Sewing, and On Line Puzzles

Cameron's Cowboy quilt

I think I've been decompressing since school let out on Friday noon. Open House went well, with 8 live baby chicks by Friday night. No pictures of the little guys, though, I seemed to forget my camera in all the work of the week! Overtime was put in for the last 2 weeks and some on a Saturday. Friends & a certain Grandma of a student this year helped with setting displays out during the day. My sweet Larry helped me in the classroom Wednesday night until 7:15 pm, and that made it so I could go home at 1pm (we had 1/2 day on Thursday of Open House), rest and come back to greet parents and students of this year and previous ones, plus upcoming students.
It's a really fun night, I look forward to it ~ after all the preparation is over!



So, one deadline was this quilt for Ginny's grandson Cameron, whose birthday happened to be on, you guessed it, that busy Friday, 4/22.


Really, I was doing fine meeting all the required dates ~I know why they call 'em d.e.a.d.l.i.n.e.s. ~ until the infamous neckpain of week one of April, and the next weekend 4/16 held sewing machine troubles of HUGE proportions ~ I'm telling you, there was crying and gnashing of teeth that Saturday!!!! ~ so, I was literally sewing each night until I brought this finished quilt to Ginny on Friday morning. Yea! I did it!

finished quilt and pillowcase!

But, here is the rant of said Saturday, I can speak of it and laugh only now (but stay out of the warpath that day, lol). I need more bobbins for my Grandquilter, and I cannot go just anywhere to purchase said bobbins. I had tried on 3 occasions to get some at the local Pfaff dealer, somewhat disappointed in their service. Oh, well, I thought, I'll go online, and I ordered through ebay the size needed for what was said to be Pfaff Grandquilter bobbins. Don't you know they were a great price? They came within the week of ordering, too. You do see where I'm going with this, I did NOT have the proper bobbins, but duh...it took me all day (yes, from 11am to 8pm) to trace the top breaking thread back to the bobbin trouble.

• I oiled and re-oiled.
  
• I cleaned the machine out again.
  
• I changed the needle 3 times
  
• (who knows, maybe the 2 needles from the first box were a bad batch?).
  
• I re-threaded again and again,
  
• including changing the thread 4 times.

I took breaks from sewing in between my over the top frustrations, too.

• I cooked a pan of yummy from scratch cheese enchiladas
• I made a great broccoli salad
  
• (cutting everything up in iddy-biddy pieces, frustration spurred work, lol)
• I laid down for 20 minutes.
  

At 8:15 pm, (yes peoples, I EARNED my name pokey) when that stupid top thread had broken more times than I can count ~ seriously, as much as 4 times in an 8 inch square ~ and I turned the quilt on one more agonizing turn, and saw...

• a 2 inch pleat sewn into the back, two passes of the machine back
  
• (which translates into about 12 inches of ripping that now must be done)
• boo.hoo.

Lydia came home about that time and was worried about my crying (everyone was gone that day, another reason I was giving in to the tears, I guess) and she said my sewing pauses were apparently NOT long enough to stem the frustration (made me smile), and we started tracing the problem back to... those new bobbins. I needed to talk to another seamstress to figure it out. She also told me it's "buyer beware" on ebay, (I'm so trusting), and how she had bought Swarovski crystals that were everything but the real deal.

When I got up on Sunday morning, Larry teased me and said, "What do you know, the sun came up again. It's a new day." I thanked God for the new day, the new beginning and my loving family. I started ripping out that afternoon after church.

I think the fussy cut horse squares were one of the best parts of this quilt!

Now, I'm working on Ginny's quilt for grandson Weston, her firstborn gs.

Truthfully, this was her first pieced top, but we were meeting the birthday deadlines, and Weston's quilt was waiting for the early May date.



On Ginny's projects, she has been doing the sewing of the tops, and I bring in the completions with the backing, quilting and binding.

I love the blue variegated thread showing up on the solid squares!

We make a pillowcase to match. She pays me, though, and I get to quilt as desired.

I'm quilting this one in scrolls, and the directions I'm following are from Wendy's blog post here. Wendy's projects are beautiful, and she encourages and inspires many of us!

King Tut from Superior Threads.

And the puzzles I mentioned? I've always enjoyed a good puzzle, and Sue of Featherstone Quiltworks posts her own puzzles through Jigzone. Sue takes some of the prettiest photos of wildlife, mostly birds, you've ever seen. The puzzles are addicting....

So, the Easter break is on day three now, I'm quilting an new design, and doing puzzles. Tomorrow we're joining our friends Beth and Jerry for a few days in Big Bear before it's time to go back to school on Monday. I talked a lot today, sorry for the rant. What are you doing? I hope it is creative, and refreshing to your soul.

Psalm 9:1 "I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will show forth all Thy marvelous works."

Here is another treasure from Virginia, well, really from Japan.
My family lived there when I was a kid, Daddy was stationed in
Japan and served in Vietnam for 4 years.
Daddy bought 2 of these 9 foot by 6' tall screens,
and Happy and I each have one now.
Mine is beautiful in our dining room.

I Could Get Used to This. . .

Oh, how I love a Monday off from school! I am hoping for a sewing day, but it's 9 a.m. and so far I've cooked breakfast, packed Larry's lunch (he reminds me that most jobs do not close for a holiday such as President's Day- gee, sorry Dad - not really *vbg*), washed and put away the dishes (okay, so the dishwasher did the biggest part of that!), and read and commented on a few hundred blogs (oh, how I love that!). I still need to get to the thrift store, (if I get what I waited to go on teacher discount for, I'll share later), go to the grocery store and then...I'll sew.

I did take these photos to share today. This is a rocker that Happy brought to me from the Virginia homestead. We grew up in the Air Force, which is to say, we lived in many places, and our Dad traveled to even more.

The small picture shows both rockers.

Happy took one on with him to his home.

I cannot help but think of him when I look at mine :-}

This was one of two rockers that Daddy purchased on an extended trip to Peru. He said he watched these "monks" spin the wood with a bike pedal style lathe, and they would hold a string with their hands and teeth, and spin the ribbed designs into the wood.

Is it true? I do not know. You'd have to know my Dad, I grew up with stories from him like, "...When I was a little girl...", or, "...Back when I rode horses on the open range with Tex Ritter..." ...no kidding, Daddy had the best stories.

Both chairs are in good condition, probably because there are other chairs more comfortable, lol. In our folks home in Anchorage, Momma had stylishly decorated with one of the rockers on display on top of a closet in a tall foyer entryway.

My photos were actually waiting on me giving the wood a good cleaning and conditioning, which happened this Saturday (finally!). My chair is now sitting in our computer room. I think this makes seven rockers in our house. WOW. Yea, I love rockers.

No one is sitting on one right now, does that make us off our rocker...? Okay, moving on....



While outside in the beautiful morning sun, I took advantage of the setting to take pictures of this latest project.

I was trying without success to make a fancy border, but I think I'll go with simplicity, and that way I'll have a finish, and not another UFO.

Oh, and February has been good to me in the giveaways, I'm so tickled! Big thank yous to ~

Cyndi of Blue Bird Swing ~ or, wait, is it Blue Bird's Wing? I'm gonna have to ask that question!
Cyndi did my prize with a cute presentation, she only showed the empty basket, and then she filled it daily. Look closely, and you'll see her doggy Noah in the chair ~

Doris from Threads of Conversation gave away a charm pack ~ Woo, Hoo! Oh, and go see her first quilt, it's a whole cloth quilted by her, from her teen day, it is an incredible accomplishment.

I and a few 1000 blogging quilters out there was entering the blogs giving away Kim Brackett's newest book, Scrap Basket Sensations. I love her projects, I knew I would save up to buy one, but I entered each day at each blog participating in the wonderful projects of Kim. Thank you, I won from Karen of Nana Girl Quilts! Karen made several of the projects in Kim's book, and displayed them around her own home, just lovely. You remember Larry's Blue Kitchen Sink was from Kim's last book....

Well, can you believe I've been at this for more than an hour, I'd better get moving, and I hope you can make the most of your day, too. Happy Quilting!

Sewing on a Sick Day or Two

I'm home from school, this is going on week three of "asthmatic bronchitis" stuff, no fun. I've finally given in, and am staying home from school a couple of days (mostly due to not having a voice to teach, and the frequent 2-3 minutes of coughing fits.)

So, the positives ~ there are positives, people ~

• I've read and commented on a LOT of blogs,
  
• even entered a few giveaways, oh yes!
• all caught up on the 1000+ posts right now
• laundry, and most of the cleaning is done (between rests!)
• afternoon naps oh, I could put that into each day
• a bit of creativity too, yea!

For Ginny, this was an easy quilt idea for her grandson #2.



I was at school playing with teacher stuff, can you tell, lol.
We had already decided "easy" had to be the theme, and had cut her four prints into 5 inches by WOF. Yawn. This was too boring to me. (maybe it was the stamps...)

So, these came from a couple hours of play time, and about 4 more fabric selections. That meant pulling out one of the original pieces, we all do that, though, right? These are 12 inch squares, I think she'll like how quickly that size block works into a quilt. We picked a royal blue for sashing, I think that will be best in a boy's room, but the white looks nice....

I also got some of the string hearts done for the Block Lotto. I think they are a bit of a challenge, but I'm glad for the try. I entered only 2, I've a plan for these four.

Today, I'm going to see about using the leftovers of the string hearts.

Did you see the cute metal stamping at Karen's? Well, Larry is helping me with stamping some washers for my second graders for Valentine's Day. These are our washers, but her bookmark, I don't have one done that far yet. (you may need to click to enlarge, the washers say "LOVE")

And lastly, a new arrival from a sale at Fabric. com, this Amy Butler is going to be teaming up with the gray below it...well, dreaming about them together for now, anyway.
Hope I'm not sharing it too early, I may go ADD and jump to something else...
because you notice I haven't slipped it out of it's ribbon yet-yikes!

See ya'll soon!

This is a pincushion I made for Momma years ago, and have it back now.
Do any of you remember this tiny patchwork strawberry print
some 20 years ago? I loved it, and added the
strawberry emery onto the basket.

W I P's

I've joined into some internet fun, with Sophie and her friends at Block Lotto. I "know" a few friends there, like Wilma in North Carolina, and Sophie is a new-to-me person. I guess I've joined in on a tidal wave year, but Sophie's block is so do-able this time, I've enjoyed making them. Here are my eight blocks, which I hope one will be a winning ticket. :-}

There is a button added on my sidebar to take you to Block Lotto. Sophie adds a new block, and therefore a new lottery each month. Check it out and see it it's a project you would like to join in. Of course, there are no guarantees, except sharing and growing in the creative process.

Last week, I quilted Ginny's little Duck, Duck, Goose quilt, and Monday had me finishing the binding, yeah! another completion!

Back last summer, I sewed 200+ scrappy 4-patch squares, and joined in an exchange with Bingo Bonnie. My goal is a scrappy Irish Chain. Well, scrappy sewing for the lotto has me sewing those patches again,

this little stack is sw-ee-ee-t!

...but, I think some of the motivation has come from these folks, too ~

Terry is the most recent one ~

...and there was Lane's, too...




...and lastly, Libby had the black background that Sings to me...

Libby's was a kit, too.

I have to admit, this is a long term project, so I don't think I'll have it done anytime soon, but they are beauties. Oh, I'm wanting to mention Bonnie Hunter's book, Leaders and Enders, that kinda got my ball rolling in the Irish Chain direction.

For those of you that like the soft colors found in vintage sheets, you may want to check out this giveaway....

That's it for now! Hope your week is great!

This is a double wedding ring from Virginia. My Grandmother made it, she did all piecing and quilting by hand.

Any fabric would do in her quilts! Often the quilt backs were feed sacks that she would dye a dull pink/red. This one isn't, though.