Pumpkins

So hard to see the second from left's pumpkin- It's Sally from Nightmare before Christmas. :)
We carved pumpkins, ate candy corn and popcorn balls and watched the Nightmare before Christmas with Jack the Pumpkin King... we are so not the normal Girl Scout troop huh??? I am so going to miss this girls next year.

Such a bad blogger :(

I've been keeping busy with insurance nonsense all week. Can't go quilt in the detached garage because the insurance people will call hubby at work if they don't get me....but the kids are fine a week later thank God. The idiot was 3 times the legal limit- what a jerk.

But I've been making stars for another 36 patch star quilt :) and working on the Cyber Quilters mystery. Oh and my cathedral windows is starting to look great working on the second half of a king sized blanket ( not really a quilt - no 3 layers-I know)

Tonight is Girl Scouts, the annual carving of our pumpkins- hopefully tonight I can load a pic to this blog for you to see :)

My jelly rolls have been shipped with a new smaller cutting mat that I'm going to try and use on the ironing board - my back is killing me again after 30 minutes of cutting :( I'm too young to feel this old........ but if it keeps up I might consider the surgery they're yammering for me to do- will be not quilting for a few months but if it helps......we'll see.

Good luck to Paula's Red Sox they may just sweep the Rockies in 4 tonight

Just before the no buy deadline :P

I went and ordered some jelly roll type strips from Connecting Threads.
Yep I was talking to someone from guild and they raved that the fabric was nice for the price ( way better than Joann's and Hancocks) So what's a girl to do???
I've been looking at Bonnie's Weedwacker quilt and thought how lovely it would be in fall colors. Yes I know fall is upon us now and I'll never get it done this fall but next year my sister in law turns 40 ( yep a baby ) and she wants a fall colored quilt. So of course I'll need to "test" the pattern to see if it's something I want to do in a large quilts so I figured what the heck ....I also got a thing to smooth out the cutting mats...mine have been taking a beating lately even though the blades are changed regularly.....and as I cut more and more fabric for different quilts in progress now, I have been cutting both 2 1/2 and 2" strips for a truly scrappy quilt of many colors....

Off to take ds for his regular yearly check up- of course his stomach is still bruised and sore from the accident- poor kid. Have my cathedral windows parts to take with me for the wait....

Look Jeanne I won something too :)

I commented the other day on a blog, http://beforethefaceofgod.blogspot.com, to win a book called A Godward Life, a book on short essays on God. I have a book by Max Lucado in my console of the truck for extra spare minutes waiting that I read....and I've read all of those more than once.So these will be new ones for me. And we all can use some new lessons in life.

Lately my new lesson is Patience- those who know me well, know that Patience is not one of my better virtues- I want it and I want it now! But dealing with car insurance companies is teaching me patience.

On a quilty note, I finally loaded a quilt to the frame yesterday and cleaned and oiled the juki so now that I've spoken to 3 different parts of Allstate this morning I think that I can actually go out and quilt for awhile today :) what I should be doing is cleaning this mess up as everything is piled high on the dining room table and lasagna is a meal to sit and eat together :)

Arkansas Crossroads revisited

Paula gave me the name of the block a few weeks ago, thanks Paula :)
And I've been making blocks as a leader ender project- one of many leader ender blocks I was doing. and I finally finished the 20th block yesterday and thos morning pieced the top.



One block looks like X's and a 16 patch but when you add all the blocks together,
they turn into a chicklet looking block....



Last night hubby and I got the scare of our lives. We were getting ready to go out and we heard a series of crashes- ending with a loud one. I ran out the door and saw DD's car pushed up onto a small hill at the end of the driveway. A drunk driver hit a street sign, a rock wall taking out a mailbox, another rock wall -still dragging the street sign and hit DD who was 4 feet back from the curb. Meaning he went into private property to hit her. Luckily she and ds are fine but are going for xrays for soreness today. The man told the police that he's one about 20 different medication. Add to the fact that he was drinking. I thank God for thier guardian angel that protected them. The police said if the man hadn't hit all the other objects first, at the rate of speed he was traveling and if dd was even with the end of the driveway, she would have been serverly injuried if not killed. Needless to say no sewing got done last night but I was able to spend time with my babies.

Saturday's Question of the day

How many of you read other people's blogs and

A: order the book or pattern cause you love it too or want to read it?

B: Try to reproduce some of the blocks/quilts you see on other's blogs???

C: Sit and laugh outloud at some of them so that your family is considering commitment to the hospital for the insane?

D: All of the above???

I personally fall under D fyi

It's raining- it's pouring

Not an eventful day at all. Last day of vacation for hubby and we had lunch with dd and one of her friends- they have off campus study hall/lunches as seniors. Then I trimmed some more of the never ending hsts Clap Clap! I'm halfway though #9's color and have #10 all cut ready to go....
Hopefully it will clear up this weekend as my gardens need cleaning out BIG TIME. My project for the week is to pull wall paper off the wall where I sew, get the glue off the wall and prime it. I don't even have to worry about getting paint on the trim as we're going to be replacing it next month. I should get the graph paper out and redo the area with the computer desk, bookcase, printer etc. I have a treadle with a box on top and I really want to move the one I bought off of Paula last year in the house and move this one to the garage till I figure out if I want to redo the cabinet or get a new one......
Last year when I was on a retreat in Lancaster hubby bought what he thought
was a featherweight and it kinda looks like one but I need to send it in for a new wire and plug.....








But pretty cool none the less- I don't know anything about the HomeMark company...does anyone in blog land???

So hubby and I went to see the new George Clooney movie today- I totally enjoyed it.Hubby could take it or leave it. On the way home we got a call from ds hysterical as he thought that dd's cat was run over by a car. It wasn't dd's cat and I did manage to take the remains out of the street - totally gross and nothing a child should see. I do believe it belongs to the little girl on the street but I had my own child to comfort. Cyd Vicious and I watched Batman the Beginning this evening since there's no baseball tonight :( . I'm bored and will try to trim 50 more hsts tonight and make another one of those road to Arkansas variation blocks I posted a few weeks ago and then I think I have enough to make a twin top. We shall see.

Well I'm going to find another movie to watchas the "men of the house" are watching some Ghost Hunters show from the Winchester Mansion in CA I believe the house is in.

More pics from Tuesday's Trip

So my best friend and myself sampled bottles of wine from last year and this year from the winery and it's not just me- the wine is different and not for the better :( Never fear it will be cooking wine. Waste not want not, right?
But my laptop desk came from the container store this morning- really fast for ordering Sat night online imho :). Today was a no sewing /quilting day as it was run around to Trader Joes for dinner and "stuff", the art supply store for dd's homework, the liquor store for a wine I really like,and the reg food store for makings of beef veggie soup for Friday. Tomorrow DD is off from work so I promised I would make a real Sunday type dinner, roast beef and all the trimmings. Any extra meat will be made into soup on Friday :)

I've been going through my quilty books and found Quilts from Grandmother's Flower Garden- so with my new toy, Inklingo, I will seriously look for a project to make.
Like I have nothing else to do-right? What's another UFO amoung friends????

So here's some pics from yesterday's trip to the winery
the first one we've named the God of Wine :)










I just love the look of old wine casks :)




Isn't this iron railing pretty????? Bet it would make a nice quilting pattern.....

A Day with Hubby :)

Hubby and I drove out to Peedler's Village to see the Scarecrow contest winners and hit a local ewinery. Which the winery must have had a bad year as some of the wines didn't taste as good as I remembered. Or maybe our tastes are more refined
hahahahahahahahahaha I doubt it.



So we did some shopping, had luch together, did more shopping- hit the winery on the way home and called it a day. I put the pics in 3 blogs as it was giving me a hard time with all the pics in 1 blog- enjoy..............






A Picasso :)



This one was made by a local winery name Merlot can you go.....lol









I LOVE Life is Good's shirts etc and I needed to replace my hoodie sweatshirt- and look who was outside the store-

A Day with Hubby part 2

A Day with Hubby part 3

Where does the time go???

Isn't she the greatest? I got this in the mail this morning for no good reason at all except my friend Lois wanted to RAK ( Random acts of kindness) me :)
I collect these lovely angels and even gets confused sometimes of which ones I have. And every year I buy 6 for certain friends for the holidays and I always buy the newest ones for the same reason. I got my first angel 5 years ago from a friend when I was diagnosed with cancer- the Angel of Hope.
Now I need to find another one to send to a friend who went for her yearly mamo to find out she has breast cancer. Now I know they're making progress every year on the disease but it is such a very scarey thing for the dr to come in and say "it's cancer." I know I've been there and actually heard it a few times afterwards with the words "it's back"





So one of the groups I am a former member of has decided to make this friend a love quilt to show our support and love for her. Since there are so few of us making blocks we're all making 4- Mel ( over acheiver she is :P) finished hers yesterday while I playing with new toys. But never fear I finished mine today. See - a cute design but lots of pieces.












And that's about all I did today, no reading, no playing. Just these blocks ( 4 of them) oh and a couple loads of laundry. Of cours eall this after I argued with Enterprise rent a car over the rates we were charged for our car I had all weekend. But sometimes it does pay to bitch as I got $47 off the charged price and a free day on another rental in the furture. Hubby just shakes his head.

Speaking of the wonderful man, we went to drop the car off this morning and out to breakfast and he went to clear up some loose ends at work and has the rest of the week off. How cool is that? Not that we're planning any big trips with the kiddies in school but tomorrow we're going to Buck Country PA to Peddlers Village to see the scarecrow display and hit a winery or two. Plus we have to finish the painting and staining from the contruction. And whatever day it rains first we're going to see the new George Clooney movie- well I'll see that and my money is he'll want to see the gorey Resident Evil movie- now don't get me wrong I love a good horror movie as much as the next BUT Resident Evil is a video game that should have stayed a video game from what I saw of the other movies-lol.

Guild meeting tonight and the Red Sox are playing the Indians again tonight- I think the Rockies will be in it but the American League is kinda tough to call.....maybe I can get another flower done or at the very least get some more cathedral window pieces ready for the "window parts"

It's Offically Fall

It's really fall even though the leaves aren't turned yet....
October baseball is going on even without the Yankees :(
We've done our annual apple picking. And after apple picking there's this.....





Which leads to these:





When I moved here 10 years ago one of my friends and neighbors taught me the fine art of making candied apples. Of course she claimed she knew what she was doing (lol). Remember claimed is the key word. Though we made a double batch of 24 apples and I learned never to use the popsickle type sticks that come in the kit you buy in the produce department ( buy lolipop sticks from anywhere that sells them- like Wilton ones) never ever dump the extra syrup down your sink. NEVER! It hardens in there and you need to pay mucho bucks to get a plumber to fix the drains. Making the cost of an apple over $20 each . It is much better to keep your cappichino cup from Starbucks or where ever and dump it in there to harden then dispose of the cup. And that is my public service announcement of the day.

Now though I have another gmfg flower ready to go, I need to hoop my first chocolate stitchery as my sil wants to see this project and we need to figure how much kona we need to dye for the borders to make a nice wall hanging out of our blocks.

On another note, yesterday in Linda's class she had one of these:
http://tinyurl.com/yvr9rz (I have no idea what to do to make it a clickable link-sorry)
and hubby ordered one online this morning with the logic it would be cheaper even with shipping than letting me loose in the container store- silly man.

Playing with Inklingo

So like a small child the day after Christmas I NEEDED play with my new toys *VBG* much to Santa's dismay. After much playing with the printer to find the custom setting of the size of paper, I gave up. Yep we found them but instead of letting us put in let's say 5x5" they want %. Now granted I swore in high school I would never use any of the math we were learning except business math- I passed algebra by the skin of my teeth and promptly forgot most of what I knew the minute I got my diploma :(. So forget the % feature I asked for a new printer for Christmas - Santa rolled his eyes kinda like last night.

So I took some 10 1/2" scraps and printed some hexagons and managed to figure I can get 6 per page at that size. I did my ink test just like Monkey said too. And started playing. I managed to get one done before the Grinch started yapping I need to make candy apples for the bday party for my oldest niece ( the one in the apple pics from the other day) So I PROMISED that as soon as I made my flower and blogged I would be a good "wifey/aunt" and stop playing and go do my grown up responsibilities






Can you see the light lines printed on the back of the fabric??? If not, click on pic.





I can see this is going to be addicting and will to show some great restraint if I want to get anything done....you really need this toy!!!

Quilted Diamonds with Linda Franz

Is this the most amazing quilt you ever saw? I thought the Dear Jane quilts were great ( not that I wanted to make one) but all those teeny tiny pieces all HAND PIECED and HAND QUILTED. One day- maybe.

Yesterday Linda Franz was the speaker at our local guild meeting. And she had an amazing lecture and slide show. Really amazing. And I got to see some of Jeanne's from Luvs2stitch's work. :) Very nice Jeanne. I need alot of practice to make my stitches smaller for these pieces. But we do try.





Today was the guild workshop and of course I signed up right away and up till last week we thought I was getting a private lesson but lots of talk from myself and members we managed to get the class up to 12 people which though it sounds small was a perfect sizes as we all had our own card tables to work at and room to spead out. You know how that happens...lol. Linda was a great teacher and I so enjoyed myself. I am so glad I took this class! I never thought that I would actually do the diamonds all those small pieces! Lots and lots of small pieces. But I promised my self I would try.




And try I did. Though the class was off track alot of the day and poor Linda thought we wouldn't get through it all we worked through and got it all covered. And look who was the only one to finish a diamond??? And look Monkey is checking it out. I never did hear the critique.....




Right before we left Russ, Linda's ,wonderful husband took a pic of Linda, Monkey and Myself together. Thank you Russ. And Russ, I did manage to come home with Inklingo 3 even after all the times you packed it away on me.

Now my hubby was just shaking his head as I went on and on about what fun I had and what I learned. His eyes glazed over and I showed him all the goodies I bought.
And he told me buying fabric is so much cheaper ( for him) than classes and all the toys I come home with. Men seriously, lol

sewing merrily along

I got sew much sewing done today clap!clap!clap!
5 blocks of the Road to Arkansaw variation- 1 more to go and I can piece a top!!!
I need to trim 40 more hst of the # 8 color and I can move onto #9!!!!
I did 10 blocks from Simply Squares as a leader ender
as well as 2 36 patch blocks for another 36 patch star quilt.
My truck is in the shop for brakes-gasp! I had a hole in the brake lines- let's just say I was so thankful I was driving it and not dd.
I have guild meeting tomorrow and my class Sat morning with Linda Franz...Im so excited. I tried to catch up on blogs today and will do more Sat night or Sunday. And I PROMISE some pics next blog.

I lived to tell the tale.....kinda

yesterday we took my monsters and my brother's 2 oldest monsters apple picking in NY state.


Look at that red hair!! Amazing color...both were well behaved. Amazing since everyone else in the family seem to have problems with them.




The trees were full of apples that even the little one could reach :)


a>href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQN6FyL28FkA5rU8mvI85oV04HX0O1kXY5DJDD7Ixcx5MipSj8XRPwWqiMRf6iXB9yYLlCvqRsZBmnOlmB7JKJycvmbwbSa_a9uydPt70QhX0-ZT0H2mnLWVCFJU6MPAVyZ5RfjQ/s1600-h/apples.jpg">


I love this pic ds took



After picking all those apples you need some cider and doughnuts, right???



and spend some time in the rocking chairs while hubby and I check out the little store :)


Of course the cutest apple looked like a butt!!!!!!

baseball humor

Still amoung the living

I have a break from construction till Tuesday morning :).
So I've been sewing more of the never neding hsts for depression quilts. I'm on number 8 of 16 now. Thank God!!! I'm so sorry I started this pattern I should have picked something , anything else to make 7 of. Oh well.
I also tried a few blocks of the mystery on Cyber Quilters yesterday. Marge from Delaware Quilts did it. I love my color choices and spent the morning cutting more pieces out to work on as another leader/ender project.

I went to put stuff in my rolling sewing machine case for next Saturdys class with Linda Franz and found a TON of blacks and whites in fqs. I mean alot!!! So that was my color choice for the mystery and the leftover red from my son's grad quilt. A large twin quilt from stash :O ...oh my!!!!
Oh back to the class, we're doing quilted diamonds and we need some background fabric and some 6" pieces to work with that play together nicely. I decided on Kona Snow and Amsih solids that I must have bought on retreat last year and then I found another fq of solids I bought on the shop hop 2 years ago!!! Now Beth,
has been working on applique and hand dyes and I have lots of those too (sigh) but think snow and solids would make a cute table topper or wall hanging...what to do , what to do.

Hope all are having a great sewing weekend- I'm trying. And I still have that backing that needs to be pieced so I can load it on my frame....oh oh it's a mess and I have to take before and after pics of that mess for another day. Contractor will be sanding on Tues and I want to be in the garae quilting :) a method to my madness!!!!!!

Living in the land of spackle and saw dust

Well we're coming down to the homestretch :) ....I so want to be cutting the parts out for the mystery this weekend on Cyber Quilters. Marge from Delaware Quilts is doing it. Simply Squares I believe the name is and I have lots of black, red and white I feel are needing to be made into a quilt top. Or should it be red,green and lights to have a nice throw for the holidays??? What to do, what to do..... I wish blogger had a poll feature like 360 .

My poor janome,pc and embroidery machine are all covered with dust cloths trying to save them while the last of the work is being done so now I'm playing on my laptop trying to figure out how to use embird better. Tis why there is no pics in this blog :(

The noise level is getting out of control here. Poor Moose has no idea what to do with himself. Not a happy camper for sure. Lucky for me I have a lunch date in a few minutes so I can escape. I wish I could take him with me.

So Paula are you ready for the playoffs???? I'm rooting for the Sox first round against the Angels :) This way we can play each other second round VBG. I'd love to see the Cubbies win too and the Phillies....that would make for a really interesting second round dontcha think????

The Halloween Panel is coming along quite nicely with the hand quilting. I can't wait to start playing with the beads. Of course I have no idea where I want to hang it in the house...most likely one of the new doors. Of course hubby is not liking that. You know screwing hardware into his new beautiful doors.

So I hope everyone is getting some sewing done- I will be for a few more minutes and then I'm sure I'll be getting lots done starting at 3pm with the first game and then tonights game.

Contractor Lunch break!!!!

I left as soon as I was done doing emails for the guild workshop with Linda Franz in 2 weeks to get the needed supplies for my rug braiding frame :). I mananged to pick up all the correct hardware all by myself at Home Depot -lol. Then I ran to the post office to mails some over due "quilty/baseball stuff" Jeannie yours is on it's merry way :). Then I hit Joann's. Now I didn't NEED anything except some wow or cow backgrounds for my neverending hsts for the depression blocks as quilt fabric is on sale 30% off and add another 10% for AQS membership I'm good to go. Oh I did look at kona white but the price went from $3.99 to $5.99 a yard :( what a ripoff that is. Even H of P is cheaper WITH shipping. But Halloween fabric is 40% ( again with another 10%) so I got this cute panel and backing to make a wall hanging. I swear the beads and buttons cost more than both fabrics combined. But once the noise makers come back from lunch I'll take all I need to baste this OUTSIDE and get it ready for quilting it.
Hubby again is shaking his head and we have a "small" bet if it will be done for this Halloween. Silly man, does he not remember this is October with playoff /world series games almost EVERY night starting Wednesday....really..... men!!!!





The backing is much blacker than the pic shows- must be my flash causing the problem :(

The Construction Continues

Last night I got the Pat Sloan newsletter and saw that she still had the Think Pink Better Homes and Garden magazine that I've been looking for - so I ordered it.
But while looking around the store I noticed this cute book. And of course next thing I knew, it was in my shopping cart with the magazine. No I didn't order the perle thread yet . I'll wait till the holidays when the quilting gets shoved away for a few weeks...well all but whatever hand piecing project is going at the time. I need to find a good sized stocking pattern to make the kiddies new stockings- scrappy strips and embroidered cuff.








Aren't they the best?? I can't wait for them to come :)






So yesterday's construction was the instalation of new doors. They look great :) Poor Moose is afraid of all the noise and spent most of the day under my bed. Today they sheetrock the one wall in the kitchen/dining room. Everytime we do one small thing it becomes a bigger mmore expensive project :(.
I'm sure when all is said and done it will look great. But I see alot of staining and painting cutting in to my quilting time in the near future. But while they make that mess I'll be clearing off the frame to load a quilt tomorrow and hanging at one of my friends house for the sanding and taping part of the sheetrock. Then is the trim around the doors.

But while all that was going on I FINALLY got the borders on my scrappy mountains wall hanging. I should have basted it last night but I'm hoping it doesn't rain long enough for me to baste it at our picnic table outside so I can start the hand quilting.






Our contractor was quite amazed that I sew and quilt ALL DAY. But I showed him the rug braiding frame and I have to go to Home Depot this morning and get the poles and he'll build it for me this weekend under the condtition I make a rug for his house :) ! How cool is that??? Hubby just shakes his head in amazement.