This and that on a Saturday morning

Had a great night last night with the gals from my Quilt Guild. I belong to the Mississippi Valley Quilt guild and we are 'divided' into groups, cliques if you will, and I am in the 'Next Generation Quilters'. I know part of it is because I am a newbie, but I think these gals think I am younger than what I am! I made a comment (about Jane you ignorant....) and NONE of them knew what I was talking about!! LOL
Anywhooo, we sat and stitched from about 6 till almost 11!! However my mouth moved faster than my fingers and I did not get my block stitched LOL! Oh well, it was great to get out of the house!
We had a new gal who had never sewn before and Stephanie is a great teacher! She had Alissa making a table runner and practicing on 5" squares and Alissa got the whole thing done and quilted last night! She was a natural and a very fast learner!! And she did a great job!!!!  So, of course my nose was in there and I just can't keep my mouth shut as I am a very hands on person as well and I do hope I didn't step on Stephanie's toes! I know I can be 'abasive' oops!! It is my type A personality shooting out of my mouth! But they all seem very patient with me! LOL
No pretty pictures today, I think I am going to stay home and ... I don't know! Lazy day here!! he he!
Have a great weekend all!!

Josie


OK alright one pic!! Honeyman and I went to Niagara July of 2010 so I could use my newly acquired Pass Port and for the first time EVER go out of the country!! Weather was Beautiful and I am just needing some warmth to get me through this cold snap!! It snowed again last night!! ggrrr is is spring yet???

It came, it came!!

As I expected the UPS guy got here at 1:47! He is normally around this way about 2ish!! I met him at the door and he laughed at me!! I almost met him with a camera and then I thought he might not like that too much! I had my Blogger BOM all cut out at nine in the morning and it was all I could do not to work on it! But after my machine got here away I went!! LOL

Brother XR 9000

In the ahstructions (yes I mistyped that on purpose, do you hear the kid coming out in me) it says that it is not a toy! I disagree!! We all have 'toys' no matter what age we are! So for an adult this is like a kid getting a great Christmas present!! LOL
My other machine I named Jane and often swore 'Jane you ignorant...' well if you have ever seen SNL you know what I am talking about LOL!! I will have to see what I name my Brother!! Am I weird? I do those kinds of things!

Jan Block

Jan Block was designed by John Adams Quilt Dad. He was also in the QuiltUberFest I followed (and finished the top ya me!).I did make a minor alteration to his pattern. When he cut the corners off of the strippy part he had you measure in 3 inches and mark and then cut. Well I used the 30 degree measurement and that was 2 3/4 inches or so and I liked the accuracy of that a little better. I know my center is a little wider than the original pattern, but I like it! I also decided on a lot less fabrics than he chose. His had the triangles as the background and I figured this went better with my opposites theme! To each his own!! LOL I like it!
Oh, added bonus.... I have no kids on Friday so I get the whole day to play with my machine! Oh, the possibilities!!
Happy Days!!
Josie

Going cross eyed and procrastination...

So, I tell you I have been procrastinating just a little bit... ask me why, please, please! OK I'll tell you!! last week (Tuesday) Honeyman ordered me a new sewing machine!!! We ordered it form Amazon and it did not ship till TODAY!!! I am not happy about that! I contacted them on Sunday to find out why it was still listed as 'shiping soon' because it was from them , not an outside seller, and their stuff normally ships in 2-3 days! They had no explanation for it either!! Well it went out today and will be here tomorrow! Oh, what did I get you ask... I got a Brother XR 9000!! The price on there now is like $250, but last week it was $160!! Ya sales! So I have been itching to use it and UPS cannot come to my door fast enough on Wed!!!

pinwheels

Sashings

I have been doing a little here and there! Remember Twisted Sister, well I finished up here sashing last night and am going to be putting them on today! OK everyone did you feel the earth shake... I made flying #?*!@!^ geese! yes, it is true! And I still have to say I am no good at them! They will pass for now and practice, practice, practice and all that jazz... of my soap box! Well you know what I do when I have all those little triangles left!! YUP!! a million bajillion 2 1/2 inch pinwheel blocks! Not sure what I am going to do with them (I used a few of them in the sashing for extra inches and have ten of them left over. Oh, why am I cross eyed, I was a very good girl and sat and picked out the stitches on the back of those darn pinwheels so they would lay flatter! and I must say, it really does make a difference, but white thread on white material even with the light from my Ottlight it was work! I did twenty pinwheels altogether! LAST NIGHT!!!!
So I do hope that my post Wed (or maybe I will wait till I have played with my machine and get on on Thursday) I will be ooh, la, laing all about my new toy! I love my Honeyman!!!
Happy Quilting!
Josie

Have you met my dogs?

Cuddling together

I love my puppies! They are my constant companions! Even if my giant Mitzie kills vaccumes with her long hair and Archie hair will forever be imbedded in my flannel sheets!

Chillin at the camper

My pretty girl

Let me start with my Mitzie Moo!! I am big into getting your dog at the pound. I don't need a designer dog when there are all of these dogs out there who need a good home! When I went to the pound to look at dogs they had just brought in a littler of seven puppies. They were found in an alley and they STUNK!! But the people were very kind and let us spend time with them to see if there was one we wanted. 45-50 min lafter spending time with these little fur balls we desided on Mitz. She had the most personality and Honeyman wanted a female. In IL if you get a dog from the ound they have to be fixed and they are chipped. These pups had been chipped, but not fixed so we had to wait 48 hours before we could take her home. She was just a little furball with GIANT paws! Their best guess is that she is an Australian Shepherd with some kind of Malamute (that is a snow dog). And let me tell you if you have ever seen Star Wars and know the sceen from the new one where Yoda kinally opens up and kicks some royal tail and then goes back to using his cane.... That is my Moo!! She saunters around, doesn't move very fast, but you get her out in the snow (or mention food) and this dog BOUNDS!! She is just to darn funny!! She is not so into the summer, but she loves to go camping because it means a ride in the car! We got her in the summer of 2006 and I just love this big monster!

Take it off Mama!

One of these is not like the other!

Then there is my Archibald! Little dog with the big name!! He came to us in 2008! Honeyman used to work part time for friends of ours who owned Invisible Fence. While out one of the trainers took this poor little puppy from unlivable conditions. He barely weighted five pounds!! He was nothing but skin and bones. And we believe he was abused by a man because still to this day it takes him a long time to warm up to men. Well... he is now just about 12 pounds (vet says right where he should be)!! He is a Chihuahua/ Cocker Spaniel mix! I just love his sand little eyes! He burrows under the covers in our bed and leaves dog hair that no matter how often I wash our sheets it just does not come out! LOL (Oh, did I mention our flannel sheets are a wine colour!)
I love my dogs!!
Josie

A Death in the family LOL (the story of my TV)

OK, so last month we had a death in the family!! Our old seven thousand pound TV that had a born on date (no really there was a date on the back of the TV) of Sept 1994, died. It was a huge frikin TV and had moved SEVERAL times with us. I'm not sure what size it was, but let me assure you it weighed as much as a small whale! My loving Honeyman (being a rather tight walleted man) did not want to buy a new one till this one croaked! Well it did, and for about two weeks we used a TV that my Daughters friend had given us. This TV was even worse because the jacks you plug things into were not right so in order to make them work you had to put a pencil between the plugs so they were at the right angle! So, I had a pencil sticking out of the front of my TV!! Nice right!! OK, So we did research, went to the store and bought our first ever flat screen TV!! YA!!

Well, you know I wanted it mounted on the wall... old house = plaster lath (or is it lath plaster) walls so finding a stud is nearly impossible... Honeymans cure for this.... drill LOTS of holes till you find a stud!!!And when you find out that there is only one stud smack dab in the middle of the wall... well make bigger holes to find out how close the next studs are!! Isn't this the way you would have done it!! Oh, god I love that man! But he has no patience with these things! LOL (hey don't make fun of my 70 year old wallpaper HE HE I do every day!!)

So the only option if I wanted this darn TV here was to build a fake 'stud'! So here is my Stud (in his robe) and yes my friends we drilled those bad boys into the window frames, because that is where the next stud was! They have GINORMOUS lag bolts in them and let me tell you they are not going anywhere! (Oh, my fault the TV is here, I like to be able to see out the window onto the street. call me a busy body, but I like to know what is going on!!) Oh, and putting these boards up (and the boards behind them had to make up for the 3/4 inches from the window frames) also covered the wholes my loving Honeyman made!! OK, that disaster averted, now we needed something to keep everything on. You see right below there... radiator! My solution, rip apart the coffee table we had (that was in bad shape, my parents bought in 1969, and way to big for the room we had it in) and custom fit something to go over the radiator! I still have to buy one of those cord cover things and we have to mount the sound bar. Oh, and I had to take the middle panel out of our 900 year old curtains, that disintegrated a little more every time you open them, so new curtains are in order as well!! LOL all in good time!!

During this move around I also ended up with a 'sewing room' of sorts, you see this room used to be two rooms, but the people before us took down a wall and made it one room that is 28 x 13 so I blocked off a door and this is what you got! This is a pic from my kitchen. yes now we have to use the pass through hall, but hey! I get my own little cranny for now!!  To the left is the cabinet that used to house my TV. Now bonus storage for me! I am looking for something to go in the middle of it where the TV used to be that has shelves, but I have not yet found something I like. To the right is my machine and the storage cube I use as a 'chair'! And of course this is where I hang my 'what in the world am I going to do to it next' items! LOL  I know my house is a cluttered mess, but it is me!! Love me or not! he he Oh, make sure you check me out in 5-8 business days! Wanna know what Honeyman bought for me... it's a surprise!!!
Josie

Not just one... but two!!

November

All caught up on one of my BOM's!! YAY! or BOOOO Now I have to wait till the 25th to get the January Pattern :( !!! Darn BOM's They suck you in hurry up and wait!! LOL

December

  November has to be my favorite so far!! It is from Stephanie Dunphy - Loft Creations If I had it to do again... wait for it... I would do flying geese for the sides instead of HST! I know that from me right!!  (Oh, looking at these pics... Ireally need to wash and/or replace my oroning board eww it's gross!! LOL)



OK December is from Pat Sloan - The Voice Of Quilting.Whos idea were those teeny tiny squares! LOL There was a LOT of pinning involved in these little buggers!! And I think there is a little flesh imbeded in the back!! HEHE!! OK now onto the next catch up! hhmmmm what fabric to use??? Thanks for following my rantings!!
Josie

Getting caught up

September

So, I have all these little linky guys over on my side bar! No they are not just there because they are cute! I really am going to do them!! LOL Well I started with my Canton Village Quilt Works Blogger BOM I have gotten September and October done!! Yay me! I have the next one cut out and hope to get those done Tuesday!!

October

EXXTRA!!!

Each block is 8 1/2 inches unfinished (8 inch finished) so I did do two of each and plan to continue this! I am doing each one to coordinate with the other, not match! I am silly this way! LOL
           I did the silly flying geese (and we all know how I LOVE those... not) and there are all of these little triangles left over! So what do I do with these I asked myself! I could not find it in me to throw them away! That is a LOT of waste!! So I made tiny pinwheels!! Oh, and notice the teal and white material that I used on Mrs. Pickles Amish Diamond Block well I must have REALLY liked it becaues I had purchased most of my teal and brown material last October (or November) and as I was straightening my stash (and putting away my material that came from Connecting threads Saturday) I found another cut of it!! LOL I crack me up!!
OK enough for now! More Tuesday!! I think Sunday and Monday were very productive days! I got all of my material out of boxes and organized, I got all of these blocks done, and I wrote down what I have to finish (or catch up on!! I am getting there!
Blessed day!!
Josie

FMQ Challenge Jan

First Sammy!!

 OK, so I have never done any FMQ (Free-Motion Quilting). I have done a little stitch in the ditch and a little straight stitching on small projects. Sew when SewCalGal decided to have a FMQ Challenge I said ummmm yes! Of course I will do something to improve, or in my case learn a new technique!! Sew Jan has come and here we are! I have to tell you mine is NOT pretty!! And it has reitterated the fact that I cannot draw!! hehe But you know I will keep trying and someday I might get a little better!  OK maybe squint and look at the screen and they might look a little, I don't know, blurrier anyway!! LOL

To the right is my first quilt sammy.  This is the front I got slap happy and tried doing little 'flowers' just to keep it real and because I am a nut that way!

Back of sammy 1

I had A LOT of tension problems with my machine on the  first sammy.  I adjusted it as I went along and did eventually get it to where it should be. My little machine DID NOT like doing this!! My feed dogs don't go down, instead there is a plate that goes over them, but then you can't put the presser foot down. Well I guess you could, but they you can't move the material! Trust me I tried! LOL

Front of sammy

 By the time I got to sammy 2 I was getting a better hang of it! I know my leaves are, well to be honest misshapen, but that is how I draw as well!! And let's not mention the crazy flower that is in the middle here! Hey, Honeyman was watching his stupid fooseball (football, I am not a fan sorry) so I was getting a little silly with my machine!! I informed him that my next machine will have #1 the button to keep the needle in the down position, #2 the abibity to put the feed dogs down and #3 well I don't know what else I want, but it will be a nice machine!! hehe! I am not complaining about my machine! I have one! That is better than nothing! But a girl can dream, right!!

Back of sammy 2

What kind of machine do you sew/quilt on?? I am always interested in knowing! Did you switch from one to another and like one better than the other?? These are all questions I am here to get answered!! Ok Back to my sammys I am so easily distracted! To the left is the back of my second sammy. Much better tension, there are a few places that I obviously hesitated and got little knots. I know that with more practice (oh, and taking my foot off of the gas pedal, hello) I will get better at this! I call last nights work a success!! I tried something new! I am no pro at it, but I didn't become a floutist extrordinare or a vocal phenom over night!! LOL (I really do sing and play the flute and sax but that's another story)

So I leave you with a few little flowers I did at the end just because! Thanks for visiting!! And being true with me!!hehe! It is all about learning something new every day! If you have not checked out SewCalGal and her Challenge... do it!! I think it is a great way to learn! Have a blessed Sunday!
Josie

Mrs. Pickles' Amish Diamonds Block

I LOVE working with black! Can I say that!!

Done with my other block for my other swap! I had to hide it away from my son who is in love with this block! (Honeyman also took a real shine to it) I have to keep it real and tell you I had to rip out the little center guy because I don't know what I was thinking I cut him at an angle and well that just would not do! So Pick you are going to be getting a stray piece in there! Surprise!! It was my goof! Not that I can not use the extra piece, but ya'll know I bought enough material I could make more of these!!

Siggy block over there, too!

I did not know what size the center block was and did not realize he would be that small in there, but I do love this little guy!
I do so hope he is well loved! (what am I saying who wouldn't love him! LOL)
Had a great time working on this block! Went together very easily (after my one goof)!
Have a splendid day!!
Josie

January Bee Creative 2012

My bee is in full swing and Laura chose a ... challenge for the first block! We are doing a Union Jack. I have finished mine and will send it out on Monday! I have to go today to get teal for Mrs. Pickles block. I have blue, but nothing I like for her block! So off to the store I go today while Honeyman is watching Football (darn fooseball LOL)

Extreem close up!!!

Laura gave us freedom to use whatever colours we wanted! I think I am on an Easter/spring kick! I call mine Jack on Crack!

Siggy Block

Ready to go!!

I had a great time working on this block and challenging myself with paper pieceing! Thanks Laura for choosing something I would not have chosen myself! I think this makes for a successful swap! It is all about growing as a quilter!!
Have a blessed day,
Josie

Twisted Sister

Went crazy over the holidays buying fabric! Really I had gotten money from a friend as a gift and this is normally a bad thing because I had a habit of spending it on things NOT for me! But this time.... nope spent it all on me! I went to JoAnn's and Hancock and bought fabric, batting, and my BIG purchase was an OttLight. This one is regularly 79.99 but it was half off and I had a coupon for $5 off of a $35 purchase! So I feel like I stole it from them! YES! And I have to say the room I work in has horrible lighting and I LOVE this light!! plus it has an extra outlet in the back of it (who doesn't need an extra) and it folds up all compact, the cord wraps up nicely in it,  and has a handle to tote it. Who wouldn't love those features!! Ok done with my soap box and onto my work hehe!

Cut and prep

I bought this material that was VERY on sale and I loved the bright colours! I was not sure what I was going to use it for and a while back I had bought a jelly roll book! So.... strip I did!! LOL They are very busy materials, so it did not quite take on the look of the on in the book. That one was made with all burgundy and tan materials, so there was a LOT of contrast. but I like the kind of wacky way mine went together.

Just a hint

It was a very simple pattern. just sewing the strips together and cutting squares and then cutting them in half and sewing them back together! Honeyman kept asking why I was cutting apart after I had already sewn. He is so funny! Also asking what I was making it for! Well heck if I know! I was making it because I like the pattern, I bought 1/4 yard of each of the fabrics and only paid $.25 for each cut! Why the heck not! It is like practicing!

The book calls for a simple white 2 inch border, but I think I want more than that. So I am kind of stuck with what to do next. This kind of looks like the easter bunny threw up, so maybe I will see if I can't find an easter print! Or I might just go back to the store and, wait for it, buy more material! ha! OK twist my arm I might just do that anyway! The pattern was called Playmates, but I might (if I can get it finished) use this as a donation for a friend who is having a benefit for her sister who is going through chemo for breast cancer. So I thought Twister Sister sounded better! I am a nut I know it!
What are you working on? Today I am finishing up my two blocks for the swaps I am in! Finish it up Friday, right!! have a great weekend!
Josie

Goals for the new year

Good morning! I have to start by saying you know I am not a morning person.

Liz and I at her wedding doing the shopping!!

I get up in the morning and HAVE to have my coffee. I watch kids so my work comes to me and the first two get here just before 7. I normally meet my friend while still in my bathrobe! (Liz and I have been friends for well as long as I can remember & I was in her wedding) I hurry my kids along the way normally I have to take the Brat to High School at 6:45 so I can be back for the other kids and then breakfast fix lunches dress yadda yadda for my other two and get them to two different schools and then back to my house for the bus to picl up Liz's little man who just started pre-school! And then it is 8:15 and just about ready for my other little one to get here for the day!! (however in about six months there will be two and not just one)
OK with all of that said... my favorite part of the day, is the morning. before anyone else has gotten out of bed and my house is still quiet and I can be on the computer and noone is talking or yelling or asking me for anything! This is my time! Why oh why does it have to come so early in the day! LOL I have never lived by myself and the closest I have gotten to that is when the kids are asleep and my Honeyman is on shift. Oh, he is currently off work because he hurt his back lifting a patient. So I have not had late nights alone for a while!!!
Did I mention goals?? OK I am going to keep it short and sweet
1) Finish a quilt to have for the guild show in (I think it is November)
      I am new to the quilt guild. but they have a big show every other year and each member is asked to submit something! It can be a wall hanging it can be a quilt. Your choice! You can also either have it judged or just have it participating! (please do not judge me)!! So my one and only goal is that! Simple enough!
alright so I guess I have like subgoals if you will!! I am hosting a bee and I want it to bee successful! I want to bee a great participant in the other bee I am in and I have three quilt alongs I want to keep up with!
ONE

My Honeyman offering Liz support!!

TWO
THREE
GO!!!!
hehe there you have it! Happy New Year! let it be MUCH better than last year because I am not sure I can take another one like 2011! I just have to say I am glad it is done!!
Josie

I had not opened up Liz's wedding photo's in a while and I laughed as I went through them! This one was at the end of the night as we were cleaning up and the one that follows it Liz has picked my Honeyman up and he is making a not so very nice suggestive well You can only imagine!
Have a great day all!!