Shame, shame, shame

Yikes. Over a month since my last post! I've been doing the very busy mom thing and no quilting or sewing other than mending this and that for people. I have three back to school, two in high school and one in his first year of middle school. The college student is busy packing up. She goes back to school on Saturday. Next Monday is reserved on the calendar for SEWING all day! I need to get everything set up again so I can go sew whenever I have a few minutes. My DD takes over the third floor (my sewing area) when she is home.

Let's see, what has been going on since I last posted?

• Football - DS1, a sophomore has played two JV games. He gets to dress for varsity. He just told me he will play on a special team for Varsity on Friday! (Kick return). I'm so proud. I keep telling the other kids I need a cowbell to take to the games but they won't let me have one. He dresses on Friday nights and plays on Saturday mornings.




• More Football - DS2 is in 6th grade and his last year of biddy league (thank goodness!). He has had two games, which they won, and is looking forward to the rest. He gets to play offense and defense this year, which apparently is the best thing EVER (next to the new cell phone). Life is good when you're 12! He plays every Sunday. That's right folks, football every Friday, Saturday and Sunday!!! Two weeks down, eight to go. DS2 will probably play all-stars again which will prolong the season.




• Decorating-DH went on a bike trip to Canada last week and I decided to redecorate my bedroom. Four kids, a dog, a cat, school starting and football, football, football and I decide this was a good idea! Reserve my room at the "funny farm" please. I was up EVERY night until 1 am but it is done, and beautiful. It used to have magnolia wallpaper everywhere. Now, after painting the ceiling, woodwork and repapering it is white on white. I put up some pretty slate blue curtains I found at Pier 1 to complete the look. Now I just need a quilt. Or two or maybe even three.

Ugh. I tried posting a picture but my photobucket picture won't behave correctly and I'm clueless as to what to do. I'll try to post a picture of the "before" and "after" as soon as all 400 of the football pictures I took last weekend load onto the other computer.

That reminds me! I bought a new camera!! It is a digital Canon Rebel XT. I had an old Canon Rebel 2000, a 35 mm film version and loved it. My good friend is a photography nut and was upgrading her camera to the newest model so she sold me hers. I can use my old lenses but am researching new ones. I don't really want to spend too much money since I just bought my fancy shmancy sewing machine and have been adding new feet every month. I used the money from selling my old viking sewing machine to buy the camera.

I'm off to do laundry for DD1 to help her get ready for college. Otherwise we'll either never be ready or will be packing at 2 am on Saturday. I'm going to miss DS1's JV game but will hear all about if from DH I'm sure. Maybe I'll let him use my fancy camera for the game!!

Wish I was piecing. Hope you are!

Jenni

Summer Fun

Above WOULD BE  a shot of the boys in the pool at Put in Bay  but the picture won't post!  We went with 9 couples to celebrate DH's 50th birthday.  Such fun!  We had a great time.  It's still hard to get back to the real world.

Two a days start Thursday for DS1's football.  DS2 is at summer camp this week.  DD2 and I went to look at my alma mater last Thursday.  Sniff, I can't believe she is a senior this year!  DD1 is busy working at her internship at the health clinic.  We jokingly call it her "big girl job".  It has been a wonderful experience and she is very motivated to go back to school in the fall.

We are spending a few lazy summer days before we gear up for back to school shopping, etc.  My youngest DS has outgrown everything.  Much bribery will take place next week to get him to try on clothes and shop for new.  I don't think we have too much that still fits other than ratty t-shirts and gym shorts.  His outfits of choice, I'm sure.  We will have to shop for football cleats this weekend as his practices start on Monday.

As far as quilting and sewing go?  I'm dreaming of it, but not much else.  My sewing area is on the third floor of our old house.  My DD1 has her bedroom there.  Everything she brought home from college is spread EVERYWHERE.  I moved my machine to the kitchen to do some mending but haven't had a chance to do any quilty projects.  I plan to practice with my BSR foot this afternoon so I can start quilting the star quilt.  To pin baste I usually tape the backing to the carpet, spread the batting out and then the quilt on top.  My vaccuum burned up last Friday and is at the repair shop.  It's an Oreck and I love it.  One black lab and one calico cat equal too much hair to lay out a quilt without vaccuuming daily.  Hopefully it will be ready for pick up today.

I'm off to the store to buy mass amounts of pasta salad ingredients.  I agreed to make pasta salad for 100 hungry players and coaches for the first two-a-day meal on Thursday.

What was I thinking?!!

Piece all.  Hope you're being quilty.  I do SEW miss it!

Jenni

Bor-ing!

Boring, that's me.  To me Boring = No sewing.  I've been doing things like taking the laundry to the laundromat because the washer can't be repaired until Monday and cleaning my MIL's carpets.  I did manage to see some movies with the kids this week.  Youngest DS and I saw the new Indiana Jones movie and Older DS and oldest DD and I saw "Wanted".  Both enjoyable.

DD2's friend brought over a dress for me to alter for her little sister who is a flower girl in a wedding.  Sigh, couldn't say no.  I'll be sewing up the sides tonight and then both girls are inviting friends over to have a late "chick flick" movie night with me.  We are watching 27 Dresses and 2 others I have already forgotten the names of.  I haven't had a chance to start quilting the star quilt yet.  I did show it to DD's friend because I can't keep a secret.  She is very excited.  I need to get it done before her next hospital stay which, sadly, could be soon.  Busy weekend with a sewing class at my Bernina dealer's and another fundraiser for DS1's football team.  Who knew football was a year round sport and if the KID plays, the MOM does, too?  Seems like it anyway.  The mom's had a meeting this week to plan how we will feed the boys for 2 a days in August.  Football is a grueling effort, for sure.  I admire the commitment these guys have to it.  DS2 will start playing his last year of biddy league football in August.  Next year he'll move to jr. high.  This will be his 5th season.  It's amazing what happens to incredibly kind, sweet boys when they get football pads and helmets on and the testosterone starts flowing.  It still takes some getting used to for me!

DD1 and I went shopping for "business casual" clothes today. Her current wardrobe is "college casual".  Lol.  She starts working full time at the local health clinic on Monday.  She will work 40 hours a week until school resumes in the fall and will also work on her breaks from college.  She wants to be a physician's assistant so this should be good training and give her some idea of what the job requires.

Here are the dotee dolls I received in the Craftster swap.

Love them!  It was a fun swap.

Time to sew the flower girl's dress before it's time for "Chick Flick Night".  DD2 doesn't get home from her lifeguarding job until 9 p.m. anyway.

Happy stitching!  Hope someone is making something wonderful out there.  I hope to, SOON!

Jenni

Dotee Dolls

In between running around like a madwoman and packing for Myrtle Beach I got my Dotee Dolls sent to their new owners. Here is a group shot of their little faces. Hopefully my partners on Craftster aren't blog readers but if they are, sorry for the spoiler!! The dolls were fun to make but I definitely would do them differently next time. I plan to show them in their full glory once they make their way to their new homes.

We're off to the beach! I'm not sure if I'll be able to post much from there. We will have wifi but I'm not sure if I will have access to my dd's laptop. I have lots of summer reading and some hand applique all ready to go.

Have a great week everyone. Sew something for me. If you need a project to do there's a sadly neglected Orange Crush quilt in my sewing room . . .

Piece!! Jenni

More loot from the NQA show

I finally got the picture loading to work today on blogger. I thought I would post some more pics of my goodies from the NQA show last week in Columbus, Ohio.

The first pic is of the four feet I bought for my new Bernina 440. I think, sadly, her name might be Sewphie. Pathetic, I know. My son recently informed me that I am becoming the person I used to make fun of.   I think he's right!   Anyway, Sewphie's new feet:

The number 2 foot is an overlock foot that we tried out in class. It will be great to finish seams. The number 10 is an edgestitch foot that can be used with all needle positions.  I think it will be great for topstitching AND for stitching in the ditch on smaller quilty pieces that don't need the walking foot.

The number 57 is 1/4" piecing foot that has a little edge on the side.  I didn't like the foot similar to this that I had for my Viking but this one is heftier and I am finding that the Bernina feet actually do what they say they do!  

Number 43, the last foot is a freemotion couching foot.  It feeds the fiber, narrow ribbon or the "couchee" while you stitch it with the feed dogs dropped.  I think this will be fun on some artsy quilts.  When I get to them of course.  Foot 23 is on order for me by my fabulous sales folks at Beth's Creative Stitchery in Columbus. 

My next "had to have" is a circle cutter that was being demonstrated by the Olfa guy at his booth.  It works like a compass.  You basically decide what size circle you want and then cut it out of fabric with this spiffy tool.  He even threw in the extra blades for free and showed us how to practice before we start cutting.  

Below are my spiffy fibers that didn't show up in my last post.   Aren't they pretty?  Wool roving in the big bags and wool yarns wrapped on card below them.
The paper piecing pattern that will probably make me crazy but looks like it will be beautiful.  I loved the sample they had.  It looked like they used small scale repro prints in it.   Anyway, it won't be real large and all the foundations are INCLUDED.  Oh yeah.
Last but not least is this button.  Sandy was buying buttons and fun things at an antique button/trim booth.  I saw it, grabbed it and paid for it in less than a minute!  I love him.  He's pretty big and will someday be on a jacket, I think.  For me, turtles are the new rooster, but you have to see my kitchen to understand the rooster thing.  I have tooooooo many.
So, there we go.  Lots of projects to keep me busy for quite some time.  I haven't even THOUGHT about all the unstarted/untouched projects already sitting in my messy sewing stuff.  Time for a reality check.  That can wait until I get back from vacation though.

I need to go find a good hand project for the car and the beach.  I think I'll pull out a wool penny rug and the Baltimore style block of the month I bought from my LQS before it closed.  It needs attention.

One more dotee doll to make and then they go to their new homes tomorrow.  The link to the one I received already is here.  First I need to put away all my laundry.  I went to the laundromat today with 15 loads of towels, clothes and bedding so I could get it done all at once.  

Tonight I make one more dotee as a reward to myself.

Piece!  Jenni

Happy 25th to the Hubby and Me!!!

Wow.  25 years.  Where did the time go?  Four great kids, a dog, a cat and a huge house later we've had a great life.  I'm a happy, very lucky girl.  Happy Anniversary baby!!

Quilt Show Goodies

Here are some great wool roving and wool fibers (looks like yarn scraps, lol) from Della Jane. (OOPS-Pics didn't show up.  Gah!)  I can't wait to use them with my felting attachment for my Bernina.  Maybe a purse or a sweater this fall/winter?  For now I'm just taking them out of the bag and admiring them.  This booth had a little kit to dye fibers, too.  It was mainly a pack of koolaid and some plain wool.  I was excited to see it as this is what I intend to do with the wool roving I bought from ebay recently.

More goodies:

Thread and batting for star quilt (from earlier posts).  The one on the right is for the back.  I can't wait to see how they look!

Batik's were calling to me at the show.  I've been wanting to play with jelly rolls and also try some bargello style quilting.  I drooled over the green one and bought it.  The girls at the booth at webfabrics.net laughed at me when I went back first thing the next morning to get the pink one, too!  I kept thinking about how badly I wanted it.  Now if only I'd gotten the gold set . . .

The same booth had the lovely "Bali pops" set.  This is the one I'm going to try to do a bargello with, just to play.  They're so beautiful!

The last pic is of the squares, already cut, for the 5 easy pieces 

Mmmm.  Better than ice cream!

Other purchases:

Four new feet for my Bernina.  Probably the priciest big buy but I knew the girls from the shop where I bought my machine, Beth's Creative, would be at the show and feet were 20% off.  Carol, my saleswoman, even went to the shop early in the morning to bring the feet I wanted to the show.  There was one that they were out of that I wanted and she is going to hold it for me when it comes in and give me the discount. What a sweetie! Can't wait to play with these!

Eleanor Burns was there and signed this Christmas book I bought.  It's a little outdated but with the right fabrics the projects I liked should look great.  They also had a patten and easy piecing method for a Jacob's Ladder in the book, a quilt I want to make for DS1.  I also bought one of those rotating Olfa mats, a cool Olfa tool that cuts perfect circles, a great turtle button and a paperpiecing pattern of a star.  It looks complicated but lovely.  Unfortunately, it's taking pics FOREVER to load today and I have to pick up DS1 from summer gym and meet hubby for an anniversary lunch.

Will there be Dotee's?  There have to be!  Three are done, two to go.  Hope to post the little group for you soon.

Piece!  Thanks for stopping by!  Jenni

Five Easy Pieces

I'm home from the NQA Quilt Show in Columbus and trying to catch up on laundry.  When I got back Saturday we had an all day hog roast fundraiser for DS1's football team and Sunday we were invited to a lovely cookout.  Trying to put things away and do damage control on the house.  I always feel like a maid when I get home from a trip!!

Anyway, my dear friend Sandy and I took a class at the show called "5 Easy Pieces" by Diane Hire.  She's written some great books and had one of her quilts there that was awesome to see up close.  The class list had us bringing two sets of 5 six inch squares of fabric that we would put into a quilt, some thread, batting and a backing.  Naturally I bought way too many sets plus extra batting and backing.  It was a good thing, though because Sandy brought some fat quarters we decided not to cut up and used my fabrics, which worked well for her.  Here she is having fun.

Here are our sets when we finished the class.

 Mine are on the right.  I actually got them pieced, cut out and quilted during the class.  I finished the edges but am not real happy with them.  The threads kept catching around the corners and they need to be ironed here!  I intend to join them somehow and embellish them.  I'll cover up the bobbles with some beads or something.  I borrowed a Janome (they were provided for the class).  It was very nice but I am so used to my old Viking Lily 550 (for sale if you're interested) and my new Bernina 440 QE.  I needed a walking foot I think.  Anyway, it was a fun class.  Here are Diane Hire's samples.  The one on the left is the class we did.  She joined them all on a quilted strip of fabric.

In the middle, the turquoise/purple set are some squares she's doing and trimming for a quilt. Sandy and I bought some batik fat sixteenths to make one like this.  We thought we would work on it in our hotel room but were exhausted from all the quilt viewing and, of course, SHOPPING!!  We did get them all cut into squares and ready to go.  We both bought the same set of green batiks and are sharing some cool purpley and pink sets.  I'm excited to get going on them.  

Tune in tomorrow and I'll share everything I bought with you.  I'm so excited to use it! Unfortunately, I have to finish my dotee dolls and we are going on vacation soon and then I need to quilt the star quilt when we get back.  I'm planning on forcing, and I do mean FORCING myself to clean up my messy, horrible sewing closet before I get started.  I figure that once it is cleaned up and the kids go back in the fall I can sew to my hearts content.

Well, sew to my hearts content when laundry, cooking, cleaning and the possible threat of needing employment to help pay for college educations don't hamper my fun.  Reality is such a creativity killer!

I'm off to take the DS1 to his football "camp" at the high school.  DS2 and DD2 and I are taking my MIL out for dinner.  We've been terribly neglectful of her lately!!

Piece friends!  Jenni