August 29, 2013

I have not been very good about updating.  Sometimes time just flies when you are having fun and some things just do not get done!  After much thought, I decided after 18 years being American Patchwork & Quilting's technical editor that it was probably time to devote more time to home and family and I let the editors know last year that April 30 would be my last day of working for them.  It was a great ride and I loved every minute, the people I worked with were great, I learned a lot about magazines and quilting.  Met some great people and have great memories of the job.  I also love to design and make quilts so leaving them will allow me more time to do my quilting.

I just finished a wall hanging by Laundry Basket Quilts  and so happy to have it finished before Fall arrives.  Usually I finish something way past the season that it is intended to be hung.

I cannot believe that I have not posted since Easter.  Now that is pretty bad.  Maybe my New Years resolution will be to keep this blog up-to-date.
2012 was a busy year and I expect 2013 to be no different.
I have not been making quilts as much as I have in the past years, but I am hoping to finally finish quilting a Halloween quilt that I worked on most of 2012.  It sits waiting for me to get back to the machine and finish it.  I think I have the binding made, if I can find it.
Last Fall we made a trip to Iowa to see friends and family.  I was so happy to be able to see my friend, Carolyn's barn boards on their barn. They look so pretty and I know any one passing by on the road will appreciate them.

We also went to visit friends in the North Georgia mountains.  My friend, Alice taught me several new things using mixed media and fabric.  I had such a good time and the men had plenty of time to visit, watch football and look at the beautiful outdoor scenery while we played in her studio.

This was made using paper, fabric, stamps, machine stitching

The card is also made with machine stitching, and anything you can think of to decorate the card.

This is a post card that I made for friends who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary

Every Christmas I hang the wonderful antique quilt that my husband discovered at a garage sale a few years ago.    I can find the cotton seeds in the batting, so it is quite old.  I just love it and I couldn't resist taking the picture that also included Georgia who could be guarding the quilt?

The church quilting group that I belong to had a wonderful luncheon.  Gail hosted the party, the food was potluck and everything delicious. They are a good group of women.

 The last thing I made in December was a little bag for the 6 year old granddaughter.  I found the directions on line after someone in the guild told me about making bags using tape measures (metal) for closures.  Quite a neat trick and I intend to make several more, only larger.  Natalie loves ladybugs and seemed an appropriate theme for the bag.

As January begins, my plan is to start making things.  Now if I can get past the tax season and still squeeze in some crafting and quilting I should be able to get something accomplished.  I have a zillion ideas of things to make, just need to put them to fabric.

Easter is over and I have not been keepimg up with the calendar. It's time I catch up with what is happening.

I'll begin with Easter and go backwards a bit to catch up with happenings from the beginning of 2012.  It is hard to believe that April is here and going fast.  Easter was beautiful in Georgia this year.  The flowers have been blooming for almost a month.  Our weather has been as strange as most of the country and we are now spoiled by having only a tiny bit of winter.  I wonder what summer holds for us.  Steven and his family celebrated Easter with us.

Spring break was last week and the temperature was in the 80's.  The children and I enjoyed the pool for three days until we had a cold snap.  Drex and I got to have our pictures taken too.

Glenn's children were looking good in Texas.  Taylor will be graduating from high school in June, so we have a trip in our future to attend the ceremony.  This is not an Easter picture of Cathy's family, but until I have one, this will work.  They all look good standing on the old bridge!  But not too springy

Cathy's daughter, Olivia played in the high school tennis finals today and took second place and we are very proud of her.

I have been sewing some this year, but not as much as I would like.  My church's Quilt for Christ quilting group is having a block exchange.  I wish that I could attend more often, but when I have a free Thursday morning I stop in once in a "blue moon".  I was lucky to be included in the block exchange.  They are making the Disappearing Nine Patch block.  It's very interesting how a plain Nine Patch can become so different when it is cut up and resewn.

I have all my Nine Patch blocks made, but still need to cut them up and resew them.  But I will get to that soon.  We'll get together and exchange with everyone else.  I am anxious to see what colors others used to go with the focus fabric. (The darker color).
 I did sew up a tiny basket that is in Better Homes and Gardens, "All Small" book that is now available.  I did the technical editing on many of the projects and when I worked on this one, I decided that I just had to make one for myself.  Isn't it just too cute!

I am slowly making Halloween quilt blocks for a new quilt that I am designing.  Perhaps I'll get them all made before Halloween.  I have eight done so far.  I couldn't settle on a block design and have a few others laying around that just didn't make me happy until I found one I liked.  I have seven Halloween quilts and I have eight grandchildren, so need one more quilt so that they all can have one.
In February I went to a Creative Hands retreat that Alice Berg (Little Quilts) put together with two other teachers.  We went to a lodge in the north Georgia mountains and for February we had amazing weather.  Never even needed a jacket.  But we were so busy we hardly stepped outside.  One of the things that I learned to do was to draw Zentangles.  It is an extremely relaxing process and I am no artist, but even I could draw the tangles.

This was my first full drawing and it amazes me just to know that I actually did it myself.  I need to spend more time drawing and relaxing!  I showed Austin, who is 11, last week how to draw different tangles and let him use my book and he really picked it up quickly.  I had bought him the pen, pencil and other things he needed and he did a fantastic drawing of his hand filled with tangle drawings.

I also took jewelry making while on the retreat.  I found it was not my cup of tea, but I did complete my necklace and I'm sure it will be the one and only thing I ever make again with pliers.  My poor thumbs did not like doing the work.
I also learned to do collage taught by Alice and that was fun playing with scissors, paint, and glue.  It was a wild time in the room with papers flying everywhere.  Mine is living in my studio,

It is another fun thing that I would like to do more often.  I imagine my granddaughters would like decorating things with this process.
In February, Drex got to fill in for Steven and go to Natalie's kindergarten class for Valentine's Day.  They never had days for Dad's when our children were in kindergarten, so this was a "first time" for him and he had a ball.  Natalie read him stories and they had doughnuts and he had such a nice time.  It looked like Natalie did as well.

That pretty well covers everything that has happened so far this year.  There are always small things going on here and there, but I don't have pictures of them.

Christmas is almost here and it is time for me to write about this past year.

 I finally completed the jelly roll quilt, "Dreams and Wishes".  The colors were not my favorite, but I won the jelly roll and 5" squares at my quilt guild.  It took me a while to design something that I thought would show off the colors as well as making them more interesting.

 

 

 I took a class years ago with Terry Thompson and did get three 36" blocks appliqued over the years.  But I needed the fourth one to complete the set.  I have saved the fabrics over the years and it's a wonder they didn't either fade or rot, but I found them still in perfect condition and finally drafted the last block to go into the set.  It's not easy finding patterns that can be enlarged to be a 36" block.  I do hope to have the fourth one finished within 6 months and maybe by Christmas 2012 there will be a quilt hanging.


We had our children and their families meet us at Seagrove Beach in Florida in June after everyone was out of school to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary.  We had a wonderful time just watching everyone enjoy the sun, beach and sand.

Remember the tiny little kitten we got last August 2010--well she got HUGE.  Hanging over a bit on my window sill,  She likes walking on my computer and opening new programs to surprise me when I come back to work.  Georgia believes she owns the house.

We had a great trip to the Black Hills and Colorado in September.

Mount Rushmore

In October we traveled to Iowa to be with my family for our niece's daughter's wedding.  The last time we are with my family was 2010 for my oldest brother's funeral.  This was a joy to be able to be in Iowa for a happy occasion.  It was his granddaughter who was married so it was sad that he never got to enjoy the wedding.

THANKSGIVING--we had a houseful.  Our oldest son and children and our daughter's family made the trip from Texas to celebrate Thanksgiving with us, our son and his family who live about 4 miles from our home and our daughter-in-law's mother.  (yes, there is some Christmas showing.)  I decorated before Thanksgiving because the Texas families never see Christmas at our house.

With 15 people, there was not enough room at the big table.  The four youngest sat at a small table beside the rest of us.  The two blonds belong to our youngest son and the dark haired to our oldest son. 

Our three children catch up with each other.

I love the tinsel tree which is on lone from Steven who pulled it out of our neighbor's trash when he was in 2nd grade inOklahoma City.  Has our first angel topper on it which we bought in California 1964!  I refinished the old oak desk and it holds old books and my Mom's Christmas post cards she received when she was a child in 1913.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

 

 

May happenings

 May 13 was Drex and my 50th wedding anniversary.  Happened to be Friday the 13th this year but 13 has always been a lucky number for us!  This picture was taken on Mother's Day, but was only five days before our anniversary.

Our children and grandchildren gave the altar flowers at our church in honor of our anniversary.   We brought them home to enjoy after church services.  It was the nicest gift.

I began this quilt about a month ago.  It was actually a top within a week and a half after I began.  It's half top and half a quilt now.  Just lays on my sewing machine table waiting to be finished machine quilted.  Seems there have been other things happening that needed more attention.

This is taken on Mother's Day again.  The two Georgia grandchildren.  Natalie has her last day of PreK tomorrow and then she'll soon be on to kindergarten in the fall.  How the time flies!  Austin will be going into 5th grade.  Do not know how they grew so fast.  I must get pictures of the Texas grandchildren posted soon.  We'll all be celebrating our anniversary together at the beach this summer.

Remember we got a 3 week old kitten in August, so tiny I could hold her in one hand.  Guess what, she grew!  Why she ever decided that she needed to be in my in-basket I don't know, but she put herself there.  She managed to remove herself after a nap.

April is going fast

Drex and I went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens last week to see what was blooming.  There was a beautiful array of tulips.  We were probably a week late for their full blooming, but they were still gorgeous.  The rose garden was magnificent and the bees were enjoying the feast.

We were lucky to see most of the orchid display, but it was being taken down that day.  We did come home with two beautiful plants because as they took the orchids down, they had them for sale.

We came home with this beauty for $12.

The Easter egg tree is up for Easter with my miniature Easter basket quilt under it

I am working on a red and white quilt to hang in our great room behind the new red chairs.  I started on it a week ago today and the pieces are being sewn together and hopefully by the weekend I can baste it and begin to machine quilt.