I Should be QUILTING!

So, Yes Life is CRAZY! Our daughter had her baby girl almost 3 week early! My parents were in town and got to see their Grand-baby #2 and we had the baby shower that week, and DD #2 graduated from High School.

and our summer has been pretty much this way the entire summer! So school starts on the 25th and maybe I'll get back to my QUILTING!!! I'm taking pictures and will post As soon as I settle down!!

I'm BACK!!

OK so the post date is May 21st!!! Don't let it fool you! I wrote this on 5/21 and been waiting to get pictures in, then LIFE got away from me, and I just posted this 8/7/08!!!!

Where did I go??? No Where!!! What a Bummer. I've just been home dealing with family and finding absolutely no time to sit and blog. May is the busiest month of the year for families with kiddos in school and especially when one of them is graduating!

I have completed a couple customer quilts! YEAH!

This is Becky's


and this is Diane's


Lara picked up her quilt just a few days before she delivered her new baby girl!!

My Dear Daughter that is expecting in 3 weeks!, and her hubby just bought a house! It's a repo house and needs cleaning! So Niquie and I went over and scrubbed out the bathrooms yesterday. They look SO much better! I will post pictures when the house is all cute and painted etc. . . .

My parents are coming in town on Saturday for the graduation next week, so life around here will be crazy, but I will try really hard to get a few posts in during the week.

I quilted, I sewed, therefore I am

So I did break down last week and I quilted the background of Lara's quilt. I really like how the McTavishing turned out. I hope she will too.

Then I had to twist my arm to get myself to sew the coat. Every time I sat down at the sewing machine the 2.75 year old comes and says "See me, mommy." What can a mommy do?, but hold the boy!!

The 21 year old is working 2 jobs and trying to make big bucks, but he's frustrated because the "new" restaurant isn't filling w/customers and the other job isn't paying commission yet for the big sales he's already making! Ahhh! What can a goal-oriented post-mission kid do???

Our soon to be HS graduate daughter is getting bogged down by tons of homework and trying to keep up when she's so ready to be done. Her leadership scholarship got doubled, which means tuition will be PAID!! Yipppeee! We're pretty excited about that.

15 and 13 yo are starting soccer and getting anxious for the weather to get warm and stay warm. Actually all of us are anxious for this!

So life is pretty much wild and crazy as always!

Ugh!

So I haven't gotten to any quilting this week!!! I said I would sew a costume for an upcoming choir/play thing at our church and should be getting that done, but I don't want to and I know I need to get it done before I quilt anything. Frankly, I've been procrastinating!!! My quilting buddy came over last night so we could sew together, and I forced myself to cut out the costume. At least it was more fun to do with her here than it would have been on my own. Cutting out is always my least favorite thing to do. So at least that part is done and I can get it sewn and out of the way. She told me that she felt guilty sewing on her quilt while I had to work on the costume. She didn't really feel bad, she was just rubbing it in!!

Here's a picture of Niquie's blocks up on the design wall. We took the picture because sometimes it helps to look at a picture to see where some thing isn't working. Even on a design wall if you can't get far enough back it doesn't show up, but it usually will in a picture.
I was reading this interesting article by Jerry Johnson on LDS Living this morning and he ended his article like this. I thought it was WAY cool!

God is the quilter.

The spirit is the thread.

We are the scraps of cloth, joined into a layer of warmth, tradition, beauty and strength.

We form a "whole" much greater than the sum of our parts.

Hope you have a GREAT quilting day. I will be stuck sewing a costume, but hopefully will get back to quilting SOON!

Going To Pieces - March 2008

We had a fun time at Going to Pieces Quilt Group in March! Thanks everyone for coming and sharing your cute quilt blocks. Such Progress. Becky, you've got lots to catch up on, but I'm sure school-teacher Sandy will help you get caught up on your homework. We missed our 3 newbies to the group and hope they'll be able to join us in April.

I totally confused Illene by sending her a South Weber Quilt group reminder and she thought we had moved the Going to Pieces group to my house on Thursday. Sorry about that Illene!! We'll get you caught up next week.

Be sure to show up on April 22nd for next months meeting of the minds!! Crazy Minds that is. It also looks like we're going to go to an ALL EVENING group. So the 2 morning ladies will be joining us for the evening group. The more the merrier!!!

Enjoy the slideshow.

Have a Great month of sewing, we can't wait to see your show and tell. Also, if you're confused about any assembly of the blocks, just email me or leave a comment on the blog, and I'll try to post an explanation with pictures.

Gratitude

Yea! I remembered to blog about something on Tuesday, so I can be part of Lara's Talk about Tuesays!

So I had a lightbulb moment recently and thought I'd share.

All you moms out there can probably understand the dinner dilemma. It's not that I hate cooking or baking or that I can't do it either. It's just the dinner thing that I hate. I've decided, it's because it's a thankless job. My kids aren't way picky eaters, but it just seems like they never like what I happen to make for dinner unless it's a frozen pizza or tacos. You know what I mean.

Since Josh has been home, he never eats a meal without making a big deal about how good it is, and he actually seems to look forward to mealtime. I know it's because he realizes he doesn't have to shop for it, put it away, cook it, or even clean up after it. He's learned after 2 years on his own what it means to come up with a well thought out meal.

You know what affect his gratitude has had on me? Well, I find myself thinking: I need to come up w/a menu and go shopping, and in the morning what am I making for dinner, and I'll bet Josh will really like this. WOW! I don't hate thinking of dinner and what to make, I don't procrastinate the decision of what to make, and I actually plan ahead. All because someone is expressing appreciation for my efforts.

I decided, "Man, I need to point this out to the rest of the family. So they will start appreciating me more, too!" Then like a ton of bricks it hit me. Do I appreciate my family for the wonderful terrific people that they are? Do I tell my kids thanks for being straight A students? and doing it without my having to hound them. Do I tell my DH thanks for going to work everyday and holding down a steady job to provide for all of us! NOPE was the answer.

So I guess what I'm saying is, that if we'd show a little more gratitude it can change everyone's attitude and make life a whole lot sweeter! So THANKS for listening (reading) and I hope you have a Grateful day!

YEA! Taking a quilt off the machine!

WOW! It seems like this quilt has been on the machine forever. Not that quilting it took forever, just that my life/family haven't let me get down here and quilt like I need to be doing. Having Josh home is great, but has add another dimension to our home life. I always said that Josh was the catalyst in our family. We are a pretty calm quiet even going family, then you throw Josh in the mix and it all speeds up. He's still the same!!!

So here's pics of the quilt I just took off. I think it turned out nicely, I really like these flowers that I quilted on it.

Now moving on to my next quilt. Lara! It's yours. If you want to know what I plan on doing to it give me a call!

Happy Quilting.

It's Raining!

So there isn’t a vehicle at home and I decided to walk 2.5 yr old to play group this morning and then I’d go for a walk as my exercise today. It was a really great plan until it started sprinkling!!! Well, I decided that it wasn’t bad enough to not walk him up. Besides that I had no choice if he was going to go to play group. So we walked up. We were a bit sprinkled on, but I was rethinking the walking for exercise part. I mean I'm all for exercise, as long as it isn't too uncomfortable!

As, I head down the hill ready to go home, I decide that it feels pretty good and so I decided I’d walk down to View Dr and around like I had walked the other evening. Yep, you guessed it the rain picked up. But it wasn’t too bad and the rain was encouraging me to walk faster, so I was thinking this is a good thing. Because of the increased rain I decided not to walk down View Dr, but just turn and come back up. That’s when the uncomfortable part began! I had been walking w/the rain and breeze at my back. But on the way home, now the rain was blowing towards me. Let’s just say I was pretty soaked by the time I got home.

Still working on the quilt. Will post pictures if I get to quilt today. I have to go pick up 15 yo at the JHS that is 20 minutes away and take her to the Orthodontist today. Let's just say the whole experience will probably take 2 1/2 hours!!!

Happy Quilting!

Struggles

I'm struggling with the current quilt on the machine. I found the perfect pink thread in my drawer, but it isn't playing nicely with my machine and I keep getting loopies on the back. Very inconsistently and it's driving me CRAZY!!! I really hate quilting when things like this happen. I love it when everything works nicely together.

So the dilema, take all the current stitching out and start over w/a new thread? Or keep going and fix the loopies after all is quilted?

Here's Hoping your quilting is going much smoother!

Customer Quilt DONE!

I just finished a baby quilt. The daughter of a neighbor of had a baby and she called to see if I could "make" a quilt for her. Basically it was 2 pieces of fabric I quilted and put binding on for her. It actually turned out way cute and I forgot to take a picture!!! I don't know if you've seen the Olivia books? It's about a pig? Andover Fabrics has some fabric out that says Olivia all over it and these new parents are naming their new daughter Olivia. So they bought two pieces,



And I quilted them together in red thread and echoed hearts. I called the new grandma last night and she picked it up.

One more task done! Yippee! I was so excited to have another something done, I forgot pictures. I really do try to photograph every quilt I quilt. Oh Well.
Happy Quilting!