2011 Project List

This list is not to be confused with the list I posted a few minutes ago.  This is a list of the projects I would like to work on/complete in 2011.  As you can see several of them have not even been started yet so they don't count as UFOs.  I will try to keep it current - I have already completed on project (I know - how hard can a tooth fairy pillow be?) and worked on another. 

 I plan to make a project list for knitting and cross stitch projects for 2011 also.  I just went down to Mass Ave Knit Shop with Stephanie on Tuesday and bought yarn for several projects - who can pass up the Deal of the Day or 30% off everything else?  I love to knit and I have more than enough to keep me busy for quite a while.

Well, I had better close and get to work.  Happy New Year to all.

Projects for 2011

Well, I have decided to jump in with both feet and enter Judy Laquidara's UFO challenge - I recently made up a 2011 Project List but several of the items have not yet been started.  Here are the 12 projects I will enter:

2011 PROJECT LIST

1.                  Quilt and bind Nancy Odom Thangles quilt for Clara

2.                  Quilt and bind pastel quilt for Jane

3.                  Complete assembly, quilt and bind Debbie Bowles quilt

4.                  Quilt and bind Christmas BOM quilt from early 1990’s (to Cyndia Gerner?)

5.                  Finish quilting and bind Debbie Bowles quilt

6.                  Finish assembling, quilt and bind snowman quilt (from Cincinnati retreat)

7.                  Finish assembling, quilt and bind convergence quilt

8.                  Add cording to blue and white pillow

9.                  Quilt and bind snowman quilt (five-yard quilt – to Kathy Yull; binding made)

10.              Quilt and bind fall wallhanging (to Kathy Yull?)

11.              Quilt and bind red/white/green quilt (to Paul Wycoff – binding made)

12.              Quilt and bind Thimbleberries Christmas wallhanging (binding made)

13.              Bind Thimbleberries snowman quilt (binding made)

I know - there are 13 but I figure I should push myself so I'll work on the one she doesn't choose before the end of the year. 

Now I just have to figure out how to link this post to Judy's blog before midnight.  Wish me luck.

Happy New Year to all of you.http://www.patchworktimes.com/2010/12/17/ufo-challenge-participants/

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a quick post to wish all a Happy Thanksgiving.  My daughter-in-law has the turkey stuffed and in the oven.  I'll be cutting up potatoes and veggies when I finish this post.  We'll eat ~5:00 and then head off to Michael's for some of their specials.

I have been knitting like crazy since I got here.  I have finished one of the five projects that I brought with me.  I just have to block and fringe it when I get home.  I am hoping to get the neck done on Jen's sweater before we leave for home.  I have been working on it for ~three years but managed to lose the instructions.  Susan at Mass Ave Knits (http://massaveknit.wordpress.com/) helped me with the missing parts and it is close to being done.

 Have a good day and get lots of sleep if you are planning to hit the sales tomorrow.

It's almost Turkey Day

Better late than never for my promised post.

I am currently at my son's house enjoying his three boys. Talk about a handful. The eight-year old is pretty independent and helpful. The five-year old is very loving unless he is not happy. He is definitely related to Miss Jenna! The two-year old is a riot. He is cutting his two-year molars so you can imagine how happy he is. Actually today was much better. He has a wonderful vocabulary: pips (chips), panpakes (pancakes), pease (please) and thank you when I can convince him to say it. He is a pretty picky eater so it is a challenge at meal times. Tonight Pop was here for the first time and, much to Mom's shock and surprise, he was able to get Alex to eat his hamburger after many refusals.

I have been busy while I have been here. I am knitting and stitching like crazy. No pictures of course since I am making presents for Christmas. They will follow.

Susan (my daughter-in-law) and I have been to two quilt shops. She is not a quilter but is just bowled over by all the fabrics and patterns that are available. She is quickly learning that each shop has different fabrics from the previous one and there are many, many choices. She picked out a pattern and fabric for a snowman quilt that she fell in love with - one of my projects for next year (I may have to make it twice!). She also bought some towels and a cute snowman border fabric. I will make teacher gifts and send them to her. I didn't bring my machine this time because I have to knit and stitch and because of the two-year old ('nuf said!). Now I wish I had just brought it along with some basic sewing supplies. Lesson learned!

I wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving and hope you are spending it with loved ones and friends. Please keep all of armed forces personnel in your thoughts on this day because without them we would not be able to live in our free country. My son has a good friend who is a doctor in the Army and is currently stationed in Baghram AFB in Afghanistan. I am following her blog - their living quarters are not nearly as cushy as some prisoners here in the US have and she works eight hours every day - more if necessary - a very challenging situation to say the least.

Don't Faint - I'm Still Alive!

I can't believe how quickly the time goes by. I am really remiss - I keep thinking I will post and then the day is gone.

I have been busy with lots of varied projects. I have been knitting, stitching and quilting. I don't have pictures of everything but will post a couple.

Here is a Kindle cover that I made for my friend Kay for her birthday in July.

I just finished a scarf this week but don't have a picture yet. I am working on a couple of gifts for Christmas so no pictures of them of course. :)

Since I last posted, I have been on a retreat in Shipshewanna and to Quilt Festival in Houston. The retreat was for four days and I finished/almost finished five projects. Boy, was I happy. We had a great time. Bonnie Hunter and Judy Laquidara were there as well as Jen and Loralei and Kathy from my bee. It was Loralei's first retreat and she is now a convert. We made way too many trips to Lolly's (a great fabric shop in Shipshewanna that also has a sale room downstairs that is better stocked than some shops!). I did well down there - I got backs for three projects and had fun digging through the boat full of fat quarters that are $1.75 each if you buy more than 12.
Here is a picture of our tablemates - Karen from California, Muffet from Chicago, Kathy, Loralei, Jen, Me, Judy and Elaine (hope that's right - I'm having a senior moment!). We laughed our way through the four days and look forward to getting together again. Unfortunately the four of us will miss next year's retreat since it is the same weekend as our guild's quilt show. I am chairing it and Jen, Loralei and Kathy all have key roles. We will definitely be signing up for the 2012 retreat ASAP.

Quilt Festival was as amazing as usual. Unfortunately my camera wasn't cooperative so I don't have many pictures. I wasn't crazy about the Best of Show quilt but there were enough others that were stunning. I loved the doll exhibit. I wish I had just a smattering of the creativity that these creators have! The miniature quilts are also impressive - I can't imagine keeping all of those small pieces together and then stitching them so that they look go good.

Now that I am back home I am trying to play catchup - a never ending task!! I have a piece to embroider for Jen but can't locate my embroidery foot. I am really careful about keeping my feet together (no smart remarks, thank you!) and am really aggravated that I can't find it. I will continue my search tonight after I get home from guild. Of course, the foot is clear so it will be a bit challenging at night.

That's it for now - I will try to post some more pictures soon and I will really try to get back into the habit of posting on a regular basis.

Christmas Is Getting Closer!

It's been a while since I posted (as usual) - can't begin to tell you where the time goes. I am keeping busy sewing, cross stitching and knitting. So many things to do, so little time.

I am the chair of our guild's 2011 Quilt Show so I've been working on setting up a committee. We have met three times and have gotten quite a bit accomplished. We have a location (same as the last two shows so that doesn't really count), dates (still sort of indefinite until we get the finalized fall break date from the school district), a theme and a raffle quilt pattern. I ordered the fabric for the quilt and it arrived yesterday. It is all batiks and should be really nice. One of the bees has volunteered to put it together and then I am hoping that one of the many skilled longarm quilters in the guild will volunteer to quilt it. I hope to have it ready by the beginning of October so that we have a year to sell tickets. I'll post a picture of it when it is done. I'll also include information about the tickets.

June was a very wet month in Indianapolis. We have ~12" of rain. Luckily our house is not near any waterways so we were high and dry. Others were not so lucky. The good thing for me is that I didn't have to water the new flowers that were planted - Mother Nature took care of that.

I was very fortunate to have Aljean, my friend of 35 years, finally come up for a visit. We had a really good time together and got a project finished and dropped off the the longarmer's in addition to going to bee, sewing with Kay, going to the NQA show in Columbus on a two-day road trip with five other friends and hitting nine quilt shops. Not bad for eight days. At the same time my friend Fran who is also a member of my Houston bee (as is Aljean) and her husband came for a couple of days.

I finished my Block of the Month quilt from 2007 or 2008. Don't have a picture of it yet - Jen is coming up later and she will take one.

I can't believe that it is July already. Jenna will be starting kindergarten in early August (she is going to year round school) and Collin will start later in the month. Andrew is going into third grade and Alex and Jack continue to grow like weeds. I guess I better get busy and think about projects for Christmas - it will be here before we know it.

Have a good 4th!

Retreat

It's been a week or so (actually two weeks but who's counting?) so I thought I would post about the retreat on which Jen and I went. (How's that for correct English?) We were supposed to go to a retreat in Ohio benefiting St. Jude's but the coordinator kind of screwed up and the day was lost. So much for that. Jen's husband was committed to keeping the kids so we decided to make our own retreat. We left on Friday morning and drove to Oldenburg, IN, where we had lunch at a German pub. Great sausage with sauerkraut!

We went on Cincinnati where we checked into a motel for the night. Jen got a great rate on Expedia. The employees just looked at us like we were nuts when we started wheeling in our stuff - two machines, a table, two bags of projects, bags with clothes and, of course, snacks and wine! We got set up pretty quickly and started to sew. Here are a couple of pictures:















We worked hard but stopped to have dinner (great Chinese) and spent some time with Jill who is in our Tranquiltity online group and lives in Cincinnati. It was great to see her again.



We got a late checkout on Saturday and then left for shopping and good food. We went to Aunt Ruth's Quilt Shop which just happened to be three storefronts from Roc-a-feller's. We went there for lunch and had outstanding pizza. We also made a stop at Aunt Ruth's that was very good. They had some great fabrics on clearance and I certainly took advantage of that. :)

After we left Aunt Ruth's we went to another shop where we didn't do hardly any damage. We then met Julie at Crate and Barrel. That is a very dangerous place for me. I bought a candle (don't tell Vic) and then went on to The Container Store. With a 20% off coupon for the entire purchase I really had a good time. I now have a new bookcase and Jen has some new bins for Jack and Jenna's toys. Then we all went back to Julie's and unloaded our stuff. Julie appreciates what we do so she didn't faint - especially after we promised to clean up before we left.

It was a great time - lots of sewing time while Julie caught up on her wedding website (Jenna is going to be her flower girl and is over the moon!). We went to The Green Papaya for dinner. It features Thai food - my second time and I didn't cry this time. It was delicious.

Jen made a donut run on Sunday morning and we sewed until 3:00 after taking a break for lunch and finishing up the Chinese from Friday night and the pizza from Saturday. We left for home ~4:00, made a quick stop at JosephBeth Booksellers (a fantastic book store in Cincinnati) and got home in time for Mike's ball game at 8:00.

All in all it was a great weekend. Lots of good fun, sewing and spending time with family. Hope we get to do it again soon.

Super Neat Weekend

Hi All,

I know - I haven't posted in a while - don't know where the time goes! Just a sign that I am getting older - sigh....................

Eric and his family arrived on Thursday - Jen has posted great pictures on her blog - here is the link --

http://quiltingmomsblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/happy-easter-from-all-cousins.html

We are having a good time - I just hope that Alex (the youngest) will acknowledge me before they leave tomorrow afternoon. It has been so much fun watching all the kids interact - they love the climbing structure and also the food. They have certainly made a dent in my pantry but who's complaining?!?!?!?!?

Happy Easter to all. :)

Choo Choo

Well, I finished my railroad quilt last night. Jen was up today and took pictures for me which are included in this entry. I am really pleased with the end result. The only thing I would change would be trimming my threads before it was quilted. With the white background there are a lot of threads from the red and black fabrics that show through. Most people will probably not notice them but you know how it is when we look at our own work. :)

I have included some closeup pictures of the quilting because I think it is really neat. Paul Wycoff is a wonderful longarm quilter - he is willing to take as much time as necessary to come up with a good design. We always have a good time choosing patterns. Sometimes it goes really quickly - other times is is challenging but he is always patient and helpful. I got the blocks from Fennell Artworks in Arcadia, IN, and came up with the setting myself - much to my surprise!

Finally Pictures

I have finally downloaded pictures from my camera and my Pay It Forward gifts and the pincushion swaps have been received so now I can post pictures.

The market bags were quick to make up using Quiltsmart.






The pincushion swap was fun and quick. I have posted pictures of the pincushions I sent and the ones I received. The small one on my finger is great. A friend in my Houston bee made them for us when we went on a retreat. I am now addicted and cannot sew without it. It is so handy.

















Thanks, Rosie, for the pincushions you sent. They are perfect and look great in my sewing room.

This was a fun swap in case you are looking for something quick and easy to do with your bee or guild. Just google "free pincushion patterns" and you will have tons of patterns from which to select.

A Visitor

Yesterday Jenna took her parents took Kindergarten roundup - yes she is going to be five already! Mr. Jack came to visit us and have dinner with Pop. I think he had a good time because he got to do exactly what he wanted to do with no directions from his big sister. :)

Here is a picture of him reading the toy catalog. It is one of his favorite things to do when he has a chance.

I'm Hooked

I just thought I would let all of you know that I am absolutely hooked on the Olympics so I am not doing any quilting right now. I am working on a pair of socks and will start a hat for Jen. I figure I will not put a needle through my fingernail while watching if I am knitting! I will be doing something upstairs tomorrow before the Olympics come on. Don't expect much for the next two weeks. :)

Pay It Forward

Today I finished my pay it forward items. I will take pictures and post them after the recipients receive them. My plan is to get them in the mail on Monday.

I am now working on a pincushion that I am making for a swap on my Quilting in Indiana group. I think it will be cute and will post a picture of it after it is received.

I guess you could call this my mailing week - I have also made a Girl Scout pillowcase for my first "grand Girl Scout." I was a leader for 12 years and still am in contact with most of the girls who were in our troop. Melissa's daughter Nora is in kindergarten and is a Daisy Girl Scout. When I saw the Girl Scout fabric I knew that I had to make a pillowcase for her. Hope she likes it. Here it is:

A Neat Gift

A couple of weeks ago, Jennifer gave me something that looked like a washcloth with something in it. She explained that it was a footwarmer. I was to heat it in the microwave for two minutes and it would make my feet warm. Wow! It works. Of course, the house smells like cooked rice but it certainly makes my feet warm. If you have cold feet, I can't recommend this enough. :)

The Loss of a Good Friend

This has been a hard week for me, my daughter and my bee. We have lost one of our founding members. She went in for a surgery that was not supposed to be very serious but there were other complications after the surgery that she could not overcome.

I first met Lois about five years ago when we both joined the bee that was formed by a group who were interested in making blocks. She and I hit it off right away and enjoyed the challenges of making the different types of blocks requested. Of course, she was a much more experienced quilter than I so she really had a head start on me.

We traveled to quilt shows together and became good friends. We co-chaired one of the day groups for our guild and then co-chaired the Program Committee. That was really fun as we enjoyed researching information for speakers and looking for good ones to bring to the guild. We worked on the guild quilt show together last year and we were looking forward to working together on the 2011 show which I am chairing.

Lois was a wonderful friend and I will miss her greatly. Who else can I call at midnight and talk about the seam that isn't working or the missing book? We spent lots of time talking about my grandkids Jenna and Jack whom she adored.

Farewell Lois - I know you are up there teaching Betsy Ross how to use a rotary cutter and mat.

Is Christmas Over Already?

It seems like it was just a short while ago I was finishing up and wrapping presents. Now it is 2010, I am a year older and the holidays are behind us. Wow! Where does the time go?

The pillowcases were for Jack and Jenna (Jen's kids). They were very pleased but since I made the digger pillowcase for Jack he has turned into a "Cars" kid. I'll keep looking for this fabric I guess.

My son was really impressed with the pictures in his wallhanging. They were taken in 1990 - long before there were digital cameras. I just copied the pictures I had on to fabric and went on from there. It was fun to make and I knew I had to do it when I first saw the Boy Scout fabric.

Here are a few pictures of presents I made:

Pay It Forward

Several months ago, Jen posted on her blog that she would send a gift to the first three people who responded to that entry. I was one of the lucky three and this is what I received:


It is the neatest bag - it holds all of my sewing supplies that I take with me when I travel to workdays, friend's homes or other places to sew. It is big enough to hold my 4"x7" ruler, scissors, thread and much more. It has handles on the end so it is really easy to grab when my hands are full.

Now I will continue Pay It Forward. The first three people who comment on this entry will receive a gift from me. They must then do the same thing. It doesn't have to anything terribly difficult; just something that is fun to make and that another person will enjoy.

I look forward to hearing from you.