Happy Beautiful Saturday!!!

Morning everyone! The day is going to be GLORIOUS! mid 60's, sunny!!!! A perfect day to get outside for some Spring cleaning, which I think is on my hubby's agenda; and I think his plan is to drag everyone out with him. I might go with a small fight, though, because I'm definitely interested in relaxing with some sewing....what else is new, right???

Again, I apologize for the infrequent blogging lately, but I'm sure you all understand how life goes sometimes... Seriously, 4th quarter has come roaring in and I haven't had a moment to breathe!

Caitlyn's birthday last Sunday was much of the same; whirlwind of waking up, eating breakfast and hittin the road for the inlaws (three hours away) to celebrate a Surprise 60th Bday for MIL. Caitlyn's only gift was this fun-looking "bouncy-castle" (oh! and a new armoire from my family). Amazingly, that thing didn't come out of its box until YESTERDAY!!!! at 3:30 PM, no less. I was standing by my words of: "the loft and bedrooms get cleaned before it makes an appearance." Well, mom finally had to intervene yesterday morning at 10:00, otherwise, it never would have gotten done. I delegated; they all picked up; we CLEANED!! And I mean CLEANED! I should get a pic of ALL THE TOYS that we removed; they are all waiting in the entry-way right now to be loaded into my parent's truck to head down to my uncle's house for a garage sale he'll be having in May. The loft is so uncluttered now! Heaven!

I did manage to get two UFO's finished this week! (See, if we all took a week off of blogging, imagine what could be accomplished!!!) :0) The Lake-n-Lodge wall-hanging is already in its new location, above/behind the piano in our living room.



Almost a year from when it started, Oklahoma Backroads has also been finished. I find that I'm a very symmetrical quilter, so I still make an "eh..." face when I look at it. That extra row of blocks just doesn't look quite right, but......it's done, and colorful, and full of lots of good scraps that remind me of Grandma. I have no plans for it at this point; perhaps I'll donate it to my mother's church???

My parents are up for the holiday weekend, and they brought a basket full of goodies for the girls, including the movie, "Bedtime Stories" with Adam Sandler and Courtney Cox-Arquette (sp?). It brought on a couple moments of giggles from all of us; well worth watching with as a family.













At one point, my mom, DH and myself caught a glimpse of Grandpa, and giggled to ourselves. How can THIS be comfortable?!??!!?





Enjoy your day!

A Saturday before a Birthday....

Carol (Cornfield Quilter) is working on some hexagons (I have NO patience to do them!), and she emailed me saying....

I am one of those people that cannot just sit and watch TV. I always have to have something to work on. Life is so short and there are so many different things I want to make so my hands are never idle. Would you call that weird?

Nah...not weird at all Carol!!! I am also one who can't just sit and watch TV, but rather than sew, I usually have the laptop up-n-running.


Today started off well---downstairs for a couple of hours trying to finish off a UFO (Lake-n-Lodge--the March UFO Challenge). yeah....I'm a bit behind-----oh well!

10:00 rolled around, so I headed up to make some brunch for the girls; the next thing I know, I'm cleaning the house!!!!!!!!!!
......it started with a simple tidying of the counter while the toast was .....ummmm....cooking? baking?.....OH! TOASTING!.....

anyway........ then threw some wet towels into the wash, then threw a couple more loads together, which forced me to gather loose articles from the bathroom, which brought me to scrubbing the toilet (EEEE-WWWWWWWW! it needed it!!!!) cleaning the mirror and counter...sweeping the floor....mopping the floor......headed back to the laundry room/entry way.....shook out the rug cuz I was tired of the loose dirt always clingy to my socks (ya know....where you always need to wipe them off on your pants legs or on the carpet to get them soft again....) then....organized the shoes/boots/sandles.....tidied the counter in there....swept....mopped......headed to the living room, where I made the BIG mistake of sitting for a moment.

Yup---I was done...enough cleaning for a day, but it sure needed it....

I babysat for a couple of hours this afternoon for a friend who had some errands to do; she has a 11month old boy; my girls had fun with a baby around again.

About an hour ago, I headed back downstairs to try to finish up the UFO; all done now except sewing the binding on. Maybe later tonight once the girls are in bed.!!!

Right now, I'm relaxing, waiting for DH to clean up from a day's work. We're off to Pizza Hut and Birthday shopping; Caitlyn (our middle) is 5 tomorrow. She wants a "bouncy castle"----so I've "bribed" her (and the other girls too) to clean up the loft in order for the "Birthday Fairy" to bring a Bouncy Castle. They're upstairs still....but I don't really think much picking-up is occurring; I think it's more like playing.....

okay---shower just turned off.....time to GIT!

Happy Saturday!

My weekly check in...

Hey---I've accepted that if I check in at least once a week, that's okay! So hopefully, you can accept that as well?!?!?!!?? *wink*

Tonight, at LEAST I still have a lick of energy and my day went well and I'm still motivated to do SOMETHING! Quilting is not the "something" I can do, however, because tonight is the FINALS for our Volleyball tournament; we are playing for 1st/2nd at 8:00 pm.

To give you a not-so-detailed run-down since Wednesday......

Thursday----ummm...I THINK I did some sewing/quitling!?!?! Yeah, yeah.....I think I basted up the two sections of Steppin' Out in hopes of accomplishing some quilting Friday night and Saturday morning before heading down to my parent's Saturday evening.

HOWEVER, once Saturday morning rolled around, I worked solely on Chloe's Colors because I really wanted to get that finished by Monday. Monday was the start of a new quarter at school (the LAST quarter----ohhhhh, the end is nearing!!!!)......which meant I got the 8th graders back in my classroom. Recall, my 8th grade students' Quarter 2 Final Project was to design a quilt. Chloe's Colors was the #1 vote-getter by the class, so my goal for the 3rd quarter was to bring it to life. Aside from the struggle of finding the various shades of colors, the quilt was rather simple to piece (obviously??).

The quilting ended up being a loopy-meander in the center "bright" section, with my favorite "swirly-gig" in the 16-blocks. The quilt is currently hanging up in my classroom---it sure brightens up the room!



Sunday was Cassie's 1st Communion, and afterwards, my mother finally coaxed us all into putting the smiles on for a family picture. (It's only been 2 years, after all!) So, here we all are.




Last night, after checking in with some blogs, I HAD to head downstairs as a stress-reliever! Rough day at work, and it was a hard (humbling???) day that I couldn't let go of....

.....Heading down, I had many possibilities in my mind, and I needed to make a decision....
a) Continue working on Steppin' Out and begin quilting now that it's basted ???
b) Work on March quilt ???
c) Tackle one of my "overdue" UFO Challenge quilts??? (Scrappy Baskets (UGH! That one is my achilles heel right now!), Lake -n- Lodge which is already basted up and just needs quilting....or, the newest April Challenge: Oklahoma Backroads, which is completed but needs basting and quilting......

I was SO wanting to see another finish for the month of March, so I decided.....Lake-n-Lodge in hopes that with three hours of working time, I would be able to check it off for a March finish.

Well------nope----not a finish, but it saw some progress. No pics yet, but maybe Saturday????

Shortly, we'll be on our way to Volleyball. Tomorrow night, I have volunteered my athleticism towards our School Staff's Dodgeball team (the PTA has an annual fundraiser during March: March Madnesss: Dodgeball Dellerium). Usually, there is a School Staff team, a team comprised of School students, a team from the Hospital, a Police Team, ......, it's a fun night.

Friday night is open, with the hopes of having some quilting time. Now that I have my Advanced Beginner's Description/Directions written and into the Community Education Coordinator for brochure printing, I am breathing a bit easier. (So, YES LOCAL LADIES!!! There will be a class; Starting May 18th, and every Monday for 5 weeks (not meeting memorial day, rather that Tuesday (26th) is scheduled.))


Happy April Fools Day!
Happy Wednesday

UFO/WIP progress day...

Our company (BIL and family) headed home early this morning; around 10:30 am. I headed out the door to town after a quick shower to pick up a few items, and was back home around 11:30. After some quick lunch, I headed downstairs. I needed to clear up some carpet space to make room for the Perkiomen DayDream layout since I completed a few more blocks during some downtime yesterday afternoon. I started by basting up my smaller sample for my quilting class coming up next week. This is called Paddington's Class Act and will be quilted with some simple diagonals along the length of the quilt.

Next came the Lake -n- Lodge wall-hanging. I already had the backing set aside, so after a quick pressing, that got basted up as well and added to the "to-quilt" stack.





My Scrappy Irish Chain blocks were still laying along the edge of the carpet area, and rather than shooshing them further off into some other location, I decided to just get them pieced into the top and set it aside. By dinner time, the final stitch on the top's borders was put in. After dinner, rather than just adding it to a "flimsy" stack, I decided to gather up some fabrics to use as the backing. One thing lead to another, and this quilt found itself basted as well (after searching high-n-low for some more safety pins!!)


So, I now have a stack of four tops awaiting on a pile to be quilted; the three listed above and the Country Spirit.

Finally, what I had been waiting ALL DAY to do was to layout my PK Daydreams blocks. Rather than going with Bonnie's layout this time, I played around for half-an-hour and ended the night with this. There are now 100 blocks (10x10 layout), which equates to 2,500 squares.



This week should be quite relaxing without anything going on in the evenings, other than VBall Wednesday night. Hopefully I'll be able to get some of these quilted and rack up the "completions" for February! :0)

"Bernina--We have a problem..."

*sigh*
So tell me.....what do you see missing from this picture?
Hmmmmm.......maybe you need to know that this is my location where I sew.....and that's the table I sew on......
all my sewing supplies are there...the little scissors, extra bobbins, my magnetic pin holder, even little 1.5" squares for my L-n-E Perkiomen Daydreams quilt......

but.....no Bernina.

I started the day very lazy and didn't get downstairs until 8:30. I pin-basted the Country Spirt quilt into two sections so I could start and hopefully finish quilting it today. By 10:00, I was quilting....

I ended up going with my brainstorm of concentric stars pulsating out from the center of the rail blocks. It was a bit tedious, specially once the stars were too large for them to be continuously quilted. Lots of stopping/starting/"knotting"/backstitching. I had three done, each taking about 20 minutes, and was working on the fourth. I don't think I heard a noise, but suddenly.... things were just "weird." My bobbin thread was breaking, so threw in a newly wound bobbin; things seemed smooth for a few minutes at least. Then, when I started a new line of the star, suddenly I realized that my needle was off-center. At least, that was the illusion, but I checked all my buttons and the screen....all seemed fine. ???? So, I sewed a few more lines. A few moments later, when I went to life the foot.......NOTHING! It wouldn't lift! After a moment of tinkering, I got it to lift, but then.....it wouldn't lower. So finally, enough was enough. I took the cover off to see if a spring or screw came loose, but I couldn't see anything. And not wanting to take any chances and do something STUPID on a machine that costs as much as some used cars, I went upstairs and googled for the nearest Bernina dealer to me. I called the shop where I bought the machine, but I'm sure my daily readers remember that it is THREE AND A HALF hours away, so THAT was not an option, but I wanted to ask her what her advice was. In the end, the nearest dealer to me is near 70 miles away.........
Ten minutes later, with machine and girls in tow, we were making our way down to Eau Claire. The trip was uneventful, just long. I was able to get a front row parking spot (woo-hoo!), so Caitlyn and Cass chose to stay in the car to continue watching their movie on the DVD while Candace came in with me. The shop is very small and quaint. There was a nice group of ladies sewing up a storm, and after 20 minutes, I was back on my way home, no machine in hand. *sigh* It will remain in the shop until the technician can look at it on Monday. SO, no Bernina until next weekend when I make the trip BACK down to pick it up.

I called my mom on the ride home to share the day's events, and she sarcastically, jokingly said..."How are you going to survive??! You'll go into withdrawal----one week with no quilting??!?!?!"

"HA!" I said......little did she remember that I still have my Brother....... Shortly after returning home, I headed downstairs to take the Brother our of her case. Gave her a good oiling and actually did the 1/4" "test" that Bonnie suggests on her site. My GOODNESS! It was no WONDER I had so many difficulties with accurate piecing in the past! My Brother's 1/4 foot is WAY off! A good 1/8 off---seriously!!!! So......

I'm bummed, but yet, everything happens for a reason!
The PROS of this "situation"....
i) My quilting class begins in 3 weeks, so I needed to practice on a "not-so-good" machine anyway so I knew how to assist my "students" (BTW--I was just updated yesterday that I have 3 people signed up so far. If I don't get anymore, I really won't mind! It was marketed as a Beginner's course, so I may have individuals who don't even know how to USE a sewing machine!"
ii) I can continue working on the Scrappy Irish Chain and the Oklahoma Backroads quilts to try to finish piecing the tops
iii) The Bernina was requesting a tune-up last weekend anyway, so......it's due!

The CONS...
i) I don't have my baby, my pride-n-joy!
ii) I wanted to finish the Country Spirit to get it mailed out to Alycia's QOV project by Monday.
iii) I was in the quilting mood and wanted to also tackle the Lake -n- Lodge wallhanging tomorrow.

*shrug*
whadya do?

Happy Saturday!