A Few Days Updates

Quilted a customer quilt - she is also a friend which makes it nice -  Linda Kjendlie made this beauty

Went to Stoughton Quilt show which ended up with me going to ER ....


Not to worry - I have been having some issues for past week, and thought I was having heart health problems.

After a night in the hospital and several tests, they have given me a clean bill of health physically - the mental issue not so clear.  Apparently I have dealing with depressions, anxiety.

I thought I had been working through my grief, but I know now I wasn't actually dealing with it or letting myself go through the process.  Been building it up until it took over and I made myself ill.

DR. Appointment today went well, we are scheduling a stress test for Tuesday just to rule out anything the tests might have missed.  I have been prescribed a medicine to help me sleep (apparently 2 to 4 hours is not enough) really? and the medication is also to help with my mood.

Lets hope so.

To give myself a pick me up went shopping for some spring outdoor decorations - instead of buying ready made I came home and  made myself a spring wreath.

I must have forgotten how to use a glue gun because I have at least 5 really good glue burns on my fingers, one is even blistered.   Oh well takes my mind of other complaints for a few minutes anyway.

Now Im  going to go sit by my pond and watch the fish.

How I Spent Monday

I really had a super kicked into high gear kind of morning.

Started at 6am and stopped at noon.

Machine Embroidered to my Hand Applique Bird - need to fill in extra space on block
still have to trim off extra threads

Sewed together the sample blocks of new pattern (Wanda's Dream Catcher)

Cut and sewed together a quilt for Gus - still need borders but this went together quickly.

Watched Gus for a few hours came home and finished loading a customer quilt.

Today will be another busy day, went for coffee and quilting tips to a friends house, home again, grab lunch, load car and head out to sew day with the girls.

When I get back  have the customer quilt to work on maybe I can get it done tonight or tomorrow, we will see how much I can accomplish after sewing with the girls.

Woke up this morning to SNOW - ugly word this time of year.  Not much but enough to put me in a bad bad mood.

According to weather reports will have warm days by Friday.  I certainly hope so - this is a never ending winter and does not help my mood at all.  Seriously getting a major depression going here.  

The only thing to cure it, will be warmer days and sunshine.

Party At MY House

I have been wanting to learn needle turn hand applique for years.

Finally a friend offered to teach a class at my house for a few of my quilting buddies.

Peggy Nelson teacher:

Cast of characters:

Julie, Sharon, Alice, Teri, Margie and myself.

Peggy was an excellent teacher and so much appreciate her coming  here and being so patient with quite a few total novices to the art of applique.

Peggy giving Alice one on one instructions at the ironing board

Julie's looking awesome

Julie and Sharon have theirs completed

Teri another over achiever finisher hers as well

Margie still working on hers

Nope I didn't finish mine, but then I was making coffee, copies and getting the dessert out.

Plus doing a lot of chatting  hehehehehehe

Uhhhhhh Alice escaped her close up - I will catch her another time .


I managed to finish mine way after class

I learned so much today, but there is much needed practice to look forward to

In addition before class today I finished a customer quilt for Joyce:  Pattern name Weathered Fence

All in all it was a very good day- enjoyed myself tremendously

Thanks Peggy and thanks to all my friends who came to our little class

Miniature - I envy

Yes I envy, anyone who can sew tiny pieces together and have them turn out perfect.

I have a real problem with tiny pieces - maybe I rush it too much.  Even though I'm doing the Tula Pinks you would be surprised how difficult it is to sew tiny pieces together.

Well Candy does not rush hers - its beautiful!

This is the second piece she has brought me that I want to steal from her.

How lucky am I to have a job that 1) I love 2) I get to have a free quilt show almost every week 3) Get to work from my home.  It really doesn't get much better than that.!!!!!

March Sunday Sew In

Another month is going by and today is our www.connectedthreadz.com Sunday Sew In.

Quilted this customer quilt and getting ready to head back to sewing room to either load another quilt or finish borders on the 1600 - or I could sew blocks together for another customer. Decisions decisions, what to do.

This is just too darn cute,  wish I could find the fabrics and make wall hanging for my room.


Well back to my room see ya later with more pictures if I get anything finished today.

HAPPY NATIONAL QUILT DAY

In honor of this day I finished putting the borders on a lap quilt - this will be a bd present for a friend.

And....... put together a 1600 quilt, just need borders and it will be done as well.  This is also going to be bd present for a very sweet lady who is going to be 85 this April.

It wasn't my intention to make these tops this morning.  The original plan was to load a customer quilt and do that, but my mind got side tracked.  As it so often does and before I knew it I had 2 tops sewn.

Break for lunch - take a shower and if there is time, will load the customer quilt.

This evening I'm going to a murder mystery dinner theater at the Masonic Lodge in Edgerton "The Mardi Gras Murder".

Looking forward to this.  Sounds like so much fun.

For now I had better get myself moving the day is getting away from me.

Totally Modern Quilt

What a good feeling being able to leave the house without being blasted by subzero temps. 

A friend of mine and I took a ride to a ceramic shop today.  Like I need another hobby right?

We were given a grand tour of a very old building and stocked from top to bottom with green ware.

Its been years since I have done any ceramics or porcelains, but looking at all that was available we were very much impressed.

A person (like me) needs to keep coming up with new, or old revisited crafts.  Keeps the brain from going stale.

In the meantime, my first and main love and priority is my quilting.

After shopping and lunch returned home loaded a customer quilt and finished this really modern looking quilt.

I used a new panto called Chevron, and it think it fits this quilt perfectly.

Really really like the way this looks - materials are so attractive and as usual Teri did an awesome job piecing this one.

The next quilt is similar but yet different in placement, and I think Chevron should be used again.

Sometime tomorrow -  Gus will be here, and I will fit in a little quilting while he is napping,...... I think.

Hello Again

I bet you have been wondering where I've been.

Well...... my computer was in for repairs and have been without one since last week Thursday.

E gads!!!! I have been lost without it - finally today I got it back.

It is amazing, however, how much one can get done without have a computer to distract.

Quilted this charity quilt for one of my friends.  She and others are making quilts to be given to the Vets housing in Janesville.  This housing is for VETS (of course) who are homeless and have no jobs.  The facility has a vet stay for max of 2 years and they provide the vet with schooling, and trade skills to help them get a job.  A quilt is given to a vet and when he leaves the housing the vet gets to keep his quilt.  I offered to do a quilt or 2 for them as my contribution to helping our vets.

In addition - quilted one of my own scrappy's

One of several crumb scrappy's I have done this past winter, and I finished up 30 more blocks for yet another one.

In past few days I have quilted these, made scrappy's - read 2 books, and worked on my knitting, but with all of that I was nuts not being able to check in and on my computer.

With all the social availability to connect with others through our electronic devises its actually like going through a with drawl when one is taken away from us.

Weather has been so much milder I actually managed to get out of the house for past few days, which has brightened my mood considerably.

Hoping mother nature has turned the corner and we can all look forward to some nice warmer days.

In between there will be some setbacks, but I'm confident spring is not far behind.

Speaking of spring-  Sunday was SPRING FORWARD for day light savings time.  I was all set for this, ready to turn the clocks ahead Sat night before heading to bed.

Up early Sunday ready for church drove off to church and discovered more cars than usual in the parking lot,  Strange so many cars already there, when usually there are a few as I get there early for service.

Yeah well this dummy forgot to change the clocks so instead of early for service I was 50  min late.  Feeling totally stupid I pulled out of the parking lot and went and visited Toby, Kylee and Gus instead.

Oh well good intentions.

My Crumb Block Party

Yes it was Saturday and yes I promised pictures.

However, before everyone left my house on Saturday I started feeling ill.  Came down with the flu and have been really really under the weather until about a few hours ago.

Now I'm really concerned I infected everyone.  I know 2 of the girls that have gotten sick so far.  Its hard to believe they would have gotten sick so soon.

It took me a week to get it from my Gus but I finally did.  Thank you Gus Grandma still loves you.

For the first Crumb Block party it turned out really well, we all had a good time.

When everyone arrived I took their scraps away from them, and put them in a cloth grocery bag adding some of my scraps to theirs, mixed them up a bit and handed them bag their bags.  Tell each they could not look inside.

Once we were all set up for sew I instructed them to, without looking, start pulling pieces from their bag and sew each piece as they pull it from the bag.  Not trading for a different piece.  If the piece was too large they could cut it down to fit, but if it was too small they could add to the small piece and then add to the previous pieces making a block - the block was to be larger than a 6.5 block then we trimmed the blocks to the 6.5 either cutting straight on or turning the square ruler making the blocks tipsy looking.

I have made many scrappy quilts using this technique and it always makes for an interesting block and quilt.

The original plan was to make them give me their blocks lay them out and have each girl take turns picking a block they could keep and continue picking until they had equal amounts of blocks they put into the exchange.

However, some of the girls loved their blocks too much to give them up so I let them keep their own.

I do think it would have been fun to see what it would have looked like had they exchanged some of their blocks.

In between sewing we did manage to have a nice lunch that we all contributed to.  Where ever there are sewers there has to be food, right?