Reasons to smile

I'm afraid I don't have any quilty news to share. My life has been consumed by my job lately - I have 184 high school seniors coming to campus for a 3 day scholarship competition next week from all over the country & beyond (AK, Costa Rica and France included!) and the coordination of this effort has eaten up every spare moment. I haven't even been able to go to karate!

Without quilting and without karate and without getting to spend much time with my family, it can sometimes seem like I have no reason to smile. But I do! First, when I heard the kids' alarm clock this morning, I gave them the usual 10 minutes or so of waking up time, and then went up to make sure they were getting dressed. Not only were they getting dressed, they were getting dressed up - just because!

I love my kids!

And then, there's this big, fun auction this Saturday. My mom and I went last year and had a ball, and actually came home with quite a haul.

I invited her to come with me this year, and not only is she coming, but she's coming tonight for a sleepover, too!

I love my mom!

So, even on the days when I don't love my JOB, there are plenty of other things in my life for me to love. Have a happy Friday, everyone, and hopefully, I'll have something quilty to post by the time the weekend is over.

Productivity strikes!

I've been in a bit of a lazy rut lately, not getting much sewing done. Instead, my few waking hours at home have found me with a book in hand and tea by my side, sometimes reading, sometimes dozing. I guess, when your body has reached its limit, it just shuts itself down. My mind, unfortunately, was not on board with this relax and rejuvenate plan, so I've been feeling guilty about not getting anything done.

The good news is, I am over the hump! My husband's team lost on Friday night, and after going to work on Saturday morning, and then to my son's basketball game, I came home and spent the afternoon in bed reading and napping and snacking and generally just being a bum. But Sunday was a whole different story. I woke up on a mission, and had our taxes filed before 9 AM, and all the bathrooms cleaned before 11. I did dishes, two loads of laundry, swept the entire first floor, put another row of stitches in the border of my Bright Idea quilt while watching another episode of Rosemary and Thyme, helped my sons clean/purge their room while preparing two boxes for Goodwill and one for the dump, and finally, I got my Strips and Scrap-plique top together.

(ignore the dirty window and dying plant - I told you I've been lazy lately!)

I am trying for a frayed, dimensional look to the flowers and leaves and vine, so I sewed them all down roughly (very roughly!) one quarter inch in, and am now in the process of snipping the edges of applique pieces (think rag quilt) before I throw it in the wash to see what happens. If it works the way I want, great! I'll sandwich it and hand quilt it. If it doesn't work, I'll pull the applique off and try something else, but that probably means it will get relegated to the dark recesses of my closet for a time while I get over my disappointment and frustration. Let's hope it frays up the way I want.

All the naps and reading were nice while they lasted, but I'm glad to have my energy back, if for no reason other than to keep up with these two (last weekend they made sock puppets - fun, fun, fun!).

Alive and kicking!

I'm still here, life has just gotten in the way of quilting and blogging. I am buried in work



and I'm cheering on my husband's basketball team, which is playing in the conference tournament tonight in a rematch of last year's championship game.



Hopefully, I'll be watching basketball all weekend as they win tonight, then tomorrow night, and finally the championship game on Sunday. But I sure do miss my quilting time...


Sew a little extra for me, will ya?

Life is getting back to normal

First of all, there is SUN! The kids are out playing on the swings - there's nothing better than looking out your window and seeing your kids outside having fun!

Jason and I spent some time earlier this week making valentines for his class (I know we were late, but they didn't have school for two and a half weeks because of snow!). He didn't want to make cards, so we made 1" square valentine cubes out of construction paper and tape, each with a Hershey's kiss inside. That was fun, and a geometry lesson to boot.



Today, I finally got some patches sewn onto Jason's and my karate uniforms. As much as I like to sew quilts, I abhor sewing on patches. Wouldn't you know that our two main activities, karate and cub scouts, have tons of patches!


And while I've made some progress on my Strips and Scrap-plique quilt, I'm not ready for photos. I'm trying a new technique that will require laundering before I know if it works or not. Hopefully it will, and I can take a photo later this weekend.

I did find the time to make a House Block for Bumble Beans's project. It took me forever because I am lousy at following directions and spent quite a bit of time unsewing. I finally tweaked the pattern a bit - I hope you don't mind, V.

And look, I put myself in the block!



Now I'm off to visit an old quilting friend who moved away and then to watch my hunband's team kick some Eastern Mennonite University butt! Enjoy your day!

Sewing to unwind

Last night, I disappeared into my sewing studio to create. I was wound up from a fantastic, yet frustrating, basketball game, and just needed to unwind. I have plenty of ongoing projects to work on, but there was black thread in the machine and I was in the mood to do something new and unstructured, so i just started sewing strips together and cutting out freehand flowers and leaves.

Here's the quilt I had in mind as inspiration:

I don't know whose quilt this is - I must have seen it online somewhere and saved it for inspiration. If it is yours, please let me know, so I can give credit where credit is due. If it is yours and you want me to remove it from my blog, please let me know and I will gladly. I think it is wonderful, though, don't you?

Anyway, this picture is saved on my laptop, which I had left at work, so I didn't have the photo to use as a guide last night, just my faulty memory. Here's what I came up with: (note that nothing is sewn together besides the strips; everything is just laid on top of a folded piece of fabric on the floor)

I finally left it there last night and went to bed to read for a while. Today, of course, I am exhausted from only getting 5 hours of sleep, but I'm curious to see how I feel about it when I get home tonight. What do you think - is it worth pursuing? I think I like the three columns of strips like the inspiration quilt, how about you? What about the flowers - I couldn't remember how the original was made, which is why I made them the way I did, but then I was at a loss as to how to place the leaves. Also, I was thinking that the applique and the scrappy columns would not go from end to end, but they do in the inspiration quilt. Which do you prefer?

If I follow through and make this into a quilt, I'm thinking of calling it "Stripes and Scrap-plique".

Adventures in shopping

Even though it was Saturday, I woke up at 5:45 AM and couldn't go back to sleep. So I hopped out of bed and paid bills for the month. Imagine my delight when I discovered that I had paid my credit card bill twice last month, so there was a credit! I can't have that now, can I? They aren't about to send me a refund. So, on my way to the airport to meet students that I was flying in from all over the country to visit the University where I work, I made a slight detour to visit a quilt shop. My QUICK QUARTER tool had broken last week, and I needed a replacement. (Do you use one of those to make half-square triangle blocks? I love it, and have used it regularly since the day I bought my first one 6 or 7 years ago.)

Anyway, I walked in the store, and the notions were right there, front and center. I found what I needed within 20 seconds of entering the store, which is both good, and not so good. I didn't want to turn around and leave with my purchase without actually getting to browse! So, I started my first pass around the store, admiring fabrics, but being oh-so-good about not buying anything. Until I hit the sale rack. A bright paisley nearly jumped off the rack and into my arms. But it was on sale, and I had a credit on my card, so two yards of bright paisley packed its bags to come live with me.

However, that fabric peeked outside and saw the snow and the brisk winter wind and pleaded with me to pick up another fabric for it to huddle together with on the journey back to my house. I am a sucker for a pleading paisley, but I am trying to be fiscally responsible, so I asked myself, "What do I really need?" (I'm using the term "need" loosely.) And it hit me, I've been wanting to make a quilt with a black background, so I headed over to the black section. Of course, none of that was on sale, but I did find a mottled black that I liked, so three yards of that wrapped itself around the paisley to keep it safe and warm. On my last pass through the store (you don't just look at everything once, do you?), another sale print sidled up to me suggestively, and I carried it to the cutting table, but I had an attack of conscience while waiting my turn for cutting, so I took it back. I could hearing it crying dejectedly all the way through cutting and check out and out the door.

At the end of the day, though, I am happy to report that my purchases didn't even half the credit on my card - I am the picture of restraint! And here is a picture of my purchases:


Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! I have to work, but I am determined to do it with a smile on my face and a bounce in my step, because I have a whole family of valentines waiting for me at home at the end of the day. May your days be as blessed as mine!

Don't you love the fair?

I enter a quilt in the County Fair every year, not with any illusions of winning anything, (although I did get Honorable Mention one year with this mini quilt that is now hanging in my office on a WalMart necklace)

but to get feedback from someone other than my friends, who are wonderfully supportive and probably wouldn't be as frank about the things I need to work on as they could be. I also love going to quilt shows with lots of quilts, and I can't really expect others to put their quilts in if I'm not brave enough to put mine in. Anyway, Ithink I know which quilt I'll be entering in the County Fair this year:

I just love it! I finished putting on the binding last night. I used to hate binding, but I think that was before I realized that I could sew binding and watch movies at the same time. It took four episodes of "Rosemary & Thyme", but it wasn't nearly the onerous activity I always assume it will be.

And speaking of fairs, I learned yesterday that Earlene Fowler has a new Benni Harper book due out in May, State Fair.

You can bet I'll be buying it - I have the rest of the series. I've been waiting very patiently, I think. It is too bad that it takes her a year to write these books, because it only takes me a day or two to read them!