Monday, November 28, 2011

I'm still here...

I am definately still here just been busy after Thanksgiving.

I sure do hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving day and got fat and happy!

I'll be back before you know it.

You'll see...

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Early Happy Thanksgiving and Short story... :)

I know I haven't posted in a couple days, been kind of busy with cleaning and getting the house straightened up. We are planning on having family over for Thanksgiving and having of course Thanksgiving dinner. :) I just love Thanksgiving because I love turkey!

My best friend may be coming over as well, we'll be finding that out later tonight and I sure do hope she comes so that way she can help me cook Thanksgiving dinner, ha!

Still have a couple of things to do to the baby blanket, but it is on it's way. Just need to tie the quilt, add the little hand embroidery label in the corner and it's done! :)

Just incase I'm unable to post before or on Thanksgiving. I just wanted to say.....


Also a fun little story you do not have to read.. Just thought it would be fun to share this story I came across. :) Warning... Kind of long! But cute!!


The Meaning of Thanksgiving Part 1

by Fannie Wilder Brown

"But I don't like roast goose," said Guy, pouting. "I'd rather have turkey. Turkey is best for Thanksgiving, anyway. Goose is for Christmas."

Guy's mother did not answer. He watched her while she carefully wrote G. T. W. on the corner of a pretty new red-bordered handkerchief. Five others, all alike, and all marked alike, lay beside it. The initials were his own.

"Why didn't you buy some blue ones? I'd rather have them different," he said.

Mrs. Wright smiled a queer little smile, but did not answer. She lighted a large lamp and held the marked corner of one of the handkerchiefs against the hot chimney. The heat made the indelible ink turn dark, although the writing had been so faint Guy hardly could see it before.

"Oh, dear," he cried, "there's a little blot at the top of that T! I don't want to carry a handkerchief that has a blot on it."

"Very well," said his mother. "I'll put them away, and you may carry your old ones until you ask me to let you carry this one. I don't care to furnish new things for a boy who doesn't appreciate them."

"I don't like old—"

"That'll do, Guy. Never mind the rest of the things that you don't like. I want you to take this dollar down to Mrs. Burns. Tell her that I shall have a day's work for her on Friday, and I thought she might like to have part of the pay in advance to help make Thanksgiving with. Please go now."

The Meaning of Thanksgiving Part 2

"But a dollar won't help much. She won't like that. She always acts just as if she was as happy as anybody. I don't want to go there on such an errand as that."

Mrs. Wright smiled again, but her tone was very grave.

"Mrs. Burns is 'as happy as anybody,' Guy, and she has the best-behaved children in the neighborhood. The little ones almost never cry, and I never have seen the older ones quarrel. But there are eight children, and Mr. Burns has only one arm, so he can't earn much money. Mrs. Burns has to turn her hands to all sorts of things to keep the children clothed and fed. She'll be thankful to get the dollar—you see if she isn't! And tell her if she is making mince pies to sell this year, I'll take three."

Guy walked very slowly down the street until he came to the little house where the Burns family lived.

"I'd hate to live here," he thought. "I don't see where they all sleep. My room isn't big enough, but I don't believe there's a room in this house as big as mine. I shouldn't have a bit of fun, ever, if I lived here. And I'd hate to have my mother make pies and send me about to sell them."

Then he knocked on the front door, for there was no bell. No one came. He could hear people talking in the distance, so he knew some of the family were at home. Some one always was at home here to look after the little children. He walked around to the kitchen door: it stood open. The children were talking so fast they did not hear his knock.

They were very busy. Katie, the eleven-year-old, and Malcolm, ten, Guy's age, were cutting citron into long, thin strips, piling it on a big blue plate. Mary and James, the eight-year-old twins, were paring apples with a paring machine. The long, curling skins fell in a large stone jar standing on a clean paper, spread on the floor. Charlie, who was only four years old, was watching to see that none of the parings fell over the edge of the jar. Susan, who was seven, was putting raisins, a few at a time, into a meat chopper screwed down on the kitchen table. George, three years old, was turning the handle of the chopper to grind the raisins. Baby Joe was creeping about the kitchen floor after a kitten. Mrs. Burns was taking a great piece of meat from a steaming kettle on the back of the stove. Every one was working, except the baby and the kitten, but all seemed to be having a glorious time. What they were saying seemed so funny it was some time before Guy could understand it. At last he was sure it was some kind of a game.

"Mice?" asked Susan. Mary squealed, and they all laughed.

"Because they're small," said Mary. "Snakes?"

"They can't climb trees," Mrs. Burns called out from the pantry. The children fairly roared at that.

"A pantry with no window in it?"

"Oh, we've had that before," Katie answered. "I know what you say. It's a good place to ripen pears in when Mrs. Wright gives us some."

Guy knocked very loudly at that. He had not thought that he was listening.

The children started, but did not leave their work. They looked at their mother. "Jamie," she said. Then Jamie came to meet Guy, and invited him to walk in.

"What game is it?" asked Guy, forgetting his errand.

"Making mince pies," said Jamie. "It's lots of fun. Don't you want to play? I'll let you turn the paring machine if you'd like that best."

Guy said "Thank you" and began to turn the parer eagerly.

"But I don't mean what you are doin'," said Guy. "I knew that was mince pies. I thought that was work. I meant what you were saying. It sounds so funny! I never heard it before."

"Mamma made it up," explained Malcolm. "It's great fun. We always play it at Thanksgiving time. You think of something that people don't like, and the one who can think first tells what he is thankful for about it. We call it 'Thanksgiving.'"


The Meaning of Thanksgiving Part 3

Guy stayed for an hour, and played both games. Then, quite to his surprise, the twelve o'clock whistles blew, and he had to go home. But he remembered his errands and did them, to the great pleasure of the whole Burns family.

In the afternoon Guy spent some time writing a note to his mother. It was badly written, but it made his mother happy. It read:

Dear Mother:—I am Thankful the blot isent any bigger. I am Thankful the hankershefs isent black on the borders. I would like that one with the Blot on to put in my pocket when you read this. But my old ones are nice. The Burnses dont have things to be Thankful for but they are Thankful just the same.

I am Thankful for the Goose we are going to have. The best is I am Thankful I am not a Goose myself, for if I was I wouldent know enough to be Thankful. I think i truly lerned the meaning of Thanksgiving.

Respectfully yours,
Guy Theodore Wright


The Meaning of Thanksgiving: Making it Real

We've all acted like Guy haven't we? We can all be selfish whiners and complainers at times. Guy learned the meaning of thanksgiving during the Thanksgiving season and I think we should too.

Write down a list like Guy did of all you are thankful for, if it's hard, try playing the game that the Burns children played to get you started.

Go around the table at Thanksgiving this year and have everyone read their lists so you can remember the meaning of Thanksgiving too.


Saturday, November 19, 2011

Yesterday and today...

Yesterday, I was happy for the most part. I was watching a little TV and surfing the internet on my laptop. Decided I would go and work on the baby blanket for a while and then came back into the living room to a laptop that was no longer on. I figured, maybe it did some updates but come to find out it died.

Not okay!


I had the toddler's quilt pattern design on there and am not too happy about not having it. Thank god though that it was put on a forum though. SO that helps!! Maybe next time I go to the dollar store or someplace that has graphing paper I'm going to grab some and start doing it down on paper instead of PC. Hard copy is better than no copy! That is for sure.

I'm also sad because...


My laptop had some dog pictures that I had taken before my dog was put down. I'm hoping my husband's brother will be able to recover at least my pictures. Anything else I could probably careless unless it's important. But I really want my dog pictures because those are the only ones I have from when she came and stayed here with me before she was put to sleep.

On another note...


I found out last night that a friend of mine and my husband's (the one I've been working on a baby blanket for) went to the doctors and they said she is 1 dilated and 50% effaced. Woohoo! Right? Well, I got to work last night and today on the baby blanket. Can't not have that baby blanket done. That just wouldn't be right! So I've been working on that, which it was pretty much done just has to put it all together in the last few steps. Instead of doing binding I decided to just do a quilt with no binding. So I did a "birthing a quilt" method. Which was pretty interesting if you ask me. Once I did that, I had to do the ladder stitch to close the hole and then baste the quilt. Then I stitched around the far outside edge and I am in the process of "stitching in the ditch". I am only doing the SITD around the pinwheels, so basically boxes. I have never done the stitching in the ditch method, so it is pretty interesting. Here are some pictures:

Front and back, sandwiched together and stitched edge
I decided to take the next picture, because this was after I started doing the "stitching in the ditch" method. Annoying when you have so much bulk in such a small tight space!

Trust me, I was using naughty words moving this bulk through lol

I cannot imagine how you ladies do this on normal sized sewing machines on quilts/blankets bigger than a baby blanket. Amazing!


I am off to surf the web a bit on my desktop, ugh no TV! Then I am going to go and watch some TV. lol

Then, I have to do some cleaning. Yes, I'm a night owl... 12:58AM right now... Ha many of you are probably thinking WHOA! lol

Just reminding you, poll to the right... would love for you to vote! :)

Monday, November 14, 2011

Baby quilt top finished!

Well, I've finished the baby blanket top! I'm so glad, not that it was a pain or anything. I know that it takes me probably longer than other quilters when it comes to quilting blankets. But I just took me time, and had other stuff I had to also do too.

Here's a picture of the three rows all sewn together:


I apologize for the images not being so great. I was listening to music and kind of swaying back and forth to the music. Ha ha! I was in a good mood, what can I say? lol

Then I kind of noticed I did something wrong, I ended up sewing on the longer borders before the shorter borders. So here's an image with the left and right long side borders sewn on:


I looked back at my design, and was like uh oh! But no sweat, the short pieces were long enough that I was able just do it the opposite way. So here's a picture of all my borders sewn on:


Like I said previously, sorry about the crappy pictures! Ha, but I have the top all put together. Now I just have to decide how I want to do this exactly. I know I'm going to tie the quilt, but I am trying to decide if I want to actually quilt the quilt for the first time. Kind of nerv racking if you ask me... lol

My hubby should be getting out of work and walking to his truck right now. Dogs are wanting outside, so I best finish this blog and do what I need to do.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Additional note: To the right, there's a poll for you guys. If you could, please vote when you get a chance! Thanks!! :)

Friday, November 11, 2011

Some more sewing down, and more to go! :)

Well, today I did some laundry and did a bit of picking up. Gotta start getting stuff cleaned up around here because we'll be hosting a Thanksgiving dinner here at home. We were planning on going up to my mother's for Thanksgiving but plans changed, and my brother and his wife are going up for Thanksgiving and we're going to spend Christmas with them next month which overall works out all the same. So for Thanksgiving we're going to end up having Chuck, Brian, possibly Jim (Steven's side of the family) and then my best friend Sara is coming over as well. She will be helping me cook dinner, thank goodness for that because doing it all myself would have been too much on me. It'll still be pretty interesting! Ha!

I also just got done working on the baby blanket for a while, here's a picture of all three strips:

Then I went ahead and sewn two strips together with a long sashing between the rows like so;
Now I have two rows sewn together with a sashing between. There will be another row sewn obviously, with another sashing between and then it'll be borders that need to be added on. :) Coming along just fine don't you think? I think so! :)

I have a question for quilters out there because I've been wondering about whether I'm doing it wrong or not. My question is, say you have two layers of fabric together and one is a little further over and isn't lined up, do you follow the top fabric or bottom fabric as far as "1/4"" is concerned?


Forgot to attach image, sorry!
Looking forwarding to hearing what you guys think. :)

More pictures to come when I do more work on the baby quilt but wanted to keep you posted that I have done some more! :)

Until next time...

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

2 rows down, 1 row to go! :)

Well, I just finished another row sewing the pinwheels together. I'll probably end up doing another row later then my rows of pinwheels will be finished. Then I have to do sashes between the the rows and then add the border. Other than that, I did some laundry which I have a feeling wash needs to be switched to the dryer as I'm typing this. lol So I guess this means I best get out there and do that, and hubby will be home from work shortly.

Here's a picture of my 2 completed rows. Just to show proof, ha! Okay, maybe it's more proof for me so that I know I'm almost done with the blanket. :)

And yes, I do realize that my images suck in this room. The light in the room was on, but because I'm using my "phone camera" it isn't taking the greatest of pictures even with flash on. Sorry!!


Until next time...

Sewing, sewing and more sewing!

I know that yesterday I said I was going to post a picture of my pinwheels. But I ended up not getting a picture, but did tonight or morning! I know that the pinwheels didn't come to a perfect point in the center, but I did the best I could without having to rip out the seams in every one of them each time so I did the best I could, which I'm still proud either way. However, I showed the first row I had sewn together to my hubby and he says it looks good but reminds him of a granny blanket more than a baby blanket. He said he likes the look of it, but just doesn't remind him of a "baby" blanket. I wanted to slap him, no, no not really but yeah. lol I told him I wanted the baby blanket to be something she could slowly grow into, and not be babyish as she gets older. Although it's not going to be a very "big" blanket to grow into she can still particially use it as a lap blanket or something. I don't know, lol!

Here's a shot of what all my pinwheels look like.

Pinwheel
I thought it was a cute pattern for a baby girl, maybe I'm wrong? Oh well, I still like it. lol This next picture is the first row of the blanket that I have sewn. I am sewing sashes between each block.

Pinwheel blocks with sashes between each block
The baby blanket is going to be 3 blocks across, 5 blocks down and sashes between each row and sashes between each block as you can see in the image above. I think it'll look good, so far it's look good in my opinion! :) Tomorrow I should be able to get the rest of the top of the quilt finished, only I just remembered I have the lovely laundry to do so we'll see how much we get done with the quilt top. :)

I do have to ask, how does anyone free motion quilt on a quilt with a regular short arm sewing machine? Is there anyone that has done it before, is it impossible or what do you suggest? Just curious.


Well, until next time. Enjoy! :)

Monday, November 7, 2011

Giveaway at Ellison Lane Quilts Blog...

Information
Ellison Lane Quilts is doing a giveaway for The Fabricologist site. Please go to her blog in order to get some more information about the giveaway.


The giveaway consists of the following fabric bundle:




Please check out Ellison Lane Quilts blog for more information on how to enter. :)


Good luck!

Vote for my friend, please?

I have a blogger friend who's daughter has a chance to be put in a Calendar that the photographer is putting together. This year the photographer is using Facebook and the Like button for the votes on the pictures. It's as simple as going to Shawnie's page (the photographer) and select her image which is shown below and click on "like" for the image.
www.shawniedeutschphotography.com
Just scroll down towards the bottom and you'll see her image is the last one.

Shawnie Deutsch does charity calendars every year which is called Cuties in Costume. The proceeds from the calendars this year will go to childhood cancer research. Please take the time to vote! Thank you!

Peanut butter cookies, yummy!


Today I was busy making a couple dozen of peanut butter cookies. It's actually a "surprise" for my husband for when he gets home from work. He loves my peanut butter cookies. Ha! :) So he'll be loving me tonight, at least I hope so.. Ha

I also got my pinwheels done for the baby blanket, which I will post up in another post. I just haven't been able to get a picture of them just yet. Now that I have the pinwheels pieced together, all I need to do now is add the sashes and then the borders and I'm done! Well then I'd have to do the quilt sandwich and then I'd be done. Ha ha...

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Do you ever

Do you ever find yourself saying...

I want to make this.
I'm going to make this.
I need to make this.
This would be a great gift.
I could use this.


I know I find myself saying those quite a bit. Ever since I started sewing, I noticed a list of things I want to make, need to make, would be a great gift type of things list growing, growing and growing! Do you ever make those type of lists? I am trying to make myself do only 1 project at a time, because if I end up doing more than 1 project I will end up getting lost and tired of it and not want to do it anymore (atleast I think so...)


Right now I'm working on a baby blanket for a friend, and then afterwards I'm making her son a quilt as well. I have to get both quilts done before Christmas, which I have time but it seems like time flies or at least to me when starting this project it seems to fly by.

Pinned and ready to sewn - Pinwheels to come soon
Above is a picture of the pile of 5" blocks to make pinwheels. I had 30 of these draw lines on so that I knew where to "sew" the 1/4" line from the very center. I actually got to use my Sewline Mechanical pencil. It was pretty nice! I did start to sew some of the blocks, and then hubby came home and needed to help him carry some stuff into the house that he got after getting out of work.

I actually have 1 new thing on my "sewing project list" which is a Christmas gift to myself. Yes, myself. I am going to make myself a quilt because I feel like it. I already know the type of design I am going to use and what my "main" fabric is going to entail. Which I'll keep that a secret til I show you pictures when I start it after the 2 quilts that I have for now.


Anyways, I hope everyone has a wonderful night.