If I ever find the time to sit still and write...

...I shall like to write in one of the quilted composition books I've been working on lately. Just trying to use up scraps and small orphan blocks and the like.

Only one, the purple with green leaves, has been hand quilted so far, but I'll be working on the others soon.

But there's been no time to sit still lately. On Monday, we went to Kings Dominion amusement park. It's official - I'm a scaredy-cat who doesn't like rollercoasters!

On Tuesday, it was Colonial Williamsburg. As an archaeological anthropology major in college, I really enjoyed this trip. Jason also enjoyed it and wrote "HISTORY ROCKS!" on his brochure. Donald, on the other hand, complained nearly every second of the day. But what fun, hands-on stuff there was to do!

Washing hands the old-fashioned way (soap and water instead of hand sanitizer from a pump dispenser)

Making biscuits in a kitchen that put every sauna I've ever been in to shame!

Playing dress up

Sitting on the "throne" in the jail cell

Participating in a play (Jason -in blue in front - was militia; that's why he's marching)

Rolling hoops - I must say, I'm quite good at this!

I'm proud to report that I resisted the temptation to leave the complaining Donald in the stockades until we were ready to leave...

Mashing clay with our feet for bricks - like a facial for your feet - heavenly!

Wednesday, we had karate, and then rollerskating, but it turns out the skating rink was closed. Never fear - the bowling alley was right down the road. The boys were hilarious cheering each other on. Also waiting for the balls to return (yeah, one of those kids isn't mine - Donald had a friend over for a sleepover).

Today, I've been doing laundry and sewing while they've been exploring the woods. They found a turtle, and brought him inside in a shoebox to hang out with them until I documented for them his escape-artist tendencies and convinced them he was better suited outside.

Tonight, more karate, kindergarten orientation, and Back to School night for cub scouts. I can't believe tomorrow is Friday - where has my week of vacation gone? I thought for sure I'd have a chance to sit back and relax!

Reflections on a long day

Today's day trip to Harrisonburg was fun, but exhausting, both physically and emotionally. I really wanted to go to the Virginia Quilt Museum , but I'll have to save that for another day. Instead, the kids and I went to the Harrisonburg Children's Museum, which had free admission since it was National Children's Day, or some such thing. It was small and modest, but perfect for my age kids.

Trying on the football gear (it's funny, the football gear was right next to the pretend ambulance - coincidence? I think not.)

Rock wall climbing

In the cutest pretend barn you ever saw, collecting eggs from stuffed chicken puppets while wearing cowboy boots and cowboy hats

After we painted our own faces (note, we kept our facepaint on for the remainder of the day, which got us some stares and giggles at the gas station, the retirement home, the restaurant, the highway - I hope I made someone's day with my silliness)

When the museum kicked us out at closing time, we walked up the street for some homemade ice cream. Yum!

Then it was off to visit our old neighbors who moved away two years ago to live in a retirement community. First, they moved into a home, but as dementia became more cumbersome for both of them, they moved into assisted living. This was our first visit to them since they moved to assisted living about 3 months ago.

I'm so glad I went to visit, but I've had a ball of tears sitting in my throat since we first walked in the door. My first thought was that their lives have shrunk so much. He worked for the State Department, and they lived all around the globe in their younger years. When they were my neighbors, they were retired and caring for their beautiful home that they had built themselves on their 8 acres of heaven. Now, they are living in two meager rooms that, combined, are smaller than my dining room. I had brought them a dessert ready to pop in the oven to bake, a Peach Crisp made from peaches that my co-worker picked from her own tree and brought in to me, angel that she is. However, they don't have a kitchen or any way to cook or keep it, so I discretely brought it back out to the car with me when we left. This for a woman who greeted me with fresh baked cookies on the day we moved in, and who never once let me come over without offering coffee or tea and a treat.

My second thought was that losing your memory has to be the cruelest thing there is. Jason asked them how many children they had, and it took some time for them to remember. When we went out to eat (to a buffet, of all places, what a terrible idea for a party of two active kids, two senile adults and one bewildered and beleaguered woman trying to keep track of everyone), every time they got up, they sat back down at a different table and I kept having to go find them and bring them back to our table. The husband never spoke our names the whole time we were with him - I'm pretty sure he had no idea who we were, but was happy for the company nonetheless. I can't count the number of times I heard one or the other of them say "I don't remember".

My final thought was that I need to enjoy and appreciate my loved ones every day that we have together. I wish I had visited them more when we were neighbors (of course, maybe THEY wouldn't have wanted me over there any more than I already was), I wish I had asked more questions and absorbed more of their wisdom while it was still readily available for them to share. I wish they were still the same friends that I knew and loved, whom I could look up to and rely on. It is selfish of me, I know, but I'm not ready to be the responsible, older and wiser generation - I still want to leave that to others so I can go to them when my young, inexperienced, naive self needs help. I claim to embrace change, but in this sense, I do not.

Are you depressed yet? Let me lighten the mood, first with a photo of the wall in the women's restroom at the museum - I love the whimsical paint job as well as the sentiment expressed.

And I've seen this building every time I've gone to Harrisonburg, and every time I have gone out of my way to drive by it multiple times - I think it is so neat. So this time, much to the amusement of my children, I stopped and took a photo.

Wouldn't you just love to go inside? I sure would. Of course, I'm happy enough just to gaze upon the outside - the detailing on the porch, above the windows, that neat windowed room(?) at the top. One of my favorite pasttimes is walking or driving past homes and trying to imagine the lives that are lived there. I wonder if anyone ever does that when they drive past my house (of course, since I live on a dead end dirt road with only 2 families up beyond us, we don't get a lot of traffic past our house). But if they did, I would want to assure them that the lives lived here are full to bursting, full of color and noise and chaos and peace and happiness and awe and irreverence and laughter and love.

Super Saturday!

I was greeted by this gentleman when I emerged from my room Saturday morning.

It turns out, he was a spy, although I don't know for whom he works. Apparently, for an ally nation here to share child obedience intelligence because when I returned from my quilt guild meeting, my children had showered and cleaned their room and were playing nicely on the porch. At Show and Tell, I shared my Tree Skirt, my orphan quilt, my Bright Future quilt and my Ribbon Quilt. Yup, you heard me correctly - I finished piecing the Ribbon Quilt top and it is off my design wall - time for something(s) new!


I did the requisite hour of domestic duties (on this day it sweeping floors, feeding the children lunch and washing dishes) before retreating down to my quilt studio to sew away the overcast, drizzly afternoon. The story of the adventurous, imaginative Anne of Green Gables was a great accompaniment for my first project - machine guided quilting. My quilting feet arrived in the mail on Friday and I was itching to try them out. I decided to start with the walking foot, and what fun that was! What a neat sensation to feel the fabric feeding through like that nearly on its own. I quilted up that mini quilt with the orphan 4-patch blocks all with straight lines, but no photos yet - first, I have to figure out how to bury those stray threads.


Then I moved on to a new color word. It should be no surprise that PINK was the next word I tackled - short and sweet (and quick!). I think I'm out of 3 and 4 letter colors, unfortunately.

And then, I chose to try a project that I saw on the Greenstitch blog, making a drawstring backpack from a t-shirt. I took one of the many t-shirts that I have and don't wear, but don't want to get rid of because they mean something to me. For this project, I used a t-shirt from a parent vs. kid (college aged kid) soccer game in which I participated 5 years ago at work. I was on the parent team, and had a great time, but somehow managed to dislocate 2 ribs. I guess I got a little carried away. Anyway, barely half an hour later...

Look, it is lined!

I love it! I'll be wearing it today when the kids and I head to Harrisonburg to check out their Children's Museum (there is free admission today - yay!). Afterwards, we'll be visiting our neighbors who moved away to Harrisonburg to live in a retirement community, the neighbor upon whose quilt I took my first hand quilting stitches. I sure do miss them!

Have a supercalifragilisticespealidocious Sunday, everyone! (did I spell that right, Ms. Poppins?)

Check out all the embroidery!

Remember my first ever embroidery project - the four blocks I put together in a frame that I bought from Angela at Country Scrap Quilts for my mother-in-law's Christmas present?

Well, just for kicks, and inspired by Char at Cloth Stitched, I entered it into the weekly themed quilt contest over at Quilting Bloggers. Just now, I popped over there to see what else had been entered. Oh, boy, am I humbled! Click here to check out the 32 submissions for this week and vote for your favorite. I found lots of inspiration there, and you may, too! I'm pretty sure that embroidery will be my project during travel season this year.

But let's take things one day at a time. Once I get off work today, I'm heading straight home for an hour or so of sewing and listening to Anne of Green Gables - I repeat: I VOW to get those rows of the Ribbon Quilt sewn together and get it off the design wall TODAY. Then, it is pick the kids up from camp, head to the pool to cool off, then to the drive-in for Despicable Me, which I've not yet seen but about which I have heard wonderful things.

In the morning, I plan to bring my Orphan Drive-In quilt, my Bright Future quilt and my Christmas Tree Skirt to Show and Tell at the Quilt Guild Meeting, and then I want to get my flannel buzzsaw quilt and my great grandmother's quilt up onto the design wall to start making some progress on those.

I'm so glad it is Friday. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Better late than never, right?

A short while ago (well, back in July), I stumbled across Monkey Dog Quilts and her Christmas In July Blitz giveaway. Basically, she was fired up about getting started on some Christmas quilts, and wanted company. I signed up - heck, I'm tired of trying to get all my Christmas sewing done between December 20 and December 24 at 11:59 PM. Besides, I could win some Christmas fabrics! Well, I didn't win, but I did make a Christmas Tree Skirt, which I've been wanting forever! While it is not completely done, it is done enough to show and demonstrate that I followed through on my commitment to actually make something.

Hand quilting this puppy has been much more time consuming than putting it together. Honestly, this isn't a project that I wanted to commit hours and hours of hand quilting to, as it is going to be just peeking out from under a tree and likely covered by presents. That motivated me to go online yesterday and order a set of quilting feet for my machine - a walking foot and a free motion darning foot, along with a couple others. Machine quilting, here I come!


In the meantime, here's what I did on the Tree Skirt: outline quilting inside each of the tan pieces

and outline quilting around the circumference of the inner and outer darker (red and green) circles. Right now there is only one row of quilting in those circles, but I plan to at least do one more in each.

My plans to complete this by the quilt guild meeting on Saturday have been thwarted by the fact that Jason and I are taking a Nunchuck camp at karate this week, which translates into 3 HOURS of karate every day, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

By the time I get home, it is 8 PM. I have to prepare dinner and put the kids to bed, and then I'm asleep. I made a date with the hubby last night to watch our Netflix selection (the pilot of the HBO series, The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency), and while I was enjoying it, I was asleep within half an hour. My wonderful husband just turned it off and sent me to bed. (By the way, this same WONDERFUL HUSBAND fixed our dryer yesterday!!! YAY! I probably won't use it anytime soon, but when cold weather hits, I surely don't want to be out taking frozen - and still wet - clothes from the clothesline.)

So, while I'm a little bummed about being behind schedule on this Tree Skirt, in reality, I am WAAAAY ahead of schedule, right? I guarantee it will be done a full 4 months before Christmas. And I bet this Tree Skirt will have siblings and cousins before all is said and done, since it was so much fun to make.

My haven

We had company last night, family. It was their first time in our home. I forgot they were coming, and when I realized it was their first time here, I felt bad about not having cleaned up in preparation for their visit. My house isn't a disaster area, but it wouldn't be featured in any magazines either. I just find it so exhausting to clean, especially with two kids, a dog, a husband and a brother in law all inhabiting the same space. You know the feeling of futility when it comes to cleaning and then others come through and mess it up again?

The one place I don't experience that sense of futility is in my quilting studio. We finished our basement last fall, and since then I have been steadily settling into my space. MY SPACE. No one else uses this space. They might come keep me company, but there is nothing in there that I didn't specifically choose to put in there, and when I leave and return, it is exactly as I left it. I think everyone needs a place like that, don't you think?

So some of you who've been with me a while have seen this space, but if you've not...

WELCOME TO MY QUILTING STUDIO!

When you open the door (well, walk through the door - I never actually close the door), you can see that the room is flooded with natural light. It is a wonderful place to sew. Looking out the windows and the doors gives me inspiration from our beautiful natural surroundings (well, when you can see past the dust on the glass), and I love being able to walk right outside for a break.

To my left, a rocker next to my bookshelf where I sit and flip through pages when I need inspiration.

On the wall, my t-shirt quilt from my father's t-shirts is finally at home with me (it has been traveling from family member to family member since I made it two or three years ago). My Ulmer Frame is ready for a bed-sized quilt, but I've been working on little projects lately, so right now it is just draped with a project that needs some contemplation before I move on.


To my right is my cutting table (ignore the bowl of Wheatena on there - I took photos while eating breakfast this morning).

I love my little challenge quilt on the wall. I need to find another way to store my rulers. As it is, they are just propped against the wall, and they fall into my cutting space at very inopportune times. Next to the cutting station is the ironing station. A friend gave me a Big Board that her husband had made for her which I laid across my ironing board, and I LOVE it! Pile of scraps at the end of the ironing board. So many scraps, not enough places to store them. A couple WIPs are stored under the ironing board - my Great Grandmother's Quilt that I am re-making, my flannel buzzsaw quilt, and a quilted sweatshirt I started making for my mother and for some reason, stopped.

Directly ahead of me is my big frame, draped with a quilt that I can't get enough of. I just love looking at it.

Piled on the back of the frame are more scraps and small FQs etc that again, I don't really have a place to store. Beside the radio is Anne of Green Gables on cassette - I just started listening last night. (thanks for the inspiration Nancy-Rose!) I loved the books as a girl, and decided to see if I still like them as an adult. So far, the answer is YES!

To the left of the frame is my armoire, stuffed with scrap bags, UFOS, completed tops, diaper wipe containers full of thread, and on top, my scrap square tins, every half inch size from 1.5" to 5". I use those fabric squares in my quilting more than anything else, I think. I love the convenience of pre-cut squares.

To the right of my frame is my sewing station and design wall.

Why the ladder, you ask? Well, I stand 5'0" in my shoes, and I can't reach the top of the design wall, so I need the ladder when I am working on a bed-sized quilt. Hopefully, this is the last you will see that quilt on the design wall - I VOW to finish putting those rows together THIS WEEK! That funny shaped door goes into my closet, filled to the brim with batting and tubs of flannel and other hard-to-categorize fabrics. Stencils are hanging on the inside of the closet door.

Beside my design wall and sewing station is my mini design wall which holds blocks and directions and inspiration. Then there is the bulk of my yardage stash (as opposed to scrap stash) in those two plastic container thingies.

And then, looking back on the door where we entered, you can see my bookshelf with my quilt fiction and my reference books.

Jason's stash is in that little basket - I have to keep it separate so I don't use it. And see that beautiful blue fabric?

My Kaufmann fabric winnings came yesterday. I was expecting the Candy Corn colorstory, but I am not at all disappointed for receiving these beautiful blues. Eventually, I will wash and use them, but for now, they are decoration. (Em, see the candle you sent me? See how it is burnt down from hours of fragrant use? Thanks, again!)

So this is where the magic happens. This is my haven, my creative space, my place to decorate as I want without consulting others, to clean or not clean as I see fit, and to recharge when the stresses of being so much for so many people gets me feeling overwhelmed or down.

Thanks for visiting! Come quilt with me anytime!

Just another day in paradise

Mother Nature pulled out all the stops and gave us a breathtakingly beautiful weekend! I spent quite a bit of yesterday outside, doing more laundry (did the final wash of my Bright Future quilt - after Show and Tell this weekend, it will be winging its way across the country to a new baby, due in September, so I couldn't resist taking a final photo of it),


checking out the fort the kids built in the woods behind our house,

picking blackberries (what a long, plentiful season this has been!), and going down to the creek with the kids to splash around,

(Water-bending like Aang in The Last Airbender - he was so disappointed when it didn't work)

While inside, I cleaned bathrooms (YUCK!) but only so I wouldn't feel guilty about the time I spent birthing my Christmas Tree Skirt (no more photos until it is done, hopefully by Thursday), sewing together a couple of rows of the ribbon quilt ( I VOW to have the top finished by Show and Tell on Saturday!) and playing with my 1.5" scraps. Yesterday I chose blue.

Judging from my inclination to create the short words first, can you guess what color I'll be working on next?

To round out the evening, I watched my Netflix movie, Up in the Air, while hand quilting, a little on my 4th of July Tablerunner and a little on my Christmas Tree Skirt. A perfect day!