Progress Reports

I am thrilled to be a member of the Stash Quilts Ring. I haven't posted since I found out Friday night, because I thought I should have somthing new and quilty to post for my first members post. I sewed all day yesterday and most of the morning today. This is what I have accomplished this weekend....


This is the center of the quilt I have been working on. I have most of the blocks pieced for the sides. Only 40 more to go until all is ready to be put together. I am really pleased with the progress so far. Think I did okay, I didn't lose too many points.







The princess has had her nose out of whack because I quit working on her quilt. So I decided today to work on it. I have 4 of 12 rows completed and assembled. I have the remainder of the midtone rows completed, only have 4 more light rows to complete and then borders. It is HUGE. It is going to end up "bedspread" sized for her queen bed. It is draped over the end of our queen sized bed now. I'm liking it again now that I have several rows assembled and can really see what it is going to look like.


My husband had an accident at work a month ago. A 7" grinder got away from him, and tore his left arm up. He had several tendons severed. His splint came off Wednesday. He likes to cook on Sundays, so guess who has to be his left hand these days??? He is starting ribs and sausage on the grill and is getting ready to make barbequed shrimp. I am going to make Crawfish Etoufee for my daughter as soon as the crawfish tails finish defrosting. I guess I am done sewing for today. Gotta play helpmate the rest of the day. I'll try to make the rounds of the ring this afternoon.

The AGONY of defeat

Gotta go to work today. No new car, no new house, and worst of all no twin quilt shops for me and my sister. Boo Hoo............ Another busted bubble. Off I go to THAT place...................

Dream Time

Tonight is the lottery drawing. I just know I have the winning ticket. 135 million dollars!!!!!!!!!! Tomorrow morning I will wake up early, call in to work and head to the lottery office. I will then go home, call my mortgage company and auto finance company and get the payouts on those bills and put them in the mail. Then I head to the Jaguar dealership to pickup my new car - I think I'll get a convertible, then to the Chevrolet Dealership to get that truck Brent has wanted for years. Now on to the real estate agents office to find me a piece of property to put a new house on, one with 2 master suites, one for me and DH and one for DD. Of course, it must have a HUGE sewing room with built in everything one could hope for.

That might take all day, so I guess the best will have to wait for Friday.......... Back to the real estate office. I must purchase 2 buildings, one in my home town and one in my sister, Nancy's. There will be 2 new quilt shops opening, one for each of us. We can each stock only the fabrics we like - and believe me, there would be few like fabrics in each. We do have different, but diverse tastes (Nancy - 30's prints are speaking to me loudly right now, maybe for the 3" blocks). There is absolutely nothing Nancy and I would rather do is be able to stroke and pet fabrics all day. And to get to make money at the same time???? Heck, with $137 million dollars, who cares if we make money, as long as we have fun. Nan, we may need David to develop the web page for our internet business, so tell him he is not left out of the plans. Brent can do the negotiating, he's good at that, he'll get us good prices on everthing.

Well, I guess that is enough of fantasy land. I think I will go pet some fabric, and maybe even sew some seams while I am at it. Got to get some projects completed, I have others SCREAMING at me...

Is it time to retire yet?

How do ya'll find time to work, watch kids, keep a house, cook, maintain blogs, visit blogs, post comments and still be able to quilt. You must be sacrificing sleep time, because I just can't figure it out. If I spend time posting, I can't sew. If I spend time "visiting" and "commenting" I can't sew. If I sew, I can't maintain the blog, visit and comment. Must be either the JOB or the sleep that is getting in the way. Would much rather give up the JOB and sit and quilt, blog and visit, but my family and I have gotten into this really bad habit of liking to sleep inside in the air conditioning and eating regular meals. Then there is the 17 year old that thinks if it doesn't come from Hollister (THANK GOD she works there), Ambercrombie or Victoria's Secret it cannot be put on her body. Think I can get her part time jobs at Ambercrombie and Vickie's Place to defray some costs???? Then throw into the mix that she is a varsity cheerleader and does pageants............


But this too shall pass. In 2 years, my darling Ashley will be a part-time resident, which means one less to cook for and clean up after; less laundry etc. She won't want mom around for pageants or shopping sprees as often. Guess I had better enjoy this time in my life, because it will be gone so soon and not return again. She made varsity cheerleader this year and was so proud. I made her this quilt to take to cheer camp. If you use a little poetic license the snail's trails look like pom poms. Her school colors are of course black and gold and her team is the Gators - hence the alligator fabric for the border and backing. She took a fabric marker with her and had all her teammates autograph the yellow blocks, so she has a true treasure to remember her first year on the varsity squad. I had a blast making it and MOST of my corners line up.

Had a hard day at work today, so I think I'll "visit" a while and go to bed.

Teaser - Part 2

Okay here is a picture of four rows of the center of the quilt. The fabric on the left is the inner border and the one on the right will be the outer border. Just can't get away from the black. It really does have all the other colors in it and I just had to have my bit of black.

Nancy, you may recognize some of the fabrics on this side of the Cotton Theory Table Runner from class last week. I believe some of them have lived at your house for YEARS.......... and some of them probably lived at Mama's longer than that.


This is actually the front side. It was made from fabrics that did not make the final cut for the Quirtain. It will match my Black and White dishes for everyday use.

All I have left to do is decide on the fabrics for the binding and manufacture that. Still thinking on that one. I may choose fabrics that are in the runner or decide on totally different fabrics. Figured I'd think on that one till this weekend. I may set it on my desk and put a different fabric on it each day to see what speaks to me loudest.

On a different note, this is the crown my daughter Ashely will compete for at state if she wins the local Sugar Queen Pageant in 3 weeks. She has already claimed it as hers.

Teasers

This is the inspiration for my "mystery project" . While visiting online shops for the Shop Hop, I came across this kit at Country Quilting. The pattern spoke to me loudly. They only had the kit for the pattern. I could not find just the pattern, so what is a girl to do. I don't have EQ so that was not an option. I tried using graph paper, but kept messing up and having to start over (guess I was being a little obsessive-compulsive). So I thought and thought and ERGO!!!!! the solution came to me in a flash. What about using an Excel spreadsheet. After all, I had printed the graph paper from a Works spreadsheet.......

So............. here is step 2 to my Mystery Project. I guess you can tell by the colored pencils, it is being done in dark red, green, tan. The inner border is a light yellowy/beige and the outer border is black with all the colors in it. I would post pictures of the completed blocks ( I have the inner blocks pieced but not yet assembled, but Queen Ashley hasn't come home yet today and she has the digital camera. I can see it is about time for us to become a 2 digital camera family. Maybe I will get her one for Christmas. Then I won't have to wait to use the camera.

Then came the fun part.... figuring out yardage on my own. Of course I screwed up royally and the first purchase only covered enough fabric for the center blocks. Purchase #2 bought the rest. They are all cut out ready for me to set the squares together and cut into the HST for assembly. Hope to work on it some this afternoon.

Friday night I worked on completing the Table Runner from the Cotton Theory class I took last week. Got it all assembled, now I just have to decide on the binding fabrics and manufacture the 2 sided binding. That is the hard part, since both sides are so different. One side if black and white, the other yellow/gold/tans and brown. Again, will post a picture when I get the camera.

Still haven't been able to sit down and complete Ashley's Quilt. Can't face those rows and rows of off white fabric. Maybe soon..........

Off to set up the sewing machine. Have been a good girl and almost done with the laundry. Now I get to play.

Gonna Give this a try

Think it's time I ventured into blog-world. Been communicating with my sister for several months in a private blog and visiting some of her blog-world friends through her blog site. I am a full-time nurse who would like to be a full-time quilter. I have rediscovered the sewing machine after many years away. I have sewed since I was a child, but when my daughter got old enough, that she no longer wanted "homemade" one of a kind dresses, the machines got put away. She is now 17 and in less need of mom, now that she has her driver's license and a car. Sooooooooo, what to do with all that time off, when I used to have to ferry her here and there?

My sister is an avid quilter or should I say piecer - her UFOs are numerous (I am working hard at catching up with her). She sent me a link to her blog site and seeing her beautiful creations inspired me to pull the machines out. I recently visited her in Texas and this is the gift I took her. She collects cats - or maybe they collect her. All the strays seem to know she has a soft heart and will not allow a cat to starve, so they keep coming. They have litters and she names them all.

Today, I have to get laundry done for the week. Yesterday I spent playing "Queen Mother". My 17 year old is the reigning Teen Miss Louisiana Cajun Queen. She was a visiting queen at one of the local pageants yesterday, so I joined her for the festivities. She will be competing in 3 weeks for the Sugar Queen Pageant in our parish and has decided she has to win, because she really wants the State Title and the Crown that goes with it!! This is a picture of her with her Miss Queen the day she won her first crown. She is the one on the right. funny enough, her Miss Queen, is also named Ashley, and they were both Contestant #3 in their divisions. She has been a great Miss Queen, giving my Ashley the confidence to compete now in the Miss Division. She competed in her first Miss Pageant a couple of months ago (her first interview which counted as 50% of the score) and placed 3rd. I am so proud of her. She is a very strong young woman.