yummy yummy fabric giveaway

I n the market for some luscious fabrics? Look no farther. Retromummy is giving away 20 (no that is not a typo) gorgeous fat quarters.

 

Are they not beautiful??!!  Hop on over to her blog and sign up.  The drawing will be New Years Eve

i can’t believe it’s december

Picture Heavy Post

The last couple of weeks in November have run over into December if that is possible.  I never posted pictures from the Thanksgiving program at the pre-school.

Vail’s class were Indians and Katy’s Class were Turkeys.  They were all so cute.

Vail is third from the left in the top picture and Katy is in the front row in the pink shirt in the bottom picture.

We had a lot of fun in Cleveland for Thanksgiving visiting with cousins et al.  Here are some pictures.

Thanksgiving became almost a memory and …
Then the  stomach bug hit.  It was a nasty one too.  I thought I had escaped it because a week had passed but that’s when it hit me.  I’m feeling fairly normal again and ready to get some Christmas things accomplished around here this week.
While I was waiting for my  turn to be sick I did do a little quilting on my sock monkey quilt.  Tried my hand at some echoing.  It’s looking pretty good although there is lots of room for improvement.  My echoes are shaky in some places.   I’m not finished yet but hopefully will get it finished  before the week is out.  Maybe …. there is deocrating to do too.

Last but not least --- a boy and his dog --

update ..... no pictures

We had a great MS Thanksgiving with family . . . lots of good food, football, dominoes, kids playing and for the grand finale   ..24 hour stomach virus:)   So  far (knock, knock, knock on wood) I have escaped it.  Brian got it the last night we were there.  He and I left a couple of hours after the rest  yesterday but everyone made it home safely.  On the way home we heard that my sister in law had come down with it.   Since getting home, Vail and Avery have come down with it and also two of Billy's kids --Suzannah and Charley Kate  --but they took the bug to TX.  Speaking as an observer, it has not been a pleasant experience for those who have come down with it.

Just before leaving for our trip to MS I finished smocking the first of the two dresses I'm working on.  I also put together Block 5 of my Raggedy friends quilt.  I'll post pictures soon.  I finished hand sewing the binding on my log cabin quilt while we were gone.  Hope I get to do some sewing this week.  I'm planning on it.

TOBY

February 2, 1998 – November 22, 2010

Twelve years went by too quickly.  We will miss you .  The house feels empty tonight.

another quilt top completed

I finished quilting the log cabin quilt and will post pictures soon.  Tonight I put the borders around the pumpkin panel I purchased awhile back.  Now I can move it to the  sandwich pile and then on to the  to-be-quilted stack. Here's a picture of the panel with borders . . . .

I think it will make a really cute wall hanging / lap quilt.  On to the next project.

I haven't posted much lately.  A lot is going on and the next  couple of weeks will really be busy so I'm probably not going to post until after Thanksgiving.   So, just in case have a safe holiday and I'll be back eventually.

DEMISE OF A VCR/DVD PLAYER and A QUILT

It’s amazing what a 16 month old boy ( and sometimes little girls between the ages of three and six)  like to put inside any available opening.   After having to remove a playing card or crayon  or some other small object from the DVD/VCR combo player that I have I decided to move it up to a higher shelf to keep little hands from pushing buttons and trying to put strange objects that were not tapes or dvd’s in the openings.  Before unplugging it I wanted to be sure there wasn’t a tape or dvd in it.  There wasn’t but I did find the following:

1 toy thermometer
3 playing cards
1 top to a small metal container
approx. 5 sunchips
All were surgically removed with some tweezers that came with my sewing machine.
I am happy to say that no small children were electrocuted during the forcing of said objects into the machine.
I am sorry to report that  the machine did not survive this last incursion of foreign objects and will be replaced soon – and kept on said  higher shelf and away from “all” hands under the age of 10 :))

I've been working on lots of little projects lately trying to whittle down my started but not finished pile of stuff.  I've made lots of progress and one of those things is a lap size log cabin quilt that I pieced and basted probably almost a year ago and have finally started quilting.  I wanted to do something besides quilt in the ditch but still don't feel all that confident about free motion and didn't really have an idea in mind for a free motion design for this quilt.  I had seen a picture of a log cabin where the sewer appeared to have used a "rounded" zig-zag stitch and just went around the inside of every strip on her quilt.  I really liked it and since my quilt is relatively small I decided to see if I could replicate it.  I'm using the #4 stitch on my 820 and after playing around with it, made some length and width adjustments and came up with something I really like. I don't have the original picture but I think mine looks pretty much like it. 

I hope to finish the quilting this weekend (unless I run out of thread) and will sew on the binding but keep the handwork for the week that I babysit while Daughter and SIL are off to Hawaii to celebrate their tenth anniversary for a week.  I'm saving up some hand sewing for that week because I know I won't be in my sewing room much if any.

CATCHIN’' UP

 Addendum:  I definitely had a "Grams" moment.   I must apologize to Charley Kate for misspelling her name on her stocking.  Hopefully between now and when she learns how to spell it I'll get it fixed -- or maybe she will tell me not to worry about it and love me anyway  :)


Lots going on around the neighborhood.  Had company off and on last week since it was fall break at all the area schools.  The girls came over a couple of times and one day we played outside. 

Toby went to the vet for the 3rd time with his cough and had to have a chest x-ray.  He seems to be doing much better but they ended up putting him on a diuretic and a heart pill (both very very low dose) because of fluid on his lung and a possibly sightly enlarged heart.  Those along with his antibiotic means he is taking 5 pills a day.  But, his cough is so much better and they hope to take him off the meds once he is totally recovered.
Have spent some time at the sewing machine and some embroidering too.
I have 4 blocks finished (except for some of the hand embroidery) for the Raggedy Friends BOM that I’m working on.  Jen likes to embroider so she has embroidered one square and is working on her second  -- block #4.  I did the first one and have the 3rd waiting.  Here are the first three.  I really like how these blocks are turning out.
This is Block 3

Block 2

and Block 1

 
I’ve got two bishop dresses pleated and have started the smocking on the blue one.

I won’t tell you how many times I had to take out part of the first row I did (it’s not the top row but the bottom row– which will actually part of the middle of the smocking when all is said and done.  I don’t  know if it is just me or what but no matter how slow I go I always skip a pleat or a stitch or something.   BUT, once that first row is perfect, it is so easy to know as you go that each of the other rows is working out correctly.  My stitches are still not totally uniform  but they are getting better as I go.  My goal is to work on  the smocking every evening when/if I watch tv.  I hope to have both smocked by Thanksgiving.  That way they will be done by Easter:))
I also embroidered names on some Christmas stockings for my neice and also one for my newest grand even though she won’t be using it til next Christmas.

I actually did five for Julie but only took pictures of the first two.  Charlie Kates is an extra one jen had gotten a couple of years ago so I inherited it and didn’t have to make one from scratch. 
I also made a couple of towels to give as a gift to the son of a good friend who is getting married around Thanksgiving.
 
Tomorrow is clean-up day around here and then I can start messing up the sewing room some more.