Christmas Eve - 2015

This has been the most amazing December I can remember for a very very long time.  First and foremost I haven't had the horrid depression the normally sets in with Thanksgiving.  I've been upbeat and enjoying my days.  Secondly - the weather has been - well - spring like.  It is warm - most days are in the 50's and low 60's and I'm thrilled about that.  I got gifts made and organized and there is a bag containing some little thing for everyone slated to be here today and tomorrow.  And thirdly I've been busy and active and able to get out and do they things I want to do.  And Lastly but certainly not the least - I have made it to church and Sunday school every weekend this month.  No ice and snow really helps with that.  Hopefully I will make it to candlelight service tonight.

I've started a couple new projects (blocks of the month)  Sylvia's Bridal Sampler  and El's Kitchen I'm looking forward to these new projects.

I do plan on attempting to clear out some of my old projects to make room for the now ones.  So I have a list of 16 in 16 - of UFO's that I want to complete in 2016.  If anyone would like to join me in this quest - please leave me a note and we can check on each other's progress.                  

Well, I have half of my family coming in a couple of hours and I need to get a few more things done yet.  I wish everyone a truly Merry Christmas, and be safe out there!

A Lovely Day

Today was such a wonderful day - went to the Quilt Show in Geneseo with my friend and my granddaughter and we had such a great time.  Lots of beautiful quilts and great ideas for new quilts - and for additions to quilts that I'm planning.  Had lunch at the show and made it back in time to go dress shopping with my granddaughter for her dress for the homecoming dance.  I learned that she has excellent, elegant taste as opposed to some of the girls in there who went for the flashy, gaudy, revealing dresses that did nothing to flatter them.  We found a great dress and now I have to shorten it as she also got the short genes in the family.

I'm still working on my Block of the weeks and Block of the months,  and my row by row experience quilt.  I'm learning to quilt on the machine - not free motion quilting as I can't manage to do that at all well and it is too frustrating.

Anyway:

Loyal Union Sampler

Petersburg

Seminary Ridge

Vintage Farm Girl

Tractor - this was a much larger block and I resized it to 12 x 12

Kettle's on

Scrappy Strawberry

Threads

Autumn Star

I hope the weather holds for a few more weeks so I can get out and enjoy it - have many things on the calendar to do outside and would love nice weather for them.

More BOM's Finished

My goodness - between broken dryers, hacked Debit cards, and bridge closures, we really needed the power to 1/2 the kitchen and 1/2 of the bathroom to go out - including the refrigerator.  We finally figured out what the problem was and got it repaired, but moving appliances and nearly laying on the floor to get to the plug was  exhausting - in addition to cleaning out under the refrigerator.  It is amazing to me how all that stuff gets under there - I mean there just isn't that much space under there!!  Anyway - the dryer has been delivered and is perfect - the debit card has been taken care of and the electricity is repaired - I can't do anything about the bridge except avoid it as much as possible - yeah right!!  my kids and grandkids all live across that bridge - I won't go two years without seeing them.

Anyway I have completed several blocks for several BOM Projects.

Loyal Union Soldiers:

Pennsylvania

Nevada

Augusta

Farm Girl Vintage - last block for August Meeting:

Baking Day

Baby Chick

From my Row X Row Experience

Expressions in Threads, LeClaire, IA

The Quilt Basket, Kewanee IL

Quilting in the Valley, La Salle, IL

I also Completed August's SunBonnet Sue around the Year.  She turns out so Cute.  I've heard people say that she freaks them out, but I think she's adorable

August SunBonnet Sue at the Beach

A Day Like no Other

I had so many plans for yesterday - but none of them came to pass!!  It all started the day before when my dryer wouldn't work properly - mainly the clothes wouldn't dry.  Then I get a call from Shazam saying I had some questionable charges on my card - from Florida of all places.  So yesterday I had to deal with the fraud paperwork at the bank, finding a way to pay for my prescriptions without a debit card - and we had to buy a new dryer.

We went to Lowe's - but our local Lowe's only carries gas dryers and I don't like gas dryers so we had to drive over the river to Iowa where that Lowe's carries only electric dryers.  No my dryers has been down for 3 days and we are running out of things like towels and underware - but can we get next day delivery like they "promise" - NO of course not - we can't get delivery until Monday!!  Oh but we can take it with us - right - in our Mustang coupe - not going to happen - in addition I want them to take away the old dryer.

Well you could hang the clothes outside to dry you say - NOT!  I have no lines in the yard - I have no clothes pins and I am not about to buy all of that so I can hang out a few loads of clothes and never use them again.

The mess with the debit card is - hopefully - all sorted out - but I still can't get access to my account online so I don't know what is going on there.  It's frustrating.

Oh Well enough of the rant!!  I did get another Farm Girl Vintage Block by Lori Holt finished.  It is Canning Day Block

I love these blocks - they go together so smoothly and come out nearly exactly the size they are supposed to be.  It is so amazing to me who has trouble with the 1/4 seam thing even when I use the foot and/or measure and mark the line.  I usually end up cutting the pieces about 1/16 to 1/32 inch larger than they are supposed to be to get them to come out right - but so far these ones have been good.

I'm also working on the Craftsy 2015 Block of the Month.  Some of these have been a real challenge, but I'm plugging along and slowly getting them done. 

Row x row beginning

A friend and I decided to participate in the National (make the International) Quilt Shop Hop this year.  It is called The Row By Row Experience. There are hundreds of shops participating in all 50 states and Canada.  You visit the quilt shop and get a pattern - or a kit if you choose to buy one - for a 36 x 9 inch row for a quilt.  You then put at least 8 of them together to make a quilt and if you are the first to turn it in to a quilt shop - you win a prize.  I wasn't doing it for a prize - and it continues until September 8th - I am doing it for the fun.  So far we have visited about 20 shops and I have been working on the rows.

I'll post them as I get them completed and photographed.

This one is from Clinton, Iowa, the Keeping you Sewing Shop the title is Keeping you Rowing and Sewing.

This one is from Shelbina, Missouri, titled Sea Turtles.

All the rows have to have a water theme - some are very intricate and others are fairly easy.  I'm looking forward to doing more of them.

Today was very hot and very humid - another heat warning day.  Then tonight we had some severe Thunder storms.  Thankfully none of them had high winds or tornadoes, but there was lots of thunder, lighting, rain and hail.  All of which brought our granddaughter out of her bedroom and into a nest on the living room floor with us - she is afraid of thunder - loves the lighting.  But now the storms are over and she's back in the bedroom with her smart phone - or more likely she's asleep.

End of July

Have you ever had a sudden realization that time is passing and you have been standing still and not doing what you planned to do?  I had one of those realizations today.  It is the last day of July, the summer is 2/3 over and I have not been out to spend any time in the fresh air and sunshine.  Yes we've had a lot of rain this summer and yes we've had several days with heat warnings and many others with the humidity so bad you can barely breathe which sends me into coughing fits.  But there have been many days like today that was warm, not too humid and not raining or even thinking about raining.  So what have I been doing you ask?  I've been staying home - chair potato-ing  and not doing much.  We took a trip to the Grand Canyon, Arches and Canyonlands in May - but since then - nothing much.

So today I decided to do something about it.  I took my granddaughter and we went stamping - also known as Letterboxing.  I looked up a whole list of boxes we haven't found and we took of for a day of fun in the sun.  We found 5 out of 6 boxes - one was missing - and had a great time.  If we get another nice day before she has to go home, we will go again - we still have a stack of them to find.

Today is the day when another block of my Loyal Union Sampler BOW (Block of the Week) is due.  I've been working on this quilt - a block a week - for nearly 2 years.  It will probably never get put together and quilted - but then again maybe it will.

This is the block titled Nevada.  It has a lot of Y seams but I've learned that practice really does make perfect.  I'm not saying I'm perfect at them - but I'm sure a lot better than I was 2 years ago when I would find any way possible around doing Y seams.

I didn't get a lot of reading done in July - just two books which when you think about it, isn't very much reading for me.  I did acquire a tablet with a Kindle App, so I have a ton of books to read there, plus a lot of  real paper and ink books to read.  I will get around to it all eventually.

The two books I read this month are:

The Shell Game by Janet Evanovich

Murder is a Family Business by Heather Haven

Heather Haven is a new author to me - this is the first book in a series about a family owned Detective Agency.  It was interesting enough for me to read the next one in the series.

Project completed

I while ago I posted about our entry way where the mirror tiles started falling off the wall - the first one at 3 in the morning.  Scared my husband and granddaughter out of 3 years growth.  Anyway - we tore all the tiles off the wall, painted, put in Oak baseboard and framing and ledge.  After that was in we decided that the flooring was a mess sooooo - we replaced the landing and the stairs with Oak Laminate flooring - which meant that all the baseboard had to come up and the door framing had to be trimmed as it was cut for the tile that had been on the floor.

I made a Storm at Sea Quilt - machine pieced and hand quilted to hang on the wall - it is a twelve foot wall so there was plenty of room for a large quilt.

I Completed the Quilt in March but we still needed to figure out how to hang it as the studs in the wall are NEVER where you need them.  

We added an oak 1 x 4 and hung the rod on it and placed it where we wanted it rather than where the studs would let us.  

My daughter gave us a wall plaque to hang in the entrance also and we finally got it hung so except for painting the door and the door trim the entry is completed.

Now our next major project is the guest room which hasn't had a renovation since 1994 when our son moved out.

I know I haven't posted my book lists in quite a while.  Not because I haven't been reading - but because I have simply been lazy about doing it.

So:

May  2015 Book List  

Saints Gate by Carla Neggers

Garment of Shadows by Laurie R King

Murder on the Half Shelf by Lorna Barrett

Mediterranean Caper by Clive Cussler

The Grand Finale by Janet Evanovich

Rock Point by Carla Neggers

All of these Authors are old favorites.  Lourie R King continues her tales of Mary and Sherlock - fun and interesting exploits in the 1920 era.  I've read many of Clive Cussler's books, but never read the early ones - so I'm starting at the beginning - This one is actually book 2.  The Carla Neggers books are Book 1 and the Prelude to a new series which I have been enjoying.  And of course who can miss Janet Evanovich whether she is writing about Stephanie Plum or Nick Fox!!

June  2015 Book List 

The Lost Key by Catherine Coulter

The India Fan by Victoria Holt

Dreaming Spies by Laurie R King

Cats Claws by Susan Albert Wittig

Power Play by Catherine Coulter

Again so Old favorite Authors - Catherine Coulter's New series A Brit in the FBI - this is the second in the series (The Lost Key) but it has all the favorite characters from her FBI Series.  This was the first Victoria Holt I have read in way too many years and it was fun.  I love Susan Albert Wittig and she didn't dissapoint with Cats Claws.

Tuesday Farm Block 1

This month I started a new Block of the Month - but it turned out to be a block of the week as we have to complete 4 blocks each month.  Living in the MidWest in farm country I love the farm theme of this BOM.  It is called Farm Girl Vintage and the book is by Lori Holt.

My favorite farm building is of course the old barn- it is on my most photographed list.

Window of old barn

Red Barn

Run Down old Barn

Abandoned Barn

Another old Barn

I guess you can sort of get the idea.  At any rate the first block I chose to make was the Old Barn Block.  I'm making the 12 inch blocks although there is a 6 inch option.  I am using new fabric for the background - but the rest of the fabric will be mainly from my stash - unless I run into something I can't fill - which is highly unlikely.

At any rate, here is my block for this week.

Spring Salad Dressing

This was on a Salad my Sister made for my Birthday one year and I want to make sure I don't lose it - so I'm posting it here this spring.

1 cup    mayo
1 T white wine vinegar
1/4 cup sugar

Whisk together mayo, vinegar, and sugar. Pour dressing over salad and toss to coat.