A Gift for MIL

I can't believe I am here two days in a row. Fall is good for me. LOL

I am about fed up with updating things on my computer. Every time I do it, I regret it. First I updated my yahoo email. Well, I hate the new version. It has been over a month and I still hate it. I even emailed yahoo and told them how much I hated it, but of course, got no response from them. (eye roll here) Yesterday I updated Firefox. They just kept sending me little popups telling me I needed to update. Well, now my toolbar (I think that is what it is called) across the top is gone. It is from Yahoo. Evidently Yahoo's toolbar is not compatible with Firefox's newest version. What do I do now. I am lost without my toolbar, yet have no idea how to get it back. Just when I start getting comfortable with the computer they mess it all up for me. Once it is working, please just leave it alone. I think I need to just stop updating. Oh, another thing. I just sort of figured out Facebook. Well, guess what. They are changing everything around. (big sigh) Well, enough ranting and raving.

Kevin's mom recently entered the nursing home. She is crippled and very feeble. She finally accepted the fact that she could not take care of herself any more. When visiting her on Sunday, I noticed the nursing home had provided her with a lap quilt. Goodness, it has seen better days. She can no longer walk, so is in either her lift chair or her electric wheel chair all day. She needs something to cover her knees. Her 82nd birthday is this Sunday. I actually have a gift for her that I think she will love. I pulled two lap quilt size quilts from my finished tote bin. Kevin prefers this one, so I will probably give it to her. It is about 40" by 49". I think she will love it. The coins (colorful strips) are from leftovers from a strip pieced quilt. The sashing is from fabric I had in my stash for many years. The little sashing stones are leftover from a jumper I had made myself. I just love the border fabric.

Here it is hanging behind our door.

A quick peak at the back.

I also pulled this quilt out, but Kevin didn't like it as well. If I remember correctly, this one is called Savannah Stars. It was made from fabric I bought at Walmart when the South Belt store clearanced fabric. The pattern was found in an old quilting magazine. It is about 45" square.

Hanging on the back of our door...

I pieced the back from leftover fabric from the front.

I will probably go with the first, since Kevin prefers it. I need to make a label. Everything in the nursing home has to be labeled. I just thought I'd share pictures of these with you, although I am sure I have shared them on here before. I need to get with it, so I will get this posted. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Everyone have a wonderful day!

A Finsh to Share!

Good afternoon,

We had such a nice weekend. I could not believe that we just started on the last half of July. We had record breaking lows about 4 nights in a row. Goodness, people were even wearing jackets. I didn't because I am just not going to drag those back out until I absolutely have to. LOL It was so pleasant all weekend that we basically stayed outside, just sitting on the patio enjoying the hummingbirds. We did get most of the mowing done. My garden is just not worth weeding. I don't know what happened, but everything looks stunted in growth and have very few leaves. The bush greenbeans are only about 8 inches high with few leaves and even fewer blooms. The sweetcorn is just pitiful! It is only about to my waist. Even the zucchini is only about 10 inches tall with a handful of zucchini on them. Just not worth wasting our time weeding them. Maybe next year. Even Kevin commented to me about how little everything is. He doesn't usually notice. LOL

I had a finish this weekend. I got the binding sewed down on the back of the Savannah Star and got it washed. It is now complete! That makes me feel good. Here it is.

It turned out all crinkly and soft like I wanted after washing it. Here is a closeup of the center star area.

And of course a picture of the back. (grin)
I also finished the crocheting on the pink baby afghan last night while watching tv with Kevin. All I have left to do is weave in the loose ends and it is done! I'll try to share a picture of it with you all tomorrow.

(Big sigh here) I never did get Kevin's new shirts cut out. Friday I cleaned the table all off. I just couldn't resist that big clean space. I started sandwiching tops that need quilted. I got 3 tops all sandwiched and pin basted. I usually just use pins to baste on the baby size and smaller quilts. These were all about that size. I have Harbor Town, Noah's Ark, and leftover strips quilt all ready to start quilting on, but I do have a few projects to finish first. I wonder if I will stick with that. I wouldn't want to lay money on it. LOL Here they are just crying out to be worked on. I will get Kevin's shirts made, maybe this week.

I have also been working on the Birds and Blooms quilt. I am on the last applique section on the bottom. It is coming along, kind of slow, but steady. Well, this post is short, but hopefully sweet. LOL I have things I need to get done, so I will end here and try to come back tomorrow. It is looking very much like a storm coming in, so I'd better get off the computer. Everyone have a good day. Thank you for visiting and please come again.

A good crafy weekend!

Good morning everyone,

I ate wheat this weekend, so I am moving kind of slow today. My joints are screaming at me. I have all the necessary work done up, so decided to take a break and update my blog. I doubt that I will be very energetic today. I just have to learn to leave wheat products alone.

I hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was good, but not at all like we had planned. We had lots of outside work planned. We received almost 2 inches of rain early Friday morning. It was still too wet outside to work on Saturday morning and too hot and humid that afternoon. So we thought we could do our work on Sunday. Nope. We woke up to a downpour of another 1 1/2 inches. So it was an inside weekend for us.

We watched movies and just piddled. I, of course, have to have something in my hands to work on while watching tv. I finished the quilting on the Savannah Star. Even got the binding sewed on. Now I just need to handsew it on the back and wash it and it is done. I decided to quilt an 'X' in each square and rectangle. There are lots of squares and rectangles in this quilt, so it is densely quilted.

I made the binding up at the same time as I sandwiched the quilt. I was starting to sweat a little as I was sewing it on last night. Talk about cutting it close. Of course, I think I have used up the leftover green and blue in other projects, but I made it, barely! This is all the binding that was left.

I also did quite a bit of crocheting on the pink baby afghan. I have used a whole skein of yarn and about 1/2 of the second skein, so I am coming right along on it. As you can see, Callie had to inspect what I had laid out on the bed. It is after all her bed. LOL She just lets us use it. I decided to make a wall quilt for my sister-in-law. She has had a really rough year. This is a Thimbleberries pattern called Birds and Blooms. Can you tell that I love Thimbleberries patterns? Here is the middle of it. It will have a bird, flowers, and berries appliqued all the way around this border then a border of half square triangles. I am fairly new to hand applique, so I have been trying different methods to see which one works best for me. This time, I drew the the design on the dull side of freezer paper, cut it out, ironed it onto the wrong side of the fabric, then cut out the fabric being careful to leave a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Then I used a Q-tip to put some starch around the seam allowance. I used my little bitty Clover mini-iron to iron all the seam allowances in. A little warning here. The rod on the mini-iron also gets very hot. Do not stick your index finger on it to get more leverage. It hurts! I had read that you can use Elmers washable school glue to hold applique down till you can stitch it. Since it only cost $1, I got some to try. I am just as clutsy with pins as I am the iron. I always hurt myself, so I decided the glue was worth a try. Here is the first section all prepped. I am really hoping I can take the little points out of the eggs and berries as I hand applique around them. I hope I get better with circles. They are hard. Nothing like square eggs. LOL I will let you know how this method works. I see in my picture that the leaf just barely shows up, so I will have to choose darker greens in the rest of it. So far I have had fun with this project.

Well, I need to get off here. It is time to fix dh something to eat. I hope you all have a good day. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. I am sorry that I haven't responded to everyone's comments, but last week was a busy one for me. I will try to get caught up and do better. Can't promise, though.

The Sweet Potato Saga Continues!

Good afternoon everyone. I know how anxiously you all have been waiting for the sweet potato update. If you aren't anxiously awaiting it, I am afraid you will probably be disappointed with this post. (grin) I hope it might help someone who wants to grow their own this summer. Ok, I took them out of the south window on Sunday. They were started about 6 weeks ago.They have really bushed out. Too bad the other sweet potato never did take off. It had some little leaves, but no roots and the leaves never did grow. It was getting smelly, so I tossed it. I have 2 more started, but I think this one will give us all the slips we will need. What are slips, you ask? hehe They are the little plants that I twist off of the sw. potato. I just grab the stem firmly down next to the sw. potato and twist and pull. Here they are all laid out. Most are about 6-8 inches tall, a few shorter.Here is the poor, almost bald sweet potato after I robbed it of its pretty slips. I never strip it of all of its slips. I am afraid it will rebel and quit putting on more. LOLAfter I twist the strips off, I remove the bottom inch or 2 of leaves. This part of them will be in water to grow roots. If you leave the bottom leaves on they get slimey and foul the water. Rotten sweet potato water smells really bad. You don't want that in your house. Here they are, all ready to go join their siblings in the jar of water. Just look at that root system of the first slips I twisted off. Too bad it isn't warm enough to plant these. I still have 2 months till they can be planted. I am afraid I might have started these too soon. Usually it takes a long time for the leaves and roots to develop, but this potato was just made for reproducing. (grin) I think if I change the water on them regularly, they will be ok. I hope anyway. Here they are, in the jar and ready to sit in the window. They love that sun. This concludes the update to the sweet potato saga. I hope it was worth your wait. LOLI don't have anything to show today about quilting. I have been quilting on the Savannah Star. I'm about 3/4 done with it, so no pictures. I did finish 2 wallets and 3 change purses yesterday. I posted a link yesterday to the wallet tutorial. I'll post is again, because it really is a great tutorial. It is here. I made these wallets from scraps. Here they are all folded and snapped. This is the inside of them. Card slots at the bottom, of course. The corn lining is on the back of the pumpkin wallet and the orange on back of the wild wallet. (grin)Here is the back side of them all opened out. I am getting better with those snaps. They come in a little kit and I have to use the hammer to get them in place. Even though, I had done a few before, I guess I had lost my touch. By the time I got all of these in, they were looking better. I think I will wait till tomorrow to share the change purses with you. Otherwise, I might not have anything to share. (grin) Tonight is Biggest Loser. I hope they don't do the cliff hanger thing any more. I didn't enjoy waiting a week to see if 2 people had to go home or if they were all safe for another week. It is cold and windy here today. We had lots of rain again last night. Some of the area rivers are reaching flood stage. Well, I guess that is all for me today. I want to eat a bowl of soup, then get back to my quilting. Everyone have a nice day. Thank you for visiting and please come back.

Very, very windy day!

Wow, the wind is blowing so hard that I am afraid the roof is going to blow off. LOLWe have high wind advisories out till 6 tonight. I am upstairs and can feel and see the computer monitor swaying in the wind. LOL We had a light shower this morning, but the sun is shining right now. It is in the 60's, but no way I am going out in this wind. So I am spending the day catching up on the computer and house work. We had a nice weekend. Saturday was just beautiful, but I spent most of it in town. I know I said I was going to avoid JoAnn's, but I had to drive right past it. Surely it won't hurt to just run in for a second and see what is on sale? Right? Here is what I walked out with.

Now I do have plans for this. I thought the browns would work great to make dh's beagle quilt. Don't those look like beagle colors? The reds are only 1/4 yard cuts to add a little red to my collection. I am sadly lacking in red. I also need the template plastic since I am trying to do more applique. See how I justify this? LOL Of course, I had printed a 40% off coupon for Hobby Lobby. Now I couldn't just waste all the ink it took to print that little coupon. Could I? (grin) So I stopped by Hobby Lobby and found this scrumptious fabric that I thought would make a lovely background fabric for the beagle quilt. It is actually lighter than the picture looks. Also got some more template plastic.

Now you know I can't go to town without stopping by Wal Mart. Well they had some fabric that I have had my eye on for a couple of weeks. K said I should go ahead and get it or it would be gone and I would regret it. Can't argue with my husband. (grin) They are all prettier than this picture. The fabric on the lower right is a light red. I have no plans for it, but fell in love with it.

So here are my fabric buys on Saturday. I really must go on a fabric diet. The sad thing is that JoAnn's is having a President's Day sale this coming weekend that I planned to go to. I may have to skip this one. Do you think I have some sort of a fabric disorder? LOLOk, my cutting mat has seen better days. It is several years old. I have been considering getting another one for a while. I started to get one in JoAnn's. Can't think of the name right off hand, but the green ones, with yellow printing on them. When I picked it up, the smell was horrible. Do they always smell that bad? I just couldn't see myself working on a mat that smelled that bad. Then I looked at a Dritz. There was a label on it that said it contained ingredients that have been proven to cause cancer and birth defects in California. Huh? Not getting that one! I ended up buying another June Tailor. Why not, I have had good luck with my other one. Here is my old one. You can see how worn it has become. And here is the new mat. Isn't it pretty? I keep the old one on top of the new one. Callie thinks the cutting mat is her personal napping area. I'll just move the old mat off when I want to cut fabric. This way, Callie and I are both happy. (grin) Yesterday I desided to get the Savannah Star quilt sandwiched and ready to quilt. So I took out my batting to rest while I prepared the backing. I came back to find this. Yep, Aeris making herself right at home on my new batting. (Sigh) Then I looked over to see this. Callie had taken over Aeris' place on the coat. Oh, what would I do without my girls? LOL Anyway, I decided to use the leftover flower fabric in the backing. It wasn't wide enough, so I split it right down the fold line. Then I got to work with the leftover strips from the front of the quilt. I just started adding strips till it was wide enough. Here is the back of the Savannah Star that is now awaiting quilting. (grin)I finished the quilting on the Maple Leaf quilt this morning. I just need to put the binding on and it will be done. I hope to do that tonight. I will post pictures of it tomorrow. I have also been doing some needle turn applique work. I am not good on points. I guess I just need to practice more.

Today was my weigh-in day. I lost another 4 pounds this week. YEA!!! It has not been easy, but at least I am to the point of not craving carbs all the time. Almost everything I like to eat is carb filled. My goal for this month was to lose 10 lbs. I am already up to 8, so I only have 2 more pounds to lose to meet my goal. I was so happy when I crawled on the scales this morning. (big grin)

Well, I guess that is all for today. The wind is still really blowing. I am holding off doing my chores till the last minute in hopes that it dies down. If you don't hear from me for a few days, I have blown away. LOL I'm sorry, I shouldn't joke about something like that. Time to get off here. Everyone have a good day. Thank you for visiting and please come again.

Mainly Aeris and Savannah Star

I really must stop taking cold medicine. I am groggy till at least 9 or 10 a.m. when I take it. Last night I only took 1/2 a dose. I figured that wouldn't affect me so much, right? Wrong. Same thing, plus it made my tummy hurt. So no more cold medicine. I will just have to tough this cold out. Actually I do feel better now that I am awake today. I think I am on the downhill side of the cold. When I got awake enough to concentrate, I did my Bible study, then started working on borders for the Savannah Star quilt. I'll share some pictures of it in a bit, but first, I want to share with you what my dh does every morning before heading to work.

He spreads out his extra coat for Aeris to lay on. She loves the lining. It is really soft and warm. Sometimes Callie lays on it too, but usually it is Aeris. He has such a soft heart where Aeris is concerned. You see, she was dumped on us as a kitten. In fact, both of our ladies were dumped on us. (Callie was dumped a year earlier.) Jon came in one day carrying a half grown kitten. It was obvious her hind leg was broken or so we thought. Jon and I took her to our vet. He checked her out and said that her leg had been broken, but had grown back crooked. He said if she got around all right with it, that we should just leave it alone, since about our only other option was to remove the leg. We really didn't want to do that. So we brought her home and tried to keep her separated from Callie. K was so protective of her. He was afraid Callie would be too rough with her.LOL Callie is a year older. Aeris managed to slip out of the room we had put her in while we went to town. We came home to that little spitfire terrorizing my Callie. LOL Poor Callie really didn't want to share her house with a kitten. She ran around, hissing, with Aeris right on her tail. K kept saying, Aeris is going to hurt her leg. Make her stop running. Well, long story short, Aeris and Callie are now friends, but still wrestle and chase each other all over the house. Goodness, that little kitty can run, and usually is the one who starts things with Callie. LOL She may be crippled, but she can hold her own. Here she is right after we found here. Already making herself right at home.LOL

Here she is with her big sister, Callie. Callie finally decided she might as well accept the little aggravation. LOL Aeris was supposed to be Jon's cat. He even set up a litterbox, food bowl and water bowl in his room. We sleep upstairs and K didn't think she could get up the stairs. How wrong he was. LOL It soon became very apparent that she was K's cat. She waits on a chair by the front door every night for him to come home. After a belly rub, she is ready to go. She also sits on his lap while he watches tv. Yet, it is me that she wallows all over during the night. She likes to sleep near my head and Callie sleeps near my feet. I keep nice and warm. (grin)

Now I told you all that because Aeris appears in most of these pictures. Can't disturb her just to get some quilt pictures, don't you know. LOL I finished sewing the strips of the Savannah Star top last night. I thought I might like some borders on it, but decided to sleep on it. I had plenty of the multi-colored fabric left, so I decided to add borders. It measures 40"X40" so I was going to have to piece the borders. Then I thought about using some of the leftover strips to make corner blocks. The only problem with that was my leftover strips were 1 1/2" which made the 4-patches turn out 2 3/4" square or there abouts. I wanted my borders 3 1/2" wide. So I sewed an inch wide strip on all sides of the 4-patch blocks and trimmed them to size. Here is a closeup of one of the little 4-patch corner blocks. With these borders added, it makes the quilt about 46'X46". I think that is a nice size for a baby quilt. It is cold again today. I think we had 4* this morning, and it is up to 14*. I am so ready for this winter to be over. Tonight is Biggest Loser, so you know where I will be between 7 and 9 p.m. I just love that show. I think it keeps me encouraged on this long journey to lose weight. I need to get my chores done. I also want to get some handwork ready to work on during the show. I just can't sit and watch tv without something to work on in my hands. Not sure yet what I will do. I could crochet, or better yet, do some knitting before I forget how. LOL There is also some counted cross stitch projects that I haven't touched in a year. Even with all these options, I am sure I will pick a quilting project to work on tonight. I am just a quilter at heart. (grin) Everyone have a great evening. Thank you for visiting.