Western Music

Ralph and I do a radio show twice a week online that plays western music... it is my other love. It has been fun and last year we won the Western Music Association's Radio Station of the year award! You can see more and listen at www.ralphsbackporch.com.

Thursday night is radio show night and last nights was great. We had one of the artists sitting in with us. He is Kerry Grombacher out of New Orleans. www.kgrombacher.com. He will be performing tonight in Hemphill, so he came a day early to be on the backporch! It of course was a late night, after the show he gave ralph and I a private concert of some of his new stuff... i loved his new stuff! He is a good songwriter that makes you think. His sound is very folky too and i love the folky stuff.

I forgot that his show was tonight and i scheduled ralph and i to work! opps. Hopefully we can get two of the kids to cover us so we can go!

today will be a busy one regardless. I have to run to sams before the morning shift (meaning i have to leave out by 7 am) then work from 10-2. If i dont have time before two i will have to hang out and make wings and meatballs... then either go to the show tonight or work from 5-10.

but... the song working for the weekend... yep... thats what i will be doing today... im working for sat, sun and mon where i can make alot of progress on the faith quilt and tie off the first twin quilt.

changed my mind

since this is becoming my quilting journal... i just wanted to "jot" this down really quick. I am changing my mind about what im doing for christmas presents.

the goal is to make all of ralphs kids and grand kids a quilt over the next two years.

there are 6 kids, 6 spouses or boyfriends/girlfriends, 7 biological grand children, 2 step grand children and i believe jess' girlfriend has 3 more that we haven't met yet, but they are moving back from alaska in the fall and we will get to know them. so that is 24 quilts that i want to make.

the plan for this year was to do the sons/son in laws, and the 9 grandchildren we know (step and bio) BUT... im changing my mind.... im adding one person (ralph) and im only going to do the GIRL grand children this year... that is 5 grand kids (i think jess gf has 2 girls so i may end up making 2 more this fall)

SO... this is what im making:

5 grand girl quilts (maybe 7)
6 denim rag throws
1 quilt for ralph

OH... and colemen went and got married at the JP!!! its amazing one of the hampton kids got married!! I do want to make them a quilt for their "wedding" next spring where they will do the whole vows in front of family and friends. so that is on my list... i of course want to do a double wedding ring.

Now for ralph... im in love with the scrap 1 1/2 in squares that i have been cutting out of scraps. I dont want to do the whole quilt with those tiny things but im thinking an alternating 4 patch with 2 1/2 inch off white... i think it will look good in our bedroom... lol... get where im going with this... i want one of MY quilts so im making ralph one for christmas! lol. BUT i can hear those little bitty squares calling me... and i have to start them and do something with them!!!

jess' girls... harley and faith (sisters) the quilts im hand piecing right now
the twins... i have a simple 9 patch that i have already made 2 of, just need to be finished
lea (the twins older sister) she is getting a very simple one that ive drawn up.. it will take a weekend once i get my sewing machine back.

there... that is what im gonna do!!

my day off

we survived the two 12 hr days in a row. Those are killer. I do have to go to the restaurant and make meatballs this morning, but that shouldn't take long. So... today a day off where i can hand piece, tomorrow another 12 hour day and then sat-mon off again. What seems to be working on the hand piecing is on the weekend i am cutting and organizing a stack of work that i can do during the week. I put these on the night stand and work a bit in the morning and a bit at night... my stack from last weekend is almost gone, i finished a heart last night and i have two more which i should finish today.... tomorrow one more spool waiting.

Life has just been a little crazy and its wearing on ralph and i, he has been a bear to get along with... but so have i. What we need right now is to laugh, we haven't found life too funny lately and that is the one thing that holds us together.... we laugh... im not sure how to give us some time together where we just relax and can see the humor in things again... to forget the stress and problems... hopefully this weekend i can find it because i dont think i can take another week like this one.

its getting daylight and hes got to horseshoe today... im going to take him some coffee in bed... his horseshoeing is paying our bills right now, so when he horseshoes he is my hero.

more progress and the sketch

The hand piecing is going really fast! I'm amazed. I spend a little bit each night before bed on it. lol ralph likes it because he thinks i'm paying attention to him.

But here is my sketch of what im doing... its kinda a sampler in rows and really girly. The two girls im making them for are both girly girls!

One problem i always have is width... i thought i was doing the right size for a twin quilt... but it is almost as wide as the full size quilts my aunt made me! So... its going to be a big twin with lots of overhang... lol... i actually like that but didn't mean to do it.

Since ive never followed a pattern and i am spatially challenged... i make weird sized quilts! lol.

Im not sure if im going to do the pieced lettering at the top for their names or applique... probably pieced since im treating this as a "sampler" quilt and ive never done that before. Bt i am having fun and seeing progress and thats what i like about quilting.

but... here is what ive done so far. The two stars i did on the machine before it died... the big block row i need a few more blocks and im waiting to see what other fabrics end up in this quilt before i cut them. the flowers i just have to sew the "stem" between the flowers but there are 4 of them done. The first row of small squares is done, that is for the top or bottom... the "spools" im going to work more on them this week... they take more time and thought, so dont think i will work on them the days i work... i will mess up and i know it!



I finally got the fabric i ordered from Z and S fabric. I ordered it two weekends ago and normally they are pretty quick on shipping... this time it took forever! but... here is what i got for 25 dollars. The neutrals i plan to use in the faith/harley quilts, there is a yard of each of them. Most of the others are remnants and i will use some of them in the quilt im working on. the red fabric is cool, the lines are gold metallic. I plan to use that on Leas quilt... i will have to show you a sketch of that sometime.. but the fabric is perfect for that. I really love the big daisy fabric... i wish there was more of that!

I have decided that sammie not only likes to help me quilt, but he is also a camera ham... i had to keep moving him out of the way to get these pictures... so i finally took one of him and he was happy. Ive only "had" sammie as a pet since december. hes an odd one... has no voice so he meows but nothing comes out. I am much more of a dog person than a cat... but sammie is growing on me, especially since he seems to like quilting as much as i do.

Yesterday and today we work our 12 hour days (then one on friday) so... not alot of time this morning. I hope all of you have a great day!

What impatience will do

Im impatient... ive started hand stitching the faith and harley quilts. (since i dont have a sewing machine) I have pics finally... but the camera ran out of battery juice before i got the pic of the sketch... but here is what ive hand pieced so far....

I actually enjoy hand piecing... lol... i laid in bed all day yesterday sewing... it was nice.

internet withdrawl!!!

the internet at home hasn't worked for 2 days. We have worked 12 hour days and to get them to do anything takes several minutes on the phone... i just haven't had the time! Ralph found me this morning sitting and staring at the computer... i had no idea what to do to wake up... no facebook, no quilting blogs!! We went out to breakfast instead.

Right now im at zippys.. lol... i think we will hang out here for a while after our shift so we can both get our fix.

Flylady friends... i haven't been doing my routines, i got off track with the change in schedule so im determined this weekend to spend some time figuring out how to make routines happen again. the other thing that threw me off is ralph keeping the kitchen clean!!! i love it but it messed with my routines. For those of you who are just reading this... im a fan of www.flylady.net it has really allowed me to organize myself in getting housework done... it makes it less overwhelming.

Quilting... the sewing machine still hasn't made it to the shop. Im tempted to see if my mothers still works! Hopefully this week i can get that into lufkin. Ralph said he would take it to many but he just hasn't been.... so im going to take matters in my own hands.

but... i have been cutting fabric for the faith and harley quilts... i have almost cut everything i need for both of them. lol still no pics, im going to have to do that tonight and post them tomorrow.

Mostly i have been working at zippys. We have been so busy, breaking sales records all week long! how cool is that! Yesterday we did an order for the graduation night lock up (a program in texas that has a all night party for the graduates... there is food and great door prizes like televisions!!) We made 40 large pizzas and 400 hot wings!!! It made for a crazy day yesterday, first making sure we had all the food stuff we needed and then getting boxes. I went to lufkin to get them and sams didn't have any!!! we had to drive from lufkin to shreveport louisiana and back to san augustine. We left at about 2 in the afternoon for lufkin and got back with the boxes at 9 pm, just as they were begining to start making the large order! 7 hours for a simple 2 hour box run!!! ugh. lol the good thing is we had to get buck and jay to cover our shifts, so we only worked from 9-11 pm last night... i did like that. But... it took 2 hours to make 40 lg pizzas.

the other fun thing... the chamber of commerce asked us to cater their next meeting. Ralph and i decided to do a 10 foot sub for that. She said we could make what ever we wanted, pizza, pasta or subs... so i think this will be a fun way to present the subs to them (and hopefully remind them of a great lunch choice!!) We will also include chips and a salad... but i think the long sub will be a hit, normally the caterers dont pay much attention to presentation so were going to do it right! Its gonna be fun putting it together!

Its time for ralph and i to go home... gonna go read my quilting blogs... say something funny on facebook and head home!

whats a girll gotta do

darn, still no camera at home! maybe during the break today i can post some pictures.

but whats a girl gotta do to get some time to quilt? My day didn't go as planned yesterday and i didn't get any time to work on my quilts. Which made me very grumpy. Even the morning was interrupted.. normally i have from about 5 am till 8 am where everyone is asleep. today and tomorrow are long days at work, so i had to put it all away last night... maybe thursday i will get some time.

I do feel like i made alot of progress this weekend on a few things.

• I have more denim cut (4 more pair to cut that i will finish this morning)
• i have at least half of the fabric cut for faith and harley (and i had finished putting my idea on paper for these over the weekend)
• I went thru 4 boxes of stuff and although it doesn't look it because its scattered around the house... i am closer to organizing my quilting closet. lol... i will have to take a before and after shot of that! i have alot more fabric than i thought i did! lol.
  
• I found the backing i had for the first quilt for the twins. I can lay it out and start the tying process next weekend, hand stitch the binding and voila.. i will have finished one!
• i bought 3 1/2 yards of white flannel in remnent bins!! hobby lobby had 2 bundles yesterday!!! I should only need 2 more yards to have all the white squares. (still need blue and red... the back of the denim rag quilts will be a texas flag.)
• found two tops that ralphs mother had made but never quilted. lol.. they are ugly and im sure thats why she never finished them. I never knew his mother, but i do plan on finishing them and keeping them. Too bad we dont have any of the pretty ones she made left!

im gonna get busy. hope yall have a good couple days.