Checking in

My goal this past week was to take time to recharge.  Unfortunately, there wasn't a ton of time available to do that, but every moment I could find to sit and stitch or read or just relax, I did it.  My latest project, beyond working on some baby quilts since everyone seems to be pregnant these days, has been making another toothbrush rug.  I had two large fabrics that aren't really right for quilting that I decided to make a rug with.  I still have a long way to go, but so far, I love it!  It is about 16 inches in diameter right now.

I have so much more to write, but it is going to have to wait.  Instead of using my weekend to recharge my batteries, I gave a friend a chance to recharge hers.  When I found out that my friend had not spent even one night alone with her husband since her first son was born over 10 years ago, I offered to have her 3 boys over for a sleepover.  This weekend was the big day.  She was a bit of a Nervous Nelly dropping them off, but the boys - aged 10, 9 and 4 - were like old pros at sleepovers, even though 2 of them had never done sleepovers before.  We played games, we ate, we watched a movie - it went well.  And hearing this morning that she slept in until 9:30 AM and then was able to drink her coffee, - uninterrupted and while it was still hot! - well, even if it hadn't gone well, it would have been worth it.  As it is, they are definitely invited to come stay again.  If there is one thing I've learned through my 10 short years as a parent, it is that I am a much better parent when I take the time to take care of myself.  When I am rested and healthy, I am so much more patient and engaged with my boys.

So instead of rambling on, I will sign off for now and go have some ME time.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

Goodies! First come, first served

I re-entered the public world of quilting today.  Our guild held an auction, and I brought in quite a bit of stuff - fabric, patterns, books, a floor-standing hoop - to auction off to raise money for the guild.  My goal was to come home with less than I took.  I did it, but barely.  The items were auctioned off in such large lots that it was impossible to get just what you wanted.  "No worries," I thought.  "Maybe someone who reads my blog will want some of it." 

So, here I am, re-entering the blogosphere today with goodies to giveaway.  But it isn't a giveaway.  If you see something you want, leave a comment to claim it - first come, first served.  I'll try to update/edit the post as things get claimed, and I hope to mail everything out on Monday.  I didn't even bring it in the house - took pictures outside and left everything in the car!  Here's what is up for grabs:

PATTERNS:

GONE! 3 Wool Applique Patterns - Primitive Pineapples, Thanksgiving Pumpkin and Weather Vane Roosters

GONE!  3 Bag Patterns - Fab-u-wear Purse, Triple Square Scrap Bags and Having It All Satchel

GONE! A whole passel of quilt patterns - Little Charmer by Karen Comstock; Bound to the Prairie and Charm Bracelet, both from University Moda; Flying Squares from Cobblestone Quilts; Homeward Bound by Bloom Creek; 24 Batiks by Jackie Robinson; Snappy Scrappy Stars by Augusta Cole; Confetti Stars by Atkinson Designs; Strippy Stars by Prairie Hands Pattern Co; Little Christmas by Donna French Collins; Western Star by Laundry Basket Quilts; Cranberry Sparkle by Lynette Jensen

FABRIC:

GONE! Five 1/8 cuts of batiks - beautiful, they are too hard to hand quilt through

GONE - Assorted fabrics - fat quarters of the green with multicolored pins and the light blue stars and stripes, just under 1/2 yard of the golden stars, 9"x36" of the red and white houses/hearts/stars/baskets and scrap sizes of the floral on gingham

GONE! Any Laurel Birch fans out there? 23" of her Holiday Celebrations (sorry about the shadow at the top)

BOOKS:

GONE! Do you like to make pillows and cushions?

GONE! Are you itching to try curves?

GONE! Something simple (Country Weekend Patchwork Quilts) and something not-so-simple (Feathered Star Quilts)

I'll be back soon to actually blog - share what's been happening in my life (a lot), and photos of what I kept from the auction.  I've also done a tiny bit of hand quilting lately, working on a quilt for MY BED.  Can you believe it?

It's good to be back.

Disappearing Act

It's been over two weeks.  A lot has been happening.  I just haven't found a moment to write.

I had a nasty cold that knocked me on my keister.

We had a major project at work that had me working long hours.

And my mother-in-law is in the hospital.  It isn't good.  "There's nothing more we can do" and "hospice" are the words coming out of the doctors' mouths.  I can barely hear them because inside, I am screaming "NO!"

She is in constant pain as her body betrays her, so the right thing to do is to pray for comfort for her in her last days, and peaceful acceptance for the rest of us.  My mind knows that.  But my selfish heart wants her to keep fighting. Her children need her.  MY children need her.  I need her.  For the 19.5 years that I have known her, she has been a rock, someone you could always go to for wise advice or a listening ear or to take action when action needed taking.  She is the glue that holds the generations together.  When she is gone, there is going to be such an enormous, ugly gash torn out of the fabric of our lives.  I can't even conceive of how our lives will change - not the day to day movements, but the foundation on which our family existence sits.

We dropped everything and went up to Pennsylvania to see her for 5 days last week. I brought with me the "Chicken Soup" prayer quilt I had started for her last time she was in the hospital a year and a half ago, but never finished. (I'm not going to restate the symbolism or the process for this quilt, but you can read about it at that link if you care to.)

I had tried to do some free motion quilting on it and hated it, so put it aside when she got better.  When she went into the hospital this time, I pulled it out and frantically started pulling out all those ugly stitches to put in the kind I know, the kind that soothe me, the kind that allow me to say a little prayer with each pinch of fabric.

When we got to the hospital, I laid the unfinished quilt over her, and she raised her head, smiled, and said, "Plaids."

I chose the homespun plaids and stripes because they remind me so much of her.  No nonsense. Sturdy.  Useful.  Nearly every shirt I see her wear is a plaid or a stripe, as is much of her furniture.  She kept the quilt over her in the hospital, and I worked on it while I visited her.  But then I realized, as slow as I quilt, I'm not going to finish it in time.

When we came home, I brought it with me to attach a binding, and I'm sending the unfinished quilt back up there to her.  The prayers are still in it, even if all the stitches aren't.

Meanwhile, the day to day movements of our lives continue.  Valentine's Day. I didn't think much about it until the kids came home buzzing about it yesterday.  I refuse to buy anything, but here was a good opportunity to use up some of that Halloween candy that lingers in my home.  The kids missed the bus, but they finished their Valentines - Dum Dum Butterflies and Pixie Stix Cupid's Arrows.

Plus, I stayed up late last night to make my 3 Valentines some mini cheescakes.  No photos yet because I need to buy some fruit to garnish the top.

Tomorrow is the last day that the Blankie Depot is accepting quilts for Hurricane Sandy relief.  I got three more in the mail this week that my guild helped to finish

Plus, the Star Quilters Guild in Roanoke, VA got 3 in the mail.

Same border, but this is a different quilt!

I still have about 5 tops that I have finished but haven't quilted yet.  I'll get them done eventually and send them to eQuilter Quilt Relief - 5000 Quilts, as they are still accepting donations.  THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of you who contributed.  Check your mailbox in the weeks to come for a little something from me.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.  Oh, and I did find the time to send the giveaway winnings out - the winners were Vivian from NC (no blog) who won the book and Jane from Jane's Fabrics and Quilts, who won the scraps in the polka dot Chinese takeout container.

Still have Dresdens on the brain

Have you seen the great stuff coming out of this Dare to Dresden blog hop?  My day was last Friday (be sure to visit that post if you missed it, as there is a giveaway!), but I've been so inspired that I completed another Dresden project today.  A friend and her son watched my kids a week and a half ago when I had to work on a Sunday and my husband was out of town.  I wanted to give her something as a thank you gift, but what?  A co-worker suggested that I make her something.  I have no idea what she would like, but I had these leftover dresden wedges and a pillow form, so...
TA-DA!!

pillow is 12" x 18"

How do people get good photos of their hand stitches???

 Envelope style back with my little label

I like it, so I hope she will, too.  Machine pieced, but hand appliqued and hand quilted.  My only real criticism of it is that I should have lined the center circle as some of the dots and stripes show through from the ends of the wedges underneath, but whatever.  This pillow plus a thank you card with two coupons for free homemade ice cream at the shop in town should suffice, don't you think?

Work is kicking my butt.  Seriously.  I was on the verge of tears all day long.  A karate class and some time hand quilting and I feel almost human again.  Now for some restorative sleep before tomorrow, which I already know will be another hectic day.  I just hope to have time to do some hopping, as I haven't visited any of this week's blogs; have you?

Dare to Dresden & Giveaway

I had to join this blog hop - DRESDENS!  I've loved them since the first time I laid eyes on them!  Thank you to our cheerleaders, Mdm Samm and Christine, for organizing this.  I am honored to share my day with all these talented folks:

Gingersnap Quilts

Busy Bee Quilts

She Sews the Blues

Traveling Quilter

Grand Mama's Stories

Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio

Sew at Home Mummy

The Slow Quilter

Pig Tales and Quilts

Annie Oak Design

Jane's Fabrics & Quilts

Tea Time Creations

Mo Broker My Creative Side

Just Let Me Quilt

Words and Stitches

Just Keep Swimming

Sew Many Yarns

Sowing Stitches

Jane's Quilting

My Patchwork Life (me!)

2muchfun

Pumpkin Patch Quilter

Quilt Monster in my Closet

OK, back to me and my love affair with Dresden Plates.  It started about 8 years ago when my guild had a workshop to make stack and whack Dresden Plates from a single fabric.  I loved the variety of plates we could get from just one fun print, and I made a quilt for my younger sister for her college graduation.  I love that when I visit her now, I get to sleep under it.  I quilted the words "MY SISTER, MY FRIEND" in the yellow border around the center plate, so that's what the quilt is called.

This photo is from back before I added the binding. I really need to get better photos of my quilts!  Hand quilted. 

Next, I got excited about plaids and stripes and homespuns, so I made a Plaid Dresden for my twin sister's vacation home in the New Hampshire woods.  Unfortunately, that was two years ago and it is still just a top, not a quilt, but it is on the short list for quilts to finish.

forgive the wrinkles...

For this blog hop, I wanted to make several projects.  First, a Dresden Plate Color Wheel clock for my office.  I fear that I am a bit color challenged - it took me FOREVER to pick out the 12 fabrics for the color wheel.  I finally just said ENOUGH and stuck with whatever was on my ironing board at the time. Not perfect, but they would do.  I got it stitched down and wouldn't you know, I BROKE the clock that I was going to use!  ARGH!  But then I found a clock kit in my sewing room (there are benefits to being a hoarder who buys things on sale just in case I'll need them some day), and managed to make a clock anyway.  Again, it isn't quite what I had in mind, but it'll do.

There are corner tabs on the back to hang it...

...but for now, I just have it sitting on my mantle in my office. 

Then I found a stack of 5" charm squares of polka dots and stripes that I had pulled out to make something for myself.  Aha!  A Dresden Plate pillow!  I cut out all the pieces and realized there was still quite a bit of each of those charm squares left after those first cuts.  I decided to cut baby Dresden pieces from the leftover scraps.  They were so cute, I forgot all about the pillow and sewed them together and made a bib, backed with a green knit from a favorite t-shirt that I ruined with a bleach spot the very first time I washed it.  It seems every third woman in my life is pregnant so I'll have plenty of options when it comes to giving this away.

Speaking of giving away...I've been trying to straighten things up in my sewing room, and I've come to the conclusion that it just isn't going to look neat until there is less stuff down there.  Wanna help me out and take some of it off my hands?  I have two things to give away:

1) Victoria Findlay Wolfe's new book, 15 Minutes of Play: Improvisational Quilts - I bought a copy for myself, and then my mom bought me a copy for Christmas.  I was tempted to keep both copies - it's that good! - but no, I'll share.

2) Assorted scraps - I have so many beloved scraps that they are overflowing every scrap bin and bag that I have.  I've stuffed these into this cute Chinese take-out container.

What's inside?

An eclectic mix of scraps of various sizes - fun, fun, fun!

It's easy to enter to win - leave a comment letting me know which giveaway you'd like to be entered to win, either BOOK or SCRAPS or BOTH.  I'll get some computer generated help to choose random winners on February 1.  I'll ship anywhere in the world.  Until then, enjoy the hop!

Coming soon! (and Sandy Quilts update)

View from my porch yesterday evening as we had our first real snow of the year. 

I've been so remiss about blogging lately - not posting regularly, but more importantly, not reading my favorite blogs to see how my fellow quilters are and what they are up to!  Sunday, I hope to change that.  I'll be at the airport for quite a few hours for work, meeting flights and getting some visiting students on shuttles to campus, so in my down time, I plan to enjoy the free wi-fi and see what you all have been doing.

In the meantime, I've done a little working on Sandy quilts, a little pleasure reading (The Giving Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini), and a little preparing for an upcoming blog hop.

Yup, that's right, I signed up for a blog hop!  I discovered them in September during the Dots on Dots Blog hop - I am crazy about dots and have been trying to add more to my stash. Then, in October, Leafs Me Happy caught my eye, followed by the fun Wicked Blog Hop.  I skipped the Coin Purses and Pillows hops, but In Your Words just consumed a good half hour of each of my days for the last week and a half.  Next up is Dare to Dresden, and Quilter Kathy recommended that I join in since I was working on a Dresden project anyway. Besides, that's another opportunity to have a giveaway, and as I've been trying to keep my sewing room a bit neater these days, I've discovered I have way too much stuff!  That settled it, I'm in!

Be sure to come back next Friday, January 25 to see my Dresdens, past and present, and to enter for a chance to win a giveaway that will include not just fabric, but also a book by a favorite quilter.

SANDY UPDATE:
Three more of our Disappearing 4-patch quilts have been received by Blankie Depot this week. Hillary, the President of Blankie Depot wrote on Thursday:

Hi Erin,

Box #2 arrived this morning.  The smaller quilt will head to the labor & delivery dept of Riverview Med Center and the large blanket is heading to Atlantic City.

Thanks so much, where do you find the time??!!

Hugs,

Hillary

Of course, I wrote back to let her know that I have LOTS of help.  Thanks, everyone!  By the way, the first quilt she received was assembled, quilted and then bound by three separate members of my quilt guild - I love you guys!  And the little quilt she mentioned that is going to the labor and delivery department, that's the one you made and quilted, Becki - you rock!  

My newest hero, Margi, assembled and quilted the bedsized quilt that is headed to Atlantic City.  She's working on number 2 right now.

Great job, Margie!  Thanks!

Anita in MI, a steady supporter in this project, completed her 3rd beautiful quilt for us last weekend after a nasty bout with the cold - glad you are feeling better, Anita.  It is backed with cozy flannel donated by Becki in PA - great idea!

Great job, Anita!  Thanks!

The Star Quilt Guild in Roanoke just wrote to let me know they finished assembling the 3 sets of blocks I sent them, and that they are on the way to the quilter's.  Julia K in my guild just dropped off the top that she assembled.

Becki in PA and I have both been sending assembled tops to Kelly in TX who has been quilting for us.

One of our quilts on Kelly's longarm - I think we've sent her SIX! 

And just yesterday, Gail C in my guild volunteered to quilt a couple for us.  After already quilting another one for us that Carolyn H in my guild assembled.  So, yes, Hillary, I have LOTS OF WONDERFUL HELP!  Thank you, everyone!

Success!

I've been out of town, sequestered in a windowless conference room for 11 hours a day, 2 days in a row, with 10 of my colleagues interviewing candidates for an open position at my university.  It was an exhausting, yet intellectually stimulating exercise, and I left with even greater respect and affection for my colleagues.  And I left energized and excited by the finalists we selected to bring to campus.  But I was also ITCHING to sew!

I brought a quilt to work on, but never made a stitch.  Instead, it just adorned my hotel room bed and kept me cozy warm the two nights I had to spend away from home.  I also brought my GFG hexies out of retirement.  I did end up taking a few stitches during breaks on day two, and managed to get one flower done and attached to another.

I made the one on the left yesterday, and attached it to the one on the right that was probably made 4 or 5 years ago. 

But when I got home, I realized the way I put them together won't work with what I have together already.  Note to self - add just one flower at a time to the whole.

Looks washed out in the sun, but lots of scrappy color in this quilt top. 

I got home very late last night, and enjoyed sleeping in this morning as my kids were spending the weekend at a friend's house in my absence.  But my Cub Scout meeting was this afternoon, and I had to prepare.  I spent my entire morning and early afternoon measuring, cutting and drilling to prepare for our woodworking project.  I didn't have time to make a prototype - I just had to hope that I had thought of everything and that it would come together.

Spoon basketball.  I adapted a plan I found online to make these. 

And it did!  The boys were thrilled with their projects, and spent a bit of time trying them out.

Now, the kids are in bed, I have a cup of tea and my new copy of Jennifer Chiaverini's The Giving Quilt, and I'm going to enjoy a bit of down time.  The weekend was busy and full of interactions with other people, but everything about it was a resounding success!