1st day of school!

It finally arrived, and FLEW BY! Holy buckets---what a crazy day with very little breathing time. In fact, it was one of those days where I had to go to the bathroom by 9:00 am, but was so busy that I completely forgot about it until the last bell rang at 3:18!!!! The 7th graders were pleasant -- listened when they needed to -- *chuckle*-- and when I GAVE them the opportunity to get up and "bust a move" to the music, they sat, stared at me, and probably thought I was off my rocker!!! I DID manage to show them Mathemagic-----


Video can be found at Mathemagic if loading seems to be taking forever.


I don't think I'm going to get downstairs to work on OTR tonight. It's almost 9:00, and, well, after running 6 miles tonight, I'm just ready to relax and kick back and maybe even hit the hay a little early tonight. Here is the status that I left the machine in yesterday-----as said, 200 HST's are sewn, while another 190 await in piles. No rush here, so..........they'll wait another couple of nights :0)

This weekend, we celebrated Cathy's 60th birthday, and she L-O-V-E-D her quilt!!! It got plenty of ooh's and aah's once revealed.

Alrighty, short post tonight. I'm ready to veg with a Runner's World magazine in bed and crash. Happy Tuesday everyone!

Marathon relay update; Cathy's Aunt Sukey Pillows

As promised, (and mostly so others can have pity on me :0) ), here is the elevation map of the Marathon course this weekend. As a full marathon, this course is a monster! (MPO-my personal opinion). Two years ago, Julie ran the first 13.1 miles and I ran the second; last year we reversed roles. After completing our course in 4:24 last year (we were 4:50 two years ago--the first time we ran it), we instantly made plans for the "game-plan" this year. Amazingly, we both loved the parts we ran last year, so we decided to keep roles the same: I will be running the first HILLY half, and she'll be running the second HOT half. And HOT it will be!!! Temps are forecasted in the 80's for Saturday-----oh I hope they drop some! Angela has asked about this race; There are a few options of running. You could
a) Run the whole marathon (YIKERS!!!!!!) Maybe, someday!
b) Run as a 2-person relay (which is what Julie and I do)
c) Run as a 5-person relay. The first 4 runners each run 5 miles, and the 5th runner runs the remaining 6.2 miles (10K). THESE are the individuals that really make the race fun! They bring in the spectators, essentially because there are LOTS of 5-person teams, and imagine only the "4-waiting-runners" cheering the whole gang on; that's A LOT of people!!! Besides, some of these relay teams are absolutely crazy!!! Two years ago, there was a group of males; each dressed in a dress; and their "pact" was to each drink at least 2 beers along their section of the race. What a riot they were!!!

Anyway, the yellow high-lights at 3, 6, 9, 11, 13 are where my water-stations are. Julie, running the last half, will have stations at 15, 18, and then every mile from 20 to the finish. Last year, we BOTH amazed ourselves at our times! We both were hoping to maintain 10/min miles, and we both JUST about did! I came to the half-way-point at 2:11:30, and she crossed the finished lined at 4:24:07 (which means she ran a 2:12:37). We both are very realistic this year, and since neither of us has really dedicated ourselves completely to our training plans, we both just hope to enjoy the day and each come in at at least 2:30.

This morning, I set to finish up Cathy's Birthday present completely by putting together two pillows. The pillow forms are 16", and the finished block sizes of the quilt are 15". HOW PERFECT! I added a small border, and I whipped out two blocks in no time since I had most of the pieces already cut (left over from making the quilt.) I then spent the next 20 minutes quilting the first one and putting it all together. My "please oil" light came on, but I chose to ignore it until after I finished both pillows. However, upon starting my second one, I had "tension" issues and the "eye-lashes" showed up. So, a good cleaning and oiling followed a "ripping-out" session. Lo-n-behold, once I quilted it again, no problems what-so-ever! So----lesson learned! Oil the machine when it says so!!! :0) I didn't think of taking any pics of the completed pillows, but those'll come soon!

The girls decided to fight the heat of the upstairs by coming downstairs with me. They plopped down and watched Ice Age---this photo-op was too cute to pass up. It's one of the few times they've actually all sat quietly around that teeny-tiny DVD player....

I suppose---it's time to get ready for Round #2 of Principal interviews tonight. 4 down last night; 2 more to go tonight. Whew---tough choice!

THREE more finishes since Wednesday

I know my posting has been quiet lately, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been working and "smelling the roses" :0)

It's not all that amazing what can be accomplished when one who typically has three little ones underfoot no longer has them underfoot and one can fully concentrate on quilting time :0) In addition to the three finishes I'll be posting here, I've also spent a full day (Friday) down in Rice Lake (city 30 miles away with all the "non-small-town" shopping places) doing errands for DH and myself; I then spent all afternoon Friday at a HUGE Antique place, enjoying my time, no hurrying, no whining, no place to be.......*sigh*.......twas quite nice! I didn't come home with anything, but enjoyed looking at all the handmade quilts all the same.

So Friday = no quilting.

But, back to Thursday:
One of my "teammates" for these classes that I'm taking brought me this cute little package of goodies on Thursday once she found out I enjoyed quilting. The little story behind the package: back in 1989 she had taken a class on English Paper Applique, and she purchased this kit at the completion of her class with intentions of making a 4x4 setting wall-hanging. (The invoice is in the picture!) Yeah, well, like many of us, she never got around to it and just came across it, so she figured she might as well donate it to me. When I unpacked it, it was one square short, so a 4x4 setting wasn't possible (only 15 blocks total could be made.) So, I laid out a 3x5 setting, but didn't like it :0( Then-----a-ha! Why not make two???? V-iola! I created a 3x3 (which I intend to keep) and a smaller 2x3 setting for my friend who gave me the package.
I have called it "Hearts of Karma." Rather fitting, don'cha think? It still have the binding to hand-sew on the 3x3 I'm keeping, but the 2x3 was finished up today (Sunday).

Saturday morning rolled around and DH and I left the house at 8:00 am to go to New Auburn (town about 60 miles away) to pick up some pig food. The man selling the food had some good information, not just on pigs, and before we knew it, TWO HOURS has twiddled away while we just stood outside chattin'! The clock was almost chiming Noon time, so we decided to just head back home and not continue to Eau Claire (another town about 20 more miles away). We only planned to go to Eau Claire to hit the Sew Complete Quilt shop, but I was okay giving that up. About 10 miles down the road on our way back home, we hit the exit for Bloomer, drove down Main Street, and stopped at the Main Street Cafe. (Gosh, I feel like Amanda with all her fun village visits she's shared with us). Anyway, after a simple lunch of a grilled chicken sandwich, we (DH) decided to take the "back-roads" home. *chuckle* Have no fear, he did NOT get us lost......but....well, considering it was 1:00, and only should have taken 45 minutes to arrive back home, we didn't finally walk back in our house until 5:30. HA! We stopped at a few garage sales, a barn sale (where he bought an antique Stanley Planer something-er-other (which we later researched to be worth about $75 and he only paid $15)), we stopped at the local Agriculture Station where they have an "experiment" garden that we strolled through. Then, when we FINALLY thought we were heading back home (4:00), we swung into the Washburn County JR Fair to look through the animal exhibits. I saw so many of my students working diligently grooming their animals for the evening show!

Anyway, finally we arrived home! I was rather beat, even though I hadn't done much of anything all day, so I didn't feel like heading downstairs. Rather, I grabbed the Trip Around the Raggey World to finish up the clipping. Golly---that's a tedious process! But, at 8:00, I finished up and threw it into the washer right away. I completed the washing and drying today----this baby will be going up to the Farm to be used as a nice snuggler! Each block finished at 5", so is roughly 55"x65".

Finally, I woke up today (Sunday), and set the goal to finally finish up Cathy's Aunt Sukey. HOWEVER, before I could do ANYTHING, I neeeeeeeded to get out and RUN! I haven't run since Monday, so there were NO excuses keeping my feet from the pavement today. I drew out a map for my DH (he was still sleeping), and set out to tackle 10 miles! I haven't actually gone out and checked my actual mileage today, but I'm estimating I ran 8-9 miles. Considering the hilly stretch I ran, I figured that was close enough to 10 miles in my book :0)

After a quick shower and a bagel, I set straight-away to working on Cathy's quilt. I still needed to finish whip-stitching the connector strips on the back (to connect the three quilted pieces together), which I finished around 11:30. I then needed to quilt the border strips yet, so after marking the quilt design, I was able to finish all the quilting work by 2:30. Finally, after trimming and sewing the binding strips together, I spent the rest of the afternoon sewing the binding on. My hand-sewing is getting better and faster, but I still am not a fan when I'm "getting tired" and starting to lose patience. I wanted this quilt to be done! And finally, it is!!!!

Oh, I also forgot to mention that yesterday, while driving here-n-there-n-everywhere, I had taken the Baby quilt along and do some more hand-quilting. Now THAT hand-work, I don't mind :0)

So once again, a lengthy "catch up" post.

Family update: Cassie (via grandma) called and talked to me today for the FIRST TIME since she's been gone. Golly, she sounds so big! She's loving her time away (even though she DID admit to missing me); they were at my Sister's house this weekend, and on Tuesday they'll be going to my husband's parents (the other grandma), and on Wednesday they'll be going to Aunty Dawn's house (DH's sister). So----they'll stay busy again this week.

Sooooooo..........I don't have class until Tuesday this week. I hope to have some time to just tinker tomorrow downstairs. Now that Cathy's Aunt Sukey is done, I almost feel "empty." Gosh---is that really how I feel? No....not really empty....but......."enlightened"??? Oh, I don't know. I still hope to make two pillow shams with the remaining fabric, but I don't think I want to start that tomorrow. I still have some "antsy" feelings towards working and perhaps finishing the Oklahoma Backroads quilts, so I have a feeling THAT's what I'll work on!

Happy Quilting!

Catchin' up; quilting completions, etc...

WOW! Has it realllly been a week?
Get ready for a long post :0)

I headed to Mom's last Thursday after picking the girls up from summer school. I WAS able to put the three pieces together for Cathy's Aunt Sukey AND put on the borders---yeah! So, I packed that up in order to get some hand-whip-stitching done on the strips that put the three pieces together. I didn't get too far; so it's sitting next to my glider-rocker and is my "upstairs project" when needed.

DH Paul came home early on Thursday because he was rained out, so he grabbed some lunch and then headed outside to get some much-needed "home projects" done.

I arrived at Mom's around 5:00 and didn't really do too much that evening. My sister, Jen, decided to come "home" Thursday night too, so she arrived around 7:00. She doesn't have any children of her own, so she meets me at Mom's quite often to have a chance to spoil my girls. She lives about 5 hours away from me and Mom's house is SMACK-DAB in the middle of us, so it works out nicely!


Friday ended up being a really nice, warm (HOT and HUMID) day, so Jen and I set up "grandma's" new swimming pool for the girls. (one of those quick and easy fill ones----just the right size for the girls; Caitlyn and Candace needed to wear life jackets, though!) And, of course, Grandma needed to supply the pool with plennnnnnty of "floaties." Thank goodness Grandpa has an air compressor!!! That's me placing Caitlyn into the pool. *chuckle* The water was so cold, and the pool was in the shade, so almost immediately after placing her into the pool, she was clawing at me to lift her back out!!




















And naturally, a sprinkler also needed to be set up. It was quite a fun day!!! (That's Jen running through the sprinkler with Cassie,....or is that Catilyn???) I really can't tell which one it is under that innertube.....


Friday evening, we all went to the local ice cream parlor/restaurant and had the best darned Fish Fry around! EXCELLENT fish! (Even if it's not all that healthy being fried!) And what would a trip to "Melody Gardens" be without investing in some ice cream!?!?

Afterwards, Jen and I headed to Walmart and Hancock Fabrics. OH DEAR!!! At first, I wasn't figuring on going into Hancock, but the entire front the store was plastered with 1/2 off sale banners. Ummmm........can you say EXCELLENT ADVERTISING??? *chuckle* What a sale!!!! I walked away with about 30 yards of fabric!!!!--mostly flannels. Each yard ended up being between $2.50 and $3.00. I don't have a picture of the fabric, but most of it is "baby fabrics" with intentions of making small rag quilts. In fact, here is a shot of one that I whipped out on Monday in about 4 hours using fabric that was donated to me by Mom's church. Oh! That brings me into Saturday morning.....

........but before I jump into that, I do want to say that the rag quilt was inspired by Peg at HappyInQuilting. She had an adorable pink rag quilt posted last week and she was right---these little buggars DO come together quickly when you sit and sew!!!


Okay, back to Saturday......After a 7 mile run with my sister (well, she did 4 and I went out for an extra 3), Mom took me up to church. The fire/safety inspector gave them a "not-so-good" evaluation when he checked out their storage room/electrical room. That is where the church stores all their donated materials for quilting, BUT no one has been quilting over the past THREE YEARS! So, Mom told the secretary she thought of giving it to her daughter (me), and she (secretary) didn't bat an eye. So....SIX BOXES and bags of fabric, batting, and the works!!! Not all the fabric is material I want to use; some is really stretchy polyester-like, some courderoy, and other types of fabric that I don't even know what it is. BUT---regardless, I have made a personal goal that for each box that was given to me, I would make a charity quilt to give back to the church for whatever they wanted to use it for. So, that means 6 quilts is my goal to give back to the church. This baby-boy rag quilt is the first. The story behind it; I started going through the smallest box that was given to me, and all these flannels were mixed in it. I wasn't sure if the red-stripe was going to be a fit, but it ended up just fine, I guess.

So....5 more to go (before the end of the year???)

So, Sunday rolled around; church in the morning; the "big" Sunday breakfast just like when growing up, and I planned to hit the road back home by 1:00. While cleaning up the toys (how DO they make such a mess in such a short time?!?!?), I noticed this little relic up on one of the shelves. I knew mom had started this quilt quite a while back, and after further inspection at home, I realized she probably started in back in 2005. Anyway, last Thanksgiving when I was at Mom's, I helped her put quite a few rows together just to get her motivated to finish it up. By the time I left that weekend, we had all the rows completed and allllll she had to do was finish sewing all the rows together and then handing the top over to one of her "quilting" congregation members (Oh, Mom is a "Pastor's Associate"---kind of like the right-hand-man of the pastor). Anyway, I noticed rather quickly that she hadn't done any more work on in, so I stashed it in my bag. My goal is to finish this by Friday when she and Nub (step-dad) are coming up to pick up the girls for two weeks. I have it in three parts this exact size, naturally, quilting it in parts. I have decided to use a cross graphic as the quilting in the verticle sashings (you may be able to see the stencil in the close up shot.) I have two sections completely quilted, and the third will be finished up today. I know she'll be more than surprised to see it finished. This is my way of saying Thank You to her for taking the girls for two weeks while I have classes to take (ICK!). But I'm sure she really doesn't mind having time with the grandkids.

When we got home on Sunday, Paul surprised us with 13 more little chicks. These are Cornish Hens (sp?), and are being raised (clearly) for their meat.
Gosh--Cassie looks devilish in this picture!!!!! *evil snicker*




I typically don't take a lot of "nature" pictures, but while eating breakfast with the girls this morning, I couldn't miss these clouds rolling in. Boy, the sky turned black/darkblue in a hurry! Thankfully, most of the bad weather headed just south of the house and we were only hit with a little rain.













To wrap up, Candace found her potty chair downstairs last week. Yeah---the first sign that the diapers are almost gone!!!!!! Of course, she really wasn't interested in "going" on the potty, but she sure loved ripping the toilet paper (and more toilet paper, and even more paper yet) off the roll.

Cathy's Aunt Sukey--3 parts done!!!

Woo-hooo.....for not feeling that well, I still decided to just slowly continue on Cathy's quilt, and v'iola! Before I knew it, I put the last quilting stitches on her third part.

So, before I head off to volleyball, I thought I'd just give a "show-n-tell" with pictures. I'm heading to my mom's tomorrow---I would LOVE it if I could put the three pieces together before I head out, but....*shrug*....we'll see

Naturally, the colors are not true---we all know what we need to go through to try to get the quilting to show nicely :0)

Weekend update

I'm uploading/updating pictures and pages to my Family's Website and Quilting Website right now, so I figured I'd at least take a few moments to pipe in and document my weekend goings-on. :0)

We headed up to the farm of Friday morning, arriving just in time for lunch. We basically relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, sitting in the shade with a brilliant breeze blowing; I pulled out the baby-quilt that I had packed for accomplishing some more hand quilting on the hearts. Around 4:00, I tied up the laces for a quick 3 mile aerobic interval run before the evening festivities started.

The evening consisted of even MORE relaxing, lots of good eating (my MIL is an ex-chef of a their family-owned restaurant and EVERY meal she makes is fit for an army and presented beautifully!) We had grilled chicken on the grill and pork steaks.

Saturday started off with a 7 mile run before the heat really started pounding us. And again, the day simply consisted of relaxing, sun (and shade) bathing, some hand sewing, avon catalog searching, swimming for the kids, sandbox, fetch with Misha (BIL's Black lab), and simply NO STRESS :0) And actually, Sunday was a lot more of the same. Quite a simply enjoyable weekend without anything spectacular.

OH WAIT!!! How could I forget? On the way up to the farm on Friday, DH and I stopped to pick up a couple gallon pails of freshly picked strawberries. Well, it appears that MIL had the same thing in mind as me (fresh jam!!!!), because she ALSO had 2 gallon pails of strawberries at the farm!!! So----we had a LOT of strawberries, and spent Saturday afternoon making about 10 batches of strawberry jam, each yielding about 5-7 cups??? (I think) Regardless, I have a small collection in my freezer, my MIL kept a small collection, and my BIL and SIL each took a few containers too. I reserved two quart containers for my sister, who I'll be seeing next weekend. She LOVES strawberry jam!!!

When we arrived home yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, DH piddled outside with the animals while I started all the "inside" stuff---laundry, picking up a bit, unpacking.

Oh---how could I forget this too???? On Saturday, after my run, before making the jam, I stopped at the Walmart in Ashland (Wisconsin). They are about the only Walmart around that still has a nice collection of fabrics. Yeah, well, I walked away with about 20 yards of fabric with a new quilt in mind for my mother. NOT that I needed more fabric!!! I would show a pic of it, but the fabric is still in the dryer. Soon......

As for the quilting front---I basted the last part of Cathy's Aunt Sukey last night once the kids were in bed. I started quilting part of it this morning, but have taken a break since the kids needed to be picked up from summer school at 2:00. I'll head back down later once they get all settled after a snack.

I'll tune back in later, all.

Cathy's Aunt Sukey--2 parts done!

Sorry, but no pictures tonight (no lieing this time either!) I was able to sit for quite a bit of the day in front of the machine and finished quilting piece #1 (uppper left corner) AND mark and quilt piece #2 (lower right corner). Is it okay to sit for 10 minutes and just ADMIRE the quilting you've accomplished?!?!? I did!!! I just layed on my tummy on the floor, cupped my chin in my hands, and looked at allllllll the quilting accomplished today! I quilted a running-heart in the green sashings----beautiful! And i"m really not meaning to be so "gloating" tonight, but I just can't BELIEVE how good it is turning out so far.

However, all good things must come to an end. I finished up piece #2 at 9:00 tonight. I brought up piece #3 (the middle "connecting" diagonal piece) so I could mark the quilting from templates. Folks-----I was only through two blocks of the 10 total on this piece, and I crashed. All energy left me---I needed to just step away and give it a rest. So, since then, I've been catching up on email and I hope to spend about another half-hour or so catching up on some of your blogs (SORRY--I haven't left many comments lately!)

Tomorrow is the 4th of July---Independence Day. We plan to head up north to the "farm." I think DH has some shopping and such to do in town first, so I'll plan to pack up the girls, tidy up the house (so it's not a disaster when we come back on Sunday--I HATE that!), and perhaps spend some more time on marking the last section IF time allows.

I have completley bought into the quilting in sections technique! There is NO FATHOMABLE WAY I would have been able to quilt these patterns if I had to trudge this whole quilt under the machine's arm. I can foresee a bit of extra math calculations with every future quilt so I can utilize this technique.

Happy Quilting!