Another Baby Quilt

Yes you heard me right...another baby quilt for another neighbor...while Sharon and I were at the show in Chicago we saw a kit for this quilt made from Wee Play fabric...I thought it would make a perfect baby quilt so I bought the kit...easy, easy, easy...I think I'll be ordering some more of this fabric. I started at 2 this afternoon and finished at 4...and it's cute...I ordered backing today...will get it quilted and it will be ready for the baby to arrive. I think that's it for the neighbors until they start on the second round. I'm the resident grandma on the street...what fun!

I did some more organizing today and look what I found...



Rhubarb & Ginger by Blackbird Designs...42 fat quarters...$65 SOLD...Thank you so much



Rhubarb & Ginger plaids...22 fat quarters...$35 SOLD...Thank you very much

I'll leave you tonight with a picture of my Zack...I was sitting on the couch my lap top was on the coffee table. Zack came to sit near me and started staring at the screensaver...which just happens to be a slide show of Hampton. I couldn't resist...

Dad's Home and Zack's Feeling Better

I am very happy to let you all know that Zack is feeling so much better...his infection appears to me to be gone (to me a trained vet you know...LOL!) We've backed way off on the prednisone so that is a huge help...we're not pottying quite so ofter (OK, sorry if that's too much info. I couldn't be happier...he's such a sweetie and never complains, lets me do whatever needs to be done...so when he feels bad, I feel bad...but when he's feeling good all is right with the world. He and Howie were both doing the happy, happy dance on Friday evening. Andy got in from California around 7:30 and they were just jumping and running and following him everywhere he went. They didn't let him get too far out of their sight. They sure missed him and were thrilled that he came home. Andy couldn't figure out why I wasn't quite as joyous as they were...LOL! Aren't dogs great!

I've gotten a few more Civil War Diary Blocks done...I still need to lay them all out together but I'll save that for my next post. Here are Sugar Cane (top left)
Baptism (top right) and Greenfield and Stockton (bottom) all from the Civil War Diary.

I was doing a bit of organizing in my sewing room today and found some MODA bundles...I know at some point I had a plan for these (well maybe I did)...when I had the shop I got one of almost every bundle of MODA that was in the shop...so there are more on the shelf where these came from. If you're interested in either of these just send me an e-mail and we'll arrange for how you want me to ship them to you. Let the fun begin...

Day in the Country by Fig Tree...35 fat quarters...$55 plus postage SOLD-Thank you very much

Garden Magic by Blackbird Designs...29 fat quarters...$45 plus postage SOLD- Thank you so much

I'm off to do more organizing...wonder what I'll find.

Best Laid Plans

The week wasn't exactly what it was supposed to be...Andy had business in San Diego this week...YUP, I was going with him...business meetings for him, quilt shops for me and Sharon was coming down and we were going to have a wonderful time...best laid plans. Zack had some spots on him and Andy decided that he'd take him to the vet to make sure that everything was OK since we were leaving him with a pet sitter. He had a bacterial skin infection and the vet put him on prednisone and antibiotics. Side effects...poops and excessive drinking so you know what that means. The pet sitter works so he would have been alone for long times during the day. Long story short, I cancelled my ticket (I love Southwest) and stayed home...Andy left Sunday and will be home tonight. Lots of trips outside for Zack and I, but I got some sewing done.

I finished the Spring House section of the Four Seasons BOM...oh I love this...

I got 2 more Web Samper blocks done...2 more to go and I'll get to start putting it together. Whew, these blocks are labor intensive but I like them a lot.


I worked on the pinwheel baby quilt that I showed parts of before I went to Chicago...I'll show you that one when I get the top finished...it is so cute,but a bit more work than I anticipated.

I'll leave you with a not very good picture of my boys...I was upstairs and looked over the balcony and there they were...the light is bad, the battery was in need of charging, but I think you can see them...they're waiting for their daddy...

Beautiful Quilt...Great Cause

In case you haven't heard there is a quilt raffle going on over at Okperi's Place...Perry's sweet granddaughter is battling Cytstic Fibrosis and Cindy made a wonderful quilt to raffle with the proceeds going to help find a cure for this very horrible disease. Head on over...beautiful quilt and a great cause...

The Rest of the Story

I'm going to try really hard to get the rest of the pictures on today. I tried last night for the longest time and it kept giving me an error message when I went to "Add Image"...this techno thing sometimes is way too much for me...we'll see if Blogger will cooperate with me until the end this morning.

One of the really fun parts of our trip was our visit with Anna and her quilty peeps, Junie, Gurney and Jewels...make sure to check out Anna's blog for the story and the pictures of our crochet lesson, cupcakes and lemon bars...YUMMY! We had talked with Anna about the cute vintage cards that she does with the crochet around the edge...she assured us we could do it and invited us for a lesson. Well look at the most wonderful bag that she made for all of us...with our names embroidered on...
...and it was full of the necessary crochet supplies, scissors, crochet cotton and the tiniest hook. I'm going to need some more practice but it sure was fun...thanks Anna. And look at this wonderful jar of cookie ingredients that Jewels brought for Sharon and I......it's in the cutest Longaberger Blue Ribbon Jar...I'm ging to be making cookies this weekend. YIPPEE!

Well back to the loot...as we were walking back to the hotel to unload and get some lunch we walked by The Back Door booth. Well, it was like someone grabbed my arm and pulled me right in...I should have taken a picture of the quilt, but I was too busy hyperventilating over this kit......the pattern is in the Winter 2008 edition of Designer Quilts...it's all out of Jo Morton's Jamestown fabrics and can I just tell you that the cheddar in it is gorgeous...grabbed me, twisted my arm for about 1/2 second and I was done. It has about a million flying geese, and I'm not a real big fan of making flying geese, but I will be making them for this quilt. I love it. Of course I want to do it right now...but I'm going to make myself do a few other things first, finish up a couple things and then that will be my treat.

The Quilts Plus booth was another wonderful shopping experience...
...a little Jo Morton kit called Pick up Sticks and the cutest quilt kit using the Wee Play panel...perfect kids quilt...

I think that's it...make sure to check out Sharon's blog...you know she really chronicles the adventure like no one else can...we had a blast and can't wait to do it again. Better let the credit card cool for a while.

One last picture before I go this morning...this tree is in front of our garage...it blooms at this time every year and the rest of the year it's just not verry attractive, but this sure makes it worth it.

Home Again After a Great Trip

Sharon and I had a very fun filled Thursday, Friday, Saturday and a wee bit of Sunday. There wasn't much of Thursday, Sharon experienced some serious airline delays, I'm betting that she'll tell you about that. She got in too late to do Preview Night so we just went and had some dinner, a glass of wine, caught up and laughed a lot. She had a big surprise for me...you may remember the tote bag she said that she made for herself for the show...well that was a little story...she made it for me ...what a surprise...I love it, and lots of people complemented me on my wonderful bag, including Judy Rothermel...she loved the fabrics...Aunt Grace of course... Friday morning we were up and ready to go...we hit the quilt show shortly after the doors opened and headed straight for the vendors...I know you wouldn't expect anything else from us. Our first stop was Lori Smith's booth...From My Heart to Your Hands...her booth is always amazing...what a prolific gal. We flipped over her Fit to Frame patterns
...small quilts...right up my alley...I can say I finished several quilts...don't have to say how big they are...they are really wonderful...

There were lots of vendors there that we loved...good reproduction fabrics...great primitive booths...you could say we were in heaven. We both needed some 30's fabrics...I needed a few more greens, pinks and purples for the baby quilt I'm working on...so Quiltin' Gals from Texas was the answer...
great fabrics and great prices.

Primitive Gatherings had a marvelous booth...oh boy, if I'd driven to Chicago and not flown...had unlimited space and pounds to bring stuff home, I would have been in some real serious trouble in that booth...you gals that live near there are really lucky...what a great shop. I got Lisa's new book with 26 projects in it
and a kit for a Christmas quilt that is just awesome...it looks really old...that's moved to the top of my TO DO list.

Country Threads was another booth that really could have gotten me in big trouble...there were about 4 more kits that I really thought would be great to have, but way to heavy...I'll be punching buttons. I did get several patterns, a really cute Mary E kit for a tumbler quilt
and I got 2 of Mary's handmade pin cushions. Mary has been making pin cushions and selling them at shows...she's tucking away all of her pin cushion money to buy her very own baby grand piano. Along with being a quilt designer, a quilter, a shop owner, Mary is a very accomplished pianist.

I have several more pictures of purchases and need to finish telling you about our evening with Anna and her peeps, but Blogger is starting to act up and I don't think it wants any more pictures in this post, so I'll sign off for now and look for part 2.

Don't Faint

Now don't anyone faint...I'm back...two days in a row. Wow! Wow! Wow!
I've had several questions about the Faux Paper Piecing technique...I couldn't respond to the questions because they came from "no reply" gals so I'm going to answer the question real quick here. The technique is from Judy over at Quilting with Ragdolls (ragdollquilting.blogspot.com)...she posted on Sunday, March 30 the best tutorial with awesome pictures. So click on over there for a lesson. She did a great job.

Off to pack...have a great rest of the week and weekend everyone.

Where do I begin?

Well, once again it's been forever since I posted. I wish I could tell you that I'd been gone on a wonderful vacation somewhere, but that wouldn't be true. Let me see if I can recreate the time since I posted last...maybe you should get a cup of coffee, a diet coke or maybe a glass of wine...this may be long.
Just after I posted last time, my dear Andy decided that we needed to do some serious yard work. The yard guys do the routine work...but we needed to add bedding chips, we use pine bark nuggets here, and you know the job is never as big when you start as it is when you get going. 76 bags of nuggets later we were done. Then we needed to trim back the crepe myrtles...Andy spoke to the yard guy and he said he couldn't do it that day because he didn't have his chain saw...Oh NO! not my crepe myrtles...so we trimmed them all. That part wasn't so bad, but the cleaning up and bundling all the stuff we cut for the yard trash people to pick up took forever...plus at that point we were both pooped. That whole yard work (togetherness) project took a couple of days...so nothing got done in my sewing room. By the time I had time to sew my body hurt so badly from all the yard work that I could barely make it up the stairs. The good news is we're done with the hard work.

The next event was taking Andy to the shoulder specialist. He's been there twice, had an MRI, got a cortisone shot, and and no relief. So he had to go back for the consultation about the MRI results...the good news is that his rotator cuff isn't torn but it's fraying and has lots of bone spurs in there...so he's going to have to have surgery. He'll probably schedule that for May.

Friday was Mom's 86th birthday...shame on me...I forgot the camera...Andy and I took her to lunch at the Ritz-Carlton and it was wonderful. They treated her like a queen. It couldn't have been a better day.
The kids found a house that absolutely loved...to quote Katie...it's the perfect family house. After offers, counter offers back and forth the owners accepted their offer on Sunday evening and they couldn't be more excited. They'll probably close the end of May, so I'll be driving up to help with the move...you know what that means, I'll be playing with my little man.

OK, I think I've got you caught up on life. Here's a little quilty stuff. I'm nuts about the Prairie Paisley fabric by Minnick & Simpson for MODA...so I did some button pushing and look what showed up on my porch.


Now you know how I love mail...look at these goodies that came from Sharon... Look at that cutie little yellow bunny holding a tiny flower...and I love the egg and I really hope that you can see the wonderful scrabble tile charm with the C on it...oh I love it all. There's also a mix there for a raspberry cheesecake...oh my...I'll have to get back to the gym.
Oh exciting news for Sharon and I...we're meeting in Chicago on Thursday for the big quilt show...we are so excited...we've heard that this show is great, so we'll let you know when we get home. We'll be coming home on Sunday.

I have gotten some sewing done...I'm working on a baby quilt and I'm having so much fun doing it...here's a bit of it on my "design floor" in my sewing room storage area
...I need to get this done, the baby's due the end of June.

I've gotten a couple of Civil War Diary blocks done
The top one is Yankee Papers and the bottom one is Special Blessings.

Karen helped me on Saturday with Judy's Faux Paper Piceing technique...I did much better doing paper piecing this way than I ever did with regular paper piecing...so today I attempted on my own and did just fine...here are 2 parts of another Diary block... Hopefully I can get it done before I leave.

Thank you so much for stopping and sticking it out here with me til the end. Have a wonderful evening.