Proud!

Jason finished his first quilt, and I am just so proud!

It will hang in the county fair from Tuesday until Saturday. I have my fingers crossed that he'll get some type of recognition, because he worked so long and hard on this. Besides, it's cute! I love the buttons he picked out to tie it with. Check out the haunted house and ghost,

and the bat flying in front of the moon.

My quilt is a different story. I didn't even it touch it today. I'll be sewing like a woman possessed tomorrow. I went to my quilt guild meeting this morning, and we worked on comfort quilts. We also received the instructions for the first round/border of our challenge quilt. Which reminded me...I hadn't yet made the center block for the challenge quilt. I worked on that while Jason finished up his quilt. The idea is that it is a round robin mystery quilt that we work on alone and don't let anyone see until it is finished. Last month we were given 4 blocks to choose from for the center. (I chose the easiest - Star of Virginia.) This month and for the next two months, we will receive instructions for each successive round/border. We should be done piecing the top in October, and are supposed to unveil our "masterpieces" in December, fully quilted. Then we'll have a display of challenge quilts at next year's quilt show.

I think only 1 person from my guild reads my blog, and she's the program coordinator who set up the challenge, so I can post my progress on here. Here's my center block,

and here it is after my first round.

This round had to include at least one triangle, but that was the only stipulation. Again, taking the easy way out, I simply squared up the half-square triangles that I cut off while making the center block, and made pinwheels with them. I'll all caught up until next month, waaaay ahead of the game. Now, if I could just finish this quilt that needs to be turned in at the fair on Monday...

Oh, and I also decided on colors for my Celtic Knot Mystery - black, red, green and white. Here's a layout (unsewn) of chunk #1.

I'm not going to sew it together until I gather some darker greens. And I'm not going to gather greens until my fair quilt is DONE. Better get to work.

New to me

1 week of vacation + 1 week of single parenting while spouse is on business trip = 1 exhausted quilter who is too tired to quilt

I was really dragging at work today. Then a fellow quilter delivered the perfect 'pick-me-up':

The magazines aren't the latest issues, but they are new to me. Now that the kids are in bed, all the housework can wait - I'm off to snuggle down in bed with my new magazines. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - quilters are the best!

Lost in blogland

After work yesterday, I told the kids we were just going to go home and relax. Every day, there is something going on - swimming, karate, a movie, a birthday party - and I am pooped! Plus, I haven't even turned on my sewing machine in two weeks! The plan was to help Jason finish his quilt and put the last couple stitches into mine since the fair starts on Tuesday.

Entering something in the fair every year is important to me. I'm not at the point where I expect ribbons, and I doubt I will ever be, but getting objective feedback from someone who doesn't know me is useful. My friends are very nice and supportive, and I need that as a novice quilter, but I doubt they would point out all the flaws in my work. I need that, too, just in much smaller doses. So that is one reason I enter my quilts in the show at the county fair. The other reason is that I love going to quilt shows and seeing lots of quilts. I feel that I am setting an example by entering my quilts. I can't complain about a show with very few quilts if I'm not willing to enter mine, now can I? Also, I hope that by entering my amateurish attempts at quilting, others will feel emboldened enough to think to themselves, "now, I can do that!"

Anyway, last night, we got about half of the buttons tied onto Jason's quilt before I could see his interest flagging. It is hard for him to tie the thread (although if you put a Transformer into his hands, suddenly he is Mr. Nimble Fingers!), and as much as I itched to do it for him, I knew that would be wrong. So, we'll work on it some more tonight. While he was tying, between "I need some help here, Mom"s, I thought I'd catch up on what my friends have been doing in blogland. HOURS later, I finally stumbled off to bed without having even touched my quilt. My, you guys have been busy. And I kept seeing interesting names of other blogs on your "Blogs I Follow" lists that I just had to check out. And then there were all the links you guys added. STOP! How's a gal to get any quilting done!?! I think I'm caught up now, and as long as I never go away without internet access again, I might be able to avoid the Blogland Black Hole that I disappeared into last night.

I did decide to do a Celtic Knotwork Mystery - see Lynne's blog on my sidebar. I've never done a mystery before, I've been wanting to try a Celtic looking quilt, and this one uses scrappy 2 1/2" squares, of which I have two tins already pre-cut. I know I shouldn't be starting something new, but this will at least give me just one or two blocks to work on a week so that I am still using my machine while I am focusing on getting more hand quilting done.

Do fish have testosterone?

On the way home from vacation, we stopped at my in-laws where my boys became the proud new owners of 2 Betta Fish Kits. Their first words each morning since have been, "Are we getting fish today?" They are good boys - I couldn't say no. Off to the pet store we went. All you can get there are male Bettas. And they can't be put together or they will kill each other. Great. A husband, two sons, two tomcats, a male puppy, a father-in-law for half the year, and now killer fish. I need a little girl to balance out all the testosterone in my house. But look at the grins on my boys' faces. I am sure the fish will be worth it. (While previewing my post, I just noticed the title of the book laying sideways on the bookshelf. How appropriate! I'll have to check it out...)


It is hard to photograph fish. Here is Colorful, Jason's fish.


And here is Mr. Red Red, Donald's fish.


Would it be insensitive of me to grill tilapia for dinner? I guess it is chicken, AGAIN!

Squishy mail!

No matter where I go for vacation or whom I am with, I always love coming home. As much as I like adventure and change and new places/people/things, I am a homebody. Even when greeted with a horrendous smell of food gone bad and faced with the onerous task of cleaning out the fridge before bed after driving all day, I was thrilled to come back to my little piece of the world on Sunday night. But it was made even better when I checked the mail and found 3 squishy packages!

The first was the fabric I ordered from This-n-that Fabrics (Oh, how I hope I win the Singer Featherweight, but regardless, the prices couldn't be beat!). Then there was the ducky fabric from Trina to hopefully help me finish off that Rubber Ducky UFO. And finally, there were 2 6" purple fabric squares for a Purple Charm quilt QUILT TREE that a friend of mine sent me.

***Hey, does anyone want in on this QUILT TREE? It involves sending two 6" purple fabric squares to 7 quilters, 3 who will already be listed and 4 more of your choosing. Supoosedly, you'll end up with enough purple squares to make a quilt. Let me know and I'll pop some in the mail to you.***

I'm trying to maintain the momentum I gained exercising with my sister (have I mentioned yet how in awe of her I am? I am gasping after running a mile, and she has run a MARATHON!!!). I went for a 2.8 mile run yesterday morning before work. Let's just say that it was much harder and much less fun running alone. Needless to say, I didn't quite run the whole way, but hey, walking works, right?

The County Fair and quilt show is next week. Jason and I need to get moving and get our quilts done. Nothing like a deadline to motivate me. Gotta get going. But I'll leave you with a photo from vacation, me and my boys (and the back of my sister's oldest son).

Quick vacation update

I love vacation! I have taken two naps in two days - unheard of! The kids and I had a great time exploring Yale once I had finished what I had to do for work. Here they are on the steps of the Yale Law School, armed with paper airplanes that they charmed out of the security guard.

By the time we were ready to take the train to Massachusetts, they were wiped out.

Staying with my sister and her family is always fun. We took a bike ride (8 of us). How neat to have kids who can begin to do for themselves.

I finished the binding on her quilt on the way here. I am still hand quilting it, though. I also read Shadows in the Night by Janet Babin. I hope she writes more - there wasn't as much quilting as I had hoped, but the story was fun.

Well, gotta run. Literally. My sister is a runner, so I get exercise when I am here. It takes all year to recover from visiting her.

On the road

We hit the road after work yesterday. We spent the night at my mother-in-laws last night. For those of you who followed my old blog, she is looking and feeling MUCH better. I'm so glad I prepared all this handwork to do on this trip. I've been working on securing the scrappy blue binding on the Crumb Cake Stand quilt for my sister, and I like how it is looking. I hope to have it done by the time we get to her house tomorrow afternoon.

Well, the road is calling! I'll check in again at a later stop.