decorations, I sprung for some nice ultra-suede type stuff in wonderful, regal purple, which I've cut up into squares to put under centerpieces. If we don't monkey with the fabric a lot, it doesn't fray, so no sewing involved~~yea. I also went out and bought a ton of silver stuff~~several yards of a gauzy silver metallic material, all the after-Christmas silver ribbon I could find, silver beads, stuff like that. I own a ton of pressed glass candlesticks of all shapes and sizes (thank you, Goodwill) that we'll use all over. When BadAmy got married she used silver, crystally twig wreaths for center pieces and we have 8 or 10 of those still. So the plan is to make each center piece different, using all this stuff. And the best part of the deal is that I bartered an afternoon from BadAmy to come help. I helped wind the yarn for the first shipment of her yarn club, and in return she's gunna help decorate. She's awesome like that.

But wait there's more! Took DD to the U-Mich Hospital to discuss the results of his first round of tests. Yep, there's something wrong with him and it's not all in his head. In fact, his brain isn't connected to his butt, just like I've been saying for years. Maybe I'll pour out all the gory details in another post. Yuck. Poor kid. He needs one more test for the final diagnoses, and it involves putting him to sleep to check. Back to U-M.




But wait there's more! I actually squeezed a little sewing time in! I'm experimenting with more Kind Lady mug rugs. . . . . .

and ta-daaa! I got the
hobo sign wall hanging for DD's train club pieced together, have the batting and backing cut, and now just have to figure out how to quilt it. I'm thinkin' stitch-in-the-ditch for this one. And I got my Alpine Wonder quilt out of hock from the long-arm shop. I'm going to try to bind it myself. There's a great way to ruin a perfectly good quilt.

So the good news is (knock on wood) that none of us has any flu or serious cold type stuff. I imagine with the colder weather we'll all get hit soon.