Just for fun.....

Thought this would be good for a laugh! My sister sent this to me! I sent it to some friends and got this response back:
"My goodness, it's like someone followed me around all day and took notes on how I spend my days. Why I was just mentioning to "Joe" yesterday , as I was drying him off as he got out of the shower and handing him his freshly laundered underwear, that I was on my way to the kitchen to prepare him a snack to hold him over until I could throw a 5 course meal together for his dinner ( all his favorite foods, of course). I know my place!"
Of course Linda had to reply back with "Presume that is freshly starched and ironed underwear, of course."

Emily had her first 2 Tennis matches this week. She won both! That was so exciting. I was just happy she made the team - and then she made the starting line-up! Covered Porches mentioned her son was coming home from college for the holiday weekend and so is my freshman. Of course he doesn't want to see us. He just wants the ride home to see the girlfriend. Holly is staying at school to be "with my friends".

Hope everyone has a good holiday weekend!

Just a few quick pics today

Things are busy so I just wanted to share these few pics quick with you today. I dug out the pictures of my Halloween Gingerbread House and scanned them! I forgot how cute they were - even though I"m not a Halloween fan! And I just had to share that last picture with Holly! That was the year she was in Kindergarten and she is now a Junior in college and 20! Oh my gosh, how time flies!


The bottom picture is the quilt I"m going to make at camp with Laura and Linda! I can't wait to go. Everything is all cut and ready to sew! It is from the book More! Laps from Fats

Gingerbread!

MMMMmmm, can you smell it? That fresh backed smell of gingerbread! My family loves gingerbread. I love the smell, but not so much to eat.

Years ago I learned how to make the big old fashioned gingerbread houses. So when I saw this fabric last week in the store I had to do Tonya's little wall hanging idea with it! Since the word Gingerbread is much longer than "small" it actually is about 35" x 28" - so maybe it will make a cute Christmas table mat.

I forgot to scan a picture of my famous Halloween gingerbread houses I made. When the kids were younger - around 1st grade I was known as the Halloween gingerbread house lady. I would make this big haunted house out of gingerbread and then take it into school and let the kids decorate it for Halloween. It ended up being tradition that the class would make it, and then all the other classes would come to visit the room to check out the house sometime before Halloween. And the teachers always teased they fought over who got a Denman in their class! Darn, now I'll have to go home and find those pictures. I also did the traditional Christmas gingerbread houses a few times also, but the kids always enjoyed the Halloween one better, plus school wasn't as busy in Oct as it is in December!

And the word is.....

So are you wondering what dig and bid really was going to be? Should I show you or keep you in supense a while longer??!!! OK, yes I have a picture of the word, before trimming. It is ......

Now you may wonder why Gingerbread? Well I'll keep that little secret until tomorrow!

I also worked on some more liberated blocks this weekend. I've got quite a little collection going! I would have had more done, but I wouldn't have been able to fit them on my little flannel board anyway! Plus I really wanted to work on Gingerbread! So for now this is what I have. Can you tell I'm really likeing the liberated log cabins! I'll probably set these aside now for a month or so until I have time to work on the rest of the project that goes with them. But for now they can kind of sit in my mind and gel. but for sure I need to make some more stars - I like those the best, well second to the liberated log cabins!

Want to dig a hole or bid on ebay?

So, I"ve been working hard at playing this weekend! I wonder what these will be for? Maybe I'll dig a hole? Or make a bid on ebay?

I also got my flying geese quilted, I just have the binding left to do! But I ran out of fabric so I"m waiting on that. Look at the really fun backing fabric I have on it!

Almost forgot...

Guess what I got on my way home Friday! Quilt stamps! Yup, the Gees Bend quilt stamps are out! I bought a book for me and one to tease my husband with - I gave him the book and he just rolled his eyes! I can't wait till I see him mail something with a quilt on it!!!

Welcome to my house

OK, first let me clarify - my house is VERY LIVED in and not house beautiful! And I don't have much decorations because Mark likes things very plain and comfy. So mostly my decorations are my quilts.

Above is my "Taste of Jane" quilt. This is just as you enter the front door. Right now I have Jane hanging there, but I do swap out that spot for different times of the year or whatever I feel like at the time! If you go straight ahead you go into the kitchen and just before the kitchen is a short hallway that has our bedroom and then back towards the front of the house a laundry room and then into our garage.
As you walk into the house and go left you walk into our living room. Going into our living room to your left again (so kind of next to the front door) I have my rocking chair I rocked my babies in when they were young. I keep this cute basket quilt on it that my best quilting buddy bought for me at a quilt garage sale. I had fallen in love with it but just couldn't spend the money. She snuck it out of the sale and kept it for a surprise xmas gift! So that quilt stays right there all the time!
Then coming into the living room to your right and then facing the front hallway I have my very first applique quilt and very first hand quilted quilt! I keep this one in that spot all the time, I just love it. And a small peak at my current hand quilting quilt. I've had several of you ask before to see it. I"m just going to make you wait a bit. It is the only thing that keeps me working on it! I do owe you some pictures of the sections I have done though. So I promise I'll do that soon.

Once again walking into my living room straight ahead you see my new wall quilt hanger I bought with some money my mom gave me for my birthday last Feb. I can either hang quilts with a sleeve on it (the rod comes out) or just fold quilts like I"ve done here. It is amish made and I just LOVE it! The quilt on the left I made at a quilt retreat a few years ago and is called Spanish Olives because of the colors! And the quilt to the right was from a different retreat but was a mystery class so I had no idea how it was going to turn out! Darn, I should have taken a picture of the quilting on that one - it is my favorite quilting job - it is dense and so cool.

And as I'm typing this I realized I should get a shot of the outside. Maybe I'll grab one tomorrow for you. Too dark now!

I"m playing away this weekend, so I"m hoping to have some fun play pictures for you this week. We will see. I taught punch needle today at the LQS so that cut into my sewing time. I"m hoping I have more time tomorrow.

The top is done!

My flying geese quilt top is done! Now to get it quilted! What fun it was to do just a quick no-think project! I need these every once in awhile! I even got it sandwiched together last night ready for quilting!

All 4 kids started school today. My youngest is a freshman in HS but she didn't seem to concerned, and certainly not excited - she is my "school is boring" child. Her dream is to move to Alaska and raise sled dogs. And if she can't do that she wants to move out west and live on a farm!

But the funniest thing is Adam called me at about 10:30 central time, 11:30 eastern where he is and said - "Mom, can you look up something for me". I said sure what. "Can you find out what class I'm suppose to be in right now!" He is a freshmen at Purdue and today was the first day of classes. I told him to print off his schedule and and a map and just hide it in his backpack just in case. Well no - that wasn't cool - so he calls and makes me log in to his account at Purdue to look up his class schedule! After I tell him what building and room he says - "Oh, so that is why no one is in this room!"! Geez. But at least he is going to classes, for him that is a step, not that he hates school, but he is kind of quiet and not real adventurous - Not knowing where to go is a big deal for him. He even made Holly meet him sometime today to take him to one of his classes they hadn't found yet! So at least he is making it through his first day! Tomorrow he has no classes so he can recover!

And almost there....

Yes it is almost done here! Just a small quilt by Jo Morton. I"ll have one more picture of the finished top tomorrow. I even got it sandwhiched together today! So this week I'll work on quilting it! It feels kind of good to do a quickie project!

But I also had to play today. More mindless and liberated sewing. I"ve been promising Tonya I would make these blocks but just never got around to it - well today I started! The tiny little ones are the beginnings of some liberated log cabins.

Making progress...

It's mindless sewing weekend!

Yes, I"ve decided it is mindless sewing weekend! I've started out my weekend by finished quilting the center of my liberated log cabins I"ve been working on and off on since the end of last Jan! The center is complete now! I've sewn around each and every log and if you remember the green logs and one of the brown fabric logs is trapunto'd. The purple logs have micro-stippling in them! I only have the border to do now!

And on to some real mindless sewing. This is the start of it.... Hmmm, black and gold flying geese.... wonder what they will be?

It finally Came!!!!

I finally got the "Collaborative Quilting" book today! After waiting and waiting for amazon, I gave up and ordered it from Barnes and Noble about a week and a half ago. And it came today! And just as everyone has said it is wonderful! It made me want to rush home and play!
I'm sharing a few of my favorite pictures but I'm only about 30 pages into the book and it has 250 pages! Oh what a wonderful weekend this is going to be!!!!

Captain Midnight's Grapes?

So many memories tonight as I"m trying to catch up with blogs! The 2 that made big memories pop into my mind were Laura's grape arbor story and Libby's button box memory.

My grandfather always grew two long rows of grapes. We used to eat them, but they were the sour kind with seeds. But that never stopped us. And we always made wonderful jelly out of them. The big thing I remember is taking them to school and telling everyone that they were Grandpa Grown Grapes - ok, so simple things entertain you as a child! When I was older my dad transferred some of the vines to our house and they continued to grow in our garden. When I grew up and got married and built our own home I wanted to get some vines and continue to grow them in our yard. Well, before long I had 3 babies and time just flew away! I never got around to doing it. Now my grandfather's grapes are dug under a housing development and my dad's are also gone. But I still can taste them in my mind.

When my grandmother died (and isn't this strange - this is my Grandpa Grape Grandma) I got her old treadle sewing machine. When I got it I saw all her old sewing stuff was in the drawers. One whole drawer is nothing but buttons. I"ve never taken the things permanently out - I just feel they need to stay there for some reason. Anyway, many years later I was checking out all the buttons in the drawer and you know what I found?! My dad's old Captain Midnight's decoder! Since my dad is now gone also it was a really fun find. Can you believe that years decoder is currently selling for $40-$80! I found his year on ebay for $32 tonight just cause I was curious - and no not because I would sell it.

Thanks Laura and Libby for the memories!

One more finish!

OK, so I was suppose to be home working today. Don't tell please that I snuck down to my sewing room to finish off the Folk Art Santa wall hanging! Well ok, I have to hand sew down the binding yet - but it is quilted and has binding kind of on! Actually I already took it to the quilt store for the sample. I use the fusible thread for my binding, so it looks done even though it isn't - I just LOVE that stuff!

On the college front Holly called us today to tell us Adam had called her several times already this weekend. We aren't surprised. We knew he would never come to us if he had small regular problems - because we are stupid parents at the moment. I guess he slept last night in his friends dorm and then Adam, Mike and Jim decided to go to Walmart which is right next to his apartment. They knew which bus to get on, so they got on that line but ended at the end of the route - it was going the wrong way! And it was the end of the driver's shift so he told them anohter route they could take to get back to campus. Well they got on that line and ended up way down by the mall, right line again, wrong direction! I guess they finally ended up at campus - so a good lesson learned! That was what this week was suppose to be about so I was glad! Adam is a total computer geek so I was so afraid he wouldn't do any of the freshman activities and just lock himself away in the apartment on the computer - it helped that the apartment was changing high speed internet service and it is down this week!! :) So I was so glad they got him to get on the bus and try it out. I hope he realizes now that getting on the bus can't be any more "wrong" now than today! And the other tidbit I was happy about was that he must have met some new kid because we have no idea who Jim is! We do know Jim is not Mike's roommate! So he actually met someone.

People love him. He has a very adult dry sense of humor and is really fun to be around once he knows you. But he is not very outgoing and doesn't like new things. So even meeting someone and going to Walmart on the bus made me happy!

Finishings.....

I"m starting to finally finish some projects I"ve been furiously working away on! Above is one. It is a baby quilt for a friend at work who just had her first baby. I"ve shown the top before, but because the colors are so soft it is so hard to get a good picture. This is a bit better, but still not the best. I"ve got it quilted and bound! Ready to wrap and give to the new little sweetie!

I like how I quilted it, just simple straight lines, but I made rectangles instead of squares. I think it looks good with all the little blocks!

Then I had to share a picture of an old, old quilt I made. I made this for my husband who is a landscaper. I had to take a picture and share it because Patchalot More shared one she made! Hers has some awesome colors in it. This one was made in brushed cottons and flannel's and is worn smooth in most places - but that is good, it gets used a lot!

And when I downloaded my pictures off my camera, look who I found! A picture of Chloe! Emily must have been playing with my camera yesterday when I took Adam down to college. So I thought I should share this pic also!

More Tumblers

My friend who just made the tumbler quilt with the fabrics we traded sent me pictures to share! Isn't it wonderful! OK, I guess I should get going on mine again!

Shenandoah Valley Books and Misc Quilts

It is one of those days, not much to post, not much energy for anything. So I thought I'd share some misc stuff with you. I just finished the above book - it was WONDERFUL! Actually it is the 3rd in a series you have to read! They are written by Emilie Richards and are about people who live in the Shenandoah Valley area. They are wonderful stories about people and their lives, with intersting ties to quilts/quilting - but not just stuck in there to make it a story with quilts. The quilt always plays an important role to the character and her life. The series started out to be a trilogy but in this last book that was just released, it says they have signed on the author to do more so she is turning it into a series! I'm so excited about that! Each book could be read independantly of the others, but if you like reading - I say read them in order. Especially the first book, you learn a lot about the background of the one characters that shows up in each book. Book 1 is "Wedding Ring" and tells a story of 3 generations of women who do not get along, but some quilts bring them together and help them discover things about themselves and their family. Book 2 is called "Endless Chain" and is about Elisa who is a Guatemalain refugee and her dark past, and pulls in some history of the area to parallel her story with a runaway slave during the civil war. (Yes once again a quilt plays an important role in some secrets about Elisa's life). And now just released is "Lovers Knot" where we learn about Kendra and her husbands links to his grandmother's quilt and the history of the mountain. I won't say much more because I guarantee you will love the books and I don't want to spoil the stories!

A week or so ago I promised you some more pictures from the retreat I went to in July. Well here some are from show and tell. These first few were just some fun quilts that were shown.

But look at the one below! Isn't is gorgeous! The applique is all done in wool! Now who would have thought of that! I've even worked with wool, but never thought about using it for just the appliqued pieces in a quilt like this. The pattern is from Lori Smith and is called Heirloom Stitches. Patti is working on version of this quilt and you may have seen some of her blocks she has done - they are gorgeous also!

Probably one of my favorites though was just a reproduction tumbler quilt (below). Isn't it wonderful! I"ve been slowly cutting out tumblers for about a year now from 4" fabric strips of reproduction fabrics I've been trading with an online friend. She of course has her finished (or almost finished). Me - I'm still dinking at it! But I can't wait to have a tumber quilt all for myself! I just loved this one.

Thank Goodness for Friends!

My best friend happened to read my post from Friday (that she even had time to look at it is amazing, she has her hands full right now with some parent health problems). So while I was out shopping Sunday I get a phone call. She just happens to have a set of almost never used pots and pans - do I want them for Adam and Holly's apartment! YES!!!! I had been dragging my feet on that one. Even the cheap pans are expensive. Heck she brought them over Sunday night before she left for Florida again to take care of her parents and hello, I think they are nicer than my pots and pans! I was so, so, thankful! Especially after shopping all day Thursday with Adam, Saturday with Holly and then Sunday with Jenna and Emily. And tucked away in the box was also a new toaster! So guess what! The toaster I bought (still in the box) is going back to the store! Wooo Hooo!!!!

In a similar vein, my husband has been cranky, cranky, cranky over 2 out of state tuitions, apartment rent, and the general back to school costs! And then about a week or two ago he promised Holly and Adam a car that they could take down to school to use for grocery shopping and getting to campus (their apartment is off campus). But he did not promise them what kind of car, how old or what it would look like. So all weekend long I listened to him complain about buying a car. I was miserable. So today at about 11:30am I get a call from him. "He is test driving a car for them." He wants to know if silver is ok for color, with a grey inerior. I told him what difference does it make to me - Holly will be driving it. So then he springs - "Well Holly says it is ok, I may buy it, but will probably wait another day or 2" (Just so you don't think he is impulsive, he has been thinking about this car for weeks, just never went to look at it in person or drive it). Well guess what, I come home from work tonight and here sits a new car (well new to us). Geez. That darn car is way nicer than my car! It is a 2005 Taurus with only about 20,000 miles. My car is a '98 and 120,000 miles. I tried to take the car and give the kids the van, but no go! Humpgh!


I told Finn I would dig out this picture from our guilds program this month - "Hats off to Quilting". Her Red, cream and black quilt reminded me of these two. The other pictures are also from the show since I've been way too busy to sew anything myself! :) Aren't they great quilts! Kay and Kay from the quilt retreat I went to a few weeks ago do this program and it is so funny! And they have such fun quilts to show and tell!