Is it Monday Yet????

What a weekend! We went to Omaha for the weekend to visit the grandparents/great grandparents. On our journey up I-29 in Iowa we got hit by a horrible rain storm. It became slow going.




Little did we know what had just blown through Omaha and Council Bluff. Grandpa called us at 5:30 to say they had just lost their electricity. Grandpa is on oxygen for COPD, so he was trying to get situated and get his unit plugged into the apartment generator. When we pulled into town it looked like someone had run around with a chainsaw making a mess of all the trees.

On top of all that excitement, Grace started SCREAMING in the backseat that her ear hurt. The screaming then turned continued sobbing. Grace and I made a trip to Urgent Care to find out how bad the ear infection really was. Bad enough that she is on antibiotics and ear drops. UGH! I swear it's always something. Getting to the urgent care was exciting since I'm not real familiar with Omaha. We were diverted through a couple parking lots because of all the electrical lines that came down.

Grandma and Grandpa were without electricity for 23 hours. It came back on at 4:30 on Saturday. There were people without electricity still when we left town this afternoon.

No trips to the quilt shops in Omaha. I figured I spent enough at the Urgent care, that I didn't need to buying fabric on top of that. Oh well, save my pennies for the next visit and then hit the stores then.

On a funny note, my bags are topic for one of Brandi's posts. After I get done typing this, I'm heading to the cave to start sewing the next batch for her. Oh if only I didn't have to work and could do fun sewing all the time.

Guild Meeting

Last night I went to my monthly guild meeting. What a treat!!! Lerlene Nevaril was the guest speaker and she talked about "Make Your Quilt Back Special". While sitting there oooohing and aaaahhing, I had to think about what a coincidence it was that Lerlene was there. With my Finish 5 Challenge in it's beginning stages, the information was PERFECT. Below are some pictures of fronts and back of quilts. (pictures are somewhat out of focus - I think I had a setting not quite right).







Show and tell was great also. Unfortunately no pictures because they were trying to move people through as quick as possible.

I can say with all honesty now, I don't know why I hesitated in joining this guild. What a great group of ladies.

Challenge

Peg over at Happy In Quilting has issued a challenge to finish 5 quilt tops (flimsies) by the end of July. Since I did a count the other day, I'm taking on her challenge. 28 tops that need to be quilted in order to be "done". YIKES.

Weekend Fun

I can safely say I was no where near the sewing machine this weekend. Instead time was spent at the pool enjoying the water and friends.

Today Grace and I went to Lawrence with my friend Christine. Christine was on a mission to find some fabric for a quilt back. Instead of buying fabric today, I purchased the COOLEST pair of shoes. I told Grace that Daddy would call me a Dork. First thing in the door - Daddy do you think Mommy is a dork in her new shoes? His take- Nice gardening shoes. So...I punched him in the arm. :-) Don't worry he's tough and can take it.

While in Lawrence I got a call from my brother who is driving through town on his way back to Texas. He and his wife will be stopping by for dinner.

I can't believe the weekend is hours away from being over. I so wish tomorrow was Friday.

Visiting Baby

Baby Genevieve is finally here. We had to go for a visit yesterday and deliver her finished I SPY quilt. She is so sweet. Lots of squeaking and cooing.

I'm being told not to take the above picture. Couldn't help myself though. Grace wanted to hold Genevieve so bad.

Below are some quilts that belong to other girls in this family.

This is a quilt that I made quite a while ago. The little girl who loves and sleeps with it every night is going to be in 4th grade this coming school year.

Another quilt I made. It's know as QUILTY and it better be available for sleeping at night. The proud owner of this quilt will be in 1st grade this coming fall.

String Quilt

Seems that everyone is blogging about Gwen Marston and one of her books that's now out of print. I thought I would share a quilt that I made for Grace. Gwen came to Kansas in October 2003 and I was lucky enough to take a class from her. All the quilts she brought were from her Liberated String Quilts book. I LOVED the class and her techniques. The thing I liked the most was that there was no real measuring until the end when we were ready to cut the final blocks out. Can't seem to find the pictures taken during the class. I'm sure they will surface some day.

Professional Photographer

Pictures! Picture! Pictures! I'm all about having pictures taken and displayed around the house. I can tell you that my husband would cringe at that statement. My parents did it for me and I'm doing the same for Grace. I think it's well worth the money. People invest in art and I feel like I'm doing the same thing.

Well, I MUST share some very funny/cute pictures of my friend's 3 kids. She has Twins that just turned 5 and and 7 year old (boy do I feel old). Click on the Links below to get to my favorite photographer's blog for their most recent round of pictures. Be prepared to laugh.

Madison

Jackson

Kennedy

Google Reader

I really like Google reader. Being able to add a blog to my subscription list is wonderful. Every morning I just log in and read all of the updated blogs from the day/night before. This morning while reading, I wondered how many blogs I'm really subscribed to since I have the list set up to only show me updated blogs. Hmmm, I never do anything in a small way...157. Discovering Quilting Bloggers hasn't helped my subscriptions at all. Makes me think that I really need to update my "Perused Blogs List" on my sidebar.

I was also wondering how many people that use Google reader or some other feed really read the updates? Or do they just look at pictures. I realized this morning that I'm guilty of that. If the title of the post or pictures don't catch my attention right away, it seems that I'm off to the next blog on my list. It dawned on me that it's the same way I read quilting magazines. If the picture doesn't do much for me, then I flip the page and head on.

Well since I have no pictures for this post, who will really read it.

Have a great day!

This and That

Happy Father's Day to everyone. We had a nice day. A nap was had by all, which was good. DH got to go out for a bike ride, which was good for him. We had to pick him up though since we had a crazy rain / thunderstorm. Thankfully he found a gas station to stop at so he wasn't too wet when we got him.

I was able to get a quilt top quilted for my friend Christine. She said this is the first top she ever made. I'm pleased with the quilting on this one. Finally got my tension issues straightened out. I think that I might have been overfilling the bobbin. This time I didn't wind the bobbin as full and it seems like it helped with the thread breaks too. How know, maybe that's just a coincidence, but I'm going with it for now. Hopefully Christine will be as pleased as I am with it.

In between naps the last 4 days, I was able to get binding hand sewn on 2 quilts and those quilts into the washer and dryer.

I'm hoping to be able to get 2 quilt tops on the frame this week so that I can cross them off of my list. Knock on wood, but I finally feel like I really might be accomplishing something. (Probably just jinxed myself.)

DH took Grace to Chalk 'n Walk yesterday in downtown Kansas City. Here are a few of the pictures they took.



The guys doing the sunflower work with my DH in the creative department. I love sunflowers so that's why I think he took this picture too.

Deathbed Greeting

OK, so it's not quite that bad but bad enough for me. I feel horrible. Summer head cold or sinus infection, who knows. Every bone in my body hurts though. UGH. Enough whining.

So I've caught up on all "my shows." Criminal Minds - OMG what an ending. Who was in that vehicle???? CSI - But I like Warrick. He really can't be gone. CSI: Miami - Is Horatio really gone? The only thing I left to watch is Numbers.

Excitement here on Wednesday night - Grace managed to lock herself in our downstairs bathroom. Unfortunately I couldn't get her out, so I ran for the neighbor's Grandson who was out mowing the lawn. He came over and tried and tried with no luck. Thankfully (or not) he was able to get Grace out of the bathroom by popping the door and the door frame. After he looked at the broken lock, he could tell that the spring had sprung, so it wasn't really Grace locking the door.


Guess we will be calling a trim carpenter to help us out (we aren't so building/fixing inclined).

Well I'm off to bed. See you later.

Beautiful Day for a Ride

Yesterday was the Tour de Cure for Diabetes. In addition to raising money for a cure, there was a little 70 mile bike ride involved. Considering that the training started in March, there were some doubts early off whether the group would finish. They DID GREAT!!! The ride started out in the River Market of Kansas City, progressed through Parkville, Farley and then onto Atchison. Once through Atichison the route then doubled back and ended in Weston Missiouri.

Before the guys took off

First 2 finishing (5 hours 15 minutes)

All after the ride

Quick post.

Don't know you noticed but I have 2 new pictures with links on my sidebar.

The first is Quilting Bloggers. What a great site. There is a directory of all sorts of bloggers. Great place to go and do a little reading. I was out there lurking around yesterday.

The second picture is Real Women Quilt. What a great online magazine. Check it when you have some time.

This is the crazy weekend of bike riding. Hopefully I will have some fun pictures of the triumphant riders out riding for a good cause. If you'd care to pledge, here's the link.
Tour de Cure

Quiltathon

Well, I didn't get to start my quiltathon until well after 6PM. That thing called work just got in the way of my fun for today.

I just have to share this picture first. We have a "lake" behind our office and it's the home to many geese (Canada geese). Those geese have got to be some of the dirtest birds on earth. Maintenance came up with an idea to try to keep the birds in check up near the buildings. Here is the resident living in our "lake".

Don't worry, I don't think we have too many alligators in Kansas. It's a plastic head that has been anchored to the bottom of the lake. The geese are staying at the other end of the lake, so he must be scary enough to them.

Onto my quiltathon efforts. Tonight I quilted a top that I finished up last week. I did a feather pantograph on it. Lessons learned - busy backgrounds are good. White backgrounds are for the experts (which is not me). Thankfully this is for a very forgiving friend.

Now for my question to my reading audience- Why do I get these nubbies? I know it's normally a bobbin / tension issue of some sort. I start off great at the top of the quilt. No nubbies, everything looks wonderful. They start at the bottom of the quilt, actually the last 2 rows. They are very sporadic. I might go 1/2 way across the quilt without any and then all of a sudden nubbies. Any ideas?

Productive Weekend

Because allergy season has kicked into full gear, I spent as much of the weekend in the house as I could.

So here's what I accomplished:

Friday night I pieced this beauty from 2 charm square packs and 2 yards of fabric. My plan is to get it quilted this week. The fabric is Prairie Paisley from Moda. Looks somewhat patriotic.


Today I finished up 13 custom bags for the photographer.

I also completed 3 dresses. Granted the dresses were made from the fabric that is already smocked to make sundresses. So a seam up the back, sew the straps on and then hem it. I have 4 more to do this week. Since they go together so quickly, I shouldn't have much trouble getting those done in a night.

I can't believe today is the first of June. What happened to May???? I wish I could reflect on all that I accomplished. Maybe June will allow me to do that. Well if the pollen continues the way it was this weekend, I don't imagine I will venture outside much.

Next weekend my DH is going to ride in Tour de Cure for Diabetes foundation. I'm going to make sure that I have some hand projects to work on while waiting for him to finish his 70 mile ride. I'm really proud of DH since he had hip replacement surgery a year ago. Yesterday he did 45 miles so he's feeling positive that he can get through the whole ride. I'm sure I will have to share photos of the event.

Have a great week!!!