Latest family portrait

My daughter sent me this picture for the blog.  This is our family on Christmas.  See that beautiful purple cast on my left arm LOL? 

Emily's Quilt Top

This is what started my quilting rebirth.  I love how this turned out!  Now I just have to get it quilted and bound.

This quilt was designed by Lynda Mulligann and Nancy Smith of Possibilities.  It is the cover quilt of the book PS I Love You Three, published in 2002.  This is the last baby quilt for a grandchild that I'll be making - there won't be any more.

Speaking of grandchildren, would you believe that both Sophie and Joseph are in kindergarten this year?  They both really love school.  Sophie is already reading at the second grade level - what a difference it makes when parents take time to read with their kids!  Joseph is reading also, but especially loves music.   He sings right out - there isn't a shy bone in his body.  And he is the "Lego King" of his generation - he is already building complicated things by following directions on his own (a space shuttle, many Star Wars items, buildings and more.)

Here is our latest "family portrait" taken when we all went camping together last July.  From left to right: Rebecca, Rick, Joseph (in front), Fred holding Emily, me with Sophie in front, Jeremy holding Chewbacca, and Chelsea with Lily in front.

Emily will be three this July - about time she got her baby quilt!

Sisters was great - and lots more to chat about also

I need to focus on posting - I think I have material for at least half a dozen posts if not more. And lots has happened since then too!

First I must share my big news - I reached goal at Weight Watchers this morning! Goal was 164, and I weighed in at 162.8. Now I just need to hold that for 6 weeks to become a lifetime member - meaning I don't have to pay any more. I'm absolutely thrilled! One catch however - I'm not at my ultimate goal yet. That goal was set when I still thought I was 5'8". Now that I've shrunk to 5' 6" I need to get to 155 for a healthy BMI. WW knows that, but leader René said she'd stick with the first one as far as reaching lifetime. I'm not all that far from 155, so I hope to have reached that in the six weeks before reaching lifetime.

We went camping with our kids weekend before last and had a fabulous time. Here are two pictures my daughter sent. (Can't do a post without pictures, of course! It was so much fun to watch Sophie and Joseph, as they were both too young to appreciate it last summer. They sure loved the dirt - and the creek! Joseph waded in shoes, clothes and all before his parents could stop him. The water was only about 2-3 inches deep - and they were right there - but the bottoms of his pants legs were soaked, and then he sat down in it before they could stop him!

Lots more tomorrow. I need to get some sleep. I need to get up early as I'm heading down I-205 to Clackamas, OR to get my mammo at 8:30. We'll see how it goes - it's been SO hot here. 106 yesterday with 40% humidity, and 107 today. We have no air - it's still about 85 downstairs - it was up to 102 in the family room and longarm room during the day! No longarming for me as long as his heat keeps up!

Finished!

The center of the Girl Gang feathered star is finished, and I'm very pleased with it. The next step is to trim up the edges as I used oversized triangles, and then add the top and bottom border. That step should go very quickly. Then all that remains is four large, heavily appliquéd borders. Those will take awhile!

I received the next Jan Patek mini quilt in the mail yesterday. It's a bunny and a flower - perfect for this season. I didn't start the Valentines quilt when it arrived, so I need to catch up. I've cut out the Valentines quilt and prepped the hearts for appliqué. That's my next project - that and getting back to the last two Heirloom Stitches borders.

I'm sending hugs and huge thank you's to all of you who prayed and/or kept positive thoughts these last few weeks for our family. The surgery went fine - I was in the waiting room for 11 hours that day - the patient is home and doing well. All cancer was removed with next to no expectations of any recurrence. We won't know if chemo is required until next Wednesday. Everything is as good as it could be - and I know all your thoughts and prayers made a huge difference. I love all of you and send my thanks.

A rough road ahead

I want to let my readers know that our family is facing some very difficult times in the next few months. I would appreciate you keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you to all my blogger friends for being there when I need you.

A big thank you - and another top finished

I've spent very little time on the computer this past week. I checked my personal email and that was about it. I guess I just needed to retreat into myself for awhile to rest and recharge. Once again I'm terribly behind on my blog reading.

I was so very touched by the dozens of comments I received after my last post. Thank you so very much to each and every one of you who expressed condolences and sent prayers and cyber hugs. They really meant such a great deal to me. The last week has been so hard - I see Shadow everywhere I turn, and find myself listening for the patter of his feet. It is getting easier day by day. The kindness and caring of my online friends has helped a great deal.

I have been doing some sewing and a great deal of reading. I believe I'm on my fifth or sixth book now. I've had sinus issues with some dizziness - thanks to spring allergies - and reading has been the easiest thing to do.

After I posted the last picture of my red and white quilt I discovered - by looking at the post with the picture - that I sewed a light sashing where there should have been a dark sashing. thanks so much, Paula, for pointing that out and putting me on the right track! I've taken out the incorrect piece and substituted a dark piece. I wonder if anyone besides Paula noticed that in the picture. I've bought a piece of red Moda Marbles that I think is perfect for the border - hopefully I can get that sewn on sometime this week.

Most of the sewing I've been doing has been appliqué. I chose fabrics and cut out the pieces for the fall and winter borders on "It's a Wonderful Life". I redesigned the winter border, redrawing the pomegranates, changing the shape of most of the holly leaves, and adding additional berries and vines. I used felted wool for the tiny round seeds in the pomegranates so I didn't have to turn under the edges when stitching them on. I added the final touches - stem stitch embroidery to define the panes of the windows in the houses. I feel so good that this top has been completed - another UFO to the finished flimsy stage.

I'm happy to report that my knee has continued to feel better since the cortisone shot, and I'm hoping to start longarming again this week. A good thing too - as I have two customer quilts to complete and two more to baste. Looks like I won't be able to do one of my own for a little while. The first quilt has a deadline of June 17th, so I'm going to load that onto the machine tomorrow and get it started. Lots and lots of stitching in the ditch, so it is going to take some time.

I also hope to get back to blog reading tomorrow - I'm missing everyone and am eager to see what you've all been up to in the last week or two.

A sad time for us

The last few days have been hard. On Friday afternoon we made the decision to put our Shadow to sleep. He's been aging very rapidly the last couple months and the last few days it became evident that it was time. He's been mostly blind and deaf for some time but adjusted fine to that. However, when his back legs started to give out and he stopped eating anything but treats we knew. Thursday he got me up in the middle of the night to go outside, and he could hardly walk. Friday morning he was no better. When I got home from baby sitting Joseph on Friday I found he'd fallen off the bed and was unable to move. Even after picking him up and massaging his legs awake he still couldn't stand. He wouldn't drink any water either, or eat any treats, so we called the vet. The look in his eyes told us he was ready to go and that he trusted us to take care of him.

He lived a good long life considerably past his life expectancy - almost 17 years. He gave us much joy and love during that time, and we miss him so much. When we come home we have to remind ourselves that he's not there to greet us. We are trying to focus on all our happy memories. We know time will make it easier, but right now it's so very hard.

Another finished flimsy

Tonight I finished the second string top. This is the first time I've made blocks with a specific color and width for the first diagonal string. I really like how it turned out! I like the first one I made too, but there's just something about the strong diagonal statement the red strings make. I know I'll make more tops similar to this as I have so many remaining strings. For now, however, the strings will be put away in favor of finishing more projects. I have 1016 mile-a-minute blocks that need to be sewn into quilt tops - that's the next thing on the menu.

This weekend we went out to Long Beach, Washington and spent time with Rick, Rebecca, Jeremy, Chelsea and Sophie. We stayed at Chelsea's mom's family place. I didn't take any pictures, but here is a picture of the view from the living room that I took there the first time we were all together. This time our weather was marvelous - high 80's with very little wind. Unusual for the beach! Unlike in the picture, the beach trail was dry so we took several walks to the ocean. Sophie got to play in the sand for the first time - she loved it! It was a wonderful relaxing weekend - so relaxing that I totally forgot to get out my camera! Chelsea and Jeremy were taking lots of pictures, so hopefully they will share. It was great having a weekend to watch Sophie play and cuddle her when she wasn't too busy exploring her world.

I spent a lot of time in a chair handquilting and just enjoying everyone's company. This is the first time in several years that I've done any handquilting - last time I tried the arthritis in my hands gave me a lot of trouble. Not a problem at all right now thanks to my copper rings, so I took full advantage of it. Here is a picture of the quilt I am working on. I finished quilting all the blocks, and started working on the sashing. I'd already quilted the sashing 1/4" from both long seams. I took out the two cables I'd quilted - I didn't like them from the minute I put them in because they looked funny in between the two rows of 1/4" stitching - and quilted a straight line down the middle of the sashing instead. Much better looking and much faster! I'm confident I can finish quilting this one by the end of the month - that will be such a good feeling! I think I started quilting it at least 5-6 years ago.

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Gratitudes:

1. Wonderful weekend with family

2. A beautiful, healthy granddaughter

3. A walk on the beach trail with all my girls

Finally some progress . . .

This morning I actually loaded a charity quilt for Hotel Hope on the longarm and got it quilted. This bargello quilt top was made from a UFO that one of the guild members donated to the cause. She made the top years ago when she lived in Alaska and had little access to fabric. Years later she decided she hated it and would never finish it as the colors weren't her colors at all. Another guild member added the borders around the bargello area and then the blocks across the top and bottom to make it long enough for the bed. I love the way this turned out - the blocks she added compliment the center nicely. I quilted it in a simple meander so it didn't take all that long.

When I finished this one I loaded a second top - this one is a Chinese coin variation done all in 30's reproduction fabrics with a piano key border. The back is also pieced from large squares of 30's fabrics. I really like this one because it is so light and spring-like. I'm doing a butterfly pantograph which also makes me think of spring. I'll post a picture of that one when it is finished - hopefully by tomorrow night!

I got a nice call from my son just before noon with Mother's Day wishes from all three of them. Then Rick and Rebecca came over about 4:00. We went to a speciality pizza place downtown - they have the best pizza around! - and then played Hand and Foot. The ladies won, which was nice for Mother's Day - but only because Fred missed playing a crucial card which would have ended the second round and prevented us from collecting an additional 1500-2000 points. Since the spread at the end of the game was a close 510 points we would have lost if he'd not made this crucial mistake.

I hope all you mothers in blogland had a wonderful day - whether you are mothers of two legged creatures or dogs and cats or have a DH who needs a lot of mothering. It was a very lovely day here. Tomorrow it's supposed to get up to above 80 - a sure sign that we are approaching the middle of May.

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Gratitudes:

1. Wireless connection for the laptop

2. A special Starbucks breakfast

3. A nice Mariners victory over the hated Yankees

4. The yummy smell of a roast in the crockpot

5. A new hanging flower basket from my kids

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Sunday Success

My goal for today was to finish the last appliqué block for Heirloom Stitches and finish putting the top together. Success! I finished just a few minutes ago. Because the border on this quilt involves so much appliqué I'm putting it away for awhile. (Here is a link to the pattern in case anyone wants to see what the border looks like.) There are other projects that need to be a higher priority than this right now.

I have several charity quilts to quilt, as well as three customer quilts. I need to get going on Joseph's quilt. I'm going to do machine appliqué on that one because I want it to wear as long as possible.

My take along hand appliqué project will be blocks for my mid-century medallion.

If I want a break from that I'll do the border appliqué on It's a Wonderful Life. I've waited long enough to finish it. I didn't particularly care for the appliqué in the pattern so I'm going to design something of my own. It's time to swallow my fear of designing and just do it! I guess I've never posted a picture of that almost finished top - I could find one anyway - so here it is. The borders are sewn on - I just need to do some appliqué on them.

Finally I need to finish at least one UFO so I don't have to pay a fat quarter penalty at guild on May 4th - not to mention avoiding becoming UFO queen on the Stashbusters list. (In this case queen is NOT a good thing to be!) One of my charity quilts is also on my UFO list, so I can accomplish a two-for-one if I just get that one quilted, bound and labeled.

We had a wonderful visit with Jeremy, Chelsea and Sophie yesterday afternoon. This is the first time she's been awake during our entire visit. Apparently she is already sleeping almost 8 hours at night - amazing! Neither of our kids slept through the night until they were at least 8-9 months old. Yesterday she'd been awake since 9 a.m. and was still awake when we left at 6:00 p.m. She's definitely taking after her dad - he didn't sleep much as a baby and gave up naps entirely before he was two years old! Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera!

Friday night I spent a great evening with Cher at the artist's reception for her quilt guild. The featured artist was Judy Hopkins. I always thought Judy lived in Alaska year round, but apparently she lives in Oregon for four months every winter and belongs to the same guild as Cher. Judy has written 16 quilt books that feature rotary cut quilts and clear, easy-to-follow directions. The books she hopes will be her major legacy are her three block books - Around the Block, Around the Block Again, and Once More Around the Block. Each block features 200 traditional blocks with rotary cutting instructions for making them in 6 different sizes. Whenever I need to make a pieced block for a swap I grab one of these books. Judy is also the creater of the Scrapmaster ruler which for years has been a marvelous tool for cutting up my scraps. There were quite a few of Judy's quilts hanging on display, and we received a guided tour from Judy in which we learned the story behind each quilt. It was a delightful evening - made even more wonderful by the wine and great food available to everyone.

The stitches are out

I got the stitches taken out of my finger today and all is well. Looks like I'll probably have a permanent dent in my finger now but if that's the only reminder I have I consider myself very lucky! Careful with those rotary cutters ladies!

Still stitching the binding on the postage stamp quilt - I have about 1/3 of the way around left to go. I'm happy to report I busted another piece of fabric from my stash when I made the binding - it took every scrap. I will finish stitching it on tomorrow for sure. I'll post a picture when it's done. It's been a challenge to wrap the binding around the edge with this 8 oz. batting inside, even though I cut the binding 1/8" wider than I normally do. I think I'll leave the rest of the 8 oz. batting rolls to the ladies who are tying their quilts, and will use some of my Quilters Dream poly roll int he rest of the donation quilts I do. The 8 oz. is much more suited to tying than to quilting.

The pictures today are two quilts I took out of storage for spring display. The Sunbonnet Sue was made in a class I took years and years ago on invisible machine appliqué. This was before there were any books showing how to do this. We used gluestick and freezer paper to prepare the pieces, then a blind hem stitch in invisible nylon thread for the appliqué. The green Sue in the close-up has a dress made from the scraps of a maternity smock I made myself. The finish date on the label says 1995, which is when I finished the quilting and binding. I'm guessing the top was finished at least 7-8 years before that. The Ohio star was made in 1992 for a class sample at Daisy Kingdom, and quilted in 2003. It's one of the first quilts I machine quilted using freemotion quilting on my Pfaff. The tension is far from great and the stitches are way too small, but since it's invisible thread you have to look really close to tell that. In spite of the quilting it's still one of my favorite quilts - I love the colors.

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Gratitudes:

1. Beautiful blue sky with white and gray clouds today

2. Daffodils everywhere

3. The first asparagus of spring

4. Daylight savings time - I love it!

5. Payday tomorrow!

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A wonderful time was had by all

We had a great weekend at the beach with our kids. The weather cooperated beautifully! This large beach house belongs to our daughter-in-law's family. It was built just north of the little town of Long Beach, Washington by her maternal grandfather in 1980. This is the view of the Pacific ocean from the living room, eating area and master bedroom. Their property goes all the way to the beach so they don't have to worry about anyone building in front of them. Unfortunately what looks like a stream on the left side of the picture is the path to the beach, so we didn't get to walk to the beach. That's about the only thing we didn't get to do. The water was so deep it had a riffle like a lake - there has been a LOT of rain in the last three months! We played lots and lots of games - all our families have always been very big on games. Here you see the bunch getting ready to play dominoes. Our daughter and son-in-law are on the left, son and daughter-in-law and Chewbacca the dog in the center and my DH Fred on the right. We also played Boggle, 31, Phase 10 dice, Mille Bournes, Sequence, Whoonu, plus the video game Monkey Bowling. We also played both ping pong and pool. After a dinner last night of pizza we watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Even though we couldn't walk to the beach we still got some exercise. Yesterday morning we three ladies took the dog for a walk into town. We got our coffee for the morning, then Chelsea, Rebecca and Chewie walked to boardwalk while I visited the quilt store. I think I was very good - just one small sack full went home with me, in spite of the fact that they were having a fat quarter sale. Ninety-nine cent fat quarters are very hard to resist, but I bought only 8. I bought 5 yards of cheddar to go with a scrap quilt - maybe the strings - plus a half yard of a civil war fabric that particularly appealed to me. I bought a packet of 6" squares of the new Moda collection called Poetry. That gives me the pleasure of ownership at a very low price, and the pieces are plenty big enough for scrap quilts. Here is a picture of the haul. The round trip was a little over 3 miles, so that was a very nice walk on such a beautiful morning.

I did get one pattern also - a red and white ABC redwork pattern. Remember my collection of red and white fabrics? This might be just the ticket for using some of them. Unfortunately you can't see all the cute embroidery pictures in this scan, but you can see how they all fit in the center of the neat quilt blocks. They are color-book like drawings of things from childhood representing all the letters of the alphabet. This one will be fun to do, as I enjoy simple embroidery very much. But believe it or not, I have no plain white cotton broadcloth in my stash! I'll have to buy some white fabric in order to do this.Better call it quits and get back to catching up on laundry. After all, I have only 2 days to pack for my quilt retreat!

This is so much fun!

Wednesday nights are almost always spent with our daughter and son-in-law. We go to dinner and then either play games, watch a movie, or watch our beloved Mariners during baseball season. Tonight was no exception, but I did manage to piece two more string blocks. I'm having so much fun doing this! But my string pile is growing and expanding! I guess I had really crammed them in there. Two baskets full have now become two overflowing baskets of pressed strings, another big pile of pressed strings, and a giant pile of unpressed strings. When they are all pressed they will take up at least 5-6 times as much space as they did before. I think I have enough strings for at least a couple queen size quilts!

Revisiting these fabrics from quilts made log ago is lots of fun too - even all the tiny calicos. I had so many of these because I had a doll and teddy bear making business for 7 years when my kids were in grade school, and they all had dresses, aprons hats, etc. made out of calicos. When I got tired of the business and went back to teaching my remaining fabric inventory - which was large even then - got renamed my "quilting stash". There are even some scraps from dresses I made my daughter and granny dresses and maternity smocks I made myself. What fun memories! I'm having so much fun that I've almost reached the point of deciding to take all these baskets with me to the retreat next week and focus on making strippy blocks. I can appliqué in between machine sewing sessions.

I can hardly wait - the last week before retreat is always the hardest. I only get to see these quilty internet friends from all over Washington and Oregon twice each year when we get together for a retreat. Isn't the internet wonderful! There are so many wonderful quilters that I never would have met - both in "virtual" and in person quilting sessions - without it!

Basically a non-quilty day

It's a good thing I took a personal day on Friday - I needed all of this three-day weekend to do everything that needed doing. Today I ran basting stitches around all my circles and pressed them with the mylar templates inside, and that was pretty much it quilt-wise. I did pack my appliqué for my trip - and then realized they'd probably call my Omnigrid tote a "personal item" and not let me take my backpack also. So tomorrow I have to find something to repack it all into that I can put in my backpack.

Speaking of backpacks - I tried to find one of ours and apparently we've stored both of them in our tent trailer - which is in storage at our son-in-law's parents house. That goodness for kids - I just called our daughter and they have one I can borrow. I need something big enough for my purse, my stitching and food. Guess they just don't serve meals on flights any more, but I know I'm going to get hungry before we get to Indianapolis at 10:30 p.m. That will be 7:30 according to my Pacific body time, which is still after dinner. We take off about 1:30 -right after lunch. Looks like we have a one hour layover in Chicago, so hopefully we can grab a little hot food there between gates.

Had an unexpected visit from our son this morning, which was a nice treat. He and his wife live in Newberg Oregon - a little over an hour away - so we don't get to see them more than once a month or so. He was over here for further testing with the Vancouver Police Department - he's hoping to have a second career as a police officer. He's been unemployed for almost a year in spite of his college degree - he's a software developer who took a severance package from his company when they decided to move everyone to Florida. As much as I hate him being unemployed and worry about them a lot, I wouldn't have handled them being in Florida at all well. He had no trouble getting his first two jobs - one right out of college and another when the first company went bankrupt - but now most of the software developer jobs seem to have moved to India. He's sure he could go to work for Microsoft, but they don't want to move to the greater Seattle area because they could never afford a house up there. I've been holding positive thoughts and doing a lot of praying for them, but so far nothing. He really wants a career change to something meaningful in the community, so I'm hoping the police officer thing will work out.

Packed up my small number of winter decorations and got out my small number of spring decorations. I thought I had lots more, but I guess I was thinking about all the Easter things. I have 10 or so beautiful china cups and saucers - many that I inherited from mine and my husband's family - plus a few teapots that I love. I've put them out in the dining room and living room - they look so very spring like! Hung a St. Paddy's day wreath by the front door and called it good. Did four loads of laundry, took care of all the clutter strewn about, and got my suitcase mostly packed.

I sure missed stitching today!