I've got lots of good reasons (excuses)...

I've got lots of good reasons (excuses) for not blogging last week.

Mon - Karate after work, then grocery shopping since I had just gotten back from vacation and the cupboard was BARE!

Tue - I had to work until 9:30 PM - enough said! Ugh!

Wed - Two karate classes back to back after work - we test for our blue belts this weekend!

Thu - Our renters moved out of our rental property sometime last month without bothering to tell us (or pay the rent, or clean up after themselves, or even completely move out!). On Thursday, we borrowed a friend's truck and spent two hours lugging out all the CRAP they left - 3 trips to the dump, one to the food pantry and one to Goodwill. The place was a sty! There was food left on the stove, coffee in the coffeepot, clothes in the washer, you name it. I swear it looked like they went out for groceries and never came back! Anyway, it was gross, but also a bit fun as a family project. I gave the kids disinfectant wipes and the Swiffer Wet Mop and told them they could clean anything they wanted. They are still young enough to think that is fun...

Fri - Opening night of the drive-in movie! I volunteered at the booth where they sell glow stuff and t-shirts and stuff, so I had to be there 2 hours before the movie started. They played The Blindside (loved it!) and It's Complicated (we left because I wasn't sure it would be appropriate for the kiddos).

Sat - Our quilt guid had its annual auction where members bring in unwanted quilt related items, and we auction them off to ourselves. We raised over $1000, and I came home with some great finds. There will be photos in my next post, so stay tuned. Then, that afternoon, we had a Bike Rodeo for cub scouts. Again, lots of fun - although the cop who ran the event wanted to know where Donald learned to drive (his bike) in that kamikaze way - he seemed to think it was a learned behavior, and gave me an assessing look. Nope, not me; I am a sedate driver - that must come from his daddy!

Sun - I have been wanting a clothesline for a long time, and on Sunday my hubby went out for the materials, and our family project was setting it up. I LOVE IT! I had forgotten how good line-dried clothes smell! I did four loads of laundry, and spent the time in between loads on the porch reading and sipping sun tea and enjoying the view.

So, I haven't been blogging, but I have gotten a tiny bit of quilting done - again, photos will come in a subsequent post. I've also been reading. I read two books in a cozy mystery series that I had never heard of before, and it is fast becoming a favorite. I finished the first two books,

On What Grounds and Through The Grinder in the Coffeehouse Mystery Series by Cleo Coyle. There are eight books total, and I guarantee I'll be reading the next six.

Tonight there is karate, and then cub scouts, but I hope to also post some photos of my auction finds. If I say it, I will do it (or so I tell myself).

April Shower

Last week's vacation ended with a surprise baby shower for my younger sister in Philadelphia. What fun! Here I am with my mom and sisters. Doesn't my sister look glamorous? I don't know how she does it, when I was pregnant I swear I looked haggard at all times.


Here she is again with her growing belly and her growing family.


The food was delicious and the games were fun, but my favorite was the presents. I love giving! The Bright Ideas quilt I've been working on forever was for her new baby - I could just never say it in case she was reading my blog.


And my twin sister is a knitter. Isn't this sweater, hat and mitten set just adorable? I wish I could fit into them.

As you can see, my sister had the same thought!

And here are some random photos from vacation, the horse and buggies that shared the road with us,

the teams working the fields,

a potting table that I want to make for myself.

So, after all that fun, I was dreading coming back to work, but guess what! We got free 15-minute massages at work today! Life is good!

Having a ball!

I'm having a great time with my twin sister here in Lancaster County, PA. This morning before breakfast, I sat on the B & B porch quilting, and saw Amish in their buggies and Mennonite on their bicycles cruise by on their way to Good Friday church service. After breakfast, we hopped in the car and went EVERYWHERE! Obie's Country Store, packed to the rafters with quilts and fabric,

the Goodville Fabric Outlet (Fabric and Outlet in the same title - you KNOW it is good!), Smucker's Quilts (both traditional and contemporary designs), the town of Intercourse with all it's touristy goodness, including the People's Place Quilt Museum

and my favorite quilt in the museum, Plaid Posies,

and finally the town of Lititz, where we found a consignment shop and bought lots of fun clothes.

Here are my quilt-y purchases - yardage of 3 different fabrics, some Jumbo Ric Rac, and a Lisa Boyer book:

I also couldn't resist these horse and buggy socks:

Tomorrow, we're off to Bird In Hand. Better get to bed - my feet are killing me from all the walking we did today.

Cutting a quilt and cutting a rug

My husband took off late last week for a few days of R & R at the beach. The kids and I were invited, but we're going on vacation in just a few days ourselves, and it isn't a good time for me to miss work and the kids to miss school. Which means that I had some lonely hours to fill in the evening after the kids went to bed. Thank goodness I'm a quilter!

I finished the hand quilting that I wanted to do in all of the inner borders of the Bright Ideas quilt. Now just two more outer borders that I want to tweak, and then it is DONE. Really, I'm going to put it down and move on.

Lately, I've been intrigued by quilts with some texture and dimension on the front. Remember this experiment?

Well, once washed, the flowers frayed as I had hoped, but now they look puny, and I don't like it, so I'm going to take them off. Oh well, I'll just applique some flowers on and give up on the frayed edge look.

However, a friend of mine lent me some books, one of them being Frayed Edge Fun. There was a quilt in there that caught my eye.

(For some reason, I've really been moved to use my plaids lately.)

I have plenty of large tops to quilt and eventually throw on the beds, so I thought I'd make something baby-sized. After all, I have a ton of juvenile fabric that needs using up. I tweaked the pattern quite a bit and got to cutting, and here's what I've come up with (just cut out, not sewn together yet).

Hopefully I can sew it all together today, then pop it in the wash tonight (I am so much more motivated to do laundry if there is a quilt or some new fabric mixed in there) and see how it turns out.

Then, last night was the annual "Fancy Dress Ball" at the University where I work. Jason has gone with me the last two years, Donald joined us last year. They have been waiting for this day all year! So, we dressed up, and went out to cut a rug.

Now, my children love to dance. I knew this already. They crank up their Michael Jackson or Jason Aldean and have dance parties in their room nearly every night - it sounds like elephants are trying to crash through the ceiling. What I didn't know was that they are GOOD! They have MOVES! I'm almost ashamed to dance near them because I look so stodgy next to them. Photographers stopped to take their pictures. Women flocked to them and asked them to dance. Men gathered around them and cheered them on.

Jason can do a cartwheel and end in a full split on the ground. (That was QUITE the crowd pleaser!) He can also do that breakdance move where you kinda crabwalk around your hands on the ground in a circle, really fast. Both of them have great spin moves, and both of them have rhythm. I had SO MUCH FUN!

Oh, and to make the wonderful day even better, my husband surprised us by coming home a day early. He missed us. I sure do love my family!

My son, the artist

Yesterday evening found me downstairs sewing a couple more rows of my Ribbon quilt together, and Jason upstairs clipping some seams on his rag quilt. I can't wait until he's done and we can wash it and see how it ultimately turns out. I'm so proud of him.

Then, after dinner, we went to the art show at his school. Apparently, he is not just creative with fabric, but with paints as well - he won a 3rd prize ribbon for some beautiful spring wildflowers that he painted. Can't wait for those wildflowers to actually bloom in real life - I am ready!

Can you guess?

I carry my camera around with me nearly everywhere, but I am constantly forgetting to take it out and take photos. Yesterday would have been a good day to remember it. After work, Jason and I went to karate. I was very careful to make sure to bring our karate bags, but I wasn't careful enough to make sure that my uniform was actually in the bag. So picture me yesterday in karate class, barefoot, with my green belt tied around my waist, dressed in cordoroys and a turtleneck. And wouldn't you know it was a day when we did rolls and falls and kicks. The uniform is MUCH more comfortable for such maneuvers.

After karate, cub scouts. We made windlasses out of old milk containers and string and plastic cups and pencils and paper clips, and then we had a male college student come teach us some tumbling moves. The missed photo op came at the end when all of the parents got out on the mats to see if they could do headstands. I haven't done one in at least 25 years, but I'm proud to say I got up there!

I had hoped to have a sketch of my planned quilt for Jason to share by now, but alas, I am realizing my limitations as an artist. I may need to ask one of my more creative co-workers for some help. But here are the fabrics I bought for the project. All fabrics are here except one, purple, which goes in between orange and green. Can you guess what kind of quilt I am making for him?

One final word. You know how if you announce something to the world, you are sometimes more committed to it? Well, our karate school is doing a fitness challenge to lose 500 lbs as a school, both to get fit, but also as a fundraiser to raise money for the PE programs in the local schools which have had their funding slashed. My own personal goal is 10 lbs, and we have until Memorial Day (May 31) to get there. We weighed in for the first time last Monday (I knew there was a reason I don't have a scale in my home! Ugh!), and they require us to weigh in every week. Instead of losing weight, I GAINED a pound this week! So, while I am loathe to change my eating habits or my exercise habits, something must be done. I am too competitive to not rise to this challenge. So today, I donned my sneakers at lunch, and walked about town running some errands. I'm leaving them here under my desk - I'm hoping that walking every day will help at least a little bit.

Whew!

I can't believe how much I did this weekend. I'm going to need all week to recover!

First, a birthday party at the skating rink. Then shoe shopping for the boys. Then, a wedding. Then, a quick stop at the local quilt shop to pick up fabric for a quilt I am planning for Jason for his birthday in August - he has outgrown his current quilt, and has to stay curled up to stay covered. Oh, wait, did you notice I said I bought fabric for this quilt? Yup, I am not making him a scrap quilt, but rather, a planned quilt. I'll upload a sketch once I have something on paper - I'm pretty excited about this one.

Anyway, I brought my purchases home, changed out of the wedding clothes, and met the family at the skatepark. At this point, I remembered that I had my camera in my purse - yeah, I forgot to take pictures at the skating rink and the wedding. But here are my little daredevils at the skatepark...

Then, dinner at Subway before going to see Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. By the time we got home, we were all exhausted and just went straight to bed. Of course, as soon as Donald woke up this morning, he selected a costume in honor of last night's movie:

So, today would seem like a good day to stay home and rest, right? It was not to be. After Donald mixed up some pancakes for breakfast,

I hit the road to go pick up my mom and drive up to visit the place my sister has selected for her wedding this fall. She hasn't actually seen it yet, except on the internet, so Mom and I were the advance scouts, off to see what it is like. This was an all day adventure - I left the house before 10 and didn't get home until 5:30, but it was fun. I love hanging out with my mom. I surprised her by taking a quick photo of us - she hates having her photo taken. I don't know why - I'm the one who looks awful in this photo!

(It's hard taking those "arm's length" photos when your arms are so darned short!)

And look, she bought me some quilt books!

It was hard driving all day when I knew there were quilt books in the backseat waiting to be read! When we stopped to eat, I took them in the restaurant with us so we could look at pictures.

So, when I finally got home, I played some board games with the boys, but then decided I needed some time in the quilt studio. Remember this disappointment - the Valentine's Day tablerunner with absolutely no personality?

I decided to cut it up and made this:

and this.

That curve between the thumb and the rest of the oven mitt didn't turn out so well, but it is definitely better than this, which is what I usually use.
Sad, and a bit disgusting, I know.

So, the weekend is over, but I made lots of great memories with my family and a couple useful items to boot!