October 2014

 I don't know why I don't keep up to date on my little blog.  I think I am going to make sure I update monthly and before you know it many months have gone by.

This is the Fire Escape quilt I made for Lacey for her college graduation.  She earned her Bachelor's in Criminal Justice (I think that is what it is.)

 Here she is with her dad in front of the quilt.  This is my July finish.

 This is a Snake Charmer quilt I made for my grand nephew who made his entrance early.  He was due in August and I thought I had plenty of time to make him a quilt.  Brody arrived almost a month early.

Oliver turned six this year.  He has Alexander's disease and continues to do well.  He is such a sweet little boy.  We don't get to see him often due to his parents schedules and are very thankful for the times we do get to spend with him.  We had a little party for him with his cousins.

 I liked how the Fire Escape quilt turned out for Lacey so I thought I would make Oliver one too.  He likes Sophia the First, but I wanted to make the quilt a little more masculine for him, so I added a lot of blue.  I think it worked.  He wasn't too impressed with the quilt though. This is my August finish.

 I started a new job in March this year.  Since I work from home, I don't really know any of the people I work with.  They had a company picnic at the Harrisburg Center Island park, where we watched the Senators lose a ball game.  Anyway, I met a coworker who was getting ready to begin Chemo treatment for breast cancer,  She is a young woman, which makes this even sadder.  I made her a breast cancer quilt for support and comfort.  She told me she received it when she was having a rough day and that it was the perfect time for her to get it.  This is my September finish.

 I have another September finish.  Draperies.  When we moved in to our house, I just put these up until I found something that I liked for our living room.  I have been looking for draperies or fabric for over nine years.  I finally stumbled across some fabric that I thought would work, so bit the bullet and ordered it online.  Fortunately it matched my walls very well.
My walls are more of a butter yellow-not as deep or bright as they look in these pictures.












Once again-the yellow is a soft yellow.  It's very difficult for me to get the true color for this.  I used a tutorial on the internet for tab back curtain panels.  They are lined  and turned out pretty nice.

This is a baby quilt I made for Ashley.  She is expecting her little girl at Christmas.  Her nursery color scheme is navy, coral and gray with a touch of mint green.  I made drapery panels for her in navy with white dots-like the ones I made for my living room.  I also made her an adjustable crib skirt with a cute coral print and some of the navy fabric from the drapes.  She is supposed to send me a picture of them when they are all put together in the nursery.

This is the back of the quilt.  I didn't know how to put that mint on the front, so I added a little to the back.

Does anyone else have problems with the formatting of blogger?  I tried over and over to get the crib quilt to the side with my text on the other side.  Blogger would either move the location of the picture, switch it with the picture above, or delete it all together.  I always have problems somewhere along the line and then give up.  My computer has Vista on it, so that could be the problem.  I am hoping to upgrade to Windows 10 next year.

Quilting again June 2014

After a long hiatus from quilting, I am finally back!  I just wasn't feeling it.  Then my daughter asked me to make a quilt for her friend who is suffering from Lymphoma.  I started it, then took a week off, then went back to it a little bit at a time, but it is finally finished.  This is the Depression Block that I made the Missouri Star Quilt way.  All of the squares were on the bias.  I think I prefer the way I made this before using the rulers and cutting the half squares from strips, or the normal half square triangle technique.  I don't think time was saved using their technique.  I was trying to find the tutorial to link to it, but was unsuccessful.  

I made this quilt using this tutorial.  I was disappointed with my colors in the photo.  They looked much better, thankfully, in person.  This baby quilt was for new co-workers who just had a baby.  Since I work from home, I didn't even know that they were expecting!

I bought this cute little scooter at a flea market a couple of years ago, just because.  I couldn't find any info about it anywhere.  I decided that I wanted to find a plug for it, so I must have used different search terms this time and discovered that this is a Pottery Barn Kids Vespa Scooter Light.  I still didn't find a plug to use with it.  It has a round port to plug the cord into.  I don't know if I can take it somewhere and just look for a plug to fit or not.  

Well, I have a few hours until I have to babysit again.  I want to straighten up my sewing room and begin working on a quilt I am making for my step daughter.  Lacey just earned her Bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice (I think that's what it is.)  I wanted to give her something other than money.  Something that she will remember.  I let her select the colors-yellow and gray.  I think I am going to use the Fire Escape quilt pattern.  I may play around with it on EQ7 first to see if it will work, or maybe I will just dive in and hope for the best!  I had to buy all of the fabric for this because my stash is pretty limited on modern prints.  I don't' want to mess it up and am uncertain if it will look pretty.  I think I better do a mock up in EQ7 after all!

February 2014

We are having more snow this year than we have had for years.  This is more like the winters I remember.  If it is going to be cold we may as well have snow!  Madison and Elijah were sledding in the yard with their mom.  I was inside with Josiah.  GiGi didn't get up in time to watch the baby.  :(  I missed out on the fun.

But I did get to spend some one on one time with this little one.  Poor baby has eczema.  It is so bad that he has to have socks on his hands to keep them from getting raw when he sucks on them.  You can see some patches of it on his face.  They say this is caused by allergic reactions to vaccinations. 

I finished my Celtic Solstice and finally got it outside for a picture.  I just saw one with a blue outer border.  That made the quilt look so different, more somber, if that is possible with this happy quilt.  This one is going to my nephew and his wife.  I hope they like it!

I had a few blocks left over, since I was just guestimating how many I would need to make mine queen size and not king or lap like Bonnie did.  I say it was about perfect with just these few extras.  I am so grateful that I had extras and not the opposite and needed to make more.

January 2014

Life has been interesting.  I was laid off from my job the week before Christmas.  What a blessing that turned out to be.  I actually had time to spend with the family over the holidays.  I didn't know if I really wanted to go back to work.  I was toying with the idea of trying to sell quilts or table toppers or something.  I didn't feel the joy of making these things for pay.  I much prefer making them for love.  That idea was scratched.  My mother (with Alzheimer's) is living with me, and we thought of having her contribute to the household.  That may still happen, but wouldn't supplement my income enough.  I ended up accepting another job, doing something similar to what I had been doing, but different.  I went from coding anesthesia and wound records to coding for ambulatory surgical centers.  I haven't started coding yet-I have been taking an online course to try to figure out what I am doing.  The course has a lot of minutiae in it that I won't need for my job.  That seems to be such a waste of time studying this.  I want to get down to the brass tacks!  

Here is our visiting hawk.  I think this may be a  red tail hawk.  He/she sits on our fence eating quite often.  I have no idea what it is eating, but this time it was pretty large.  

My daughter started college and wanted me to make her a bag for her laptop.  I guess these can be pretty expensive.  I started by following a tutorial I found, but the directions weren't quite right.  I ended up making some changes and it turned out pretty nice.  I put a large double pocket on the outside and a smaller pocket on the inside.  For the handles, I made a contraption so I could use the smaller straps called for in the tutorial.  I already had them made when I realized the sides were going to buckle in if they weren't wider.  The tutorial had the flap be the same width as the bag front and back.  No way that would work since the sides weren't compensated for.  I made that smaller to fit the space better.  I should have gotten a picture of it with the laptop in it.  It worked out very well.

Here is my Celtic Solstice, Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt for this year.  It is now on my frame.  I guess I won't have a lot of time for quilting until I finish this course.