My goal for the weekend

 

My plan for the weekend is to work on this project. Back in July or August?, Carol sent me some fabrics: an orange, a black, some grey, a bit of beige with the idea that I should make a block or blocks or a top to donate to Wrap a Smile. Right away, I cut out and sewed triangles and 4 patches, but they never got made into blocks. I laid them out to see how they would look, and suddenly, I had two friends checking them out with me (Peanut Butter is the orange one, Buddy is the other one). So in the next few days, I'm going to have a stay at home retreat and put these blocks together. I hope. 

Preparing a surprise

 


This is my Mom (and me)in New York when we saw the Radio City Christmas Spectacular a couple of weeks ago. Next month, my mom turns 60. My dad got this idea that he should have a big surprise party for her birthday. So for the last two months, my dad, my brothers and I have been working on this party, which will take place on Saturday. We're going to have probably close to 100 people at the party. The biggest deal of the whole thing is that all of Mom's sibilings will be at the party. It has been probably 15 years since they have all been together at once. There are 7 of them (and my Mom is the oldest) scattered all around the country: one in Oregon, one in Nevada, one in Florda, another in Maine, and the rest all here locally. The 4 from out of state are all flying in Thursday and Friday and staying for a few days. I'm sure that Mom will be suprised by the party, but seeing her brothers and sisters will be the biggest surprise of all. 

Vermont in Fabric

One of the big things for 5th graders in our local elementary school is the "State Reports", they have to do two of them during the year. Thing One, of course, chose to do Vermont for the first of her state reports. Among the parts of the report, they need to do a couple of free choice projects, either from the suggestions given or a project of their own invention. One of the suggested projects was a monochromatic collage in the shape of the state. She thought this sounded good, but instead of using pieces of paper, she wanted to make it into a sewing project. Approval was given by the teacher, and we began our pillow project. I did cutting with the rotary cutter and ironing, Thing One did the sewing and the arranging and designing. She used the methods of fabric collage in Melody Johnsons Fast Fun Fusible Art Quilts book, with an atlas giving us the outline we needed. In the end, the project was finshed without any big problems. Tomorrow is her presentation of all the reports, the maps and her pillow project. I'm just so happy that she is excited about quilting and sewing.

And on a quilty note....

Last week I pieced this top from donated blocks. I decided not to think about them too much and not fuss with them on the design wall for long. I slapped them up there and moved them around for about three minutes then sewed. I gave myself about 3 mintues to look for a border fabric and found this one, which was long enough for a border, backing and binding. Its not necessarily a great choice, but it works. Finished is better than perfect. I hope to quilt it this weekend.

I also managed to bind 4 quilts in my pile. Only another 8 or 10 to go! I need to get the bindings machine stitched on so that when I'm sitting and watching tv I can just hand tack the back part of it down. I've tried doing it with a zigzag by machine but I'm just never happy with it done that way.

Sorry for all the multiple posts, but I'm still trying to figure out Picasa and how to upload in Blogger, how to use the picture software and all this stuff. I'm starting to get the hang of it a little. Another 5 years or so, and I might have a half a clue! ;)

Its not my idea of fun, but....

 

So a few days ago, Thing One had her birthday party at "the coolest place ever!". A rock wall climbing party. Well okay, not what I would think a 10 year old girl would like, but the party was a HUGE hit with my kid and her friends. Here she is climbing near the top of one of the walls with two of her friends. This gym is incredible, they have 23 places to climb the walls and one rope wall thing to climb. They are all harnessed in and strapped onto the rope things, it seems pretty safe. All I know is that they had a blast. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Thanksgiving is now over, let the Christmas madness begin! I'm getting set to go out shopping at 6am tomorrow morning with Thing One in search of a Nintendo Wii. Wish me luck. I swore I wouldn't go anywhere near the mall, but apparently I'm going to be there when the doors open. Lucky me. Honestly though, it is the only thing that Thing One asked for as a gift other than a few little things, so I am going to do my best to make her happy. She undesrtands that she might not get it for Christmas, but will eventually get it when it is available.

Today was a day of too much food, too much family togetherness and way too much rain. Thank goodness at least it was rain and not snow. I made the turkey here at my house, along with the stuffing and we went to the in-laws for dinner at 12:30. After we left there, we stopped home for a few minutes, then went off to my parents for dinner again at 5 (I only ate desert and my kids ate Peanut butter sandwiches at my Moms). We celebrated my Dad's birthday today as well. Once we got home, hubby and Thing two left for Vermont for the weekend.

Donyell

 

Here is my favorite furry friend (just don't tell the other 3 that they aren't my favorite). He's in the kitty hospital tonight for the third night, and I am missing him a lot. Donyell is 14 years old and is in the hospital because his thyriod levels were very high. Right now he is there because on Tuesday, he was injected wiht Radioactive Iodine as a treatment. Instead of needing a pill 2X per day for the rest of his life, there is about a 99.something% chance that this will cure his problem. (Fingers crossed). The only reason the kitties have to stay in the hospital for three days is to monitor radiation levels and protect the humans from any residual radiation.

I get to pick him up tomorrow, and I'll be so happy when he is back home.

I would have put this in my other post from tonight, but I guess Picasa will only allow you to put one picture in each post. The BLOG THIS part of PIcasa really needs a notepad where I can cut/paste stuff into my post. Of course maybe I'm just doing somethign wrong? Any thoughts? 

Off to see the show!

 

Okay, not until Saturday, but I'm excited. Thing One, my Mom and I are going on a bus trip Saturday. While there, we'll be stopping at American Girl, Times Square, looking at the tree in Rockefeller Center and of course, seeing the Christmas show. Thing One has never been to New York City, and neither Mom nor I have been in years and years.

Yesterday I made three tops. Don't get too excited, it wasn't as great as it sounds. One was a preemie quilt made from 5" squares, one was a 38" square lap quilt made with 3" squares, and the other was a kids size quilt (40X50) made with blocks that other people made a while ago. No pictures today since my camera battery is dead and I'm too lazy to go find the cable. Maybe tomorrow if I get thru my list of 500 things to do. 

Okay, so now I'm going to try using Picasa to upload a picture. I've been told that it might make things easier for me, so we'll see. How surprised was I today to find that Picasa was already installed on my computer, thanks to DH and Google Pack! LOL.
Lets see if I can manage to post that picture of those contrary wife blocks that I mentioned earlier today.

 

I did do my celestial block for the AIDS quilt last weekend, it is off to the lady putting the top together. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture because my digital camera was in the wrong state at the time. I figure I'll get a picture when the whole quilt is finished. I ended up doing redwork type embroidery in multi colors: a man in the moon, Saturn, earth and a bunch of stars. 

A very rainy November day in New England. At least it isn't cold, I'd hate to think of how much snow all this rain would be!

I spent the weekend working on Contrary Wife Blocks that I had kitted up a few weeks ago. In all, I made nearly 50 blocks. I took all the ones with yellow in them and tossed them onto the design wall, and I'm pretty happy with how they look. I do need one more with yellow, then I'm good to go with this this top. I have enough to make at least one more top after this.

November

Long weekend here, kids in our town have Monday and Tuesday off for teacher workshops and election day, then they have Friday off for Veterans day. Short week for them.

And here it is, finally:



This is the August (September?) Hour a Day challenge, in a smaller size. I'm still debating about if I should keep it or donate it. I am very pleased with how it came out. Thanks, Judy, for the idea and the pattern.

I didn't do any quilting today, running around dealing with my poor sick Kitty, Donyell. He is 14 years old and has hyperthyroid. In two weeks he'll be getting a radioactive injection that will almost certainly fix the problem.

My quilting project for this weekend is to embroider a block for a local community quilt. It needs to be a celestial theme, so I am going to do a moon and stars. The quilt will be donated to a person whose life is affected by AIDS. Hopefully I'll be able to get a picture of the completed quilt when it is on display after December 1st.

Beyond that, I need to work on the 12 quilts that need bindings.