Saturday, April 27, 2013

already starting my next project

I finally finished it!!!!! The donation quilt is finished. My friend Casey asked me to make a quilt because they needed to raise money for their preachers wife. She had an accident and it left her with a brain injury. There is a surgery that may fix her problems, but its not covered by insurance so the church is raising money and she thought this would do well. That is why I made it.

BUT...  I haven't been able to photograph it yet!!! She has started selling tickets for it and I turned it over on the promise that she would give it back for me to take some pics but the weather has been icky... Im waiting.

so here are some of my sneak peak pics i took inside the other day... if you want a ticket based on the sneak peak they are $5.00 each or 5 for $20.00 and use this paypal button.



 





So... the day i finished that one, I immediately started another quilt (even though i have a gazillion WIP's right now!) Caty (step daughter) walked by and asked what i was making and i showed her and she said "wow your picking more complicated and traditional things right now" So i dont know what it is but yes, i have "changed" how i do this with the quilt above and the one i am making now. First.. the one im making now i am following a pattern!!! shockers!!! Second.. i am actually enjoying cutting all the pieces at once and sewing them together... up till now ive been a cut some, piece some cut some, piece some. And, yes they are way more traditional than my previous quilts.... dont know why the change. The one I started is a log cabin and I have always wanted to make one, but never really saw a pattern that i liked.... ralph found this one that HE liked! lol

Here is the quilt im making...


It was in the McCall's Quilting (May/June) Ralph bought the magazine and it think he did it just because he liked this quilt! And yes, it will look great on our bed. Now the size, i will put another or bigger border on it to make it 90 inches at least... we like quilts big on our bed...

here is her facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cheerful-Quilts/112440155485447

I have pieced a couple blocks just to make sure i liked it, but i have all of the cream prints cut and over half of the darks... I am loving it so far.

Grand baby news: The boy's mom is now in ICU and things are not looking good. The doctors cant seem to give an answer as to why she is having episodes that look like seizers (or stroke) We are not sure if she will recover from this. Please keep her in your prayers. Their dad is keeping the boys at night and trying to hold it together. It is so hard to watch them all hurt like this... please pray for them all.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Mimi, We know the drill!

As i said in the last post we have the grand kids alot. It has changed our plans and our lives, and it has been an adjustment. Their dad drops them off at 6 am every morning.  We own a pizza shop... before this we didn't "do" 6 am. We had been starting our days at 7:30 or 8 ish and we haven't used an alarm clock in years... but i am getting up at 6 am now! wow!

Sometimes they get to spend the night, sometimes they go home at about 7:30pm. No matter what these children are welcome in our home, any hour and time and for as long as needed. It is the commitment Ralph and I have made.

Its hard to let go of the heartbreak of the situation. Its hard not to be mad at their parents for making the choices that they do. Addiction is an ugly horrible monster and we are watching it consume two young adults. It makes us feel powerless.

BUT.... this little guy smiles up at me and my heart melts and I fall in love with him each and every day. Both of these boys are fantastic children and when you give them love, attention and praise, they shine brighter than the sun. It is my blessing that I get to experience that each day.

But... it has taken some adjustments, and some trial and error... in the end we are getting routines. Oh and Lord knows, I am learning patience, Ralph is taking time to do things with them that he didn't do with his own kids because life was too busy or there were too many (they had 6 kids) It has taken a while but they are learning our rules,we are learning their rhythm and and as Landon likes to say "Mimi, we know the drill."

So.... I am still working on the donation quilt...
.
I did not make it by wednesday.... it will be done by the end of the weekend though!!! I cant wait to show pictures!!!

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

A week to make a quilt!

I haven't been sewing, or putting listings in my etsy store. Life got busy again and we have had to make adjustments again! Bridgette was in the hospital for 10 days and we had a 6 yr old and a 22 month old living with us again. Bridgette is our daughter inlaw married to one of my husbands sons. She is a type 1 diabetic and at 27 years old her kidneys have shut down and she is now on dialysis 3 times a week for the rest of her life. I love Ralph's son and his wife to death but they have problems and they do things they shouldn't do when they have 2 kids and she has health problems. Since October it has been a roller coaster of problems. They have had their ups and downs. I'm hopeful that right now they seem to be doing good and have finally stopped doing things they shouldn't do but we still have grand babies with us ALOT because of the dialysis.

Add onto that i spilled coffee on my keyboard and my computer hasn't worked completely (I'm using Ralph's today)... it just meant an overall absence from here... i have missed it.

I have been making some sales. Mostly the patterns that i have found at thrift stores and put on there. I have taken inventory and i have over 100 different items to list and i only have 43 on there! I cant wait to get my computer back so i can get the rest of the listings on there.

What have i been making?

first there is a donation quilt that i have to finish this week. Last week my friend Casey asked me to make a quilt for her cowboy church raffle.

i thought i would share my process on this one...

I first chose the fabric... I wanted to use some of the western prints i had they were reds, browns, tans and blues.... I loved the combination and i pulled other fabrics to go with them.



My problem was, i do really well with 2 toned quilts but this was 3 colors... Most of my design happens during slow times at zippys and yes, this one was designed on a guest check. I don't remember where i saw this block. i didn't like it when i first saw it (realize now i didn't see its potential when i first saw it) but this day i was playing with with different hst layouts where i could play 2 colors with a neutral against each other and this is what came of it... not bad not bad.


So... my preferred method of HST's lately is making 4 from one square... so i went home and started cutting 6 1/2 in squares. Why that size??? because that is a size i cut my scraps into and i already had a bunch of the blue and tan cut and it saved me time. Sure i could have said, i want a 12 inch block so therefore i need to cut my squares this big... my brain doesn't work that way... what ever size my hst's ended up it was ok, i just used some of the precut stash and that always makes me happy.

so put like sides of a dark and a light together and sew along all 4 sides, (easy peasy) and then slice and dice them like this:



woo hoo i have a mess of hst's that are in the process of being trimmed to 4" squares.

 


I told her i would have it finished by next wednesday... ekk... my first real deadline! lets see if i can make it. Oh... i forgot about the border, i found and ordered more of this because i didn't have enough to use: