Diawabo Houses

Well it's been several days since I've posted and WOW has time gone by fast. Saturday morning hubby and I were at my Mom's house by 7am and we worked in her attic until about 5pm with just a few short breaks. Was it ever hot!!! But we did get a lot done. Four pick-up loads to The Salvation Army and 2 dumpster loads of trash. Daughter #2 came and helped along with my sister in law. We really didn't pack for her move and there is still tons to be done, but hey it was a start!!

Here are the pictures of the Diawabo Houses from www.pinwheels.com. They had a booth at the Road 2 California Quilt Show in January and I signed up for this BOM. I love these fabrics.... and I love house blocks so what could be better! :o) You should visit their site if you like cool and different stuff.

On Sunday I did all of my August birthday DJ siggie swap blocks and I made a couple more blocks that I'll show you later...it's a quilt I'm gonna really love! Like I don't love ALL QUILTS!

Time to get supper ready and maybe sew a stitch or two.

No pics today

Today is going to be a busy day. Sales rep that takes forever...he is a nice guy though...errands to run...house to finish cleaning (after I get home from work) and I don't feel very good today :o(

I do have progress to report on my DJ quilt though...144 blocks done, 143 of those are sashed and put together and 36 triangles done! Awesome! Also I finished a Diawabo House (one of the BOM's). Hopefully I'll get pics taken and post about that quilt tomorrow.

Try to stay cool everyone (at least those of you where it is hot)!

sewing and cleaning. cleaning and sewing

The first thing I need to clean is the table and area by my chair. After looking at the picture that I just posted I can see that it's just a mess. But it's a comforting mess I guess because it always ends up looking like this. The quilt pictured is one that I made about 3-4 years ago for daughter #3. It was fun to make and she loves it and uses it. The quilt has been washed and washed and it gets softer and softer.

My hubby will be home late this afternoon so I'm excited!!! I'm going to clean a little at a time and then reward myself with sewing time. I finished all of the blocks in my DJ packet for July and I did the hand applique on one of the triangles yesterday, so today I'll put that triangle together and paper piece the other triangle and I'll be caught up, for now. I also put row K on the quilt. I really should start putting my triangles together as well so maybe I'll do that.

I've really been itchin to start a new project but have held off until I can carve out a bigger block of time to work on something. I've got several quilts on my mind to make. Plus I need to get back to my NI. Next year I'm going to make a promise to myself NOT to do anymore BOM's. I'll just finish with the ones that are started
(5, i think) and that doesn't include the DJ which finished in December.

Okay bye for now...I've got to go and water the pretty flowers (hubbies job when he's home) so they don't burn up as we've had over 100 degrees for several day and the weather forecast says it will go on for weeks. YUCK!

Nothing quilty today

Okay so changed my mind and found a picture of a quilt that I made and gave to my sis-in-law and her hubby a couple of years ago for Christmas. I think they liked it but I'm not really sure. I wish that I had given it to #2 daughter as she begged for it, but I didn't so she started her own and she has made every block except the bow tie border. She's busy being 18 right now so she doesn't make much time for sewing. LOL

Sometimes when I look at and read other peoples blogs I feel a little overwhelmed. It seems like every ones lives are perfect and they have beautiful and clean homes, plenty of time and money to buy fabric and sew and wonderful family and friends. They also travel to the best places or they have lake house or cabins. Now I'm no dummy, I do know that you can make your life out to be whatever you want it to be in print. But jeez...I guess I'm such a realist about things. So here is my life...I never have enough time or money to do what I really want to do. I do have a great family though. I don't have a lake house or cabin, nor do I get to travel like I'd like to. There are times in my life when my hobby has to take a back, back seat which makes me sad. I have a nice house that never stays clean enough to suit me.
I am a mother to 3 daughters (2 in college and 1 in high school) and my hubby travels, a BUNCH!!!

Not a bad life, not perfect but pretty darn good. Excuse me for venting, I just needed to get that out. Thanks :p

kind of gross alert

Did I mention that on July 5th while mowing the lawn for my hubby that I ripped a fingernail part way off???? Well I did and it hurt like you know what. I was trying to start the mower and my nail caught somehow and then there was blood spurting. OWWWW I almost passed out but then I thought if I do, I'll have a sunburn to deal with too because #3 daughter was the only one home and she was asleep for at least 2 more hours. So I ran up to the house and screamed and #3 came down to help me doctor it. Then I went out and started that darn mower and mowed the entire yard!

Well I was just able to take the bandaid off yesterday and cut away the nail....yuck...but it's healing fairly well.

I'm off to take #3 to my Moms for a couple of days. Hubby leaves tomorrow for 3 days and #2 moves back in today after house sitting for 10 days (it was really nice while it lasted..lol). Hopefully I'll get some quilting done this week. I've already made 6 DJ blocks from this months packet. Yeah!

Emily's quilt....finished!!!!

Now before you judge the quilting on this, remember that I'm not a custom quilter. I love piecing quilts and when I first started making quilts 21 years agoIdid machine quilt them all or sometimes tie them because I didn't know any different. Then I had a couple of quilts done in a cloud panto by a friends mother-in-law. About 6 years ago I discovered several custom quilters that worked on longarms. Whoa...well I then had all of my quilts custom quilted and I forgot that I could, when necessary quilt them myself. Someday I will have a Gammill....I really will.

This has been a busy week for me at work with the big Crazy Days sale...lots of prep work, set up and tear down. Then there's the heat to deal with (the kids that work for me had it really rough) and to top it off, major computer issues with my POS cc processing software. Why do things have to cost so much???? huh?? Hopefully all these issues will be resolved before ft ball season (7 weeks away, i think).

I did come home for a couple of hours yesterday and whipped out 2 dj blocks and I've got another one going right now. The easy ones seem to run in spurts and then there will be a few that just really test me, but in a good way ;0).

In a little bit I'm running out to my version of "hell" or Walmart as it's more commonly known to pick up some groceries. The family is getting tired of "making do".

Weekends are GREAT!!!

Saturday is quilt day for me

Today I'm going to get #1's quilt finished, I hope. I didn't get anything accomplished on it in the last week and it's tying up the Bernina. I hope to have a pic to show you in the next few days.

My Mom did come and we went to see the movie (very good) and shopped around town and had a great time. She spent the night and went home late Friday afternoon. It's hard for her to go home to an empty house I know, but it is good for her to get out and keep on living. She's not a quilter although she has made one quilt 20 years ago for my sister (my Grandma and I helped) and it was stolen when her home was broken in to. :0( Mom likes to paint and will be going to Maine this fall to study with an old friend/teacher she used to take lessons from, very exciting!

Here are pics of a couple of quilts that I've made. The first one is a panel that I sewed the borders on to. I backed it with flannel and it will be a comfy cozy snugly winter quilt that I'm sure the entire family will fight for. The second quilt is made up of tons of flying geese and pinwheels and prairie points. It is made from a magazine pattern a few years back. I quilted this one also. Well enough blogging about my boring life for one day and off to quilt!

Later,

Rainy day makes pretty flowers!!!

We had over 2 inches of rain yesterday and usually I enjoy rainy days, but yesterday was a tough one. I decided to post a pretty little quilt full of flowers (because rain makes for pretty flowers, right?) that I made a few years ago, but just had quilted in May. I put it on my kitchen table sometimes because it's cheery!

My Mom is coming today and we're going to see the American Girl movie about Kit Kittredge. You can check it out here www.kitkittredge.com/. It looks like a feel good movie. I'm going to make daughter #3 go with us since I just about built the American Girl empire with the dolls and accessories that I bought her! LOL
I'll let you know how it was later.

Another quilt finished!!!

I love it when I have another finish! I made this about 1 1/2 years ago and it's just been hanging waiting to be quilted. I love custom quilting but it gets expensive when you turn out a bunch of projects...so I've decided to have my quilter do some pantos and all over meandering on some of my quilts. This one has a panto and it turned out really pretty. I'll probably put it on my table...lol...when I get my extra sewing machine taken down...but I can't do that until I finish quilting Emily's quilt on my Bernina....it's a vicious cycle.

Tonight's our quilting group and I need to figure out what to work on. I'm caught up with my DJ blocks until I get a new package in the mail. I might work on my Diawabo Houses, I'm 2 behind right now.

Well I've got a busy, busy day ahead of me so I'd better get going. I wish I could stay home and quilt but that's just not in the cards today. :0(

Dear Jane progress

Here is my DJ quilt so far. I also have a few blocks on row k done and all of the triangles for the top and right sides and I'm working on the bottom triangles. I will be done by January if all goes as planned. I have loved making this quilt. Through it I have learned or relearned skills, met lots of nice people, started blogging, challenged myself and my friends and much more. I will miss it when it's done. My girls are already fighting over who gets to inherite this one. LOL...hopefully that's not for quite some time tho.

I had a great 4th with much quilting and movie watching accomplished. Then yesterday I get this bright idea to mow the lawn for hubby so he didn't have to do it today. Well I did get it mowed (it's a fairly large yard) and no we don't have a riding lawn mower because we have to many hills. But I injured myself....waaaaa!
I ripped the fingernail on my right ringfinger halfway off. Talk about pain...the only thing that kept me from passing out was that I thought if I did passout I would also get a severe sunburn too! I woke up #3 and she helped me doctor it and then I went ahead and mowed. In all I ended up with 3 bad blisters and my hurt finger and just a touch of sunburn. Hubby was thankful but not as thankful as I wish he was.

Well I'm off to sew...have a great day!

Happy Birthday America!!!!

And how do you think I celebrate today....with a quilt, of course ;0) I made this last fall some time with the Miniatures Collection by Windham (i think) and the pattern is Tag Sale from Miss Rosie's. But I just had it quilted a couple of weeks ago and put the binding on last weekend! I like how it has kind of a vintage look and it's very comfy to cuddle up in.

Well this is a new kind of July 4th for me. Daughter #1 is in St. Louis with friends, Daughter #2 is in Edmond with friends & then on to Mustang to see my Mom (her first july 4th w/o my Dad in over 50 yrs) and my hubby just left with his Mom to go to their family reunion in Kansas (& I've done that one too many times). Thankfully Daughter #3 is here with me and maybe #2 will be home later. I did ask my Mom to come up but she likes to be at home because her town allows fireworks right in the street and everyone from all of the surrounding communities flock there. I would have gone to her house but my town has a big Boomer Blast at the lake 1 block from my house so I like to be close as my neighborhood fills up with cars and people. So I will sew a bunch, swim a little, eat too much, watch fireworks out of my gameroom window and maybe watch Independence Day with #3 later tonight. At least that's my plan right now!

I just want to say that I am so proud to be an American. And even though prices are up, jobs are down and sometimes things don't look too rosy...I still live in the greatest country in the world and I'm also proud of our service men and women who fight and lose their lives to keep it that way!!!

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It's been a GREAT 5 hours of sewing!!!

Have you ever had one of those sewing/quilting times when you just seem to get lots accomplished???? Well I did, this afternoon!!! I came home from work at about 2pm and I was so tired I really wanted to take a nap and I'm not even a napper usually. But I thought "no I really need to get busy" so I quilted on a quilt for my daughter with my Bernina. Then I ran my youngest daughter to Hastings to buy Aerosmith's new Guitar Hero game. Then I finished the 2 Truly Scrumptious (from Cinderberry Stitches...see blog list for link) blocks pictured here. Then I trimmed the 2 quilts that I got back from the quilter last night and made the binding for both and sewed it on as well. Whew!! I still have to hand stitch the other side of the binding so I'll either work on that tonight or another stitchery that I traced off last night while I watch, So You Think You Can Dance...my favorite show. I guess I'm making up for not getting much done last week.

Okay, I'm off now to eat as I just realized that I'm starving because all I ate while doing all of the above was 2 little pieces of chocolate...hehehe

I'll show pics of all of my finished soon and stay tuned for Friday for a finished that I made last week.