"DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE"
These lights were put up by yours truly. This is the backdrop and stage of the school where DD teaches Fine Arts to Head Start through 5th grade. Approximately 220 lovely adorable children.

Last weekend I was recruited by said daughter to help her decorate the stage for the Christmas programs. She of course is afraid of heights, so I had to climb a 15ft ladder to put up these lights with safety pins. There are apprx. 12 strands and that is a lot of trips up and down that ladder. There are certain parts of my body that are still in pain from this adventure.

These adorable children are her head start and pre K children who sang beautifully. Also performing after this group was the 1st and 2nd graders. Tomorrow night we get to see 3rd through 5th graders.

I just shake my head in wonder on how she handles all of these kids at one time and actually gets a great performance out of them.

A most enjoyable evening.

I'VE BEEN REGIFTED

In September, I gave Dawn at Quilts and Pieces all my left over crumbs from making my Batik Jewels quilt. This week she returned them to me in a lot better shape than she got them.

Isn't this just adorable. The doll, mini quilt and basket are all made from my batik crumbs. I just love this and it makes me so happy to know my crumbs were appreciated. Thank you, Dawn.

MORE NEEDLEWORK

Here is some more of my Christmas needlework that I have done over the years. I went great guns on doing these for a few years and then quit. I think quilting got in the way.

Unfortunately the lights got in the way of these pictures. Also, I can not figure out how to turn off my flash on the camera so you get the flash light on there also.


Sorry about the flash.

'TIS THE SEASON

It is time to decorate. This is a picture of our mantle that is my DH's responsibility. He painted all of this village and takes great pride in setting it up every year. There are lights underneath all that "snow" that makes it really dramatic when the room is dark. Of course, I wouldn't dare rearrange anything on this project but as you can see all the buildings are lined up (he is a little anal - we call him Mr. Monk).


The cross stitch pictures of Old World Santa's are my handiwork. I have some more around that I will take pictures of and add to the next post.

My Christmas Goose. Made this wall hanging back when I first started quilting. As you can tell I got fairly close to having it even all around. Even entered it in a contest at a quilt store where we lived at the time. Managed to get 3rd and won $15 in a gift certificate. I don't care if it is not perfect, still like it.

More handy work to follow in next post.

PIGS

Aren't these cute? Dawn at Quilts & Pieces sent me the pattern. They look big but they are only about 11" long and 8" high. So Cute!!!

My 7 yr old grandson is raising a pig right now , known as Maverick, so I thought these would be a cute gift for him to put on the shelf in his room. Quick and easy to make from scraps.

UPDATE on Old Tobacco Road quilt. I have added the flying geese border and stopped because I am still trying to figure out what to do to make it King Size instead of Queen. Hopefully, will have that question taken care of by next weekend.

It is holiday time and we are headed to Kerrville this weekend for a visit. This is provided DH is up to it. He is having a steroid epidural on Thurs. for a sever back problem he has had for about 2 months now. We decided to go before Thanksgiving and beat the traffic and hussle/bussle of the holiday weekend.

Know everyone is looking forward to the holiday. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

YEA!!!

Center of Old Tobacco Road Done!!!

I really do like the way this is going. Still have some borders to do, but this was the most time consuming part of this quilt.

Thanks to DH a square turned wrong was found and corrected. I wasn't happy because it was right in the center, but glad he found it now instead of later. Looking forward to doing the rest of the borders.

BTW what do y'all think about piano key border to bring this to king size. I really want to give this to youngest daughter and need for it to be king size. So it will be narrow solid border, flying geese border, wide solid border and then piano keys. Tell me what you think. Too much????

ANOTHER JACKET

I decided the other jacket was a little to small, so back to the fabric store. Tried to find some heavier fleece but all they had in heavier stuff was solid. I knew daughter wouldn't like that so spent about an hour feeling all the fleece they had. She really likes SW theme so this was the best I could do. Bright isn't it?

Guess the other one will have to go to GD..of course you know how difficult it is to get 13 yr olds to wear a coat. It usually ends up tied around the waist.

A few more satin pillow cases to make tonight then back to OTR quilt. Should be able to get center finished tomorrow and start cutting the first border. A bunch of flying geese, so that will take awhile.

MAKING GIFTS

My girls seem to know when to call and request certain things. This week it has been "Mom, do you still have the pattern for ----, can you make me ----, will you make (grand daughter) -----.

Got busy and got some of them done today. The first thing is a copy of a Neiman Marcus jacket from about 14 years ago. It came out when Polar Fleece was brand new (never thought the fleece would take off like it did).

This took me most of the afternoon because of all the fringe that had to be cut. When I finished it, I realized my mind was not working real well when I bought the fleece. I got the regular fleece fabric instead of the heavier Polar Fleece. So this jacket is not going to be as heavy or as warm as it should be. Hope it will be OK for daughter in Southwest TX where it usually doesn't get that cold. If it isn't, will probably be making another one sometime soon.

The next project to be accomplished was satin pillowcases. One daughter's birthday is Monday and this was her request. Of course when I told the other daughters that I was making them it was "Oh, Mom, I need a new set too". Those will have to be Christmas.

In the background you can see half of the center of the "Old Tabacco Road" quilt that is a mystery by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville. Doesn't it look like fun? I have still got a ways to go with it and also try to figure out how to get it to King Size with some easy border additions. I'm pulling a Scarlett O'Hara "I'll think about that Tomorrow".

It's time to give the mind, body and fingers a rest and get some sleep. Have a nice weekend everyone.

The Weekend Is Over

I went into my sewing room on Saturday to try to put it into some order and after moving fabric around from one place to another and then back again, I finally sat down and laughed. I was making no progress because I kept running into future projects and would stop to think about it and feel the fabric. When I realized what I was doing, I decided to get rid of some of the big pieces I had put back to make Pillow Quilts.

This is the fruit of my labors from the weekend. The Southwest one is for daughter and son-in-law in Kerrville who are into SW and the Dalmation one is for 7 yr old GS. My family (all 3 girls) just love these quilts. For those who do not know about them they are 42" x 72" and fold up into a pocket making a pillow. I can't begin to count how many of these I have made over the last 10 years.

YEA! 8 yards of fabric gone from my stash. I have put away all ongoing projects and refuse to get them back out till I clean up the mess in the sewing room. Need new bins for fabric because some are falling apart, so it is off to Wal Mart I go. New Years resolution!!!! DO NOT BUY ANYMORE FABRIC. Work with what I have. Word to the wise, I have never kept a New Years resolution yet.

My sewing room is the storage closet that was at the back of the garage. When we bought this house we closed it up and cut an opening into it from the laundry room. It is not very big so all my fabric is in bins and stacked to the ceiling. At the moment, I have as much on the floor as I do in bins. There is a path to the sewing machine and the ironing board is at my back. That's all that is needed, right?

Pray for me, I really need help to stay on track in the cleaning up process.

I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS!!!!

I was finishing up the mystery quilt from camp and all of a sudden I noticed I had no heat in my iron. After replugging it and shaking it, I came to the conclusion that this is where it needed to be.

A quick trip to Wal Mart settled this problem and I was back in business. With the new iron I was able to complete the mystery.

I am donating this piece to the Women's group at church to be put in a raffle for next year. All proceeds will go to our mission fund. Of course, I have to get it quilted first. Will probably take it to a lady here locally and give her until next summer to get it done. It was a fun mystery with a lot of little HS triangles. The really fun part was making that border come out right with the two colors.

Now on to finishing Old Tobacco Road. However, I have a lot of things to finish for the church bazaar first, of which I am chairman of the Women's booth (can't figure out how I got that job). Plus, we are having a "Homecoming" at Church in a few weeks and expecting about 600 people with a catered lunch after services on Sunday. The rest of this story is another lady and I are in charge of making the table decorations for this event (once again I don't know how I got that job). As soon as all this is accomplished, it will be time for Christmas....Woe is me!!!

THINGS WE DO FOR OUR CHILDREN!

This is a picture of 25 scarfs made for my DD who is a fine arts teacher in an elementary school. She brought me 4 yards of the creepy crawly scarf fabric and I was about ready to disown her for it. This is the worst stuff to work with and she wanted rolled hem all around. Thank goodness for Sergers. They were suppose to be 12" square so I cut them (not very well) 15" and hoped I could square them up to at least 12" while doing the roll hem. It doesn't look like there is 25 of them here so that should tell you how difficult this fabric is to work with. I do like the colors, however, and am sure the kids will enjoy using them. It will be a fun time for them.

Packing to head off to Indiana and guild camp on Wed. a.m. Have to drive to Dallas and spend the night Tues. in order to catch the plane at 8 a.m. Wed. The only hitch in this scenario is Gustav, the hurricane brewing. Don't want to wish back luck on New Orleans but sure hope it misses TX because it will play havoc with my trip on Wed. Timing is everything here.

Shipped 2 boxes to IN on Monday. All my projects I will be working on plus everything else I will need. One box weighed 36 lbs! Had to get DH to help me get it in the UPS office. I keep a Featherweight up there for these retreats, so that is one thing I don't have to worry about. My DSIL keeps a drawer and corner in her sewing room for all my stuff. Got the clothes packing down to a science. 1 carry on suitcase for 6 days.

Looking forward to a great week of sewing, friendship and fellowship.

CHALLENGE

There was a group of us quilters that went to FL last year to stay with our good friend and fellow quilter, Mel, at her home around St. Petersburg. In our quilt store hop, I fell in love with the fish fabric we saw. This is the first stage of this project. Don't you like the attic windows? Looks like an aquarium, I think.

The "Challenge" is to come up with words to be done in the border. The second challenge is to my friends who we have been dubbed "Queen" of words (learned from Tonya). They will have to give me lessons in this stage which I hope they will do when we are at Camp in IN in a couple of weeks.

Join the fun and give me your ideas for words. It might help to know that I plan to give this to my 7 yr. old grandson for his room.

CRUMBS

Here we have a pile of scraps I had left from making the Batik Jewels. As I said before, I hated to waste all this so I started making crumbs and never made a dent in this pile. So these are going to camp with me in September to be given to Dawn or anyone else who wants to go crazy making CRUMBS.

You can't see the depth of this pile from this picture, but believe me it is piled up and it is all Batik fabric. I know this is going to make someone happy and I will be overjoyed in their happiness.

Now for the results of my use of the above pile. It looks like the neutral fabric is white but it is really a marble batik cream. It is lap size because I got tired of making crumbs. Plan to sandwich it this weekend and machine quilt it. When all is said and done, I really did like this little experiment in CRUMBS.

GREETINGS FROM KERRVILLE, TX

I am in Kerrville, TX visiting daughter and family for a few days. For those of you who don't know about TX, Kerrville is in the part of TX we refer to as the hill country. It is 65 miles NW of San Antonio. They live on the Guadulupe river and it is very picturesque down here. No tall trees, just mesquite trees, hills and beautiful scenery.

While I was here I had to do some repair on a quilt I had made for them a few years ago. Thought I would take the opportunity to post it here for those of you who have never seen it. They are into Southwest decor and of course live in the perfect spot for that. This quilt is kingsize and we have a kingsize SIL to hold it up. 6'5" SIL's do come in handy.

Daughter, Tammy, has a birthday in a few weeks, can't tell you how old but it is a big one. Hard to believe my baby is going to be that old. I had bought her a little what they call farm table and chairs for their breakfast eating area so she and I sat in the floor yesterday and put them together. Of course GS was excited when he got to use the rubber hammer to put the plugs in the holes.

I am headed home in the morning and they are taking off for a camping trip. Packing the camper as we speak. 7 year old GS is running around acting crazy due to the excitement of getting ready to go camping. SIL is smoking ribs and brisket for dinner tonight and boy do they smell good.

LIFE IS GOOD IN KERRVILLE, TX.

THANK YOU

Everyone has been so nice with all their warm fuzzies on my Batik Jewels. I can't wait to get it quilted and then find a place to hang it.

I had a question on the pattern. Yes, it is a Jacqueline de Jonge pattern. I met her and saw this made up on a trip to Paducah. I looked at it for days before finally giving in and buying it. It took 6 months to get the fabric together to make it and another couple of months of drawing off everything for paper piecing as well as getting up the nerve to start it.

Thanks to my quilt friends who were always encouraging and helping me learn how to do those stupid "Y" seams.

TA DA!!

I can't believe I actually got this done! It went together a lot easier than I thought it would. A lot of pinning. It will be a long time before I tackle anything like this again.

Plan to bring the pattern and all the templates, my wonderful nephew made for me, to camp in Sept. and sell it at the garage sale we have, so someone else can go nuts like me.

Don't know how this will be quilted, but plan to get advice from all machine quilters on what they think will be best.

I'm Hooked on CRUMBS!

(double click on picture to get a get a better view of these - they are a little blurred)

I have spent the last 4 days putting these together. This fabric is left over from the cut offs of the paper pieceing I have been doing on the Batik Jewels of which I only lack 2 in finishing.

Here are 15 Batik Jewels. I keep looking at these and wondering how in the heck I am going to sew them together. Still haven't read the directions!

Needless to say, I have had a lot of little pieces left from all the Batiks I used in this project. Seemed like a waste of money and fabric to just throw them away, so I had Dawn give me a quick lesson when we were together getting ready to go to Paducah. Bad move on my part.... Not sure what I am going to do with these 4 1/2" squares yet, but have decided to make more and at least get to a lap quilt size. (I am open on suggestions on how to put these together). When I get the crumb project done I am going to send all my left over little pieces to Dawn (hopefully, it will drive her as nuts as it has me).

Our 4th weekend has been fairly quiet. Good thing since I have spent most of it in the sewing room making the crumbs.

LIFE IS GOOD

Our daughter and grandson came up from Kerrville for a visit this week. It is always so great to have them here. He is 7 and as you can tell from the picture is into making faces when you ask him to smile. They were busy while they were here visiting, movies, swimming and a trip to the Pottery Cafe to make a coffee cup for Dad. We don't get to see them that much since they moved to SW TX, so this was a special event for us. We also had their boxer (Duke) visit with us, so we had a full house for 4 days. It is sure quiet around here since they left this morning.

Needless to say, I didn't get any sewing done while they were here, but I did get my Rainbow Sherbet quilt off to be quilted. Will hopefully pick it up while I am in IN. for camp in Sept. Been checking flights and trying to decide if I should fly or drive. About the same money wise.

I did get some sewing done before they arrived, however. These are casserole carriers. One of our roommates in Paducah this year had made all of us one and I just fell in love with it. I decided to make a few for our Church's bazaar in Nov. What I really like about this one is the fabric. Lucked into a sale at the fabric store and fell in love with this fabric.

Isn't it just the cutest thing. Plan to make about 8 of them and try to sell them for about $12.00 a piece. All the money will go to our mission fund. Also making knitted dish cloths which will probably be sold for $4 or $5.

All of our grandchildren are busy this summer. One Grandson is interning at Bank of America in Chicago (he is a senior at Michigan State), his sister, Grand-daughter #1, is preparing to attend UT Austin in the fall, grand-daughter #2 (11) just left today to spend the rest of the summer with her Dad (we are sure going to miss her), and the youngest Grandson that just left here is headed to Hot Springs to visit his other grandparents. Glad I am staying right here in the cool air conditioning for the rest of the summer. Hopefully will get some sewing done.

I LOVE IT

This project was so much fun, especially doing it along with others and being surprised at each step. I am going to change from the title of Orange Crush and rename mine:

RAINBOW SHERBET

There has been two groups who have asked me to donate it to them for auction (Women's Fellowship at our church and the Civic Theatre). Don't know if I can part with it, I love it so. First things first, however, I need to get the back put together and send it all off to Viki in IN. to quilt for me.

CAN YOU SAY ORANGE!

The orange really jumps out at ya! I really like it though. The only thing that disappoints me is the star blocks do not show up very well. Probably using the purple in the star blocks and the pink or apple green in the center of the orange blocks would have been better. But I do like it.

Finishing...at this moment I am planning on putting the apple green as solid border then the pieced border followed by the Pink. Working on the pieced border and hopefully will have it all together by this weekend.

DH arrived home late Thursday night. He drove straight through and was totally exhausted by the time he got home. I would like to say it was because he was rushing home to me, but I think the comfort of our bed was the more appealing thing. There is nothing like your own bed.

I have gotten more Batik Jewels done. Only 6 more to go. Sure hope I can put them all together when I get them done. Haven't read that far in the directions yet...scared to! Anyone who wants to help me is more than welcome to come here and do so. At least hold my hand.

An update on my weekend.

Being home alone is really weird. I have been waking up at 6:30 to 7:00 a.m. in the morning and telling myself, I don't have to get up and do anything. Fortunately, I have been able to turn over and go back to sleep for a few hours. Sewing has been one of my top priorities this weekend, since I have to hit the ground running on Monday morning taking care of business. After finishing OC step 5 on Saturday, I progressed to my Batik Jewels. Got a few more done. They are so pretty! (see below)

This evening was spent with my good friend, Joyce. Joyce's husband (our former minister) passed away 12 weeks ago and we spent the evening reviewing the events of their short married life (1 year 1 month 5 days). As the evening progressed (after 2 bottles of wine were consumed) we got into a deep theological discussion. What an interesting evening. Needless to say, my mind is totally exhausted, but all in all it has been a good weekend.

I have had my 3 days of being home alone and am ready for DH to come home.