Hello! I'm Back. . . For a minute

So Life has been crazy, We made the emergency trip to Albuquerque to pick up MIL because she broke her hip on Halloween. We were able to avoid the big snow storms, but there were some snowpacked roads and a few flurries. We're just glad we're home. We had the BIG Dr's appt with her new Dr up here and it was LONG. But we still have a bone density test ahead of us on Friday and blood work. She's not too excited about it all!

Quilting - Ummm I don't think I posted this picture. I took this tree skirt off just before leaving last week.

From Drop Box

And if it works here's a video of the posessed pencil sharpener I plugged in the studio. It was fine and then all of a sudden it started

Hopefully I'm back to blogging and we won't have such a lapse again. Well, I have good intentions!

WOW!

It's been kind of crazy around here. We've been getting our basement apartment ready for my MIL. I might have mentioned that she broke her hip on Halloween and she's been in a Rehap facility and a Skills Center in ABQ, NM. Well, it's time to bring her to UT and take care of her. So we've rearranged and turned the toy room into Grandma's room and try to spruce it up and get it livable for a wheelchair and a walker. We think it looks pretty nice down there and I hope she'll be comfortable. Since we're talking Home Tour, I'll let you tour Rosy's new abode before she even gets here.

From New Folder

From New Folder

From New Folder

So I was too lazy to take myself downstairs to take the pictures. I sent Candis and friend to do it, and this is what I got. You can't see that in the living area there is a small kitchen area along the opposite wall from the computer.

I really should be posting the pictures of my finally painted Mudroom and 1/2 Bath. They turned out cute. I'll get to that later I guess.

Where Have I been?

I haven't gone anywhere, I've been right here in my house trying to do the Thanksgiving thing! Not that I had a big crowd for Thanksgiving or anything. The boys came home from BYU and that added to the 6 that already live here made a pretty good amount of chaos. Oh, I remember now! DH stayed home from work for the whole week! Along with the fact that the 3 year old only had one day of preschool and we canceled the after school play date, and my week was shot! Funny how DH stays home and all my plans to get stuff done seem to go down the drain.

We did however get things all set up for my MIL to come and stay with us while she recovers from her broken hip. She's been in a rehab facility and a skill center, but the insurance won't pay for any more time and it's time for the family to take over. So next week DH and I will be driving to Albuquerque to pick her up and bring her to Utah. DH is an only child and his father passed away 15 years ago and so it's just he and his mom. But she doesn't want to come up here to live so we can keep any eye on her because all her friends are down there, unfortunately friends can't take care of you when you need 24 hour care. That's family is for.

I finally finished Jan's quilt that's been on the machine WAY TOO LONG. But I think it's good to go and I'll be shipping it off tomorrow! Yippee!!

I'll try and post some Thanksgiving pictures and anything else I can find tomorrow!

My Son Josh

That little French lesson was from Josh. He spent 2 years in the province of Quebec, CANADA and even joined a quilt guild for a bit while he was there. So he learned quite a bit about quilting. Actually more than my daughters! LOL. I know I've been negligent about keeping up with my blog, but I hope to get back on it as soon as Thanksgiving has blown over.

francais

I love quilts! I will now teach you how to say quilt in french. Courtepoint! Now how to say I love Quilting! J'aime faire du courtepoint! Now how to say I love quilting while listening to good music and sometimes friends and thinking about all of my blessings! J'aime faire du courtepoint en ecoutant de la bonne music et parfois avec mes amis. je pense a toutes mes benedictions!

I need a day like this. . . .

I was just checking out Bonnie's site and decided I need a day like this! I need a week like this!!!! Hope someone out there somewhere is having a great Quilty Day!!

Mmmm Pancakes for Breakfast

My family, with the exception of my husband, loves Pancakes for breakfast. That's probably because I love pancakes for breakfast. That was until I found out that I shouldn't eat carbs!! Then the pancakes kind of tanked for a while. Then I started making Whole Wheat pancakes and my kids weren't too thrilled about that. In fact, my oldest son still has to bring up how I faked him out and told him the pancakes weren't whole wheat and he ate them and thought they were good until he found out "I LIED!" and they WERE! Oh the Horror!

A while back Lara blogged about her perfect muffins and they looked so Yummy! I've known for sometime that sourdough is better for you than using yeast, but I just didn't have the time/patience to figure out how to get a starter going etc. . . . Then I mentioned I needed a starter and wouldn't you know it? Lara was in the area and brought me a start. No More excuses. I tried the Pumpkin muffins! YUMMY! My family likes them too. I've been stressing about keeping the starter alive and buggin Lara with emails etc. . . But some searching online and I found answers. YIPPEEE! Not that Lara didn't answer my questions, I just had too many and felt bad bugging her too much!

From 11-19

So to the point! We had pancakes for breakfast this morning. YUM! I found the recipe here for Rich Sourdough Pancakes. I have a whole wheat starter, but I halved the recipe and used all purpose flour. And yes, I know the pancakes would be healthier without chocolate chips, but you can't do it all at once!! They are semi-sweet! The 3 year old is sharing with you how much he likes them! Pretty appetizing!

From 11-19

Oooohhhhh Nooo!

My friend Lara was blogging a while back about her new Palm Centro. She's gone paperless in her organizing and is loving it. I've been paperless for a long time. My DH is into electronic gadgets and we've had Palm Pilots for quite a few years. Then almost a year ago I went to the Sprint store with DH. I decided I would just sit in the car and wait and probably peruse a quilt magazine while he took care of business. But No! He convinced me to come in. BIG mistake! Not really it was a great thing. I started looking at phones while he did his business and I got HOOKED on a Palm Treo. Yep, BIG bucks! Well, for us. But who cares about that when it will solve all your phone carrying problems. I always have my phone with me in my back pocket, but my Palm would get left behind all the time. One looks like such a dork with both back pockets filled. So here was the answer! A phone and organizer in ONE! I LOVE it! It goes everywhere with me. I make notes, and keep my to do list, I can check my email, text message and BUG my kids. It makes a mom's life complete.

What was the big Oh No! Well, yesterday I was taking a bath. Everyone was gone except for the 3 year old. I put a DVD on for him, got him his goldfish crackers, a drink and he was set to let me have a quick bath. Everything was going great, then he decided to come in and have a conversatin with me. Totally fine. I was almost done. I put shampoo in my hair and laid back into the water to rinse out the shampoo. Well, my phone must have rung because as I was coming up out of the water, dear 3 year old was trying to hand me my phone! Yep, it slipped and fell into the tub! You know how it is when you can actually feel that everything is going to go wrong and you feel it happening before it happens. That's how it was with the phone. I knew it was going to hit the water before it did. So I was able to swoop the phone out of the water almost as it went in. I took it apart and dried it all off. No I didn't kill the kid and I didn't even yell at him. He was just trying to be a big helper. I did almost start crying because this was a brand new phone. I had just gotten my old one replaced because the "I" key wasn't working any more. (We pay the $7 a month insurance for things like this. We're not dummies we know we have a 3 year old!) So I guess it's not as big a tragedy as I was first fretting, but I really didn't want to walk into the Sprint store and say, "You know that phone I just got as a replacement, well it's dead now and I'd like a replacement for it!"

So what happened? Well, I got out and dressed and went right to my computer and searched for, "What do I do if my Palm Treo got wet?" There were quite a few answers out there. Many of them got fried and were useless. But several were able to dry out the phone and get it working again. Thankfully that's what happened to my phone too. I was able to put it in front of a blow dryer on low and let it sit for a while, placed it over the heat vent and let it get blown on that way. And voila! This morning it works! YEA! Next week it might decide to die, but today it works! Let me tell you it was VERY difficult going without a phone for 8 hours! But I survived, BARELY!

From To File

Another Quilt on!

I was able to get the next quilt on the machine last week, but no quilting was accomplished. Here's crossing the fingers and toes that I get this one quilted and off by the end of the week. It's a Re-do! Well, it's like the worst episode in my quilting career so far. I used the blue water soluble pen for the first time on the original quilt. It is a toally white quilt and I thought I'd be good like all the other good quilters out there and use a light box and put on the quilt motifs with the blue water soluble pen. When the quilt was done, I spritzed it down with water to get the blue out and it came out and looked fabulous. However, by the time I shipped it to Nevada to the customer, there were brown spots on the top in several places!! I don't know if I'll ever use blue pen on anything again. So I'm Re-doing the Re-do top for the customer. Yep, she made one exactly like her original as it's a gift for her brother.

I was planning on telling the whole story, but there it is and I'm anxious to get this quilt done, and the whole episode behind me~!

From Drop Box

On November 4th I let you vote via comments for which border I should use on the doggie quilts. The Results!! If you didn't go back to the comments and count them yourself, are . . . . .

15 - for the Blue Border
14 - for the Yellow Border
1 - for the Orange Border

Since my in my quilt world I am the DICTATOR!! I'm going with the yellow, cuz I decided I liked it best. If I ever get the borders on, I will post a picture. Then a couple of years later when I finally get the quilt quilted, I might just post another picture of it! LOL!

Yea! A Quilt is done!

One of my regular customers wanted me to add a bit more stitching to this quilt. I'm always amazed at how it seems like I can't decide what I'm going to do to a quilt before I get it on the machine. Thankfully most of my customers tell me to do whatever I feel like. Because I always think what I eventually end up doing looks much better than what I talk to them about doing in the beginning. I think this quilt is a perfect example.
This is what the quilt looked like.

From To File

This is what I thought I might do in the square area that she wanted a bit more quilting in.

From To File

And this is what I ended up doing.

From To File

I was also going to use black or gold to match the other stitching, but I really like the variegated black to white.

We Finished!!!

Amanda and Nora came to sew last week and we finished our Aprons! Mine was a little late to wear for Halloween, but I wore if for 2 days just to break it in before I packed it away with the Halloween stuff.

Amanda wanted to learn how to crochet so she can make some cute hats for Nora and herself. So we pulled out the yarn box. It was a MESS!! She found the start of this practice hat and we decided it needs a green stem on it and Nora can wear it as a pumpkin top for next Halloween!

From New Folder

I was really upset with myself about Amanda's apron. As we stood in the store where we were purchasing the fabric and pattern, I read the pattern and it's explanation about needing more fabric for directional prints. Guess what??? At that moment in time my brain was not firing on all cylinders because I didn't put 2 and 2 together and figure out that her fabric was a directional print. Thus, I didn't purchase the extra fabric needed to have the stripes/directional print align properly on her apron. Thus the diagonal pattern on her apron. She insists that she still loves it, but every time I look at it, I'm sad I didn't figure things out sooner!! Oh Well, Live and Learn! We did center the flower on the triangle of her pocket. Isn't it cute?

From New Folder

From New Folder

Don't you LOVE the headless pictures? Well, we were sewing, who gets made up for sewing? Not us! So no heads, sorry! We're going with the Halloween theme a little longer!

Not Much Quilting Done this Weekend

Life is crazy on the weekends and I always have dreams of accomplishing "my" quilting/piecing but it just doesn't usually materialize.

I took this beautiful picture off our deck this past week. We had snow AGAIN! But this was taken the day before the snow. I love to watch the clouds against the mountains behind our house and on a beautiful fall day like this one, they were exceptionally gorgeous!

From 119

Tiffany's Quilt is DONE!

Yes, the quilt is complete! It's been on the machine for way too long. Well too long sitting on the machine doing nothing! I've been teaching a quilt class and while they were finishing up over a week ago, I decided I'd try and finish the quilting on it. Machine broke! The class came the following week and the quilt was still on the machine. The quilters made comments like, "I thought this was supposed to be done last week?" Like they didn't believe that I was telling them the truth! LOL Just kidding they were nice about it. I then had to tell them the whole story, and now they're reading it again on the blog!

It's DONE! and here are some pictures. The pattern is the same one Niquie did a bit ago. Not sure if I posted pics, but here it is again.

From 11-4

From 11-4

A Long Hard Day

Yep, It was a rough day. Pre-school, eating lunch with the buds, and playing til their mom's came. He just couldn't stay awake any longer. Especially since going back to Standard Time has really messed up his inner clock and he's getting up at 5 AM!!!

From 11-5

The Machine is FIXED!!!

Yeah!!! Jen came out Monday morning and she opened up the package that A-1 Quilting Machines had sent me and said, "I hope they're in here." I hadn't even thought of opening it up and making sure everything was there. Thankfully it WAS! My motor brushes had worn out. To say the Least! Jen was amazed that my machine was even running! They were in pieces! She had to use a rolled up piece of masking tape to get the pieces out.

From 11-4

(I was gonna take another picture that didn't have my notes in the background, but my battery is charging and I'm already late!)

Then she wrapped the motor in a plastic bag and blew canned air through the motor to clean it all out.

From 11-4

That's Jen in the background. This is the motor!

She also showed me how to change out my switches when the time comes.

From 11-4

From 11-4

This is where they plug in behind the control panel. Oops! Sorry I didn't dust!
I'm ready now, so it probably won't happen for another 5 years. Or at least not until I forget where I put the switches for safe keeping. Then the switch will decide to die right in the middle of a customers really important quilt that they made for their favorite niece's wedding and it's due NOW!! Then I won't be able to find them in their really safe hiding place and I'll be in a PANIC! I'll have to call A-1 have them overnight some for lots of $$$. I'll get the quilt done in the last seconds. I'm worn to a frazzle because of all the stress. . . . the next week I'll find them right where I put them at the end of the table in the blue box!!

PS I'm posting the pics and descriptions so I'll know where to find them when the time comes.

It's Time to Vote!

Well, we're not going to get political here. I'm just not up to it. But you do get to vote. I've had this quilt top finished for a while and I have this cute puppy paw print fabric for the border and was getting to add it when my DD #2 told me she didn't think it went very well with the quilt. I showed it to my quilty friends and they said they thought it was cute. I decided it needs a "stop border" and then the paw prints.

So now you get to vote! Yellow, blue, or Orange? Leave a comment and let me know.

Thanks for your VOTE!!

ME Flowers

Tiffany and Niquie came over to sew on Tuesday evening. I told them I was sick, but they were so looking forward to it that they risked getting sick and we had FUN! Well, between the coughing was fun. I hope they don't get sick!

So Niquie and I paper pieced the cutest little flowers for our Mary E. quilt!

From To be Filed

Tiffany worked on several things, but she got the borders on a quilt for her grand-daughter and it's so CUTE!! I forgot to take a picture, so you'll have to wait until I get it quilted for her. SOrRy!

Question on the Aprons

We haven't finished the aprons! Which means my cute Halloween one won't be used til next year! Oh Well! I promise I will post the finished pics as soon as we get them done. Cross your fingers that it's this week! LOL!

Family Pics

We had a Family Portrait taken by a friend in our backyard. I thought I'd share the what the major portion of my life is all about!

From Collages

Bunnies

I started a Yo-yo Bunny for Nora shortly after I was finished making her quilt. Amanda and I went shopping and she picked out some really cute fabrics for Nora's baby quilt and I made up something and put it together as a quilt and quilted it. Then with the scraps I made a bunch of Yo-Yos with the Clover Yo-Yo maker. So I really really LIKE the Yo-Yo maker. I'll bet you thought I was gonna say Love again. Well, I was, but I decided to fight the impulse and not say it. It was SO much fun making the Yo-Yos but I have gotten stuck on getting them all assembled into a bunny! Then I find out I need to make 4 more. Have you ever gotten stuck on completing a project because you need to go back and finish a step?? I'm in a Yo-Yo making slump and I can't get myself out of it!!

Then, I found these other bunnies in the closet and decided, maybe I shouldn't make bunnies any more! Cuz they end up de-eared and de-armed or de-legged by my children. Yep, quite a while back I made all my kiddos a stuffed bunnies with matching flannel jama pants and nightgowns that matched my kiddos jamas. Now these bunnies are a pile of de-armed/de-legged/de-eared bunnies!! Is Nora destined to join the ranks of such bunny manglers????

Happy Halloween!!

I came home from the Parent's Weekend and all that fun and was SICK!!! Yep! and we had all the kids coming over for dinner and pumpkin carving. I sucked it up (like moms do when they are sick and the show must go on!) and made dinner. Amanda made the scrumptious Pumpkin Pie Cake and we made it through the night. Here are some carving picks, Grandpa changing the poopers cuz everyone was up to their elbows in pumpkin guts, and the finished Jack-o-Lanterns!
Trick or Treat!!!

From Drop Box