Busy busy weekend - between naps!! Stephen was with us all weekend but spent a lot of time out with his friends. Friday night Stephen and I went shopping for the items needed for the NC VA hospital bbq then stopped for sushi at a place he knew. Good sushi - not too much!
Saturday I was up and out early to go get a pedicure then to Joanns for a quick buy and then to a local store that was hosting a book signing by 5 authors one of whom is my favorite Emilie Richards. Emilie is also a quilter so I took a strip of batik and had her sign that and she had me sign the bottom edge of one of the batiks I took her. (took her 1/2 yard each of two coordinating indonesian batiks - tied with a ribbon and a little chocolate.) So we will both have signatures in some future quilt. I am thinking of doing another 'favorite things' quilt and that's where Emilie's strip would go.
So that was a thrill - her next book Fortunate Harbor hits the stands on Tuesday so please look for it. After the book signing I headed home and read! and have no recall of anything else that night! LOL - I did throw together a stir fry and had dinner with Mark.
Sunday Mark and I headed out to get some fresh fruit, I wanted to make some strawberry jam - and I brought home 10 pounds of Strawberries, 3 quarts of blueberries and a blueberry bush so in another year or two I will get free blueberries!! I even have a spot to plant it in planned. Sunday afternoon and night I made all the strawberry jam in about 20 different sized jars - larger ones for the strawberry lovers and smaller ones for gifts baskets or whatever. I have not tried it yet - hoping Stephen will be my guinea pig! LOL.
Mark got the pool vaccuumed out and said it is perfect for swimming - in fact he wants to swim every morning. That 6:30 alarm this morning really was irritating - but maybe I will join him - gotta see how he swims in a circle! The two of us could create quite a current!
More later - Toby
Monday, June 28, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
I am a jam maker!
So... I got a canning set (HUGE!!) from my in-laws for my birthday (thanks Mike and Jean) and had to put it to immediate use. Whipped up a batch of blueberry jam late last night, allwent well just like the recipe said and at the end of the night I had the requisite mess in my kitchen and 4 sparkly little jars of jam! I actually cracked one of them open this morning and spread it on some 100% wheat toast and it was HEAVEN!! No really - there was something so special about taking a bit of something you have made yourself, from scratch - and you know all of the ingredients in that jar and exactly how it was made - it just makes it taste so much better!
Anyway I love my canning set - I realized I do need a special rack to hold my little jars in place but I am ready to become canning queen of Roselle! I may actually have to put a garden in next year and then it would really be from scratch!!
I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to eat better and you can actually save money. 4 jars of jelly would have cost about $20 at the grocery and they cost about $7 to make. I am also going to make spaghetti sauce and can it by the quart - that will save me at least $3 from every store bought bottle of sauce.
Every little bit helps when it comes to saving and it's fun !!
Anyway I love my canning set - I realized I do need a special rack to hold my little jars in place but I am ready to become canning queen of Roselle! I may actually have to put a garden in next year and then it would really be from scratch!!
I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to eat better and you can actually save money. 4 jars of jelly would have cost about $20 at the grocery and they cost about $7 to make. I am also going to make spaghetti sauce and can it by the quart - that will save me at least $3 from every store bought bottle of sauce.
Every little bit helps when it comes to saving and it's fun !!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
More of Julian
Okay - last one for today - this is julian actually sitting on his quilt. Wasn't it wonderful how mommy Holly dressed him to give some contract with the quilt? This thing is big - probably 50 plus inches by 60 inches - so he can move up to his toddler bed with it and if it lasts it could be a throw in his dorm room or first apartment! Really big - but filled with love and as he uses it and mommy throws it in the washer and dryer it will get that vintage wrinkly feel most quilters love. I know I do!
Julian baby pictures
Here's one of Julian with his crocheted baby blanket. Very oversized so it will last - made out of chenille boucle yarn, two strands held together and worked in double crochet at the same time. Light yet warm!
Julian's gifts
So I finally got a picture of the quilt for Julian before i mailed it and as usual I took it in my office with my phone and the colors are all wrong. But here it is. I showed the back because it is a beautiful lime green and blues and yellow and you can't see it at all in the picture. Oh Well. Going to post two more shots compliments of Julian's mommy who posted these on Facebook for me.
This is a snowball block with different contrasting colors in the corners of the blocks and when the snow balls came together it was fun to make sure no two corners of the same color were in contact with each other!! It was my first timemaking snow balls but will definitely not be my last. Fun and fast!!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Another year older!
I'm not announcing this to the world - just to the few who actually read my blog and you probably already know I had another birthday! But did you know my DH Mark also had his? It's true! He'll never catch up to me but we each get one per year - and that is a good thing!! We all got what we wanted for our birthdays and for mother's day, I got a visit from my mom - what could be better?
Things are going well - I have the baby blanket in my car to mail tomorrow and will snap a pic before mailing it - along with a crocheted baby blanket for Julian!
I also finished piecing that top for the bride/mom and once I can get it off to the quilter or onto my frame - whichever comes first - it will also be on the way to being done done!! This is my first quilt in 30 repros and lots of white on white and I do love the vintage look of the quilt. I should really stick to the vintage patterns and fabrics - I find such beauty in their simplicity.
So It's the holiday weekend and I will be sleeping in, selling poppies, doing yard work and still looking for that piece of art for my bathroom! It's the one last thing I need/want. Hoping to get pics of the new room this weekend also and will post!
Looks like we might get a summer in Illinois this year - all the locals are excited ! I am just looking forward to a little rest between all the activities of the Lion's Cluba nd The Legion.
As you enjoy your holiday please remember our veterans and wear a poppy!!
Things are going well - I have the baby blanket in my car to mail tomorrow and will snap a pic before mailing it - along with a crocheted baby blanket for Julian!
I also finished piecing that top for the bride/mom and once I can get it off to the quilter or onto my frame - whichever comes first - it will also be on the way to being done done!! This is my first quilt in 30 repros and lots of white on white and I do love the vintage look of the quilt. I should really stick to the vintage patterns and fabrics - I find such beauty in their simplicity.
So It's the holiday weekend and I will be sleeping in, selling poppies, doing yard work and still looking for that piece of art for my bathroom! It's the one last thing I need/want. Hoping to get pics of the new room this weekend also and will post!
Looks like we might get a summer in Illinois this year - all the locals are excited ! I am just looking forward to a little rest between all the activities of the Lion's Cluba nd The Legion.
As you enjoy your holiday please remember our veterans and wear a poppy!!
Monday, April 19, 2010
DRAT - and Drat again!!!
Best of intentions and poor follow through - good thing I am better at work than with my poor blog!
Life has been oh so busy! - I have been away from the sewing machine for a few months!!
Winter blahs?
Hormone angst?
Lack of mecdication?
Too much medication?
I don't know, and not sure I need to analyze the reason - just glad I am back in the sewing room and looking forward to more quilting soon! I was working yesterday on a baby quilt, the last thing I pieced because the baby is due in just three more weeks !! My best friend from college oldest daughter is having her first child (a boy)!! just about on my birthday! What a funny gift - does this mean he has to be called Toby? I'll suggest that! LOL...
so I worked on the baby quilt and worked some more on a long overdue wedding quilt - dare I admit??.... yes I shall ... it's for the mother to be !! So you know it is LONG overdue, but in all fairnesss I did make her one earlier but then decided to let her pick her style so I had to start all over again!!! I am struggling with hundred of little 6" blocks, way smaller than I usually go!
The big annual quilt fest was in Chicago this past weekend and too late I heard it is the last year for Chicago, next year it will be in Cincinnati, OH. I have not gone for several years, admitting I have a huge enough stash to last my life and the ease of internet shopping is just so great - so I did not go.... but I did go to Quilter's Destination in Arlington Heights and spent many hours there working with their wonderful store staff to select fabrics for a new Log Cabin quilt for my room and a few other irresistible pieces of fabric. I got one batik that literally can take your breath away. I fear I may never be able to cut it! The Log Cabin is in new colors, so the bedroom will also have to be re-painted to go with it - see how that works???
So what else is new? Well - we got a new bathroom! Totally gutted our old main bathroom and tossed the 1955 rose colored tub, sink and twink for lovely new biscuit and granite and ceramic tile and glass tile all around. The re-do process was definitely quicker than the planning and shopping, just 3 1/2 weeks from demo to done after 9 years of planning!! lol - so we are very happy and very grateful to our remodeler and we are already thinking ahead to our next projects. I'll post pictures after I get the grout sealed - hopefully this week!
This winter we also repainted all of the first floor except for the kitchen which worked out great - because we just kept the draperies in their dry cleaning bags until the bathroom was done and we saved them from all that dust! The dust is just incredible - we are going to have our vents vacuumed professioanlly, but we may have the remnants of this around for a long long time!!
Other than that Stephen is out of work but searching hard for a new job. He totalled his car during a blizzard this winter but was unhurt and he now has a new used car he likes. Thomas is wrapping up his last few weeks of being a Univ. freshman and we are looking forward to a visit. Work is busy - more opportunities than I have time for. Mark's work is fine - everything is good!
Started yard work last weekend, then had a freeze the last two nights so no planting for another month yet. One of my neighbors was trying to burn her old dead plants and burned up one of my arborvitaes so I guess she is buying me a new tree! Sad part is that it was one of the few older ones - so about 6 feet tall! very established - but I love my neighbor more than my tree - and we can laugh about it! I took her mind off it by giving her the tour of the new bathroom. We did get the patio furniture out for the season and discovered a new crack in our raised terrace -I don't know if it's from the tree we had removed from the side of the terrace two years ago (doubtful) or the earthquake we had last month (more likely).
Travel for work will be starting again soon for the last bit and then I will be done with that I believe. Life is all about transitions I guess - more on that later.
Life has been oh so busy! - I have been away from the sewing machine for a few months!!
Winter blahs?
Hormone angst?
Lack of mecdication?
Too much medication?
I don't know, and not sure I need to analyze the reason - just glad I am back in the sewing room and looking forward to more quilting soon! I was working yesterday on a baby quilt, the last thing I pieced because the baby is due in just three more weeks !! My best friend from college oldest daughter is having her first child (a boy)!! just about on my birthday! What a funny gift - does this mean he has to be called Toby? I'll suggest that! LOL...
so I worked on the baby quilt and worked some more on a long overdue wedding quilt - dare I admit??.... yes I shall ... it's for the mother to be !! So you know it is LONG overdue, but in all fairnesss I did make her one earlier but then decided to let her pick her style so I had to start all over again!!! I am struggling with hundred of little 6" blocks, way smaller than I usually go!
The big annual quilt fest was in Chicago this past weekend and too late I heard it is the last year for Chicago, next year it will be in Cincinnati, OH. I have not gone for several years, admitting I have a huge enough stash to last my life and the ease of internet shopping is just so great - so I did not go.... but I did go to Quilter's Destination in Arlington Heights and spent many hours there working with their wonderful store staff to select fabrics for a new Log Cabin quilt for my room and a few other irresistible pieces of fabric. I got one batik that literally can take your breath away. I fear I may never be able to cut it! The Log Cabin is in new colors, so the bedroom will also have to be re-painted to go with it - see how that works???
So what else is new? Well - we got a new bathroom! Totally gutted our old main bathroom and tossed the 1955 rose colored tub, sink and twink for lovely new biscuit and granite and ceramic tile and glass tile all around. The re-do process was definitely quicker than the planning and shopping, just 3 1/2 weeks from demo to done after 9 years of planning!! lol - so we are very happy and very grateful to our remodeler and we are already thinking ahead to our next projects. I'll post pictures after I get the grout sealed - hopefully this week!
This winter we also repainted all of the first floor except for the kitchen which worked out great - because we just kept the draperies in their dry cleaning bags until the bathroom was done and we saved them from all that dust! The dust is just incredible - we are going to have our vents vacuumed professioanlly, but we may have the remnants of this around for a long long time!!
Other than that Stephen is out of work but searching hard for a new job. He totalled his car during a blizzard this winter but was unhurt and he now has a new used car he likes. Thomas is wrapping up his last few weeks of being a Univ. freshman and we are looking forward to a visit. Work is busy - more opportunities than I have time for. Mark's work is fine - everything is good!
Started yard work last weekend, then had a freeze the last two nights so no planting for another month yet. One of my neighbors was trying to burn her old dead plants and burned up one of my arborvitaes so I guess she is buying me a new tree! Sad part is that it was one of the few older ones - so about 6 feet tall! very established - but I love my neighbor more than my tree - and we can laugh about it! I took her mind off it by giving her the tour of the new bathroom. We did get the patio furniture out for the season and discovered a new crack in our raised terrace -I don't know if it's from the tree we had removed from the side of the terrace two years ago (doubtful) or the earthquake we had last month (more likely).
Travel for work will be starting again soon for the last bit and then I will be done with that I believe. Life is all about transitions I guess - more on that later.
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