New babies

This is what we've been playing with this week, they are soooooooooooo cute!Hard to believe they will be a week old tomorrow. Sammy and Sadie are doing just fine as parents again. (like Sammy has a hard job!) Tonight they will be named when Sara's friend Kaylee comes to visit, Sara promised she could name one of them so we've been waiting.

Heart quilt

I spent today messing around in my studio. I know this pile of blocks don't look like much but it takes a long time to iron, cut and fuse these into place. There are 30 10.5 inch blocks with hearts fused on them and enough strips cut to border each block and binding. My quilt should end up to be 70x80 or so. I am taking it to the next Orchard Quilters meeting, hopefully someone will take it off my hands and do the sewing part. I love the planning and cutting part of a quilt but get bored before I get them done so I decided to just "plan" a quilt or two. I hope the girls like this heart quilt, I only planned on making a few blocks but I got a little carried away and ended up making blocks for the whole quilt.

My studio never really warmed up today and my sewing machine is broke so cutting and ironing took up the whole day. I did plan to quilt something but never got around to it.........sometimes I just have to play.

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is alive and well living at my house. The 1970's version, not the "new" Doctor. Kristin worked on this scarf a lot before Christmas, in fact she got so sick of it she made it somewhat shorter than the pattern called for. I think it could easily have 40 plus hours in it......wow! I shopped for the yarn a couple of years ago when my brother asked for a scarf not knowing how hard it is to find 1970's colors in all the same type of yarn. Well all Kristin's hard work paid off and Josh loved his present.

Christmas/New Year

Oh how funny my kids seem to think they are.............someday they will look back and wonder about themselves.

Don't ya just love a Christmas Eve jammies photo ?

Kristin and Sara ready for Church.

Oh and here's a pic of them opening an early present from their grandma Flicsha............don't they look thrilled to get towel and dishcloths?

My grandma Allen always made buckeyes at Christmas, now Kristin had taken up the tradition. Oh they are sooooo good!

Time flies when your having fun....least that's what they say....whew I had ALOT of fun then. I'm not sure where the month of December went, all I know is it's the 1st of January already and I'm in shock. Kristin has been home for two weeks and we have been busy cooking and making gifts. I decided about the middle of December I would not nag my children to clean house........well it's getting a bit deep here but nobody is complaining and I'm a much calmer Mom. Ok they have cleaned some, gotta have dishes to eat off of and clothes to wear. I will start getting mean and grouchy after they go back to school, until then I'm ignoring it all. Kristin has me slaving away in the studio this new year, she decided to make gifts for some friends who are graduating in the spring, I will come back with pic's as soon as they are done.

star quilts and charity quilts

This is my class sample, I made it to show the steps for the class. I will add a pink border when I get back to work. ( the bolts of fabric around the bottom and side are being auditioned for borders, I finally decided on the pink)

This is my students star. I think she did a great job and I love the colors! It will have borders left over from the star center also.

I am still working on Project Pink quilts. I gave this one to my Mother-in-law to do the binding on. She will donate it to the Indian Reservation along with the one shown below.

This string quilt was an Orchard Quilters project last year. Wanda got it set together and I did the quilting, she will finish it (it is finished) and send it off tomorrow night when she attends a program at church for the Indian Reservation.

Today I am snowed in, that's the only reason I had time to sit down and do any blogging, I am on a deadline before Christmas! I have hats to knit, scarves to crochet, quilts to quilt.
Ba-humbug!!!!!

long time.......

I made a cute little bag last week for my Sister-in-law for Christmas. It holds 8 balls of yarn and long enough to hold knitting needles too. My original plan was to have the pockets on the inside (someone sews backwards). I liked it wrong side out so I left it, sometimes I end up with good mistakes.

While Mom was here for a week we did a little sewing. This is one of two bowls we made, she added beads to the openings around the rim of the bowl after I took this pic. It's made with the selvage of satin fabric leftover from a batch of table runners I cut for a wedding. The variegated thread is Christmas colors. Mom needed a grab bag gift for her fiber arts group in Arizona.

While we were making bowls I did this little candle mat. This was my grab bag gift for FCE. (Extension Club) I think it has multiple uses......candle mat........mug rug........frisbee for the dog.......

My little brother is doing well after his accident. The truck not so well.....Kelsey was thrown out and his friend Alex took a few tumbles in this...(5 rolls they are guessing) Kelsey will have a long recovery but he's alive and still kicking.

A bright spot in the last few weeks, Josh's play. It was really cute and the kids did a good job too. I know he's relieved its over, now it's on to speech!

long week

Here's a pic of the progress on my Brother-in-law Brian's house. They have also installed the beam that goes along the roof line for the vaulted ceiling. Today they are tearing out the last of the old bathroom. I also heard talk of installing the basement windows. I know the wood stove has been set in place also, I will take more pic's later.

Quilt group gave my Mother-in law Wanda a quilt last week. It's been a long summer with all the problems my father-in-law has had and the group wanted her to know they are thinking of her. Linda did a wonderful job of setting and quilting, it really means a lot to me that they thought of Wanda, Thanks Quilt group!

Oh here's a pic of dinner today, ok I made this one a week ago and liked it so much I am making it again today. I heard the recipe on the Splendid Table on NPR. It's Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good. Yeah that's the name of it............how can ya go wrong with bacon, garlic and heavy cream? Oh and cheese!! It's fun to make and yummy too!

I spent the first part of the week in Omaha with my brother, he was in a car accident. He's doing fine now but it was questionalble for awhile. My Mom flew in from Arizona and she stayed in Omaha after Kelsey left with his girlfriend so I will be going to pick her up tomorrow and then swing by Orange City for Kristin. I'm glad they both had flexible schedules so I didn't have to make two trips this week. I am looking forward to seeing Kristin and having my Mom here for Turkey Day.

no pictures

This will be a very boring post......no pictures. I am having computer problems and my computer nerd is busy being general contractor on his brother's house. So until something on this thing makes him mad it will be broke, just like the plumber's wife with the broken pipes.....
Tomorrow we go see Kristin and her play she is stage manager for. Looking forward to seeing her, and the play.
I made some crochet squares for charity while watching movies with the kids, yesterday was a total waste of a day-migraine, ugh!!! So after I slept it off I sat in my chair with my fuzzy blankie and some yarn, I am really not very good at granny squares but ya know they say practice makes perfect.
Work today was interesting, I am cutting off 6 inch strips of all the sale fabric so it can be scanned and put on the Internet for sale. I didn't get as far as I would of liked because I was BUSY! Lots of sewers out and about today.....it was a good day! I really enjoy customers and helping with their projects.

sneak peak at Christmas

Here's my sneak peak at Christmas presents! I'm doing a kitchen theme this year. I know I never buy myself new towels and hot pads when I wear mine out, so I'm thinking these will make useful presents. I like to make things people can use or need, nobody needs more knickknacks.... so towels, scrubbies, hot pads, dishcloths, and food mixes in jars is my main plan.

I picked up this fabric at the Log Cabin in Omaha last time I was there, just love the quilty Santa's. I think I did pretty good making two FQ's stretch this far.

Oh and I did these with one FQ. I know I'm a bit late jumping on the cupcake bandwagon, everyone else has 'been there-done that' but my gift receivers will love them anyway.

This little wall hang was a quilt group project, well it's finally finished! It's been laying on top of a pile for quite awhile now, and started a few years ago......all I had to do was machine quilt it. I probably will give it away for Christmas too. I seem to have gift giving on the mind since Halloween is over. I know there is another holiday between the two but I really don't care much for it so this year I'm ignoring it. Oh don't get me wrong, I'm excited that Kristin will be home for it, but that's about it.........Kev told me he's roasting a hog this year, I told him to have fun planning and cooking the rest of it too. Ha Ha Ha! So if I get a bit grumpy between now and then ya all know why.

sneak peak

Yes I'm channeling my 1980's dusty rose loving self...........This will be a Double Irish Chain for my king size bed. I had the medium rose print in my stash and when I took it to class Roseanne picked the dark print to go with it. I really like pink and now I'm excited to be making something for me! Yeah I know I'm behind on my decorating colors but in my bedroom I tend to go for the romantic girly look, tan, cream, pink, rose, burgundy......a little lace and lots of girly stuff on my dresser. (now if I could figure out how to make the huge tv a bit more feminine.......

I got the Christmas quilt done for work, there are two kits, yeah only two, one like this shown and another with the floral as the border. I'm happy with it and I hope the kits go fast so I can bring it home before Christmas. there was enough scraps to trim a couple pillowcases too.

I got this out of a book called Mostly Christmas, it has some cool tree skirts in it too.

My puppies

This is Samantha and Patches, they are 5 months old now and ready for new homes. Shih-tzu dogs are pretty calm and loving.

Patches is a tri-colored female.

Samantha is a black with white female

They loved to be held, and they love to be outside during the day. I have taken them both for a pick-up ride and they just sit on the seat, no jumping or trying to escape.

Samantha will be like her daddy, hard to get a good picture of because of her color.......their fur is just long enough now to put a bow in (should of done that for the pic!) they love cats and other dogs. Shots are current and vet said no problems with the nose and sinus. They don't bark much and they sleep in the kitchen. They don't shed like a regular dog, it's more like they lose hair like a person so they do need to be groomed twice a year or so. I give baths about every three weeks. I do brush them and they don't seem to mind except for trying to eat the brush.

work and play

I would like to thank Trish from my Heartstrings group for this little quilt, if you look close you can see Raggedy Ann and Andy. I am going to send this off to a reservation to keep a little one warm this winter.

Here's a couple more heading off this week also, just as soon as I find the "blanket lady" Barb here in town. I took these pic's in my Mom's building, don't ya just love the carpet?

While my Mom was here in October we made matching baby quilts that are now on display at Quilters Candy Shoppe. Hers is the blue and mine is the red. She has a baby to give hers too in December, mine don't have an intended home as of yet..........2 kits of each left at the store.

Last but not least is my favorite, well favorite this week anyway. I had the fabric line and pattern name memorized but my Swiss cheese brain has lost the information........well anyway it's at the shop and soon (when the kits sell) I will bring it home to live in my living room or on the end of my bed or most of the time on the laundry room floor!

I have a Christmas quilt started for the store, it should be done this week or next. I also started a Double Irish Chain in pink and white for my bed. Roseanne is teaching a class and I'm sure the only way I would ever get one done is to be held accountable to her and my fellow classmates. Besides its time for a new quilt in my room AND I'm using stash fabric. ok.... so it will look like a 80's/90's throwback.........yes its almost dusty rose..........but I like it and that's what matters in my little quilty world.

my kids

Josh, Brad, Kristin and Sara (Patches, Sammy, Samantha and Sadie) oh and Patches and Samantha need a new home if anyone out there is interested.

And this pic is to prove that my boys do occasionally smile..........

halloween

ok, so I like Halloween...........Brad helped me with my costume this year, I started it for Sara but she ended up wearing Grandma Allen's vintage cocktail dress (sorry no pic's) I had Brad standing in the kitchen with his arms out so I could hotglue this mess together. As you can tell my husband is not real impressed with my craftiness.............

We had a good time but I think I'm getting to old to wear costumes..........

Something quilty

When I was at the Log Cabin I found this panel and decided to make my house a Halloween quilt. I brought it back and also got two kits made for work. I like whimsy Halloween and this is my kind of cute. Oh and it was fast too, I don't' ever put a lot of time into seasonal quilts like this, I'm into instant gratification during the holidays! I'm also working on another sample for work but it's going to take me a bit longer to finish than I thought, there was a fair amount of ripping going on yesterday afternoon! I promised to have it done by the 20th so I'm planning a sewing day(or evening) here pretty quick to finish it up.

new project

This is the building my mom bought when she was here last week. It's going to keep me busy for a long time! The front don't look to bad and it has a new roof...........the rest of it is in need of some TLC and some $$$.

This is where my demo team decided to start. It's a back porch built on the end of the building. My little brother says he can save it so we started the clearing and tearing for him.

I'm just showing the corner where we started in the pic's, the window behind Kristin is falling in and the siding is all but rotted away. I did a quick patch job under the window so no critters would come visiting tonight. (don't ya love the duct tape holding the outside walls together?)

We took two pickup loads out today......

Kristin found another hole, this one is where the duct tape gave out about 6 feet or so up the wall. She's standing on a chair for this pic. The brick is the building next door!

Tomorrow Kelsey will be here and he's gonna help me with a few little fixes, I have some door locks to change and he's gonna have to patch this hole up just a bit.

I am so glad Kristin came home for Fall break, I've missed her and she's also good help.

crazy two weeks

A lot has happened in the last two weeks. My Mom bought a building and we moved her stuff into it, remodeling is imminent.......I am tired and out of shape! I'm working more at the bar(heading there in about 5 minutes) and will have two days at the quilt shop this week. After taking Mom to the airport Tuesday morning I went back to the motel and enjoyed a morning nap then I made my way over to the Log Cabin Quilt Shop in La Vista. I spent a good two hours there visiting with the boss and checking out everything in her shop. It was so nice not having anyone bugging me while I looked around........'are you done yet' .........'can we go now".........'what do you need that for?' I also brought home a few things to make samples, oh I'm excited! I will be back to this blog in the next week with things to show off! It's a good thing I have to go to work at the quilt shop tomorrow........sample time!

October

Mom's here from Arizona for two weeks so on our visit to see Kristin at college we went to the pumpkin patch. My teenager's are funny..........can't ya tell by the pic's?

We saw the children's play at Northwestern it was Asian Folktales. I always enjoy the productions they put on, very well done and the actor's are great. Ate the best Chinese food before heading home too.I really enjoyed the day with the kids and my mom.

I have been battling the after affects of the flu for a week now. It took a Dr. appointment to finally kick it, ugh! I hate being sick! I'm not working at the motel anymore, I can't work full time, keep my quilting and my kids happy and get anything done around the house so something had to go.........(didn't think I would give up quilting did ya? and the kids are to hard to get rid of..) So I'm back to a day at the quilt shop, and a few shifts at the bar. When I fully get over being sick I have big plans...........hehehe........oh and helping my mom this next week will keep me busy I'm sure!