FAMILY TREE REVISITED

I took the "perfect" corrected family tree quilt to our quilter's meeting tonight and everybody loved it. Made me feel good actually:) Now I can return it to G'ma until time to add new leaves. I've documented the corrections with pics and also took a picture of the label I put on it. It blends right in:)

No longer was Avery born in 20034.

















It is now documented that Billy and Stace did not spend their first year of wedded bliss -- not married.

















The label -- floated gently down to earth to become part of a very small pile of leaves.



The cold front seems to be passing north of us. It has not turned extremely cold yet but I guess that could be coming later tonight. And, the weather forcast on weather.com says it will be sunny here by Thurs and cloudy with a lot of sun in Nashvegas. So if nothing changes I'll be leaving whenever we get finished tabulating Science Fair Scores -- hopefully by one o'clock and heading north and east. I've got several good unread books on my IPOD to keep me company. Toby will stay home this trip.


Back to the quilt meeting. DB made a fence rail(?) patterned quilt top out of a jelly roll. The colors were soooo pretty. I've got two Jelly Rolls. One is going to get made into some kind of tote but the other -- maybe I know what to do with it now.

THIS, THAT AND THE BLAHS

It's a dreary Sunday afternoon-- cold and cloudy. I thought I would accomplish so much this weekend and I have accomplished some things. I have cut out the front and backs of the tuck dress and completed the tucks. I marked them the old fashioned way with "tailor tacks" -- use needle and thread and make a single stitch leaving a longish tail at each end. You do several all along the line you are marking then you remove the pattern piece and when you separate your two pieces of fabric, you snip the the treads in between so both pieces are marked. Did I mention tedious :) I did that because lately when I've used "washable" markers, or chalk they haven't washed out very well. Well, I took a scrap of the fabric I was using and marked all over it pretty heavily and put it in with a small load of cloths. I put some spray and wash on just a small section. -- It all washed out. Maybe it's because I often press where I've marked. The thing is, it seems silly to have to wash a partially made object before you can do any pressing. My next step with the scrap will be to mark all over it again -- heavily and then press it and then wash it again to test my theory. Anyway, I did the second dress using the marker and will wash it out before I press too much. The marks I made were very tiny and only a couple actually show -- the rest were on the inside of the stitiching but I'm not going to press my luck.

I've been in kind of a funk off and on for the past week or so. Seems to happen every year about this time. It's been almost eleven years now and it took me about eight of those years before I figured out that it was kind of an annual thing and always went away after the anniversary of Bob's death. It's not every day and I'm not looking for sympathy from anyone -- I've gotten a lot better at dealing with it. It's just so unexpected. You're having a great day and all of a sudden the feelings just hit you like a ton of bricks and you start remembering all those things connected with the the illness and the death and the grief and anger and all of it. Then after a few hours or even minutes it goes away and a few days go by or even a week and it hits again. I guess it's kind of like reliving those first few weeks after he died. Only not on a daily basis. They say time heals and it does for the most part but you never completely forget. You just learn to deal and adjust. I'm so thankful that I have such a wonderful family. They all have had to work through and deal with their dad's/son's/brother's death too -- I know I'm not alone.

OK enough of that. On to something that brings a smile. My thread arrived that I ordered to be able to finish the log cabin quilt. I also got some books I'd ordered on free motion quilting. I should have just ordered the one book. They are all basically giving the same information. I'm going to try to practice some of the "lessons" so I can try different techniques but on the log cabin I'm just stipling just working on making the stipling bigger instead of tiny and really close together.

I'm planning on going to Nashville next weekend so I may wait till I get back before I set up my "quilting station" again since it has to sit in the dining room which is what you see when you first walk into my house. Or I might set it up after church tonight and aim to finish all the quilting before I leave. I'll make up my mind between now and then. Either way I'll either sew on the dresses or on the quilt. In lieu of some of the sewing I was supposed to do this weekend, I've been browsing sewing/crafting blogs via this list. There are over 500 blogs listed here. I've looked at about 70 and only 4 or 5 of the links did not work. I've bookmarked a few that link to some tutorials and things like that and some that looked interesting enough that I might follow on occasion.

I made chicken and dumplings this afternoon too -- almost forgot about that. They turned out really well considering. When I was in TX last weekend I had gotten a couple of rotisserie chickens from Sam's. I took the meat off and put the meat from each in a ziploc bag and froze it so it would make the trip home. Worked well but next time I'm also going to put the bones in a bag and freeze them so I can use them for the stock. Anyway, today I just put three quarts of chicken broth in my dutch oven and added a carrot, a celery stock and an onion and boiled ti for about 30 minutes. Then I took all the veggie pieces out, added a package of Mary B's Frozen dumplings and simmered for 40 minutes and then put the cut up chicken in with it. Oh, I added a can of cream of mushroom soup to the broth at the beginning. It turned out very tasty. I'm going to take some to this young couple who are on the verge of having their first baby and freeze the rest and take it to NashVegas this weekend.

Enough of this rambling. I've got things to do so I'm going to get to them. Have a great rest of the weekend and a wonderful week everybody. We have our science fair this week -- that's always fun to seeing what kind's of experiments our students do. Some of them are really good.

IT'S THE WEEKEND and MONK IS IN THE HOUSE

Don't you just love Adrianne Monk? He's a really endearing character and sooooo funny.
I went out to eat tonight with friends and ended up going over to their house to show them how to do some "stuff" on their computer. Then while I was watching Monk I finished my jigsaw puzzle that I started last weekend. All 3,500 350 pieces. And I'm feeling proud of myself. So I got my next one out -- 550 pieces and separated the border out so I can start on it when I take a break from sewing tomorrow. I'm going to practice some free motion quilting and do the pleats on the dress I'm making. But right now, I'm going to crawl into my nice warm bed and fall asleep with Psych.

Night everyone.

FUN WEEKEND and A MUCH HAPPIER QUILTER LIVES HERE

I went to TX this weekend to visit my grands -- oh and their parents too of course :) We had an enjoyable weekend. Everyone happy and healthy (except for Jack's runny nose, and, very busy. We watched a couple of movies, went to Sam's and Lowes, visited with YaYa and Pops. Uncle Michael sent a Twister game (along with some other things) for Christmas and Billy played that with the girls. "Q" showed her prowess on the WII and Molly B carried Puddin (a stuffed dog or rabbit--I've forgotten), Penguin, and one pink and one yellow blanket everywhere we went!! Here are some Twister pictures and a sweet picture of Jack and Billy.





















I got the insert for my 730 and this afternoon, after setting up my table boy was there a difference in moving the quilt as I sewed. It was great. It wll be so much easier to finish my two quilts and any others I make.

Cooking and Quilting

I went to the grocery on my way home from eating out with friends last night so I could just stay home today and it worked! I slept til after eight and then I got up and after I ate some breakfast, I made two pots of soup. Some taco soup that I'll be taking to the student center Wednesday night to help feed the college students and pioneer woman's Delicious -- that's with a capital D -- cauliflower soup. My taco soup recipe came from one of my sister's DIL. It's very good. I've made a few changes to it. You can use either chicken or ground beef. I almost always use chicken. It has ranch dip seasoning and taco seasoning in it, rotel, ranch beans (which I'd never heard of til I got this recipe) and corn -- plus whatever else I decide to add - sometimes a can of diced tomatoes and green beans. Oh and chicken broth. Basically just a bunch of cans to open. Easy Peasy.

The cauliflower soup was a little more involved because of some chopping but certainly not real difficult but boy was it good. And I'm not a fan of cauliflower. There is no cheese in it. Just butter, onions, carrot, celery, fresh or dried parsley, cauliflower, milk, half and half, salt, pepper and sour cream.

After cleaning up from my cooking, I piddled around for a while and ordered some thread and fabric from connecting threads and then tried to decide how to quilt my log cabin quilt. I looked at a bunch of quilts on line and i'd had an idea about using a decorative stitch but the quilt is two big to have to keep turning it around. I finally decided on my standby -- free motion. So
I practiced on a scrap of muslin. It looks good on the practice square but when I work with the whole quilt it doesn't look as good. I think it is because my quilting surface is not totally flat and it makes it hard to move the fabric. I have one of those wooden extender tables that makes a larger sewing surface and that raises everything up about three inches. Then I'm sitting in a regular chair at the table so instead of everything being down just above my waist, it is much higher. Among other things, I find myself holding my shoulders real stiff and tight. I'm going to save for a sewing table but I won't get it until I move next summer because I realluy don't have the room to spread it out at this point anyway. Now that I've complained about it, I'll just have to suck it up and make it work so I can get the job done. More practice will definitely help too. Soooo, tomorrow afternoon, I'll do a little more practice and a few more blocks. Have a great rest of the weekend.

MY 730 IS NOT THE BOSS OF ME and MY NIECE IS HAVING A GIVE-AWAY!

I'm learning that I can make my sewing machine work for me -- that I can be in charge. I don't have to be afraid of it.

This picture is what the underside of my embroidery looked like after I had my machine cleaned and checked out. ( I don't think the tech did a great job checking the bobbin tension)
I stitched out some capital I's -- actually, just partially stitched them out -- just enough to tell if the there was a change. The bobbin thread is white and you can see that there is not any bobbin thread showing.






I made small adjustments to the upper tension and then the bobbin tension -- tried about 12 times as you can see from this photo. The boxed I is what the embroidery is supposed to look like. You should see 1/3 color - 1/3 bobbin - 1/3 color. The horizontal/slanted I's are ones I did to test it out some more.





I think I won't be afraid of making small changes to my bobbin tension when it needs it. The changes are made by turning a small screw in the bobbin case. The trick is to make the changes in small increments and know where you started in case you need to reverse your changes.




Check here to see the neat give-away my niece Jessica is having. She is a crafty lady, a great mom and wife and a blogger to boot. Check out her blog and leave a comment so your name will go into the hat for the drawing.

ON MY WISH/TO DO LIST FOR 09

I love this tree skirt, this dress, (pink or blue pique -- so cute) these shoes , and this dress . I want to learn how to make a pillow or pouch with a zipper, a table runner that I design myself. I'd like to make a thread catcher for my sewing machine and my serger (maybe one I can use for either?) Some blankets and burp cloths for my two new grands that are coming in late spring, make the wreath wall hanging I got the pattern for. I'd like to plan and start on a log cabin quilt for ME that is based on this design --the "wonkiness" not the colors.

It doesn't seem like that long of a list but I have to finish my last semester of school and retire and sell my house and find a house in Nashvegas and probably a partime job of some sort and move and settle in and ...... it's going to be a scary and exciting year. Hope I can remember that I'm not in charge -- God is and I need to put things in his hands instead of trying to run the show myself. That is so hard to do sometimes.

THANKS JACE AND JAN & HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATTY!!

Thanks Jace and Jan --- I know you've done lots of great things but one of the best was 31(I think) years ago today when you gave birth to my son-in-law. I only get to have one and I couldn't have asked for anyone better. So thanks for doing such a good job raising all your kids but especially Matthew. He's a super addition to our family as a Christian husband and dad.

And to Matty:

TWO SANDWICHES IN ONE DAY -- NO BALONEY :)

I said there would be work in the sewing room today --- not entirely true. There was sewing work accomplished but I did most of it at the student center where we have a pool table that has a sheet of quarter inch plywood on top. I took my two quilt tops I put together over the summer and the backing and batting over there and sandwiched them together. I used some "basting" spray.


It really makes a difference in how easy it is to pin when you use some of that spray and smooth everything out. Here are some other photos of the red quilt.







I didn't plan to do this originally but because I didn't have quite enough of the red to piece the backing vertically, I used some of the leftover white print to make it longer. In quilt browsing, I've seen backings pieced in ways similar to this -- some vertically or with blocks and have always thought it a neat way to do the backing a little different so, this was an opportunity to try it. I think it will look quite nice. I had planned to use the white for the binding but now will use the scraps and the binding will include some of all the fabrics in the quilt. Just hope I have enough --I'm pretty sure I do.




I'm going to just freehand the red quilt but I'm going to use a decorative - sort of stitch on the log cabin. I got the idea from a quilt I saw on another blog. I've included a picture of the stitch below.


You can see how the log cabin below was quilted if you click on the picture. I think I will like how that looks on my quilt.



When I was finished, I rolled the quilts up in kind of a bedroll so I think they will keep for a week or so until I get a chance to get them started. Tomorrow I'm going to try to finish up a couple of projects that are on the verge of being finished so I can be done with them..

NOT MUCH TO SEE ...

I can't seem to settle on a new background for my blog. Not a good way to start the New Year. I hope my indecisiveness doesn't last too long. Here are pics of some of what I did today. I had gotten some flannel at Joannes while at my sisters so I went ahead and made these three cute blankets. I serged the edges(not really necessary) and them pressed them under and finished them with some decorative stitching. Turned out quite well I think. Have enough scraps to make a burp cloth to go with each of them too.
















































I also finished the napkins I had cut out before Christmas-- I think I made about 36. And I spent time cleaning up the kitchen and balancing my bank account. Watched a movie too. Today I watched Traitor. It was kind of depressing but pretty good none-the-less. Tomorrow I'm going to watch Mama Mia. It was a Christmas gift and I might watch Eagle Eye -- one of my rentals. But definitely there will be more work accomplished in the sewing room.

Movies

One of the movies I rented is Hancock. It is totally different than what I had expected. I thought it would be a silly comedy but it's not. Don't know if I'd recommend it yet but so far it's okay. Not great but okay. Will be stopping it soon to head to a New Year's Eve potluck at church. It's supposed to last til midnight but I doubt I'll make it that long :)

Happy New Year again. Especially to Brian who may be in NYC as I write -- stay out of trouble Bubba :)

CHRISTMAS WRAP-UP

Well, as usual I hardly took any pictures. Got too involved in just watching I guess. When I got to Nashville on the 18th, the grands opened their MS presents. They loved the sleeping bags I brought them. There was also a NASCAR race set for Avery and a really neat doll for Kates and I've forgotten what Vail got. I know -- how sad is that - I just can't think right now. Anyway, here is Avery opening one of her gifts.


Vail opening a puzzle.

Katy sitting on her sleeping bag



Vail opening a gift.



Vail and Katy with their sleeping bags.










Waiting for Daddy to open the sleeping bag




My brother-in-law playing Grandpa. Hard to tell who is more relaxed :)


Ava with Toby. Those girls wore him plumb out! He was asleep before we got out of the driveway and didn't move til we were past Louisville - about 2 1/2 hours. He had a blast with teh kids though.




Pictures I could have gotten if I'd been picture oriented: Maddie the rottweiler chewing on a new bone each day by the back door from the dead deer she found out on the back 40 somewhere. We were greeted by a different bone each day including a skull!! Pics of all the gorgeously decorated homes and trees of each Neely family. The look on my sister's face when her hubby was washing the kitchen floor on Christmas morning with the carpet cleaner (lots of water involved) as she was fixing breakfast. Icy roads. About 40 people all eating an Italian feast at Nana's on Christmas day.

As expected, it was a very memorable trip but I was glad to sleep in my bed last night.
Now it is time to make a list of all the things sewing I plan to do during the next 4 days. My first project is hemming a pair of pants. Then I have some napkins to finish serging, two dresses to cut out and work on. A quilt to sandwich, three receiving blankets to finish edges on, and I'm not sure what else will make the list. I'm having a hard time thinking right now. Think it's time to think about getting some sleep. AND, I rented 4 movies to watch . Too bad there's not a
blizzard outside so I could just hunker down and not worry about going anywhere or having anybody drop by and could just sew to my heart's content.



Custom Glitter Text

CHRISTMAS 2008

What a day this has been!! What with being out of the country from the ninth until the 20th, Beth was a little behind in her Christmas preparations. Then, between the virus that John's family and Ben had and Holly being in the hospital - we found out she didn't have a virus but her problem was actually a result of scar tissue from her gall bladder surgery awhile back wrapping around her intestine and causing it to kink or something similar. Anyway, all is well in the health department for now. Back to my story, what with all those things happening, the tree didn't get decorated until 11pm last night. And there were still gifts to get and wrap yesterday. We managed to take care of those things and got to bed before midnight. Breakfast was set for ten am today. I was downstairs around 9:30 -- Beth had been up since before eight. She had fixed a great breakfast for us. Yogurt parfaits -- fresh fruit and yogurt topped with homemade granola, bacon wrapped cocktail sausages, cheesy grits and cherry ring. Of course coffee, milk and juice were part of the deal. After breakfast Beth cleaned up the kitchen and I put the tree skirt around the tree and put the gifts under the tree. Then Lundy, Beth, Robbie, Brian and I opened our gifts. Santa left me a sack of neat happies -- a Christmas towel and potholder for the kitchen, a quilting calendar, some note cards, recipe cards and other things I dont' remember right now. I also got an ott light lamp, Mama Mia on DVD, and a really nice digital picture frame. Can't wait to put my pictures on it. I'd tell what everyone else got but since this is about me . . . .

We ate a Nana's at 2- that was the time for the appetizers. They included some boiled shrimp, mussels, chip and dip and antipasta. At 5pm supper was served -- a true Italian feast -- homemade lasagna with meatballs and italian sausage on the side, chicken cacciatore, salad and deserts to die for including tapioca which I haven't had in years. It was delicious and I ate entirely too much. Now we are back home and Brian has helped Uncle Lundy get his surround sound/tv/vcr/dvd/all hooked up and working together and now we are watching Home Alone on FX. Tomorrow is a no cooking day at this house. Beth and I are going to hit some after Xmas sales and hopefully just chill for awhile. Amy and her family will be in tomorrow night sometime.

Hope everyone had a great day (especially the TX Neals). Hugs to one and all

CHRISTMAS UPDATE

#1 Son's wife had a dye test today and it went great. They've taken the tube out of her nose and started giving her clear liquids. She will be on solid food tomorrow and if all goes well she might even get to come home then. More later

HOW TO NOT TO START CHRISTMAS WEEK

I'm in Dayton at my sister's house. Got here Friday night about 10:30 eastern time and we've been busy ever since. First of all, I was maybe going to pick up Beth and Lundy from the airport -- they were coming in from Philly after being in Paris all week on a business/sightseeing trip. They got stuck in Philly so I was in the BIG house by myself. Needless to say, Toby and I slept downstairs on the couch. I was wound up from the trip so I didn't go to sleep until well after midnight. Got up yesterday morning and fed their dog and got the rest of my stuff out of the car and was so thankful I packed my warm coat and gloves because it was cold and getting colder by the minute:) Beth and hubby got in about noon. On the way home Son#1 called saying his wife had the stomach bug and had been throwing up regularly since about 2 am. We came home and Son #2's wife brought lunch over from Skyline Chilli (I think that is the name). Then Son#1 called again saying he was taking his wife to the emergency room so we went and picked up the three grands and brought them to the house. Then Son #2 called to say that his youngest had started throwing up so whatever the bug it was in two houses. Then my sisters Son#5 called to say he had been sick as a dog since noon. Anyway, to make this long story shorter. Son #1's wife is in the hospital. She has a kink in her intestines (we think from all the vomiting) and they've put a tube through her nose down into her intestines to try to get the kink out. If it works, she will be home by Xmas -- if not, she will have to have surgery and be in the hospital for a week and a half. Yuk!! The girls are staying here for now but don't know about the kink/maybe surgery stuff. Anyway, their son#5 is better today and I haven't heard how things are at son #2's house today.

Now for the better part of the story. It snowed enough last night to kind of cover the ground and is freezing cold today and I do mean freezing. Toby wasn't quite sure about going outside. He stepped very gingerly on the grass -- I think because it was crunching under his feet. We've eaten out last night and today at lunch but the cooking will start in earnest tomorrow. And my sister definitely knows how to cook. We've got some shopping and wrapping to finish and Christmas movies to watch on Hallmark and lots of visiting to catch up on.

So, that's the capsule version of my first 36 hours here.

STRAIGHT NO CHASER -- AWESOME!

This was linked to another blog but it's too good not to share. This group is awesome. There are several other you tubes of them in action too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8

If you get an error when you click the link, just search for straight no chaser 12 days of christmas and you'll find several versions.

THE MACHINE IS TURNED OFF AND PARKED

I've finished my tote bags and they turned out well if I do say so. Ran into a few problems with mine and had to take out part of the border at the top and fix the pleats but it didn't take too long. Now I've got to get my gifts that go to TX boxed up and ready to go so I can mail them Wednesday. I'm also going to start putting all the things I'm taking to Dayton on the extra bed so I'll be ready to load up my car on Wednesday and while doing this I'm watching (sort of) a cute Christmas movie on Lifetime called Secret Santa. Jennie Garth is a writer and she's in this small town doing some investigative reporting. The town's only inn is full so she's having to spend the night in the Old Folk's home. I know I know ... but I'm enjoying it. Here's a picture of a finished tote.