It's Been A While - Again...

I know it's been a while since my last post. The only excuse I have this time is the Holidays...they just fill up the calendar so quickly!

But I have been working on something in between all the Christmas events. I've gotten Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn to the point where I can start working on the unicorn itself! I left the unicorn for last as an incentive for me to get it finished. I got the entire lower right-hand side of the piece done in the last 2 weeks.

The picture is a bit blurry, but I'm not the photographer in the house, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.


The next shot is of my cousin Jennifer opening gifts with my nephew Grayson. He is 6 months old in this picture and it appears he isn't very impressed with his gift! LOL Maybe next year will be a better year for him.. (He did go home with some toys, don't worry)...

This next shot is one of my other nephew Kendrick at Thanksgiving this year. He is 2 1/2 years old and this is the first time he had seen Rudolph and he was enthralled :) Oh, and those socks? Kendrick's absolute favorite thing that day. He insisted that he wear them all day - and they had to be OUTSIDE his pants, so he could see them, of course!

This last shot I took last night. I had to include it as it is just so cute. The men in my life, sacked out and snoring together. DH doesn't know I took this picture, and Felix was so tired, he didn't even turn his head at the flash. I think it is just waaaay too cute.

I realize I haven't been posting very much lately. Things in the personal world have been a little crazy for me lately, and I seem to be going for days without working on any of my projects. Thankfully, the personal world has settled down a bit and I've been able to focus on the Christmas season.

DH and I have become friendly with a couple of new neighbors that moved into our neighborhood this past fall. One is a stay at home mom with 2 little ones and a husband that works away from home all week. The other is a young couple that are seriously into horses.

We've had the young couple over for dinner a couple of times, as well as gone out to their parent's farm to watch them train their horses. I'm really considering taking riding lessons. I've loved horses since I was a teenager (what teenage girl doesn't love horses?) but have never had the opportunity to be near them. There is even the possibility of my being able to work on the farm to pay for the lessons. How awesome - considering I don't have a job yet! I've been putting it off a little bit, as I'm learning that I'm very nervous around the huge beasts. I'm used to Pips and our 4 kitties....if they step on you or kick you, it's not a big deal! The plan is for me to continue to go out there with our new friends and get comfortable with the horses, then start working sometime in the spring or summer. And then the riding lessons start :) Yay!!

Ok, I should make this stitching related in some way...I've told you that I've been trying to teach myself how to knit while I'm on this work 'vacation'....I think I'm doing pretty well :) I found a pattern for a circular afghan in a book in the library - One skein Wonders, I think - and thought it would make a lovely tree skirt. Only problem was, I had never used dpn's. I didn't even own any. So, I haunted Etsy for a couple of days, coerced DH into letting me buy a set and waited for them to show up in the mail. When they finally did, I took off. And ripped it out. And started again. And ripped it out. And started again. This is how far I've gotten on the third attempt.

I'm a little further along in the pattern than this picture shows now - and things are going along much smoother than they did in the beginning. This has actually become my go-to project when I'm watching something on TV that DH likes and I don't....I don't think it'll be finished before this year's season is over, but I'm pretty sure I'll have it done before winter is over. My only concern now is if the circular needles are long enough. I'm starting to cram stitches around it and I'm only at the half-way point...eek!

Another thing I made recently is a new pincushion. I like these little cushions for use when I'm stitching in front of the TV. They work great when I'm working on my english paper piecing projects. I gave away my last one to a young girl that wanted to learn how to sew at our quilt bee last month, so I spent a couple of evenings getting a new one made up for me. This one is about twice as big as my last one, but I like that size - you can't lose it down the side of the chair when it's bigger!

The front...

The back...

The last thing I wanted to show you is this little working wall I put together a couple of months ago. I've got a large design wall that takes up an entire wall in my sewing room, but I wanted a small one near my sewing machine, somehow I thought that would be more convenient.

DH had some odd insulation bits in the garage, so I absconded with one about the size I wanted and took it upstairs. I wrapped it in a piece of fabric I had and pinned the edges down. Then I took a few pieces of heavy duty double-sided tape and stuck it to the wall. It's working out pretty well!

And here you can see it in my sewing corner. It's pretty convenient.

Again, I'm sorry I've been so absent lately. I'm hoping things will settle down with the new year and get more normal. We'll see...

Halloween Quilt closeups

I was reminded that I haven't posted here recently, so I thought I'd show you some closeups of the Halloween quilt I've been working on. It's still in the quilting stage, but it's getting there..

Here is a closeup of the mitered border - not too shabby...

Below are shots of the embroidered blocks in the quilt...

I've been spending a lot of time knitting on the afghan, lately, too. No pics of that yet... The snow is supposed to arrive tomorrow, so the time to snuggle up and get to work on a project is definitely arrived!

A Quick Update

We've been dealing with a lot of wind the last few days. The good news is we no longer have any leaves in our yard and our trees are leafless, so no more falling in the yard. The bad news is we had a couple of shingles fly off the kitchen roof yesterday. Thank God I have handy cousins that don't mind coming over to help us. DH and I are deathly afraid of heights. I swear if we ever buy another house, it will have to be a one story.

I've been working on the quilting of my Halloween quilt for the last couple of weeks. I don't think it will be finished with the binding on it by Sunday night, but I can at least hang it in the hallway for the day and finish it after the holiday. I'll show you how it looks when I get it done.

Everyone is coming over for trick or treating on Sunday. We're having a spaghetti dinner to give everyone the strength to make it through the evening. After dinner, DSis and DBiL are taking Nephew #1 out for his first real trick or treating excursion. Mom and Nephew #2 are staying with DH and I to hand out candy to the 300 kids we usually see each year. We go through a lot of candy!!! And there usually aren't any leftovers :( Not that I need to eat them - LOL

One last thing I want to share. I found this video on Deb's blog and fell in love! This kid is amazing!!! Enjoy :)

The Halloween Quilt

I got the borders on the Halloween Quilt yesterday! It's my first attempt at mitered borders, as well as a striped border. Other than that one corner, I think I did pretty well. I'm happy with it, at least :)

I went digging through my batting cubbyhole for a piece that would be big enough to get this basted together, figuring I would need to piece a couple of pieces together to get one large enough. Not only did I find a piece of poly batt that will be big enough, but I found a complete queen-sized wool batt in there! I swear I used the last complete batt on DNephew's quilt this summer....do you think they reproduce when we're not looking?

I got lucky at Goodwill this week and found another Mexican vase that I liked. It's got the same design on the front and the back, and is very bumpy in texture around the sides. I think it goes nicely with the other vase and the lamp I got at Shipshewana this summer.

Last weekend, DH and I took my mother for a color tour to Cadillac. There wasn't as much color on the trees as we had hoped, but we had a good time. We had lunch in town, stopped at an Amish cheese shop, checked out Goodwill and Salvation Army and headed home. On the way home we spotted these in the distance, so we decided to travel a couple of dirt roads to get closer. DH snapped this picture to get an idea of the size of them - the wind turbine is in the field behind the house...I swear these things are like 500 feet tall. There were about 12 of them in a row through the fields. They made almost no noise, and were so peaceful....I don't understand why everyone around here is fighting having these things put in....It's like having a huge giant silently standing guard over you.....of course if you're paranoid about guarding giants, I guess I can understand...

Project Updates..

First off - I'm sorry the photos today are so blurry. I'm not sure what's going on, other than I was the one taking the photo - DH does such a better job of this than I do.

I have been spending most of my time lately on the Halloween Quilt. I've managed to get all the center blocks embroidered and cut down to size. I just need to assemble them together now. Then it's deciding what to do with the border...I've got 3 or 4 options and am just letting things ruminate for now. I'm still hoping to have this on the wall for Halloween - but it may just be a top...we'll see.


This next picture is of a pineapple block I made this week. You may recognize the fabrics as those being used in the Log Cabin quilt I posted about earlier. Well, as I was working on those log cabin blocks, it became painfully apparent that I could not get 2 blocks to come out the same size. They varied from 12" to 12 1/2"...and I'm too much of a perfectionist for that to be acceptable. So, I had to come up with a different plan.

That's when I remembered these paper piecing patterns I had floating around my sewing room for a pineapple quilt I had wanted to make. It kept getting put on the back burner, but I still had these patterns done up. And then it hit me. The strips I had cut for the log cabin quilt would work perfectly in the pineapple blocks! So, I did a quick block this week to see how things worked out. Other than the very outer corner pieces, I think this is very good! And I get the accuracy I prefer using this method, as well. So, I do believe the Log Cabin Quilt will stop at 8 blocks (I'll figure out what to do with those some other day - maybe the back of the Pineapple Quilt?) and the Pineapple Quilt was begun :) I'm happy with the decision.


This last pic is Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn. I'm at the half-way point on it and decided it was time to snap a picture - blurry though it is. I'm leaving the unicorn for last, as an incentive to finish the design. I have a tendency to put things down and move on to other projects, you know. I'm now working on the upper right-hand side of the pattern, where the house is. I'm hoping that the greens in the lower right-hand section won't feel as tedious if they are closer to the end of the project. We'll see how that logic works out.

Quilt Show 2010

The West Michigan Quilt Guild did their bi-annual show this weekend and DH and I were lucky enough to make it this year. It's a large guild of 400 members, and they usually put on a very good show.

This year there were about as many vendors as there were quilts - at least it felt that way. There were roughly 3 rows of quilts, and the vendors surrounded the quilt room, and there were a lot of them! I managed to find a few FQs that needed to come home with me. And I spent a lot of time in the booth the guild was using as their yard sale - FQ for $0.50!! I had a hard time keeping it reasonable, there were a lot of older gems in those bins. DH was incredibly patient with me - so much so that one of the other women in the booth with us commented on how well he was behaving! LOL

DH was also my photographer for the day. Basically, I got to wander the show and point to the quilt I wanted a picture of. He then fought the crowds to get the perfect shot. He was a real trooper yesterday :)

My favorite quilt of the show was this gorgeous red and green Dear Jane quilt. It was made by a woman named Jan, so she called it Dear Jan. I love how she changed the border triangles into applique, rather than doing the piecework.

There were a few Japanese quilts in this show, and you know those are always amazing to look at. This was my favorite of that group. It just looks so complicated! I don't recognize the block pattern she used, either.

This is a lovely Baltimore Album quilt. The colors were very bright - which caught my eye. It got a ribbon, too. Next to it is a star quilt that I really liked the center of - close-up in next pic.

This is the center of the star quilt in the above picture. I really like it. It looks familiar to me - maybe I've seen it in an Australian magazine somewhere??

I loved the border on this quilt. When I got closer to the quilt, I realized that each hexagon was quilted in a spiral pattern - neat! I asked DH to get close-ups of the quilting for me to reference later.

We had a very good time at the quilt show. We followed it with dinner out and then home. We spent a nice evening snuggling on the couch with a bowl of popcorn watching The Blind Side. It is a very good movie - much better than I expected it to be.

Friday I got a flat tire on the car, and after taking it to the shop, realized I needed to replace not only the flat, but a second tire to keep things even - all my tires are very very bald. $200 later and it suddenly became apparent that I don't think we'll be able to make it down to my brother's for his wedding over New Year's :( I'm very bummed about this...But unless I'm able to find a job soon, I just don't see how we're going to be able to afford the trip.