Happy Birthday Madison!

I am taking it easy today. I worked hard yesterday and got pretty hot. So today, I am resting. Yesterday, I finished picking the beans. This time I got about 1 1/2 buckets. I blanched these and got them in the freezer. I also did some work around the house and cleaned the litter boxes. I only have 2 cats, but they each prefer a different litter box. Do I spoil my ladies or what? LOL

Today is our granddaughter, Madison's 1st birthday. We do not get to see her much, but still think about her daily. I have not seen her since Easter, so these pictures are old. I am sure she has changed in looks by now. Might even be walking.

Baby, if you could read this, I would want you to know that your grandpa and I love you dearly. We hope some day to see you on a regular basis. Please keep that beautiful smile.

(Big Sigh) Changing the subject, before I get all weepy!  I have finished the HST's for the Charm Square Quilt Along. I even have them all trimmed up. Here are 150 HST's sorted into groups of 10's.

Now I need to get the redwork done on the Raggedy and Friends BOM. That will have me caught up. I think I can also face Jeremy's quilt again. It was giving me problems, so I decided to step back from it for a while. I finished the quilting on the blocks of the redwork barns last night. Now I just have some quilting to do on the borders and it will be ready for binding. I'll share pictures when I get that done.

I guess that is it for me today. Now I need to go put my feet up and do some handwork. My ankles are swollen again. I will be glad when this heat and humidity leaves us. Thank you for visiting. Have a great day.

Picking green beans.

I picked a bucket of green beans this afternoon. I also got some much needed mowing done. Oh boy! I was so hot when I came in that I thought I was going to melt. Hmmm. They said our high was supposed to be 85* today. We already have 94* and mom has 96*. Who determines the predicted high temps? I think they need to do some more research. LOL  Anyway, I decided to do a blog post while I try to cool down. Then I will be snapping these.

  This is my chore bucket. It holds about 1 1/2 gallons. I will probably have this many more to pick in a day or two. This is just one row. I have another row that is just a little later. It is about ready. Our tomatoes are not doing good. We have huge plants, but not very good tomatoes on them. I think we have just had too much rain. Kevin picked 3 zucchini this weekend, but I didn't see any today. The sweet potatoes are taking over the garden. LOL The peppers are not doing good. I have a few little peppers on them. They are usually loaded. I have 2 eggplants growing, but not any more blooms. Oh well. I will take what we get and be grateful for it.

I started putting Jeremy's quilt together last night. I thought this would be the easy one. Huh! I have had a terrible time getting the seams to line up right in the nine patches. I was ironing everything towards the brown. Iron to the darkest color, right? Well that just didn't work for this quilt. I switched and started ironing away from the brown and everything lined right up. Oh well, glad I finally figured this out. I have 5 blocks done. Most of these had every seam sewed and ripped out and resewed at least once or twice. I was ready to pull my hair out.

I also have the cornerstones ready to go.

I don't think I shared a picture of the charm square quilt along blocks since I got the lights cut out. I still need to turn these into half square triangles.

I pin them together in groups of 10. I got tired of constantly counting to see how many I had. LOL

Thank you so much to everyone who wished us a happy anniversary yesterday. We had a nice day. Kind of laid back, but nice. We both piddled on our computers. Then Kevin watched a movie while I sewed. (grin) We were in the same area, though. I made a run to the deli, but they were out of chicken tenders. Whoever heard of a deli being out of chicken?  So we ended up having pizza instead. Not bad, but probably not great for us. We decided we won't celebrate anything else till Thanksgiving. Anyone want to take bets on this? Nah, me neither. LOL 

On a serious note, please say a little prayer for my sweetie. He has come down with shingles. They look pretty nasty to me, but he says they aren't bad. I'm not sure he is telling me the truth about this, though. He doesn't like to worry me. So if you could just say a prayer that he can heal quickly, I would be very grateful.

Thanks for visiting. I see my blog is still behaving. We had a serious talk and I threatened  to delete it, if it did not straighten up. I guess it got the message. LOL Everyone have a great day. Please come again.

It's Our Anniversary!

Thirty three years ago today, Kevin and I were married in a very simple service in a Methodist Church. Never dreamed that 33  years later, we'd have 5 kids and 5 grandkids. I still love that man and have no doubts that he loves me.

We already celebrated by going to Ryan's, but I might just go to the deli later. Nothing like getting 2 days free from cooking. LOL

Sorry there are no pictures. My honey hates having his picture taken and really prefers me not to post any pictures of him. I will honor his wishes, but I wanted to share our anniversary with my blogging friends.

Have a great day.  By the way, I think I have finally found the background that I will keep for a while. At least I got rid of that little box that was aggravating me so much. LOL Thanks for visiting.

Fighting with my Blog!

I have had quite a time with my blog today. I got on it this afternoon and there was a little box from photobucket that appeared over my pictures, words, etc. I could not get rid of it. It said something about the image you are clicking on has been moved or deleted. Well, that was quite a pain. It was only about 2 inches square, but prevented me from reading anything. So I deleted my background. Got rid of the little box, but also got rid of my background. (eye roll here) So far today I think I have had at least 4 different backgrounds. I am still not satisfied with this one, but I'm tired of messing with it. I may work on it some more tomorrow.

Yesterday, I got my block put together and the embroidery design traced on for the Raggedy and Friends BOM. I am enjoying this one. I decided to use my blue wash out pen to trace the design. I bought some red pens to trace things for my redwork, but do you think I could find them? NO! I knew where they were before I started cleaning. I knew cleaning meant disaster. LOL Any way, here is the first block all ready to do the redwork. Ok, now I can't get my picture where I want it to be. Either Blogger is having issues or I need to take a break. (sigh)

Ok, this is where it wants me to type, so this is where I will type. I am just getting tired of nothing working tonight.

I also got my charm square quilt along charms cut and ready to make half square triangles. I decided to work on a few fun things before I put Jeremy's quilt together. 

Lisa asked me what a flimsy is. Lisa, I tried to reply to you, but you are a no reply commenter. A flimsy is

just a term given to a top that is pieced but not sandwiched or quilted. I learned the term from reading other quilting blogs. I had never heard of it either. (grin) 

Kevin and I went to Ryan's for lunch today. It was good. I think I did pretty good on picking healthier foods. I tried to eat the healthiest I could. Of course, I had to have a piece of coconut pie and a little ice cream. I love coconut pie.  Skipping that is just not an option. LOL 

 We also stopped by Hobby Lobby. I found some great fabrics in there for making my new Bow Tucks bags. I bought enough to make 3 bags. I do have 3 daughters, but at least one of these will be mine. I can make another one later. I love these black and beige fabrics.

The roll of black on top and the fabric on the right top of the picture were already in my stash. I fell in love with this red star fabric. I wanted it, but only planned to get enough fabric today to make one bag. While trying to decide what to do, I sent my hubby down the street to Office Max. I could tell he just wasn't feeling the fabric dilemma. LOL With him out of the way, I decided to get the red too. 

Once again, the roll on top and the right front fabric were already in my stash. Ok. I have enough to make 2 bags. I need to go, but wait, look at that darling pink and green fabric. Oh, I just have to have that. 

The beige fabric on top and the right front fabric were in my stash, but look how pretty that middle fabric is, with the pink and beige flowers and all the green. I had to have it, didn't I? I sure hope I like making these Bow Tucks bags, after purchasing fabric to make 3 of them. (another eye roll) Kevin never said a word while I silently sat in the passenger seat petting my pretty fabric on the way to Ryan's, but I know he was rolling his eyes too. LOL

We had rain again today. It rains every weekend. As Kevin said, we might as well live in the tropics. I don't want it to stop raining, but one weekend a month without any would be nice. Well, I guess I will try to get this to post. No promises, since things have not been going exactly as planned tonight. Thanks for visiting. Please come again. 

Ivan's quilt is a flimsy!

I finished putting the borders on Ivan's quilt last night. I think he will like it. Here it is spread out on the bed.

Here is a shot of one of the corners.

One more shot.

Now before I start on Jeremy's quilt, I think I will work on the Raggedy and Friends BOM and the Charm Pack Quilt Along. I really want to keep up with these two projects.

I won another giveaway a little while ago. I received this in the mail today from Cyndi.

The package was full of goodies. I love everything. I won the Bar Harbor charm pack and the Darcy Schnibbles pattern, but Cyndi also included a pen, some notecards/envelopes, some sticky tabs, and a gorgeous handmade key fob. Cyndi knows how much I love kitties. Isn't this just the cutest?

Cyndi also included a cute as can be card with owls on it, but I forgot to get it in the picture. Thank you, again Cyndi. I love everything and will put it all to good use.

The heat and humidity is back. We got a couple days break, but had a thunderstorm yesterday afternoon. That brought the humidity back. Not looking forward to getting groceries tomorrow in this heat. I'll take my cold bags and get home as quickly as possible. I guess that is it for me today. Thanks for visiting. Please come back. Everyone have a wonderful day.

I Got Sidetracked

You know what they say....the best laid plans, etc. Well I got Jeremy's quilt all cut out. Made my decision on which way to do the 9 patch blocks. By the way, thank you everyone for your opinions. I decided to go with the brown blocks in the centers. That is the way I was leaning towards anyway, but just wanted some other opinions. (grin) Here is Jeremy's quilt, all cut out and ready to sew. I think I still need some border strips. I usually cut those after the center is done. 

After getting Jeremy's cut out, I decided I might as well get Ivan's cut out too. Hmmm, I wasn't really pleased with the borders, so I went back to EQ7. I like these borders much better.

 So I got Ivan's quilt all cut out.

Even with EQ7, I still have to do lots of figuring. I probably wouldn't have to, but it is just like me not trusting a calculator. I have to figure it myself. LOL You can see all of my doodles to the left.  I am using up that big 'W' and using my favorite pen. It writes in purple. (big grin)
Then I decided I really should put together one block to see if I liked it. I now have 15 out of 20 blocks put together. I just have 5 more to make. I also have the cornerstones done and the pieced borders done.
So I might as well get Ivan's quilt done first. LOL Here is what the block will look like. Not too bad, even with all that yellow in there.

I won a giveaway a couple of weeks ago. Joanne from splittingstitches, was comparing cutting charms with her new Go cutter and an ordinary rotary cutter. She sent me all of the test results, plus some charms from a charm pack and a note pad. I believe she sent over 100 charms. I will have lots of fun with these. Thanks so much Joanne.

About two months ago, Fons and Porter sent me an offer for a trial subscription to their magazine, Love of Quilting. They would send me a copy. I could look at it and decide whether I wanted it or not. I received the bill within the first 2 weeks, but no magazine. I was just about to write cancel on the bill and send it back when I finally got the magazine. Then a couple of days later I got another issue. I have decided to go ahead and send them the money since I do like it. I love this quilt in their July/August issue. So simple, but so pretty. I may do this one after I get all the other projects out of the way. I may even attempt to follow Crispy's hand piecing tutorial with it. I would probably cut it down some, though. Isn't it pretty? It is made with scraps and a 60* triangle template (both small and large).  It is called 'Nothing but Triangles'.

My dh has been putting in lots of overtime at work this month, so he was really looking forward to today. He had lots of projects he wanted to get done. We went to bed with no rain in sight, but woke up to rain. So it has been another 'in the house' day for us. Can't do what he wanted to while it is so wet outside. It seems to rain every weekend. This is unusual for us for July. We have received way more rain than normal. In fact, we have had so much rain, that the garden isn't even liking it. No ripe tomatoes yet. A few tiny green beans setting on. One eggplant and lots of zucchini blooms when the garden was checked this morning. Of course the storm we had blew over my tomatoes, cages and all. I hope they recover.

Well, I think I will get back to my sewing. Kevin keeps reminding me to take breaks. So I figured I might as well get a blog post in. LOL He takes good care of me. Thanks for visiting. Have a great evening.

You Asked for It

Ok, I have played around with EQ7 some more. I tried taking a picture of the plaid like fabric and importing it, but it didn't turn out very good. I need to work at that some more. (grin)
Here it is with the brown in the middle squares.

The very center squares are from the fabric I took a picture of and imported, but they didn't look right in the outer border, so I used fabric choices already in EQ7's library in the border strips. The rest of he colors are very close.

Here it is with the beige in the center squares.

Kind of neat how it changes the look of the center squares in each block. I never changed them.

I also laid out a couple blocks each with the sashing and cornerstones.

With the beige in the center blocks.

Does this help? Sometimes I can take pictures and tell better what it looks like than actually looking at it. LOL
I have it all cut out now, just need to sew the blocks together. Probably do that tomorrow. Thanks for your help. Have a good night.

Which Is Better?

I am getting ready to cut out Jeremy's quilt. I cut a few squares from the fabrics for the 9 patches. Now I need to figure out how to place them. Yes I know I can cut 4 1/2 inch strips, sew them together, then subcut into 4 1/2" blocks, and sew these together to make my 9 patch block, but I prefer to cut blocks and sew them together. I think I get things more accurate that way. I'm not in a race to get these done, so don't really need to speed things up. (grin) Anyway, I laid them out and took pictures. I thought maybe seeing them on my blog might help me decide which way I like best. Here is block one.

Here is block two.

Which do you like better? It doesn't really matter, since it will use the same number of squares no matter how I set them. I finally got my first copy of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting today. So I am going to go sit down, look at my magazine, and think on this a while. Please let me know which one you like best. Thanks. Have a great day.

Double Delight is a flmsy.

I spent all afternoon yesterday trying to figure out the best way to do the borders on my Double Delight. I wanted to use the same fabric for the borders that were in the quilt center, but only had a limited amount left. So I used my ruler, pen and paper and figured it out. I forgot about having EQ7 till I had it figured out. (sigh) Anyway, I used the fabric in order of the least amount I had of each of them. Did that make sense? LOL Here is the best picture I can do of the whole top. Kevin tried to hold it up, but it didn't even show the borders that way. It measures about 76"X86". I did not follow Bonnie's idea on borders, but I like it anyway. The only thing that I would have liked better would be if I had enough of the green fabric with chickens on it to put another border on it. Since I don't, it is what it is. (grin)

Here is a closeup of the top border.

Here is a closeup of the corners. Took me a while to figure out how short to cut the orangey fabric for the blocks to fit. I don't know why, but my mind just wouldn't work right. LOL

Aeris decided that it wasn't fair for Callie to be in all the pictures on my blog, so she jumped up on the DD before Callie had a chance to. Of course that irritated Callie, so then she wouldn't even get up there. LOL I tell you, it is like having two kids again. They spit and spat at each other, then curl up together and go to sleep.

I drug out all of my rulers to show you all. I think there are nine laying here. After reading all your comments, I am inclined to believe my problems with rulers are user error. LOL I must be holding my cutter to an angle or something. Anyway....I am making more of an effort to hold that baby straight when I cut. It is hard to tell, but when I cut a strip of fabric with these, then turn the strip around, you can see an area where it is bulged out. That is where my ruler is wallowed out. It isn't much, but it bothers me. As you can see, I am the queen of rulers. LOL I also have several specialty rulers. I probably have at least a dozen specialty rulers. Yes, I know, overkill. My hubby can't understand why I need so many rulers. Maybe I am a collector of rulers. LOL

The good thing about all these rulers...I bought all of them using coupons at one time or another. Otherwise, I would pass out, figuring what I spent on these. LOL

Today was the hottest day we have had in a while. Our weather guy said at 6 p.m. that the heat index was still 110*. YUCK! I have spent most of the day in where it is cool. Suppose to be some storms coming in later tonight. That will probably just make it more humid tomorrow. I spent most of the day making bindings for different projects. Also finished up the backing for Bob's quilt. Can you believe, I still have not sandwiched and basted it? Maybe this weekend. I think I have said that for the past 2 weekends now. LOL Here is what I did for the backing for Bob's quilt (Patriotic Shoo Fly).

I had enough of the red, white, and blue fabric for the length, but it wasn't wide enough and I didn't have enough of it to piece both sides. So I used fabric from the front and made a strip piece for each side.

I had about 1/2 yard of a white fabric with the pledge of allegiance on it, so I put a section in the center of each strip.

I had enough of the red, white, and blue fabric to make a binding, by doing lots of piecing.

Well, I guess that is enough from me for now. Thank you for visiting. Have a great day.

Finishing up the stripping.

I am coming to the end of my stripping, at least for now. I haven't even touched the lights yet, but decided to just do this about once a week instead of all at once. My sweet husband told me last night that I needed to do something fun today. He knows I tend to do something until I am overwhelmed. So I have just a few pieces left on the ironing board to cut. Then I am going to do something fun. This morning I made a quick trip to town. I needed to go to Sears to get some bobbins and I stopped by JoAnn's. I am wondering something.... Maybe you can help me. It seems like I need to replace my ruler about every 6 months. It gets wallowed out where I cut the most. Anyone else have this problem? I thought maybe I am holding my cutter wrong or something. I know I am tired of buying rulers. The blades are expensive enough without having to get a new ruler every few months. Here is what I picked up this morning. I bought an 18 mm rotary cutter at Walmart last week for trimming little pieces, but took it back today and got this 28 mm cutter. I think the 18 mm one was too small. I used coupons for all this and saved about half. sometimes I can't find anything to use my coupons on, but today I found good use for them.

See that pink 'W' over to the left? That is a notepad that I just had to have. I thought it was so cool to have a notepad shaped like the first letter of my name. Well, it is a pain to use. I bought this several years ago and found it when I was cleaning out my sewing drawer. I decided to get it out and get it used. I am using it for scrap paper. LOL

My package from Connecting Threads came today. I ordered a 'Country fat quarter sampler' and the Bow Tucks tote pattern. I have wanted this pattern for a while, so I am excited to get it. I am hoping to use it to make bags for our daughters for Christmas. I think they will like this design. I guess before I make too many decisions, though, I should make one and see how I like it. (grin)

Here is the country fat quarter sampler. I like their fabric and love their thread. I would recommend Connecting Threads to anyone. They also have good customer support.

I noticed while cutting all of those strips that I have mostly earthy colors or maybe autumn colors. So I picked out the browns/goldens/rusts/oranges/greens charm squares that I had cut. Aren't they pretty?

Hmmm, what to do with these? Then I found this Charm Pack Quilt Along. Perfect! I don't need to buy any charms. I have more than enough. I have some light fabric. I will make this quilt along by using these earth colored charms that I cut last week. What do you think? (Please don't tell me I have a screw loose. LOL I know I am already making 3 quilts for our SIL's , plus tote bags for the girls, plus the Raggedy Annie BOM, but what is one more project?) Anyway, I think I can do it. It won't be quilted any time soon, but I think using these charms will work. By the way, I did have other colors, but picked out the blues, pinks, purples, wild flowers, etc. Also, this is just the 5" squares. Lots and lots of other sizes cut and in bins.

It was another rainy weekend. In fact we have more rain coming in. I am glad I went over the garden before these rains started, but I am sure it needs it again. Just waiting on it to get dry enough. We have some large tomatoes setting on, but they are still green. My mouth waters just thinking about them. (grin) Well, I want to go play. Thanks for visiting. Have a great day.