Aidan's Quilt

Aidan and his mom Amanda at Christmas opening presents. I made a flannel throw for him and he seems to be enjoying the wrapping paper more than the present. I kept the pattern really simple and quilted it with the stipple pattern. I give simple gifts usually because if they get to fancy no one wants to use them. I think all quilts should be loved especially the one's I make for children.

It's COLD outside!

I stepped out at 7:00a.m. this morning to let the dogs out. (I really just opened the door) Oh my it's cold outside! Realized Josh was sitting at his computer and the house was quiet, he informed me 10:00a.m. start for school, then I really opened my eyes and looked outside, it was a total whiteout. (in the dark) I couldn't see past the secrurity light in the yard and the wind was blowing so hard I'm not sure the kids could of walked to the bus even if it came on time. It's crazy how it was so warm yesterday and today is so cold. Gotta love Nebraska! Guess our Janurary thaw was a short one this year. It don't look like the rest of the week will be much warmer either, I have to haul corn sometime and I just can't make myself go out in this weather. So I am going to call the elevator and see if the scale is fixed,(it broke just before I got there yesterday and I had to go to the fertilizer plant to weigh the truck) and maybe I can talk myself out of the house and into the weather. If not I am going to clean and sew. I'm thinking laundry and maybe move some things to get ready to install cabniets in my kitchen. Kevin is installing cabniets and building a small bookshelf on the far wall in the kitchen for more storage. He has finally accepted that I need more room for all my junk.

This is my truck, I spend a lot of time in my truck, I love my truck.....ok I know that's silly but since I'm the hired hand on the farm I really appreciate a vehicle that does what it's supposed to do and doesn't give me a lot of stress. I know I don't haul as much as some people and I'm slow but someday all the corn will get to town! So when no one can find me and I don't get any sewing done ya can blame it on the truck! (I do get some reading done when I'm sitting in line at the elevator if I don't forget the book on the outside of the truck and run it over...)

2007 Quilting Total

2007 was a busy year for me and my quilting machine! It would of been better if I didn't quit for surgery in early December but some things just can't be helped.

1. Charity (given by myself ) 13


2. Charity paid 6


3. Family 9


4. Mine 5


5. Gifts 29


6. Paid 46


7. Friends 7

Total 115

I gave away alot of baby quilts and Christmas quilts this year as the total shows. I only kept 5 things I quilted for myself this year, I think I need to change that and do more for myself. I will have more for charity this year as I took on Project pink with the Heartstrings Yahoo group . I think I will write about my goals for 2008 in a later post.

Birthday Party

Happy Birthday to me! (ok just a month late)

Maxine sharing her party with me. (and half of Susie in pic)

Seven ladies made this huge dent in the fabric at the shop. I'm impressed with the empty bolts!

Friday night Quilters Candy Shoppe in O'Neill held a Birthday party for Maxine and I. We decided to have our party together so we could invite everyone in the Orchard Quilters Group. We really had a great time shopping and eating cake. The presents were great too! The brown and pink fabric's were bought by Linda and me, we both saw a quilt on Maryquilts.blogspot.com/ and we both loved it so she picked them out and I just had Julie cut me some too. Mom bought Aunt Gracie repo's, she is doing a row by row quilt on Stashbuilders Yahoo Group. Luanne bought more of her fabrics for a swap the quilt shop is hosting. Maxine must of had something in mind but I don't know what cause none of her fabric's matched each other. I do know the green fabric in the pic (frogs and snails) will be for a young man who loves bugs and such. Julie does a great job hosting the party and I really appreciate her taking time to indulge us.

Kristin's Happy Quilt

I worked on this quilt yesterday while snowed in, this pic is the quilt inprogress. I did get it together and ready to quilt except for binding, not sure what color I want and I know I don't want to use the border fabric for binding. i used up all my black for another quilt so I'm thinking I will take it with me to the quilt shop friday night and pick out something new. My bright stash is so small I don't think I can even do binding out of it! Mom gave me the Happy Blocks and this one Kristin helped her pick out the fabric so I guess it will be her's. Not that she needs another quilt but thats what quilters do, they make quilts and they give them to people they love. I don't care if she has 10 already.....

Moving Cattle

Just getting ready to leave the house and this is what I found at the end of my driveway....looks like I won't go anywhere for awhile! Oh well, I really didn't want to get out in the cold and load corn right now anyway, rather sit here at the computer and look out on the cold day. I do think its about 20degree's now and the wind is not blowing much so maybe the predicted warm front is moving in. After the last few days 35 will feel like a heat wave!

Ok the cats looked so cute sitting together on the

porch rail that I had to snap their pic too. They seem to be doing alright with the cold weather but I'm sure they would be happier inside.

Snow Day

Yesterday was a snow day at our house. That means nobody does anything or goes anywhere. Kevin stayed home and played World of Warcraft with the boys so that meant I couldn't get anywhere near the computer. The girls held down the couch most of the day with the T.V. on. I thought it was really stupid that the kids got to school and by 8:15 a.m. they were sending them back home! UGHHHHH! So I spent the day in my studio working on UFOs. I put together Happy Blocks for Kristin from Mom's stash, bordered Sara's purple string quilt, made pillowcases, and a valance for her window.(used every bit of the purple star fabric I bought special for the quilt) added a border to the black and bright string quilt and made backs for all 3 of the quilts. I also whipped up a small baby quilt that I've had kitted up for a year. I didn't get the quilting room warm enough to quilt yesterday so I will probably wait till the weekend to get the machine going. I also cut squares and sashing for the animal baby quilt I'm working on for Grandma Allen. Woke up this morning thinking about sewing the corner squares on the blocks and how lazy I was in not wanting to draw a sewing line diagonal across the back of them. I will probably see if I can eyeball it and sew straight and forget the line. Hehehehe I am a lazy sewer! I also decided yesterday I have to get over my thing of finishing something before I take pictures, maybe if I posted unfinished pic's on here I would be more motivated to finish the project. Yesterday was a pretty good day in the scheme of things sewing wise I guess. I don't feel like I'm getting very far when I look around the studio though, I have alot of UFOs and alot of junk to sort and store. I guess I will just have to buckle down and clean one of these days...........

Yellow & Blue String Quilt

I joined a block swap on Stashbuilders Yahoo Groups last year and this is one of the swaps. 6.5" string blocks in a certain color palette every other month. I am really happy with the way it turned out. I did'nt buy any new fabric for this quilt so the back is really scrappy too. I usually don't sew with alot of blue or yellow so I really had to dig in my stash for this quilt. This is another one I gave away at Christmas. I also have a bright and black quilt like this done except for borders and the scrappy blocks are being traded this month. I really enjoy this swap but depending on what I deside to do for a job I might not be trading much in the next year.

Shyann, Kristin and Jill 2008 Kristin, Jill and Shyann 2003

I am so proud of my daughter and her cousins. They are all 17 this year and two of them are seniors. Kristin is planning on attending a Christian College(she's looking at 3 or 4 at the moment) and majoring in secondary education. Jill is planning on attending Wesleyan College and majoring in psychology. Shyann is a junior and she says she don't know what her plans for college are yet.

Patriotic Happy Quilt is another from my mom's Happy Block stash. She started with the center 4" squares and sent them to people on the list and they sent them back with 2" borders added. I set them with squares of the center fabric to calm down the look and added a navy border then the center fabric again to finish. I think it turned out nice and very masculine. We gave it to my cousin Adam for Christmas this year.

Charity work

One of my favorite things to do is make quilts for charity. Last year a new yahoo group formed with one goal. To make charity quilts with string blocks and donate to local and national charities. http://heartstringsquiltproject.com/ is a fantastic group with wonderful people coming together to sew and quilt for those lest fortunate. I took on the October special project last fall, it was called Project Pink. The group members sent me pink and white quilt blocks or blocks with the center string being pink. They also sent tops, backing and labels. I have been slowly putting tops together this last month and I will start quilting them in the next month. (I have not been out to my quilting studio to work in 6 weeks due to surgery in December) My husband did bring in my machine and I work on things a little at a time. I estimate 16 to 20 quilts for Heartstrings when I am done. The next special project is children's quilts for Project Linus or other children's charities.

The picture is of the blocks donated and sent to me from all over the U.S. I have them in piles of 35 or with border fabric. Not sure if they will all end up as planned but it's a start!

Happy Quilt

My mom was in the Stashbuilder Happy Block swap last year. She desided she is not a scrappy quilt maker so she gave me all her Happy Blocks. (like enough for 10 or so quilts!) My daughter Kristin set these blocks together and I quilted it and we gave it back to mom for Christmas. She was really suprised, the look on her face was priceless as she recognized the backing fabric when she opened it up, took her a minute to realize what it was and what we had done. The funniest thing though is we didn't finish the quilt completely, we left her the binding to do. (she does most of my hand binding) I know she really liked her quilt because she has the binding done and she has been showing it off already!

New Blog

Ok here it goes....since everyone else has a blog I guess I have to be a follower and get one too! Not sure I have alot to say or post but it might be fun and it will be a good way for friends and family to see what I'm up too.