Our Houston Home

I have missed sewing. With the wedding and the traveling back and forth to houston these last couple months i haven't touched my sewing machine. Dont get me wrong, i have enjoyed the trips and the eating out (we went on a culinary tour of the world in houston... and i gained 15 lbs) I have enjoyed the time, the wedding was wonderful and happy and perfect in every way... ive enjoyed myself... but... i have missed sewing.

So here is the update on life. We have rented an apartment and a restaurant space and we are opening another Zippy's Pizza in Houston!! woo hoo! we are so excited. We plan to open August 15th. We will go back and forth between San Augustine and Houston, so we still have the ranch up there... we just also live in houston now. Ralph's daughter Caty is running the store in San Augustine... its doing fine and shes doing a good job... all is well there. We will be running this store and over the next year hope to open 2 additional stores! (if you are familiar with Houston the new restaurant is on Jones Rd. just north of 1960 and we would love for you to come see us!!)

today Ralph and I along with a friend tore down drywall. We are doing some cosmetic stuff and cleaning the place REALLY well before we open and put our equipment in there. we will put the drywall back up on monday. (we have to go north for the next two days)

But... sewing... i dont have the best pictures... but here are a couple of the new apartment. First, our bedroom is a loft style, it has a balcony that looks over the livingroom. How perfect is this to hang a quilt from!! Here is the unfinished granny squares hanging over...

second picture i have to share... we haven't brought much furniture down yet, so the apartment is kinda empty... but i did bring a table and chair home from the restaurant so that i could set my sewing machine up and have a place to sit at the computer. Here it is in the dining room...

ok, also note the BIG MIRRORED wall. This mirror is going to cause me to lose weight because i can't get to the kitchen without seeing myself in it. I am amazed every time i walk by it because i dont FEEL that overweight (although i do know i am!) So, between the puppy walks in the morning, the pool which i enjoy working out in and the exercise room in the apartment complex... hopefully i will be talking about the weight im losing soon.

I'm married!!!

There were many times we said we should have eloped and went on vacation with the money!!! but in the end it was a beautiful wedding and the reception was a blast.

I am giddy still... and very proud to be Mrs. Ralph Hampton.

Time to head to the border!

No... were not going to Mexico...i just have a ton of borders to put on so i can finish some quilts. I don't know what it is about borders, my second least favorite thing to do (after squaring up hst blocks) is borders.

But... Drum roll please..... Happily Ever After is in one piece and ready for borders. Granny squares has a name, its Happily Ever After since I'm going to give it to Ralph as a wedding gift. I am planning a little tan border then some blue that he likes for the outer border.

I did finish the borders of ___'s Flower Garden. (Since she reads my blog i cant put her name here because its a gift and i don't want to ruin the surprise.) I am going to pin it and quilt it this weekend and hopefully have it in the mail soon (and yes i have more than one person who reads my blog that is due for a gift that i would mail, so i didn't ruin the surprise!) I like how the borders turned out. Ralph actually gets the credit for the border selection. I was going to just do the blue but he told me before i even got it on that it would need a brighter border after that and he was exactly right.

Landon and Trevor's Paw Paw Kisses... oh boy... have we seen these before. I have had them finished other than borders since before Christmas and i swear i will not work on, hmm start another quilt till i get these borders on! lol... i really do need to finish them.

What else is still in the works...

Travis' Star... I did a little of the hand binding but not alot. Its the first of the month so that means were busier than usual. The 2nd and 3rd week... that's when I'm looking for projects to do while at work!

Stephanie's Stars... totally put on hold due to my granny square fever.

Dallas' soar.... I'm still working on squaring up blocks. I am seeing progress on the pile.. in fact i think the squared pile is bigger than the pile i have to do yet!

Orange Crush.... I started this a while ago for myself and decided it needs to be one that i work on again soon. We went to the beach last weekend and i decided i need a good beach blanket and Orange Crush is gonna be it.

Ok... so there are about 6 or 7 others that I'm working on... but i think if i go on i will overwhelm myself... so we will stop here. Hopefully i will have more progress next week.

One thing getting in the way of the quilting progress is we have been spending the weekends doing research. We need to open another store and we are looking for a location for it... or we may do something totally unexpected and crazy... but either way, although we are making money with the one store, we both would like to make more! (and were workaholics)

Last weekend we went to Crystal Beach or Boliver Peninsula and looked around. It was hit by a hurricane in 09 and we were hoping it had rebuilt more than it has. I also wish it had more of a "town square" than it does. I don't think that is what were looking for so next weekend were going on another fact finding mission somewhere else... not sure where... We will have our minds made up by the time of the wedding... that's all we have decided so far. (still... its taking alot of my quilting time... Sundays were my days to sew and i don't get to do that when were hitting the road!)

Just have to throw this in here too... i decided to get adventurous with a dessert at the store. This is my Mexican Mocha Cake:

I haven't perfected the recipe yet... but when i do I will share. Its baked like a cheesecake... but it has no cheese and no flour in it. (but it does have a touch cayenne to make it interesting!)
I'm linking up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday. Be sure to go check out other lovely works!

Love

I admit im obsessive.

There are times I cant make myself quit cutting and sewing.....

I cut and i sew....

Dishes pile up... dust bunnies collect....

its a process of selecting fabrics.... pulling out scraps... staring at it all together...

and i cut some more and sew some more....

My poor doggies have to look pitiful for me to pull myself away to feed them.....

and then i sew and i sew......
I admit i dont sleep... i sometimes get up at 3 am to cut.... and sew....

Ralph feels neglected, and worried.... and sometimes even jelous.....  but i still sew and sew.....
and really he should be jelous...

because its all in anticipation of this momment....

when i fall in love!

Ive been working on my granny squares for about 2 weeks.... obsessively. Last week i started sewing them together and it was love at first sight!!

I started this one for myself but had contemplated gifting it to someone else... nope... sorry... i need another quilt for my bed and im claiming this one! It is from my red and blue scraps and chunks. (and i still have a big ole healthy pile of each color! The tan fabric were curtains in my guest room that had seen better days. I used 2 1/2" squares and since i hate messing with setting squares im doing this in strips instead. It will be a queen size quilt and there are 81 granny squares in all!

but beeeeep... we put this quilt on hold to bring you this!!!
since i needed a gift for someone... this is what i did over the long weekend! I have some borders to add yet before i quilt it... im hoping to have it done next weekend. (SuzyQ is saying aww mom, cant i have it... its so purdy!)

This one was a challenge in that i decided i couldn't use a solid and i was going to try to put fabrics together that matched, and once i got going I had to stick with florals... so yes... they are all florals! All the fabric is from my stash and i kinda grabbed as i went along... not alot of planning! Ill get some more shots once i quilt it. I think it looks kinda eastery. Ralph's daughter Caty (who is the artist in the family) said wow, your colors actually go together instead of all over the place. lol... i like my all over the place scrappy quilts, but i did try to challenge myself to match this time (and not be red and blue!)

I also prepared the binding for this one... will work on it when were slow at zippys.

OH! we also hosted a wedding at my house!! Congratulations Buck and Sharon. They were married Saturday in my backyard (that was kinda unexpected... they had to change their wedding to our back yard on friday night!! yikes!) But, we were more than happy to host it.. they have a beautiful family and i couldn't be more proud of them.

Im linking up with freshly pieced Work in Progress Wednesday. Be sure to go check out the other great WIPs!

Work in Progress Wednesday

I have loved my mornings lately, lots of sewing. I am really happy with my quilting life right now. I am not feeling alot of pressure to do anything in particular. I am making progress on the quilts that i need to and im also spending time just playing and being creative. Once in a while i think i have way too many works in progress but phooey... I am still finishing them and im enjoying making them. What, is the quilt police going to come lock me up because i start a new project every day!? lol.

I think im an ADD quilter... i have to work on 3 at a time! 3 just seems to be the magic number.

so... this week:

I finally finished "I Love Sophie" It has been delivered to the little bundle of joy and everything!

I have finished Kegan's Zig Zag!!! Before the baby was born... lets see if i get it in the mail though! lol.
I am really proud of this one. I can see where my skills have really improved both in piecing and quilting!

Dallas Soar: I am still squaring up my HST's. I think this is one of the reason i am working on three. I can only stand squaring up blocks... so i do 10 every so often.
Stephanie's Stars: I have 30 of the 9 patchs turned into stars. I need 41. I have the squares cut for the rest of the star points and i make a couple of these every morning. Another one that will take a while if i just do one or two per day. Why not more... because its more squaring of blocks and THAT my friend is my LEAST favorite thing to do! So i do a few everyday and plug away trough the parts i dont like, i do eventually get to a fun part again!

Mostly what i have been doing is moving my sewing room from the extra bedroom to what was my office. I really haven't been using the home office... and we did want a guest room (my sister is coming for a week when we get married)

the bookcase on the left used to have our CDs in it. I packed them up since we no longer do the radio show and how cool is this that it holds my fabric!!! The one on the right we bought the other day for my stuff... i have both bookcases full now... and ive moved about half of my stuff.

this dresser has my "scraps" in it... I have a blue, red, yellow and orange, pink and purple and green and brown drawer.

My scraps are in different sizes, anything too small to fold as yardage I call pieces (this includes fat quarters). Pieces that are smaller than 6 " square is a chunk (i keep these in a bin in the drawer for that color) anything smaller than 1 1/2 in square is a "bit" and ive been tossing those into a bin... I keep a pretty good stash of precut 2 1/2 in squares and 1 1/2 in squares cut and they are in bins too. My strings are in containers... i have those too!)

Well... i have been saving the bits and as i was moving things i thought... will i really EVER use these tiny pieces??? I started sewing this....

HOLY SCRAP, BATMAN!

I love it. So... yes, I use even the bits!!!

Oh... and i put up a pretty good fight not starting this one but... the Granny Square bug bit me firmly on the butt this weekend and i have started a red and blue granny square quilt... i am determined to not start putting this together till i have all 100 squares ready.. yep... 100 (I actually only have 18 of the squares to sew together now! and they are already cut out... so looks like this weekend i will be laying it out to put it all together!

Travis' star: this is one of the denim quilts that i made for all the sons and son in laws. I pinned and quilted it yesterday. This weekend i will finish the binding and woohoo another one done!

Pink and purple scrap quilt... hmmm thought about starting this one for a wedding present for someone. not sure if i will. I have some 2 1/2 scraps of pink and purple, not sure what to do for a background fabric and well, do i really want to do JUST pink and purple or should i just make it an all color scrap. But i probably will start working on this.

Another one that ive been looking at finishing is paw paw hugs for landon and trevor... I just need borders so hopefully they will be in the tada pile soon!

Im linking up to Freshly Pieced Work in progress Wednesday! more eye candy!

Bloggers Quilt Festival Spring 2012

Lonesome Dove

This is by far my favorite quilt so far. I finished it in January and Ralph and I claimed it immediately. It was my first attempt at HST's and I think it turned out nicely.

It is entirely from scraps.  I didn't buy any new fabric for it. Alot of the plaids were scraps from the quilts that I made for the grandsons with their Paw Paw's shirts in them.

There is a neat texture to the quilt being from scraps, some fabrics softer than others, a little homespun and i love the textured blue polka dots in there. It reminds me of the quilts my mom made back in the 70's with polyester in them (NO! there is NO polyester in this one!!!)

It is 90X90 and fits our queen bed perfectly. We like a little extra on our queens since we have a dog that sleeps between us and she is always stealing the covers! The binding is a piece of red calico that i found in Ralph's mothers fabric stash. His mother passed away in the 80's so finding her stash and some unfinished quilts was quite a treat!

I machine quilted it on my home machine and it is by far my best quilting so far. I quilted with straight lines on either side of the diagonal seams.

The backing is is two vintage sheets.

It got its name because i hand stitched the binding one Sunday afternoon while Ralph and I were snuggled up in bed watching the whole 6 hours of Lonesome Dove, one of our favorite movies. Even he refers to the quilt as the "Lonesome Dove Quilt" because the name seems perfect for it!

I hope you enjoy my entry into the bloggers quilt festival - spring 2012. There are over 600 entries and LOTS of inspiration so I hope yall hop over and take a look at some great eye candy.

hours of fun!

I actually got to enjoy more than a half hour here, half hour there of sewing!! Saturday I spent 8 hours in my sewing room and by the end of the day i was surrounded by beautiful works!

Lovely Little Windows:

This has been something i grab and sew the 1 1/2 in squares when i dont have much time or when nothing else is ready to sew. I started peicing the squares saturday and ohh and ahhh... i love love love it! This is going to be the width, i am going to do a wide border on it.... I now have it hanging on the wall in my sewing room and if i was a wall hanging kinda gal i would probably quilt this and leave it there, but i love it so much and cant wait to see it on my bed!!

Dallas' Soar:

this one has a name now, it looks like soaring birds. I try not to start piecing something like this till i have all the pieces cut and squared so i can lay it out and make sure the fabrics look random, but i couldn't resist.... well, i can never resist really, so here are a few blocks i had to sew together to see how it was going to look! I still have to sew 50 HST's and square up over half of the blocks.... but im excited about finishing this one.

Sandy's Kalidescope:

I am "making fabric" for this one out of strips and strings that i cut to 6 7/8 length and random widths then sewing together. I will then cut the triangles from the strips. I started foundation piecing them but that is a pain in the patootie so i just started sewing strips. I will starch the snot out of them before i cut the triangles. I figure this is about 1/3 of what i will need for the quilt.

Stephanie's Scrappy Stars:
I have alot of the star points made... going to keep working on them. I have been using a new method of making the HST's and i love it. (I have been looking for the tutorial that i read to make these... but i cant find it. In brief you take 2 squares, sew them together on all 4 sides (pretty side in) cut it diagonally in both directions and presto... 4 perfect HSTs! Have to stop trying to find the tutorial because while looking for it, i got sidetracked and ordered 40.00 worth of fabric... opps... i will post a link to it if i ever find it but right now i cant afford anymore fabric!)

HA... Jeni of In Color Order posted a link to it yesterday and i just found it! here it is

Kegan's Zig and Zag:

woo hoo i finally finished the flimsy. I had alot of problems with this one since my first attempt i reversed the rows and my zigs weren't zagging! I trimmed it down (yes i made it WAY too big and cut a whole row off the side and bottom) This weekend i will work on quilting.

this was inspired by this quilt. I changed up the colors and i don't know what size her blocks are but i cut my strips 2 1/2 x 6 1/2, I also put my blocks on point.

I Love Sophie:
I have had this at work, working on it when we were slow, which wasn't a whole lot of time this past week! I will get it done by the weekend!! Here is a picture of the little darling who will one day say "this is the first quilt that Mimi made me!"

Wedding Plans:

I have been collecting canning jars for my centerpieces. I love this look:

Source: google.com via Tamara on Pinterest

I am linking up to Freshly Pieced Work in Progress Wednesday Be sure to go check out all the other lovely work!!!