Some quick pics.....

just some quick photos of the grandkids at the pumpkin patch last week.... Hopefully I will get some Halloween photos this weekend.. (hint, hint)
Boy, that little one looks SO MUCH like her mother. They even have the same laugh/smile or whatever you want to call it....




I got the backing together for the mystery quilt. I will drop it off tomorrow at the LQS where my long armer works a couple of days a week. This weekend is the Log Home Expo and DH and I going to see if we want to buy some land and put up a log home for retirement (many moons down the road).... we have requirements.
Land must have no one around for miles, but close enough to town for me.
Enough room to have a work shop.
Walk out basement for sewing studio.
Loft and/or 2 guest rooms for grandkids or sister.
Low maintenance.
BIG porch.
Cook, house cleaner....lol yea, that won't happen.

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

The future is here.....

And it looks like this -


I wish the Rock Star didn't have to work, but he needs to pay for gas and car insurance and of course those $40 sweaters...lol (btw, the paint all came out)
Over the past summer, he worked at McDonalds "fryin meat" as he put it. He hated it. Then school started and when he asked to shorten his hours they said they wouldn't, so he quit. The ol' checkin account was starting to look sparse so he has been interviewing at different places for the last week. Tonight, he was thrilled to be offered a job at Circuit City and they said he did so good during the interview they started him at higher than minimum wage. I hope he gets a discount. Maybe I could get him to buy his own Christmas presents?

Back to sewing, I got the borders on the mystery quilt, sewing room cleaned up and 2 dress shirts ironed. I also found all the legos in the storage room downstairs for the 2 kids I watch every day after school. I think they were getting bored...lol This morning I am off to get the backing for the mystery quilt. I might even find some other goodies...

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

If you could see me now....

You would see me sitting on the couch typing this note. I have my eyes closed (yes, I can type with my eyes closed!), listening to the dog snore and someone outside cutting the grass. They apparently didn't check the weather as it is 46 degrees here. You could smell....umm....nothing?? I have hopes of making the Apple Hill Cake recipe from Kim's blog (eyes open now) today. I thawed the apples overnight in the fridge. (check out her apple dumpling recipe while you are over there)....

Instead, I just got back from the Rock Star's school. Apparently they were painting? in English? and some kid squirted orange paint all over his new sweater. Since he purchased it himself with HIS hard earned $40, he called to ask me to come get it and wash it so it doesn't stain. If I would have bought it, he would have stuffed it into the hamper with nary a thought....

I still have to do something today...I have done nothing past making the bed and of course putting that sweater in the washer in cold water.... I had plans to unpack all my sewing stuff from last weekend, put the top and bottom borders on the mystery quilt, make apple cake, iron some of DH dress shirts, etc. Tomorrow I will go and get the backing for the mystery quilt and I have to have the borders on so I can measure it and get the right amount of backing and get it sewn together so I can drop it off with Pat on Friday...

Well, I have done something. I lifted my load this morning. I did something this morning for ME.. I have been a moderator of a yahoo group where members sell off their leftover sewing stuff. I have approved messages, approved members, mediated problem sales between buyer and seller, explained to members how to add photos to the group albums, how to use paypal, how to figure shipping on packages without going to the post office, etc. For the past two weeks, I have been mulling around in my brain the thought that I am tired of it. Tired of the ads, tired of the new members, tired of members not reading the rules, tired of IT ALL...so I quit. I removed myself as moderator. (before you think bad of me, I did email the owner of the group and tell her my decision and waited for her reply before I did anything).

I feel good....

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

And much too soon, we are back.....

Updated - Photo added at the end of this post.....

We had a WONDERFUL TIME!! Didn't we girls??? Lynn, Bev and I took off Friday morning after packing Bev's SUV with a 6ft table, a 4ft table, 3 bags of food, 3 bags of clothes, 3 sewing machines and numerous other stuff tucked under and behind the seats... We stopped in Hermann, Mo for lunch at a "just ok" diner and then headed on to Swiss, Mo and the marvelous meat market... After much pulling and tugging, we finally got Lynn to leave with a promise to stop on the way home...

We got to Lost Valley Lake around 1pm and started to get set up.

This was the view from our deck.. and the lake below....



Bev started working on a small Halloween wall hanging. It was a shadow play block (can't remember the name and didn't get a photo) that she struggled with Friday and some of Saturday. It was 4 rows of 4 blocks. She sewed the top 2 rows together and then sewed the bottom 2 rows together. The problem came in when she tried to sew the 4 rows together...they didn't match up. One was off by 1/4 inch and I'll be dagged if we could figure out why....after much huffing and puffing, she put it away and started working on a Bonnie Hunter quilt pattern she downloaded from her site called Boxy Stars.

I don't know how many of these she got done, but it was A LOT!!
What a great quilt pattern. I can't wait to start one of my own....I have already printed the directions.

Lynn was working on a pattern from a magazine. Ok, I should have taken a photo of the magazine, cause it was TRASHED!! All the pages were ripped out and loose. And this was the second one she bought. She totally destroyed the first one. I couldn't figure out how she could do that until I noticed that she was sitting on it!! I guess that was the only way she could keep track of it???... She had 4 jelly rolls and was sorting them into lights and darks and then stitching two light together and then two darks together and then she added lights to the outside of the darks and darks to the outside of the lights and then putting little corner triangles on them...oh my...it was confusing...she had fabric all over the place. SEE??

She even used the bed!!!
Here they are working, working, working....


I just realized there are no photos of my projects....hmmm.. I worked on a mystery quilt. I need to add a top and bottom border and hope to get it to my quilter tomorrow. She only works on Mondays and Fridays at the LQS and I don't want to wait until Friday...I need it back...
I also brought some great tote bag fabric with red rick rack and everything. Unfortunately I didn't get very far because I forgot black and red thread so I started another redwork basket block. Next time I will take longer than 20 minutes to pack my sewing stuff....LOL

We left this morning and stopped at the Swiss Market to get some more great summer sausage and Lynn bought a bread board. Then we stopped at a QUILT SHOP on the way home... Um, Lynn bought some more jelly rolls!! She heard the price is going up, so she is stocking up...lol

All in all, we had a great time. I have another quilt retreat in November. I will pack more thoroughly for that one.

Bev sent me a photo of her Halloween Quilt from H-LL....
Click on the photo to make this one bigger....

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

And we're off.....

2 friends and I are off to a mini-retreat....be back Monday with some photos and hopefully some finished projects....

Have a great weekend and happy sewing,
Nancy
PS Paula and UpstateLisa your prize went in the mail Wednesday...hope you get them soon!!

I saw, I clicked, I poked.....

I saw these


I clicked HERE...

I poked this....

They now reside in my sewing room. They are beautiful and soft and I am waiting for inspiration...

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

Deutsch Country Days....

DH and I took off to Marthasville this morning to the Deutsch Country Days. It was a beautiful day. Sunny and in the 70's.
The trees haven't really peaked yet. It hasn't been cool enough... We met his sister Carole and her husband. Carole is the reason I started machine embroidery and then quilting. It's all her fault. Over the years our tastes have developed and she is more into the arty quilts and I'm not...lol

The photos are fairly self explanatory...

The view from the parking lot...



We ate German Sausage, corn on the cob and shared a funnel cake. I bought the Rock Star some rock candy and DH bought him some home made Root Beer.
All the fresh air and walking made me fall asleep on the way home. We had a great time and hope to go back next year...I will wear walking shoes next year.

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

FInale.....

This is it....the very last Christmas quilt all finished. They all have labels and everything. Now to get them wrapped and some toys bought. If I give them "just" a quilt, I am afraid I will hear moans and groans, lol....after all the oldest is only 6..


Tomorrow DH and I are off to Germans In Missouri Fall Festival. We have never been and I am looking forward to seeing what it is about. Will take the camera and photos to share....

On the sewing front, I found some cute fabric yesterday for my Secret Santa gift for quilt guild. I will take it to retreat to work on and show photos when I get back.

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

back in the saddle again....

I am finally getting back in the sewing room... It feels good..

Yesterday I drove down to my monthly sew-in with Miss Nancy and Anne. Miss Nancy was the show and tell winner with a big box of quilt magazines she said we could go through and take what we wanted. Oh, I whipped right through them and found two. It will take Anne a few months to get through them. She looks at every page...

One of the magazines I took was this one...


This is the cover quilt which I LOVE!!

So I found some fabric and cut two 12 inch squares ...stack them up and make four cuts anywhere....switch out the second and fourth strips and resew.


Turn and repeat... Here are mine before trimming to 8 1/2in..


And after trimming...


I think I might like to do this for a whole quilt. It took about 15 minutes to make these two. umm....next time I won't use upholstery fabric.lol And after looking at the photos they look a bit lopsided. I know now not to cut too close to the edge. I would love this in the cheddar and red colorway with some tan thrown in there for good measure. Very pretty... guess I need to start collecting fabrics.

Can't leave you without some photos from last week...Abbie is such a good girl...and loved crawling over to the laundry room to see Oliver.



How do you think this opens?


Happy Sewing,
Nancy

ps to Paula and Lisa - I am off to shop at a wonderful quilt store Friday...Watch for your winnings next week...

The Winner Revealed.....

Abbie went home yesterday around noon and I really wanted to come home and dive into my blog and reveal the winner. Instead I took a nap....lol I was really tired...I can't imagine what I would have done if she was a difficult baby. Because she isn't. She sleeps at least 12 hours a night and eats at 8am, 12noon and 5pm. on the dot. really. In fact, Saturday we drove down to Home Depot and on the way back her switch was flipped and she started getting really fussy. The clock read 5:03pm. I had to get in the back seat and talk to her so we could get home without her crying.

All of the projects were so well done.

ANYWAY....the winner is PAULA

Hey Paula...send me your snail mail address so I can mail you your prize.

The other participants and their projects were...
Project A Miss Nancy. (no blog)
Project C ME!!
Project D Joanna

And now the winner you are really waiting for. The commenters were all put into a bucket...well, not the commenters, you are all out there sitting in front of your computer wishing I would just get on with it...OR you have already scrolled down to see the winners name. So I had 36 comments...that's not very many, but I guess I will take it. Actually I just had DH pick a number between 1 and 36 including 1 and 36(he's a man, I had to give good directions lo) He said "ok"
I waited...
"What?" he says.
"Are you gonna tell me the number?"
"oh, I thought it was a magic trick".
Men....

So he picked 13...(he says he picked that number because it's my birthday : -)

Upstatelisa COME ON DOWN!! You have won!! Send me your snail mail address and I will go get shopping and get you something..(any excuse to go to the quilt shop, lol)

Thank you all for participating. I really enjoyed the challenge and am happy to have a Christmas gift done...

Tomorrow is my sew in at Miss Nancy's. I am off to the sewing room to sew the binding on the last Christmas quilt and will do the hand sewing tomorrow. Photos to come....

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

I Know...I Know....

We have a winner...a clear winner. Looks like Project B was chosen by more voters...

Have you heard the story about the older woman that had a baby? A friend came over to see the newborn. After sitting on the couch and visiting, the friend asked to see the baby. "In a little bit", said the new mom. A half hour of visiting later, the friend asked again. The new mom said, "it shouldn't be long now". "What?" said the friend? "what shouldn't be long now?"

"Listen" the new Mom said, "pretty soon the baby will wake up and cry".

Bewildered, the friend asked "well, can't I see the baby before she wakes up".

"NO", said the frustrated Mom, "I need her to cry cause I forgot where I put her!!".

(It's ok Karen....I know where Abbie is)

See, I picked up Abbie yesterday and she doesn't go home until Sunday afternoon.

Sometime this weekend, while Abbie is napping, I will reveal the names of the project makers, the winners name, and the winning commenter (ok, is that a word? commenter). I will use the random generator....I hope you all remember what you wrote, cause there are sure a lot of anonymous readers out there....lol

I am getting no sewing done as Abbie is sleeping in the sewing room and as good as she sleeps, I am pretty sure the machine would wake her up...lol

Happy sewing,
Nancy

bits and pieces....

Weird day today... skies are gray with some rain falling. Rock Star is home sick. He hasn't been sick for 4 years. Perfect attendance in school until today. He did say he could do a Saturday detention and get his perfect attendance back as long as he only misses one day. If you have perfect attendance you don't have to take finals. A very powerful motivator in his world..

Took the dog to the groomer. Went to Target to pick up a Christmas gift. Went by Beauty Brands to use my free hairspray coupon. They are still out, so will check again this afternoon when I go back to get the dog.

Found this on the web. I think this would work for embroiderers that use a lot of thread colors. I use mainly red, so I won't try it. Would love to know if it works though. Might be nice to have all my threads precut. Hmm...might try it after all..

Oh, don't forget to vote for your favorite project. Go two posts back...only ONE DAY LEFT to vote...

Winners will announced sometime Friday evening...as I have Miss Abbie from Wednesday to Friday...

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

A fairly normal weekend....

Saturday started out nice enough. DH and I went down to Lowes and bought some paint and baseboard. Then I took off and went to see "Nights in Rodanthe" with my sister and DH painted the baseboard. Funny story at the show. My sister left during the movie to go to the bathroom and missed the entire BEST SCENE of all. If you saw the movie, it's the scene that tells you what happened to Richard Gere....She missed the whole freaking thing....As soon as the doorbell rang (won't make sense unless you saw the movie) I started yelling my head off (in my head, not out loud) COME BACK!! COME BACK!! HURRY AND PEE!! Dang, she comes back, sits down and says "what did I miss?". EVERYTHING THAT COUNTED!!! We don't talk during the movies (although there were only 3 other people in the whole movie theater) and I couldn't tell her everything other than the big highlight.... so frustrating...

So Sunday I got up and had a few things on the list in my head... Should have shared them out loud as maybe more of them would have gotten done.
1. Clean out the pantry
2. Clean out the tupperware cabinet
3. Clean the sewing room
4. Iron some dress shirts for DH this week
5. Maybe get a start on the mystery quilt

Well, I got 1 and 2 done. Then I got called to the garage to help put up the painted baseboard. The garage is finished now with new floor, new paint and baseboard. It looks nice enough we could probably rent it out. LOL 3,4 and 5 will wait for tomorrow. Tonight I will work on a redwork project I have just started. Maybe a sneak peak later this week.

Don't forget to vote...go HERE

happy sewing,
Nancy

The Valorie Wells Challenge....

Back in April of this year, Valori Wells had a free fabric give away on her blog.
I was one of the lucky ones to win a bundle of her new fabric line, Olive Rose. Two of my friends won also. We decided to have a challenge and see what we could come up with by the end of September. Two others wanted to join in also, so here is the result. We had to use at least parts of three of the FQ's.

I decided to go one further and post photos here and let you pick the winner of the challenge.

So here goes. Hopefully the poll on the right side bar will work and you can vote there. The descriptions below the photos were written by the person making the project.

Here is Project A.

My idea came from Better Homes and Gardens Creative Collection Quilts and More magazine for Fall 2008, page 59. The pattern was for a table topper. The center measured 15 x 9 inches finished. I made the center smaller thus making the quilt/table topper smaller and featuring the large print in the center as a focal point for this small quilt. I hand embroidered the lines that were the flower centers on the large flowere print in the middle of the quilt.


Project B



My pattern is from Linda at All Stitched Up I wanted to make something that would highlight the large, bold print of Valori’s fabrics. Looking around my studio my eyes fell on my design notebook. I knew right then a cover for the notebook would the perfect way to highlight Valori’s fabric. (Nancy's note - in the third photo you can see the little elastic with beads, this was tied around the fabric when we got it in the mail. Cute way to use that!)

Project C



My inspiration came from my daughter who said she couldn't always find her bills and checkbook. I made the pattern to fit a basket purchased from a discount store. I added the brown pocket inside which is large enough to snugly fit her checkbook.

Project D



It's a little wallhanging, 20" x 22" and I'm calling it Acorn's Fall as I have seen so many acorns so far this fall that I believe this Fall belongs to the Acorns!
I designed the quilt myself and did wool appliques on the borders. It was a little tricky to piece, as the shapes were curved, but it sure was fun! I wanted to design a pieced yet curved shape reminiscent of an acorn. Even the border fabric looks a bit like acorns! I quilted simple curves on each piece to look a little like an acorn 'cap'.

Ok, you've seen all the contestants. Now go vote.

What? I hear some yelling out there...What? I can't quite hear you...Oh, you think there should be a prize for the winner? Oh, ok...What? You think there should be a prize for one of the voters? Oh, ok whatever I have to do to get you to vote...LOL

Um....I guess that's it....

Let the voting commence...

Well, I just checked and you can vote, but I don't get a list of voters...bummer...so you will need to leave a comment and say that you voted. Sorry for the double step, but can't fix it...

IMPORTANT - If you choose to comment as "anonymous" please leave a name or other information so I can contact you....

Happy Sewing,
Nancy
PS...yes, you counted 5 in the initial challenge, but only 4 projects. One of them dropped out...she had some kind of lame excuse about being sedated and not being able to operate heavy machinery or some such thing...(teasing!!)