Design Wall Monday

Yes, I actually have something to share today!

We just got back a few days ago from a week long trip to a family-friendly summer camp and I took along a UFO to work on during down times. I almost got all of the quilting finished, just 1/2 of one of the long sides and the squares on 3 of the sides left to do. I quilted in the ditch around the inside of each small rectangle, along the sides of each square and around the inside of the small squares. I'll finish up the quilting probably today and get to work on the binding. Once I get it done, I'll give it to one of the women in our mosque expecting her first baby at the end of the month.

I was hoping to have all of the quilting done by now but ended up with 11 loads of laundry once we got back. I also had to give the garden some attention. The hot weather has been great for the zucchini and we now have 4 watermelons growing but the tomatoes and green pepper are still slow to develop this year. (No thanks to the deer that kept eating the tops of the plants.) When we left, we had a couple of zucchini about half way along. When we got back, I found this....


It's as long as my three year old's arm from shoulder to fingertips and weighs 4 lbs. The kids were thrilled and immediately started begging for zucchini bread. The little "C" shaped veggie at the top is an Ichiban eggplant. Unfortunately, it didn't get very big. We also had one tiny cherry tomato that S. ate as soon as she saw it.

Remember I was telling you how I see shapes and patterns in the most unusual places. This tree was right outside our cabin window at the camp.



You see the man's face there between the two branch stumps, right?

Go check out the other Design Walls at Judy's blog.

Design Wall/Window Sill

Ok, I know it's Tuesday, but better late than never! ;)

I finished the lime green block for my Boxed Rainbow quilt. Next up is the dark blue or maybe the red. I haven't decided yet. Sorry about the blurry picture.



I, also, have to make myself a new swimsuit. The elastic in the fabric is shot so that it's way too loose now. That's not surprising since I made the suit more than 3 years ago. I want to redesign it as well since the skirt gets annoying when I'm trying to do the water aerobics class. I think I'm going to cut it more like a long, slightly fitted t-shirt. Z.'s due for a new one as well. Her's has faded from a nice blue to almost silver and it's starting to get too small.

We took the kids swimming a few times last week and H. has finally learned to enjoy the water. He used to scream if you made him get in the pool but Sun. he didn't want to get out after more than an hour. It looks like after Ramadan we'll be spending lots of time at the pool.

We went to Six Flags on Thurs. which was fun despite the heat. The kids had earned free tickets for the Read to Succeed program, I got a free ticket as their teacher so that only left having to get a ticket for dh. We went in the afternoon and rarely encountered any lines. The nice part was that there were plenty of rides for my two little guys unlike Sea World where they were too small for most of the rides. We enjoyed so much that we're considering season passes for next year. It's less than an hour and a half from here. The only downside is that they don't allow you to bring any drinks into the park, which leaves buying bottled water at $3.50 a piece or using the one water fountain we found that provides warm water (not exactly refreshing on a hot summer day). I understand them not wanting you to bring things into the park but they could at least have a few more water fountains with cool/cold water.

Well, I'm off to get busy on my suit. Check out the other Design Walls at Judy's blog.

Patterns everywhere

Ok, I'm one of those people who sees patterns or pictures all over the place. I'll look at the leaves or bark of the tree and search for faces or forms. Have you ever tried that? Sometimes, you have to let your vision go a little blurry but most of the time, if you look closely enough you're sure to find some. It's kind of like the optical illusion pictures where you see an old woman or a young woman, two vases or two faces, etc.




I also tend to eat my M&Ms is color patterns. Ya know- green, orange, green or red, red, blue, red, red, blue. I'm weird, I know. Anyway, one day I had grabbed a handful of mini M&Ms and eaten a few without paying much attention. I set the rest down to type something, then looked back down and noticed that they fell into a perfect set of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, each in a different color. See? (Of course, I arranged them for the picture.)



BTW, finding the mini M&Ms in the bulk section of Wegman's grocery store probably has a lot to do with why I gained weight. Before I found them, I wasn't losing but at least I wasn't gaining either. But a girl's got to have her chocolate!

In part, because of hurting my foot on the treadmill, I went swimming for the first time in over a year and the same morning took my first ever water aerobics class. I had been swimming laps and doing some other exercises for a good 45 minutes and noticed that there were quite a few older people arriving as I was getting ready to go. One of the ladies, who had been in the pool about the same time as I had suggested that I stay for the class. Since dh was watching the kids and it was still kind of early in the morning, I changed my mind about leaving and decided to stick around. In my head, I was thinking that the class couldn't possibly too hard since most of the participants looked to be over 65, so doing the class on top of what I had already done would be no problem. Yeah! Apparently, you get out of if what you put into it and since you stay cool in the pool, you don't necessarily notice how hard you're working. That is until you get out! By the time the class was finished, my arms felt like spaghetti. By the end of the day, my whole body was sore. But, I found something I really enjoy doing and, at least for the next few weeks before Ramadan, I plan on hitting the early morning class on days when dh works from home.

Design Wall Monday

Ok, ok. I know it's Tuesday. But, in my defense, I was out most of yesterday.

And I actually have something to show. Yippy! I got the "boxes" finished for the Bottled Rainbows quilt. Come to think about it, I think I'll rename my Boxed Rainbow. It seems to fit better. Now I have to cut the batting and start picking out scraps. I'm hoping to finish one or two squares per week. It's a quilt as you go design as well as machine applique neither of which I've never tried before. I don't know how much I'll like the process but I do like the colors all together.



I finally got a picture of the shirt I made for Z. I told you the print was kinda in your face. You can't really tell in the picture but it's got glitter all over it too.



Here's an example of the summer pants I make for the girls. It's just a simple elastic waist design with pockets. The girls both really like picking out the fabrics each year and wear them constantly so I know they like them.



These pants are one of Z.'s choices. Often when she chooses fabric, I really question her decisions, but most of the time they look pretty good on, so I've learned to hold my tongue and trust her choices. This fabric was one of those times, but it's really grown on me and I'm considering looking for more so that I can make a shirt out of it. This would definitely be stepping outside my comfort zone since almost every shirt I own is a solid color.

R. and H. have asked for pairs of their own and picked out flaming soccer ball fabric and camo lizards so I guess those are on the agenda for this week.

If you haven't already, check out the other design wall posts on Judy's blog.

Wah!

Warning! PMS-induced Pity party in session! Proceed at your own risk!

Normally, I love the month of June. The weather's nice, homeschooling is done, we have plenty of time for outings and heck, who doesn't like the month they were born in?

Not this year though!

This year June has definitely been a disappointment! We've had record breaking heat on and off for the first third of the month. The limited rainfall has my veggies growing veerrrry slowly this year. Every last one of us came down with some rhino virus that had us coughing and blowing noses for up to two weeks per person; resulting in a sinus infection and antibiotics for dh. After it seemed that all of the kids were better, over the course of the last week, three came down with stomach problems, which turns out to be a result of strep throat. We now have 4 out of seven people in this house on antibiotics and I'm really hoping the other two kids don't end up with strep. I'll take my chances without antibiotics if it hits me. Me and antibiotics don't mix well. This is so frustrating because we so rarely get sick around here but this has just dragged on almost all month, bouncing from one person to the next.

My birthday present this year was a membership to a fitness center so that we could all go swimming. It started on June 4 and the beginning of our home confinement/quarantine because of sick kids started June 5. Argh!

To top it off, I think I have a stress fracture of my foot from running on the treadmill a couple of days ago. I was fine while running but yesterday it started to hurt just walking around and still hurts today. That's about the only impact running has had on my anatomy. Since the end of March, I've covered over 140 miles on my treadmill at just over an hour per session and lost absolutely no weight! In fact, I weigh more now than I did when I started. How fair is that!?! (No, I don't run the whole time. I combine 4.2 mph walking with 5.0-6.0 mph 1-3 min. sprints.)

I had a friend (a trained but not practicing dr.) tell me to go get my thyroid checked because that can effect weight gain/loss but I haven't done it yet. I hate going to the dr. and haven't seen any dr. since my last 6 week postpartum check up more than three and a half years ago. The last primary care dr. I had left medicine to be a mom nearly 8 years ago and I only saw her once.

I, also, messed around with the layout/colors of my blog and hate how it turned out but can't get it back to the original so now I'm going to have to start over again to try and, at least, make it a little better.

So, yeah, I'm definitely ready to say good bye to June!


Thank you for letting me get that out of my system.

On the plus side,
-we have all our needs met,
-dh has a good job with good insurance,
-I really like our pediatricians,
-we have plenty of entertainment options to keep sick kids busy,
-I've gotten 4 pairs of pants finished for the girls with two others cut and waiting to be sewn,
-despite my complaining, no one here is seriously sick,
-we have antibiotics to treat the strep infections-a privilege that would have saved my grandfather a life time of heart problems after a two bouts of rheumatic fever
-we live in a time when we can learn so much, without ever leaving home

Thank you God for all the blessings, big and small.

Design Wall Monday

This has been a crazy week and I really hoped I'd have more to share but the only thing I got done quilt wise was cutting out lots and lots of 5" squares. It was a necessary task and gave me a good number of scraps to work with for the Bottled Rainbows quilt. (in the bag in the picture) My goal for this week is to get to actually piece at least a couple of blocks for the quilt.



I also have to get the girls' summer pants made which will take a fair bit of time but will also produce some usable scraps. I made a tunic for Z. this week using the pattern in the picture and a crazy pink and glitter flowered fabric she picked out. She's definitely a girl that likes sparkle. I promised to make her one more tunic and S. wants a tunic in a different style, which is fine by me since the yoke in this one just about kicked my fanny. I'm not much of a seamstress and I generally just learn things as I go so new patterns tend to be fairly time consuming.

Saturday was the quilt show. I didn't get any pics this years since I had R. and H. with me. Having two little boys at an event like that is certainly a challenge. Although I didn't couldn't manage a camera I did get some shopping in since I also celebrated my birthday this week. This is what I managed to pick up while shopping with my little guys.



Anyway, go check out the other design walls at Judy's blog.

Design Wall Monday

It seems like ages since I've had anything to post for Design Wall Monday. Homeschooling is over for a while, my job is finished for now, dh is out of town so I have some time to sew...finally!


I'm going to work on a Bottled Rainbow quilt. It's a ticker tape design by Rachel Hauser at Stitched in Color. I'm having fun "creating" scraps by cutting into my expanding stash. I've spent some time cutting 5" squares and then setting the scraps aside for the rainbows quilt. This way, I'll have squares ready to go when I don't have much time for cutting. I may be lacking in some colors for scraps though. Lime and tangerine are not colors that make their way into my stash too often.



Never fear! My annual quilt show trip is this weekend. I already had a mental list to look for fabrics for an aqua and red quilt as well as a citrus colors quilt. The challenge will be that this time around I'll have all the kids with me since dh isn't home. Since they're coming with, I decided to go Friday and Saturday instead of just Sat. like I usually would. There's a demo on fabric painting that I know M. will enjoy and everyone else loves to pick out their own fat quarters whenever I go to JoAnn's so I'm hoping this will work. Wish me luck!

Truth be told, I really need to start using the stash more, especially since I'll be losing a big portion of my storage space once we switch the boys' rooms around. My sewing stuff/mess has been in our office but M. (ds1) will be moving into our office which means all of the mess has to find a new home. A lot of reorganization is going to have to happen in the next couple of months.

But as Scarlet O'Hara would say "I won't think about that now." This week, I intend to cut and sew as much has my kids will let me.

Check out the other Design Wall posts at Judy's blog.

Warning ...

Little boy antics can induce heart attacks in their mothers.




I was fixing dinner and happened to look out the kitchen window and saw this little guy climbing over the gate at the top of our deck stairs. Apparently he couldn't get the latch opened and thought nothing about the potential 10 ft. fall if he lost his balance. I'm going greyer by the day having three boys!

Design Wall Monday-sorta

Ok, technically it's not Monday anymore since it's after 1 a.m. but since I haven't gone to bed yet, I'm still counting it as the same day.

In my last post I had high hopes about what I would get done. Yeah....didn't happen.

I got lots of 5 in. squares cut but haven't finished a single quilt. I do, however, have one ready to quilt, which is what you see at the top and what I will be working on today/tomorrow.

One of the things that held me up getting more done was "one of those days." You ever have one of those days? Here's what happened ...

Notice anything odd about this picture? Yup, that's right. I managed to sew them so that the pink was facing the wrong direction. I succeeded in doing this not once but twice before I caught the mistake! And to make life more interesting my seam ripper disappeared. After I did that I decided it was probably better to not go near the sewing machine for a few days. I'm sure you'll agree!

Fortunately, I seem to have recovered from my temporary sewing ineptitude.

The main order of business for the week is to finish the pink pinwheels. If I get that finished, then I'll work on the pink and brown quilt. But, I've got a marshmallow roast and potluck dinner for bunches of friends on Friday so I'll have to spend some quality time with my cleaning supplies between now and then.

Check out what everyone else is working on at Judy's blog.

Design Wall Monday

Yippy! It's still Monday and I have something to show.

I finished up the batik comfort quilt on Wed. I decided to bind it myself because I was really liking how the quilt was going and wanted that sense of accomplishment that comes when a quilt is "finished" finished. I particularly enjoyed doing the hand binding part. I haven't had much time to do anything by hand lately and I was missing it.



And I really liked the binding fabric.



Now, it's time to get moving on the over-due baby quilts. Both moms that I wanted to make quilts for in Feb. delivered 2 weeks ago and the only thing I've done is cut a few squares for one of the quilts. I've been catching up on ironing the last few days and done a first pass at our tax returns so that I should have time this week to get some quilting in. During this the week I'll also go through and double check all the math on the tax returns and,hopefully, get those sent out so I don't have to think about them anymore.

The last pictures are some examples of how hard the last two years have been on the trees around here. Two years ago, we got buried in about 30 in. of snow over a two week period that caused the two of three evergreens in our backyard to loose about 6-8 feet off the top.





Snow falling off the roof of the shed permanently bent the forsythia next to it. (It's still pretty in the spring and summer though.)



The beginning of last month brought more than a foot of very heavy, wet snow which took down a large lower branch from a maple tree and several large branches from the evergreens.




All of this stress on the trees was followed a week and a half ago by incredibly high winds that uprooted our neighbor's tree. All over the area so many trees have been damaged or destroyed just since last Feb. but we're very blessed because, despite all of the damage, no one has been seriously hurt. (At least in our little corner of VA.)
(If you click on the picture, you can get a better idea of just how big the tree was.)

All I can say is that I'm so looking forward to spring!

Now go check out the other Design Walls at Judy's blog.

Design Wall Monday

Ever here the phrase "The best laid plans of mice and men, oft do go awry."? It was a favorite of my mom's and very apropos of this past week.

The only thing I managed to get done was the quilting and delivery of the first of the two quilts. (purple) I was all ready to get everything done quick and set up on the dining room table to get quilting on Tuesday only to have Z (dd2)come down with a stomach virus which resulted in short bouts of quilting between understandably long periods of taking care of her. I promised to deliver the quilt by Wed. so spent most of the day, after regular clean up, to get it finished. Delivered the purple late Wed. afternoon (1 1/2 hr. drive round trip), came home and decided I was done for the day. Thursday dawned with M (ds1) complaining about not feeling so great. By mid-morning, I was in the same boat. Called dh and asked him to skip his after work exercise. So glad I did. He arrived at almost the exact moment both M and I really started on the roller coaster of this bug. By the end of the night, all of the boys were sick! It made for a very eventful night trying to keep up with everyone. Thank God, dh was home. I don't know how I would have managed without him especially since I was so sick, too. The saving grace of this illness is that it's short-lived and the littlest guys bounced back so quickly. Not to mention that S (dd1) and dh haven't come down with it. M and I are still not feeling 100% but good enough to get on with life.

That means that the batik quilt has to get done this week! I still have to widen the backing, sandwich it and quilt it. I'll let the woman that's coordinating deal with the binding. Unfortunately, I just don't have the time now.

That's what's on my design wall. Go check out other design walls at Judy's blog.

Design Wall Monday..err Tuesday

I know, I know. It's supposed to be Design Wall Monday but my Mondays have become really busy lately so I rarely have time to post on Monday.

Although I haven't been posting lately, I haven't been idle.

Since my last post I've finished two scarves for the Special Olympics, a scarf for dh, finished a baby quilt (months late, but hey, better late than never) and have finished 2 tops for comfort quilts. Oh yeah, I also started crocheting a blanket. I love the Homespun "Waterfall". Lovely colors and great feel.


The blocks for the comfort quilts were made by a lot of different people with very different abilities and styles. Some of the blocks were nothing more than a simple message while others were beautifully done. This humming bird is incredible as are the other painted bird blocks.(6 in all between the two quilts)


The comfort quilts are taking far longer than they should and keeping me from doing quilts I want to work on. I have to quilt one of them today and take it to the woman who coordinated this project so that she can bind it and I'll try to get the other one quilted tomorrow but first I have to fix the backing.


I decided to do a pieced backing on this quilt and knew it would be tight in the width but, unfortunately, it's a tiny bit to narrow. (Like an inch.) So, I've got to add some to one of the sides before I can sandwich this quilt.

This is my favorite block from the batik quilt.

When I saw the blocks by themselves I really wasn't sure how well these quilts would turn out but I think they look alright. I prefer the batik one more than the purple, which is funny since it has a lot more orange in it and I'm usually not much of an orange fan. The sashing and filler blocks really made all the difference, most of which came from the stash of the organizer.

Well, if I'm going to get the purple one quilted today, I've got to get moving.

Patch Iran

There is a national quilt guild in Iran called Patch Iran. They've just finished their 5th Annual exhibit. If you'd like to check out some of their work, click here.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a great holiday but now it's time to get back to work. ;)

I didn't get much done last week. It seemed like every day was booked. I'm hoping for a little more time this week to get some projects finished. I'll be working on the Orange and Cream UFO this month as well as finishing the projects I've mentioned before - Special Olympics scarf, binding the baby quilt, and making the pink and brown baby quilt. In addition to these projects, I'm also helping make 3 comfort quilts for the wife and daughters of a community member that recently died. I don't know the family but there are so few quilters in our community that I decided to offer my help when someone suggested that they wanted to do this for his family. I'll be meeting with her this week to pick up the squares and work out the designs. On top of all of this, homeschooling is really taking up a good bit of my time most days of the week now so it really doesn't leave much time for anything else. I'll just have to see how things go towards getting everything done.

Check out the other design walls at Judy's.

UFO Challenge

Judy has been kind enough to give me (along with about 168 others) an extra special challenge. When it comes to quilting, like a lot of quilters, I have a touch of ADHD which means lots of unfinished projects or UFOs. So this year we're challenging ourselves to finish one UFO per month.


So here goes:



1. and 2. Quilt 1 and Quilt 2 (kinda like Dr. Seuss' Thing 1 and Thing 2) - Fraternal Twin quilt tops for twins that are now 3 years old and not getting any younger. These need to be sandwiched, quilted and bound.


3. Batik Baby - I started hand quilting this. I'd like to at least finish the hand quilting. If I'm really good, maybe I'll even bind it.


4. Rooty Tooty - S. really wants this quilt for her bed. I tried some machine meander quilting on it which I don't like so I have to rip that out, quilt it and bind it.

*5. R.'s baby quilt - R. is now 5 1/2. It's about time I get this quilt beyond the block stage, don't ya think? The blocks are hand pieced so I don't think I can do much more than get this into a finished top for now.


*6. Orange and Cream - This is just a little mini practice quilt that's been hanging around too long. I need to finish the hand quilting and get it bound.


7. Kids' practice potholders - I'm ashamed to say that these just need to be bound but have been sitting under other projects for way too long.

8. Cabin Baby - This is the black, pink and white log cabin for the baby that was born back in Feb. Time to get this finished.

9. Carpenter's Wheel - This was meant to be a present for dh. Gotta finish this one from block stage too.

10. Falling Leaves - This was one of Judy's patterns way back in 2006. I'll be happy to get this to a finished top.

11. Black and Blues - This one has been around almost as long as the blog. I know it's floating around my stash somewhere but I couldn't put my hands on it just now to take a picture. It's another mini so I should be able to finish the quilting and bind it.

12. Applique Angel - This was a test to see if I'd like to try doing more applique. Apparently I wouldn't since, like #11, I can't find it at the moment but I know it's in there. The goal for this one is to finish it and make it a little wall hanging.

Sometime this summer, I'll be losing my quilting space to ds 1 when we move him into our office/sewing room and move H. in with R., so it's time to get the stash and my UFOs under control.

*I've decided to reverse the positions of numbers 5 and 6. Judy choose number 6 as our first UFO of the year; however, I have so many things going on this month I know that I would not be able to spend much time on the UFO project. I really didn't want to fail/miss out on the first month so I switched to an easier project that is just as old but significantly smaller and, therefore, "doable" this month. I just hated the idea of starting out on the wrong foot this month by not being able to complete the UFO.