We are back - again

This time we returned from four days of taking care of our three granddaughters - ages almost 3, almost 5 and 6.  We had a very lovely time with them, and especially with the two who weren't able to come camping the weekend before.  Our son and his wife are on a six-day backpacking trip in the Washington Cascade Mountains, so we turned the three over to their other grandma this morning.  It will be so nice to spend tonight in our own bed!  We have gotten so spoiled since we bought the Temperapedic mattress in April. 

I took much handwork with me, but was able to do very little.  Just a bit of applique, of which I'll post pictures later.  And a little bit of hand quilting, which I nearly forgot to mention.  With three lively girls in the house there was very little time to sit down much less do handwork!

I'm still catching up on blog reading.  I thought I could finish that in the evenings after the girls went to bed.  Unfortunately my new reader had a bit of a crisis and will be offline until later this week.  Rats!  At times like this I really miss Google Reader.

Emily's quilt is finished!

I picked up Emily's quilt from the quilter last Thursday.  Today I found time to bind and label it.  I'm so glad she will finally have it! 

I'm going to see all my granddaughters tomorrow, so I wanted to be able to deliver it then.  I will get a picture of her with her quilt - if she is in the mood.  You can never tell with an almost three-year old!

Yes, I've been a bad blogger

Looks like the last time I posted was my birthday. Once again I've been involved elsewhere, with very little time spent on the computer these last weeks. I've been doing next to no quilting - just cooking, reading cookbooks, reading other books, gardening a bit, and running around a lot. Everything is fine. Our daughter is doing well. I'm back to watching Joseph two days a week, with more now and then when his other grandma and family need time off. I've taken Joseph to visit Sophie and Lily, spending the morning at the park. I really have no excuse for not blogging!

Thanks so much to those of you who wrote asking me whether or not everything is OK. Right now I'm headed north to Jo's Little Women's Club at my favorite quilt shop - Momma Made it in Longview, WA. I've taken some pictures, and I'll write a better post this afternoon or evening.

I've been busy

Let's see - what have I been doing since Saturday's post? Still pressing fabrics. I had more than I thought because when I went to do laundry on Monday I found a big load of fabrics in the dryer - I thought I'd taken out the last load! So I ironed the rest of the afternoon and evening on Saturday.

Sunday I started my friend Kathi's quilt. I thought I could finish it in one day - wrong! I spent about 6-8 hours on it Sunday, then finished in three more hours on Monday afternoon. I'm so glad to have this done - Kathi is so glad to have it back - and I'm happy to say she liked what I did to it very much. I was very relieved - Asian just isn't my thing when it comes to quilting, so I really didn't know what to do. I was right - the quilt started talking to me as soon as I started doing the anchoring stitch-in-the-ditch.

Monday morning I watched Joseph while his dad took his mom to physical therapy and a doctor appointment. I needed to head north to Momma Made It in Longview to pick up 80 more "opportunity quilt" tickets for a guild fundraiser. I'd unexpectedly sold 140 tickets in about 10 minutes - a huge surprise! - and all I had was 60 tickets. Of course, I can never go to Momma Made It without spending money, and this was no exception. I'm making sure Joseph feels very comfortable in a quilt store LOL! I didn't take a picture of the new fabrics - rats!

We've had spectacular spring weather the last few days - it reached 80 yesterday and Monday! - and the flowers are so beautiful. I just had to take pictures to post - I'm practicing with the macro setting on my camera. Spring flowers are my favorites - I love the blues of grape hyacinths and windflowers, the yellows of daffodils, tulips, and forsythia, the reds of tulips and rhododendrons, and the purples and pinks of azaleas. And the trees are so beautiful - the crab apple in the front yard and the apple and cherry in the back yard. I ran all over taking pictures. The beauty of the macro setting is that most of the time the weeds don't creep into the pictures! I can't get down on my knees right now to weed, so we are having a neighbor boy clean out all the beds and move some plants for us. Then I'll have him put down new bark dust and plant other flowers for me. I can hardly wait for it to be finished!

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Gratitudes:

1. Rebecca's recovery is progressing well

2. Breakfast with a friend

3. Continuing discovery of new joys while cooking

4. Weight loss going in the right direction

Weekend happenings

It's worth saying it again - I absolutely love this new way I learned to do appliqué. (If you didn't read my post about this method check out the third tutorial listed on my left side bar.) I'm sure I'm taking less time with each block than before, and I can see for this method much better with these aging eyes.

Today I prepped the February and March "blocks" for Jan Patek's 2009 mystery quilt. They aren't actually blocks - instead they are four triangles that will set the center block on point. Here's another appliqué hint for you. Notice I've not yet cut the square into triangles. I will do that after I finish the appliqué. That will avoid the chance of stretching that long bias edge during the appliqué. As long as you fold the square diagonally, and can visualize a 1/4" seam allowance on each side of that line, you should have no trouble placing your appliqué pieces correctly. Jan's already posted the April block on her website, so I imagine that one will come in the mail soon. I'm determined to be caught up by the end of the month.

Saturday morning was Jo's Little Women's club meeting. I enjoyed it very much, and adore the final addition to the quilt. I'm eager to get this finished also - I'd love to take a finished quilt - quilted and bound even - to club next month. The picture I'm sewing is our group leader's quilt. Isn't it simply spectacular?

Jeremy, Chelsea and the girls came yesterday afternoon for an early Easter celebration, and also so Jeremy could do some work on the computer. Lily has certainly changed a lot since the last time we saw her on March 21st. Her personality is really developing now - she's a sunny, happy little girl. It was so easy to get some good pictures of her. Sophie is another story - she doesn't respond well to a camera these days. I couldn't get her to look at the camera or smile. About the time she would cooperate, it was so fleeting that it was gone by the time the shutter was fully pushed. She is SO active - getting her to sit still for more than a minute is a near impossibility.

This afternoon we saw Rick, Rebecca and Joseph for a short time so we could wish them Happy Easter also. They have several family members to visit on a holiday, and they were all getting pretty tired. Things are quite hard for them right now.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow - an entire day for myself. Hopefully I can finish the customer quilt currently on Gandalf!

Equal time for Sophie!

Chelsea sent some great pictures this evening. They are an hour away to the southwest and apparently got the worst of the storm. An additional 7 1/2" arrived last night and today, giving them a total of 16 1/2"! And no - her nose isn't red from the cold - rather from a tumble she took before today.

Sorry, but I'm breaking my promise!

I know - I promised I wouldn't talk about the weather - but I just can't help it! When it comes to snow I'm just a child at heart. This is only the third time in 34 years that we've had snow like this. Usually when we have any at all it's about two or three inches followed by freezing rain. All I want to do is sit and look at it, and walk in it, and run in it, and catch snowflakes with my tongue. I'm going to make a snow angel this afternoon and have Fred take my picture!

We now have over 10". I walked to Starbucks again this morning - a great workout. The only place to walk was on the street - the snow beside the road was knee deep and hard to walk in because there is a layer of ice with snow on top and below. Sometimes I broke through and sometimes I didn't - that plays havoc with balance!

I did fall once - when I plowed through to the side of the overpass so I could take this picture for the blog - of course! I was too close to the freeway sign - it filled a bunch of the screen so I stepped backwards so I could move the the right. Picture this now - my right foot broke through the ice so I'm stuck to my knee, while the left foot is on top of the ice and about 10" higher. Sat right down on my fanny and couldn't get up. Managed to turn over but couldn't get to my knees because one was way higher than the other. Of course by now I'm laughing hysterically trying to stand up. Must have been quite an amusing picture for the few cars that went by! Finally managed to get to my feet but it took a few minutes.


Here is a picture of the surface of one of the major north-south aterials - and this is after the snow plow has been through a few times! All the roads looked like this - or worse. The freeway wasn't much better. Only a little traffic out and about. Good thing - the only place to walk was in the street - everywhere else the snow was just WAY too deep.

The coffee was so good it was really worth it. Figured I got enough of a workout I had a Venti 2% Peppermint Mocha Twist - probably half my daily points allowance. Oh well - I don't think we'll get to WW on Christmas Eve morning to weigh in anyway! When I got home I decided to make a snow angel - would you believe I've never done that? Fred thought it was extremely silly and stupid but I didn't care. And here I thought I was smiling - I guess I was just too cold! - and once again had to struggle to stand up, even with Fred's help LOL! You can tell how excited he was to have his picture taken!

More snow pictures - I just can't help myself. I love, love, love this! Though it's certainly playing havoc with travelers - the airport has been closed for 3 days now and hundreds of people are stranded. We may very well be celebrating Christmas with our kids sometime later in the week.

Catching up - thanks to the snow!

Not only am I behind with my blog reading, I'm also way behind with my posting. Hopefully that will change today. I have a bunch of posts in my head and a bunch of photos waiting in a folder called "temporary", where I store photos for the blog until I use them in posts. Lots easier than trying to remember which folders I put them all into. (I learned not to end a sentence with a preposition - I bet you did too - but I don't seem to care any more. Do you?)

It snowed all day yesterday from early morning to late evening. I walked to Starbucks again to meet Kim - I've been eating so much I needed to build up exercise points LOL! (Right now I've used my extra points for the week with three more days to go, plus the 11 exercise points I earned, and I'm two points in the red. Not a good way to lose weight - but at least I'm back to tracking!) When I returned I finished the rest of the Christmas decorating and then plunked myself on the couch to read blogs and watch the snow. What a pleasant way to spend a beautiful afternoon and evening! Fred measured for the last time a little after 9:00 p.m. -we had nine inches then. We had some freezing rain in the night, and now there is a crust of ice on top of the 9" of snow. We aren't going ANYWHERE today!

This is the most snow we've had in 5 years come January - could you hear me squealing and happy dancing? I'm sure you are sick of hearing about the weather but I can't resist - I adore snow and see it so seldom.

So I promise not to mention it again. I'll really try not too! But I can't resist posting a few more pictures, including some cute grandkid pics!

A week of Joseph and handwork

It's been a Joseph week so far. Cousin Katelin and Aunt Debbi are sick with the flu so he can't go to his other grandma's. Joseph time is always so much fun - he is such a happy, lively little guy who also entertains himself very well.

This is also a handwork week. I've been concentrating on hand quilting. I've finished two of the Spring Trio wall hangings - now they just need binding. I hope to finish the third one at Tangled Threads tonight. Since I have no bits left of the fat quarter I used for the border I had to find something else. Would you believe almost every blue I have is either way too dark or has a gray cast? I finally found this VERY old Jinny Beyer by RJR. I think I'll cut the binding strips lengthwise so I can control the placement of the lighter shades. I hope to be report this project finished by the end of this week. All those pillows I made last month didn't count for the Stashbuster UFO challenge as they included no quilting. My name has now crept much too close to the top of the Queen's list for my comfort!

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Gratitudes:

1. Eating breakfast with a handsome young man in lime green and overalls

2. Several days of beautiful fall sunshine

3. The end of UFO's is in sight!

Monday's shopping trip

OK - here is my first stash report. We'll see how this goes . . . .

28 yards added to my stash. This is the fabric I bought last Monday at my favorite quilt shop Momma Made It. I just couldn't pass it up as these are perfect for backgrounds, borders, sashings, backings, etc. All were on sale for at least 50% to 75% off. How could I resist. The average price of these? $3.75 per yard Can't beat that! Even though I had these fabrics when I wrote my stash busting post, they weren't washed or ironed - I don't include them in the stash until they are actually on the shelves. Hopefully I can get that done in the next day or two.

1/3 yard subtracted from my stash - I finally had a chance to finish Lily Abigail's quilt. Bad Grandma - she is now 7 weeks old! She is being dedicated at church tomorrow, so I figured that was a great time to give her the quilt. I loved how it turned out - and I love crossing another project off my list. Finn - this makes five finished toward my end-of-the-year goal! I hope her parents like it as much as I do - and that she likes it too once she is old enough to care.

Invasion from the Animal Kingdom

Is there anything cuter than grandchildren decked out for Halloween?

Introducing Lily Abigail

Born: Friday, September 26th

Weight: 6 lbs. 14 oz. - very tiny compared to Sophie, who was a whopping 9 lbs. 8 oz.

Length: 20 3/4"

Lily, Mom and Dad are all doing beautifully! Thank you so much for your thoughts, best wishes and prayers!

We interrupt this program . . .

Well, my plans for today and the weekend are out the window. We received a surprise call from our son yesterday - Chelsea's water broke about 9:00 a.m. and they were at the hospital waiting for real labor to start. This is early - Lily wasn't due until October 15th - but since it's past 37 weeks she is still considered full term. Guess she'll get here before her quilt is done! Labor started in earnest sometime during the night, and just about now they expect her to be able to start pushing. I just put Joseph down for a nap - we'll head right to the hospital as soon as he wakes up and has lunch. I guess Miss Lily isn't going to be an October baby after all!

Your prayers for a safe delivery and a healthy baby would be appreciated. I'll post another report - hopefully with pictures - as soon as I can.

Grandma Camp

No sewing is getting done this weekend, as Sophie came on Friday morning to spend the weekend with us. We've all been having a marvelous time. Unlike her first visit, she could hardly take time to say goodbye to her mom as she was already so busy exploring. Sure beats the crying and sobbing of last May. We've been very busy - going to the park to swing and play, running around the yard and rolling in the grass, visiting Joseph, investigating Grandma's kitchen cabinets and drawers, reading with Grandpa, visiting the farmers market Saturday morning, and doing just about everything else a very energetic 19 month old can do. Her daddy is spending a weekend with the guys, and her momma is spending some great quiet time at home by herself getting ready for her new baby sister Lily.

I've not had any time to ride my exercise bike, but Sophie is a ready-made exercise program all on her own. I've hardly sat down since she arrived, and she moves faster than lightning! I'm thrilled we've all had such a marvelous time - but also thrilled we will be taking her back to her mommy and daddy this afternoon!

It's about time!

Our new granddaughter, Lily Abigail, is due on October 15th. About time I started her quilt, don't you think? Chelsea and Jeremy chose a design from an old That Patchwork Place book I've had for years and years. There isn't a copyright date on the book - how odd! - but I think it's from the early 1990's. I've always loved the quilts in this book; I'm thrilled to finally be making one of them. They chose this very cute teddy bear. A couple minor changes were requested - nothing major.

This is made of log cabin blocks - both traditional and courthouse steps blocks. The unfinished 4" blocks are made from tiny 1" strips, and are not paper pieced! I've pulled lots of golden browns, dark browns, and tans from my stash and have started cutting strips. It's a good think I like making tiny blocks!

Where does the time go?

I just can't believe it's been a whole week since I last posted. Where did this last week go? What did I get done? I'm not even sure. So I'm digging back through my memory starting with last Tuesday, to see what I can find.

Tuesday . . . Hmmm . . . I know I babysat Joseph and went to quilt group. I finished a very small amount of appliqué on one of the Heirloom Stitches border. I did some reading. A pretty uneventful day, wouldn't you say?

Wednesday morning I did something that was a first for me. I attended a Weight Watchers meeting. After trying on clothes and looking in the mirror for two hours in Lincoln City the first day of our beach trip I decided I had to do something. No more kidding myself that I was just a wee bit overweight. What a shocking, eye opening experience. I tried WW online the last 2-3 years, as it worked for me once before, but I just couldn't stick with it this time. I just couldn't find the proper motivation. So I went to the website, found a meeting, and went for the first time. I found it very motivating, I learned several new food and recipe tricks, I met some great people, and saw many success stories all around me. At the end of an hour I left with a new mind set and a determination to succeed. I really enjoyed the meeting, and loved all the resources they provided. Since then I've been shopping for food - our cupboards were bare anyway - and brought home many things I've not bought before. I bought the monthly pass so I have access to the online tools also, and haven't missed a day tracking points. I'm feeling great and feeling like this is going to work. I'll keep you posted on my progress!

Thursday was another great day with Joseph. It was also a great day because I got to meet Lucy from Quilting With the Past. Lucy and her family have rented an RV and are spending three weeks seeing the sights in Washington and Oregon. She's going to meet up with Bonnie at towards the end of this week so they can attend the Sisters Quilt Show together. We've been emailing back and forth for a couple weeks - Lucy with questions and me with suggestions as to what they should see. Of course I told them they should spend July 4th here in Vancouver - Fort Vancouver has the largest fireworks show west of the Mississippi. That's exactly what they did, camping in an RV park just five minutes from my house! How fun to meet her and spend some time together! She brought me some beautiful Dutch fabric and delicious Dutch cookies - Yum!

Friday we spent July 4th with Jeremy, Chelsea and Sophie. Sophie's new little sister now has a name - Lily Abigail - what a pretty name! Jeremy and Chelsea have picked out her baby quilt, so now I must get sewing on that. Mid-October will be here in no time at all!

Saturday and Sunday was spent shopping, cooking, reading, ironing and sewing. I tried some new WW recipes that we really liked. The refrigerator is absolutely stuffed with fresh fruits and vegetables, including sliced fresh strawberries that I've been enjoying twice a day. I finished some exchange blocks so I could send them off today. I also took advantage of the cooler weather to prewash and iron my fabric purchases from the last several months. Each time I do this I realize all over again how much fabric I have and now much I need to stop shopping. There is no room on my shelves for what I have now. Couldn't believe it - when I finished the ironing and counted up the yards the total was 100!!!! I took the fabric diet badge off my sidebar - who am I kidding? I need to find the equivalent of WW for fabric addicts!

Today I got out another machine sewing UFO - Bonnie's Carolina Crossroads. I finished step 4 and am close to being done with step 5. Hopefully that will be a finished top by the end of the week. Almost all of it came from my strip drawers, though they don't seem any emptier!

Tomorrow will be a fun day with Joseph. On Friday he suddenly decided that he could walk on his own - something he's been threatening to do for several months. Rebecca said he just stood up, let go of the chair and started walking across the room. I've not really had a chance to see him demonstrate his new skill, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Oh, I almost forgot! The missing has been found. You may remember when I mentioned losing a quilt top? It was a small one I wanted to hand quilt. I looked everywhere I could think of, but it was just nowhere to be found. Today I was pulling strips out of the 1 1/2" drawer and there it was. How it got tucked into that drawer I will never know. Now I just need to spray baste it together and I'll have a hand quilting project for quilt group tomorrow.

I think I'm now up to date with everything. I do know I've been spending very little time on the computer, so once again I'm behind on blog reading - though not nearly as far behind as I was. When the choice is sew or sit at the computer, I've been choosing sewing every time.

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Gratitudes:
1. A safe holiday with no accidents for everyone.
2. Fresh strawberries with fat free half and half
3. The lost has been found
4. Cooler weather with showers the last few days
5. My new determination to lose weight