Merry Christmas

I want to apologize for my absence. It has been a busy month as I am sure it is for all of you. I can't even tell you where all my time has gone but I just know it is gone. Preparing for Christmas, working, shopping and travel to list a few. The most unfortunate thing about all of this is there has been no time for sewing. I do not see any changes in the near future so I am going to take a break from blogging until after the first of the year.

We are planning on traveling to Colorado to see Mark's family and mine. I am so excited because our grown kids are going to join us so we will all be together for the holidays and that makes me VERY happy..... Family is the best.

I hope all of you have a great Christmas and New Year! I hope to be able to have time to sneak a peak at what the rest of you are up to. ENJOY!!!

UFO - Western Quilt

I am working on hand quilting my Western quilt. It is proving to be a slow process. I made a template of an arrow and am adding them on each side of my blocks and I am also quilting cattle brands on the white squares. I have to apologize for the quality of my photos today but for some reason this quilt does not photograph well. Everyone who has seen photos of this quilt are amazed at how different it looks in person but I am not sure how to correct things.
I think by the end of all this I should be better at hand quilting but I guess this is a good place to start....
Now this is what I got up to this morning. When I finished working on my quilt last night I took the hoop off it and folded it and put it in the chair. My daughter's cat Juno (who is visiting until she can get into a place that allows kitties) was sleeping on the quilt. I did not have the heart to make her get off it. I am glad she is enjoying it for now..

I hope all of you are having a wonderful week.

Hexagons

For the last few months I have had two charm packs of Hello Betty by Moda. I decided it would be great as hexagons. I also was looking for something to work on while we were in airports and on the airplane that was easy to carry.
Here are a few of my basted hexagons. It proved to be a perfect project. I was able to complete the hexagons from one of the charm packs which are 60 now I only have 60 to go..... What was I thinking. Simple project not!

I want to stitch these together in a free form shape. Here are a few of them laid out on a red sheet. I think this will be a fun throw to cover up with. I am not convinced that I want a red background but while I am basting the other 6o I have plenty of time to figure this out. They will all be hand sewn together.

I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was wonderful. Our kids came home for the holiday and weekend. I enjoyed having them at home and now I am missing them. I keep telling myself that it is a good thing and I have to let them grow up. I am so proud of the people they are!

I am Thankful!

Here it is, the Dallas Cowboy's stadium. We took a tour of the stadium on our resent trip to Dallas, Texas. It is quite the place. I did not expect something so grand but it was really great. We visited the Stadium on M's Birthday with my brother and sister-in-law.
Then if you are doing a Cowboys vacation you have to visit their practice facility too. This is a photo of M and my sister-in-law. M says they are the true Cowboy fans. I am not sure what that makes my brother and I.
Tailgating before the game with Mimosas, MMMMM..... Perfect.

Here are the four of us before the game. It was a wonderful day, now not such a great game but as my son says "A win is a win". It was such a great trip. We could not have asked for things to be any better.

I am happy to say we will be spending Thanksgiving here at home with our kids. I love it when they are both home!!! I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Next week I will bet back to the jobs at hand and fill you in on my progress on my UFO's.

Dye Candy Giveaway

If you have not already been to Chris's blog, Dye Candy you must go and visit. She is having an incredible giveaway. Her fabrics and jewelry are wonderful. I know first hand because I was the lucky recipeient of a giveaway she had last year.

So run don't walk and go visit Chris.....

Hi there, I have been working on my unfinished projects these days and have not taken the time to write in my blog. I just have to visit for a bit this morning.

The piece in the photo is a small piece that is ready to be quilted but first I have to decide if it is the size it will stay. My photo transfer of the aspen tree as ended up in the center and I am not crazy about that so the size of this will probably change in the near future. I will be cropping and chopping soon. Then some machine quilting and possibly a few added embeleshments.

Now on to my real unfinished projects. I have been hand quilting my Celtic knot and it is coming along nicely but I have packed it away until next week when I am flying to Dallas to visit my Brother and Wife. Mark will be celebrating his birthday while we are there and I have purchased Cowboy Game Tickets and Stadium tour tickets for him. He is a big Dallas Cowboy fan. So the Celtic Knot will be the perfect project to work on while in the plane and airports.

I have also begun quilting the Western Quilt I have been working on for the last year or so... I have added several boarders to complete this. I am hand quilting this one also. It will have western brands quilted in the light color squares and Arrows in the sashing.

So now time will tell on what projects I finish by January first. It feels so good to have these further than just tops. I hope all is well with all of you and as soon as the sun comes out again I will post photos of the quilting in these .....

UFO's

I have decided to participate in Jacquie's challenge to finish UFO's by January 1st. I have come up with 5 things I need to finish:

1. Celtic Knot
2. Nine Patch
3. Aspen Mini Quilt
4. Western Quilt
5. Thread my Loom (This is not really quilt related but I thought I needed motivation and I am hoping this will get me going..)

I hope all of you had a good week. We had the Bra's for a Cause fund raiser on Wednesday. It was a very successful auction. This was the first year it has been held here in Gold Beach. The auction raised about $4,000 for the Curry County Breast Health network. It was a fun evening and I think everyone had a great time. Both of my bras sold and the new owners were very pleased with their purchases. I had a great time.

Now about these photos. I had to drive south about 30 miles today. The views were spectacular and I wanted to share a few of them with you. The fog was just at water level so It was extra special.

The Gold Beach Sunset Bra

So here it is. My second Bra for the Cause creation. This is a quilted bra and matching hanger. I added tiny rickrack around the patches. I also used fabric that was printed with a Sunset photo I took this summer. The auction is tomorrow and I hope it brings in some funding for the Curry County Breast Health Network.

This was very fun and a nice change to work on.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Here is a bit of what I have been working on. I am trying to practice my free motion quilting as much as possible. I think I am getting the hang of it, well kind of. I am having fun anyway. I fused some fabric for a little collage and then added some stitching. I do not like the two black squares but I keep telling myself this is just for practice. I do really like how the stitching came together. I have also basted my Celtic knot which I started back in May, in fact I blogged about it in July. It is about time I finished a piece. My plan for the next couple of months is going to be finish some of the tops I have completed.

I have almost completed my quilted bra for the breast cancer fundraiser on Wednesday. I hope to post photos in the next couple of days. It is coming along quite nicely. In between I am also teaching our exchange student to sew. Today we went and purchased a Amy Butler pattern for a bag called the Birdie Sling. Tonight we got it all cut out. I think it will be a nice bag for her.

Well, that is enough for now. I hope all of you are enjoying your weekend.....

Practice

I have been playing a bit in the studio lately and I made this little hot pad for a friend of my daughter. I sent her a box of cookies and this hot pad. It was fun. I pieced the background and fused the letter. I also stitched around the letter and stippled. I tried to stipple hearts every so often and that was fun. I still have a long way to go with being fluid with my stippling. I think I may be better off with a larger work surface. I only use the existing area on my free arm machine and it is very narrow.

How many of you have an additional worksurface or table attachment for your machine. I am thinking about purchasing one and would like to know how many of you use and like them.

Bras for the Cause

I have made a bra purse for our local "Bras for the Cause" fundraiser. This being breast cancer awareness month I thought it would be a fun thing to do. This bra that I used already had the beading and I found it at a rummage sale. I think it makes a fabulous bag. I am also going to make a quilted bra but that one has not been assembled yet. I am thinking it will be a coastal theme. Time will tell.

I also read a blog the other day that I would like to share with you. Dawn at Spontaneous Clapping had a blog post titled "Touch Yourself". I thought she did such a wonderful job I wanted to make sure everyone read it. She has a great blog and a wonderful way of looking at life.

I hope all of you have a great weekend and I hope to post my next bra soon.

Weekend with my Babies

I spent the weekend with my kids. Our daughter has moved for work and our son is in school. We meet in Eugene where our son is living. It was such fun. I am so very proud of both of them. They are turning into such incredible people and I had such a great time!!!

I feel so fortunate.

Traveling lightly?

As you can see while I was in Portland I spent some time watching the world from our 12th floor window in the hotel. I was taking photos of the changing street below when I saw this SUV being loaded up with this pile of luggage. I have always thought I did not do very well at traveling lightly but these women have me beat!
As I watched in amazement they loaded up their vehicle. Including the racks that held all of the blue bags. I thought there was no way they were ever going to be able to fit everything in.
As I watched they stuffed, moved and pushed all of these things in their vehicle.
I imagine at the end of this the hotel door man was very glad to see it all fit and to be able to send them on their way. I hope they tipped him well. This could not have been easy.

I hope all of you are having a good week. I am off on Friday for the weekend to visit my kids and deliver a bike, golf clubs and cookies. I won't be traveling lightly but I won't have as much stuff as the women I watched in Portland. I love being a mom if even for short periods of time these days.

Playing

I have been practicing my fusing and free motion quilting. I decided to do it with letters. I found an old book the other day and the copyright date is 1890 and the first letter of each page was embellished and they were so wonderful so I thought it would be fun to try and do embellished letters in fabric.

These are just experimentation at this point and I am not sure where they will take me but in the meantime I am having great fun with them. I do calligraphy so it seems only fitting that I do something with letters and I have been thinking about many options and this is one of them. I think I will also do some handwork on them so I hope to have an improved version to show you later in the weekend.

I apologize for my jumping from one project to the next but that seems to feel right at this point in time. I hope all of you have a great weekend. We are expecting rain and I am looking forward to that so I can play with fabric. :-)

Weaving with Salvages

I have a bag of hand dyed Salvages from Chris at Dye Candy. I have been trying to find something wonderful to do with it and this is one of my experiments. I have woven the strips with a heart in the middle. I am also hand quilting the pieces in place. I have been having fun with this little square.
I am not sure if anything will become of this but it is fun to work with. If any of you have any suggestions for me please feel free to suggest away.

Regrouping

I am continuing to regroup and get used to things being as they are. Change seems to be happening all around. Both of my kids moved last week. Stevi to Washington for work and Rick to Eugene, Oregon for school. Both of my kids were going to be in Eugene and in one week things changed. I am thankful for the opportunity for Stevi and her boyfriend but moving further away was not what I had hoped for. :-( And as I say this I am thankful that my kids are happy and healthy and able to make these changes. But I thought it would be so fun to be able to visit them both in the same city.

OK, this is supposed to be a quilting blog and I have not been posting about quilting very much. I promise that will change.

I have been trying to teach myself to do needle turn applique and it is much tougher than I thought. When I feel I have something worth posting I will take photos but, not yet. I am also teach our exchange student to piece and quilt. She is having a good time. She is hand piecing some squares for pillow covers and then I will teach her to hand quilt. I think she is having a good time. When she feels like letting me photograph her work I will post that also.

Have a great weekend.

Guide Dog Graduation

While were in Portland we decided to take a side trip to Boring, Oregon to see a Guide Dog Graduation. Two of the pups I have taken care of were graduating and they were raised by two of my favorite women. It was so fun to go and surprise them and see the graduation. It is always an incredible experience to witness. Now look at all these wonderful dogs. They are all two year old lab, lab golden cross or golden retrievers. They are such attentive dogs and are such incredible partners. I was also able to meet the two people who have been matched with the dogs I puppy sat. Francisco the black lab on the far left and Lavette the golden retriever who is the 3rd from the right. With each graduate they have a few minutes to speak and so do the puppy raisers. So you get a nice sense of the dogs new partner and the person who raised the dog. If any of you ever have an opportunity to see one of these graduations it is worth the time.

With all of my preoccupation about our friends losing their son it was so nice to attend something so wonderful and uplifting.

My friends have been on my mind so very much. We attended the memorial service on Sunday and it was just wonderful but so very sad. I just do not know how as a parent or a sibling anything will ever seem right again.

Portland

I apologize for my long absence. It has been an interesting couple of weeks. There have been so many things going on with a trip thrown in the middle. I thought I would share with you some of the photos I took in Portland. We were fortunate to be invited to go on a dinner cruise on the Willamette River. It was such fun seeing Portland from the water. It was a beautiful evening.

The ugly quilt

Here is the Ugly Quilt. This has grown on me since I have put it together but not fully. Our Quilt Guild makes "Quilts for Comfort" which is where we make quilts and donate them to local organizations to give to people in need. We had bags of 8 inch squares of donated fabric and those who were interested could take a bag home and make a quilt top. I took a bag a couple of months ago and decided to cut the squares diagonally and put them together. Here is what I came up with and I added some sheet fabric that I had in my stash. I really hated the pile of fabric I started with but I have to admit it grew on me a bit. Maybe like mold but it did grow on me. I also had a roll of batting which was too thick to machine quilt with so I tied this quilt.
I am pleased with the results. The best part about it is that it is soft and will keep someone warm this winter. I was not going to share this but since it is all I have accomplished in the last couple of weeks I thought I would.

I am still in a bit of a funk but I am hoping being able to spend some time with friends and family in the next week I will be back to myself. Please remember to let everyone you know and care about how you feel. Life can be too short!!!

Thanks for every ones support. :-)

Loss

I have spent the last five days thinking about loss. How do we handle it and how do we help someone going through it.

We have a friend who has lost their 25 year old son to a tragic accident. This was an incredible young man who had such a wonderful life ahead of him, he was one of those people you meet and would instantly like. He was such a happy person. I just can not say enough about him.

Why do things like this happen to such promising young people. It was one of those things that happen, no one was doing anything wrong or making bad choices but just loving life and being part of it. I have not spoken to his family yet and I just do not know what I can say, words just do not come. The sadness is just so deep.

Enjoy every moment you have with your family and friends. LIFE IS TOO SHORT

Sunset over the Pacific

There has not been much sewing going on here to share with you so I thought I would show you what the sunset looked like last night. It was beautiful. We have had a wonderful weather week. So I have been enjoying myself....

I hope all of you have a great long weekend. We are getting company tomorrow so I may be absent for a few days.

Feeling like one of the lucky ones

While I was walking today I was thinking about the life I have been given. I really feel like I am one of the luck ones.

IBOL box ready to go

Here is Butch looking over my IBOL (Iraqi Bundle of Love) which is ready to send. I included fabric, thread, buttons, yarn, crochet hooks, scissors and measuring tape. If any of you are interested there is still time. The deadline is September 7th.
Now onto something less serious. I found two Ziploc bags full of old wooden spools of thread. This is a small portion. I was so happy to find them. I am not sure what I am going to do with them but there is something very cool about them. I love the colors and the labels. I also got a bag of wooden spools of silk thread that I will photograph at a later time.

Busy week

It has been a wild week here. I got our exchange student registered for school and she is very excited about attending school here. She is has a full schedule of classes and a nice mix. I am pleased that she is so interested in the opportunities here for her.

I also have been working at Moose Creek and I spent a couple of days volunteering for our Hospice Organization. They have a annual Rummage sale and it was amazing. The first day they had over 2,ooo people go through the door and made $30,000 dollars the first day. I have never seen anything like this. They collect items for about 6 months and have the sale in a warehouse. I just can not believe that 2,000 people came and shopped. We live in a community of 2,500. So where does everyone come from?

Due to being so busy I have not been at my sewing machine at all. I am having withdrawal. I hope to get into the studio this week.

The photo in this post was an orchid my son gave me for mothers day. It just lost the last blossom the other day. I hope I can keep it alive to bloom again. I hope all of you are having a great weekend.

Salmon Fishing on the Rogue

This is my first salmon season here in Gold Beach. It is an amazing thing to me to watch so many boats in the mouth of the Rogue River doing a strange dance. The seem to go around in circles at a very slow speed. I have never gone out to fish for salmon myself but I really enjoy watching this.
The day I went out to take these photos there were not as many boats as I have seen but you get the idea. It is a beautiful place and I loved the low lying clouds.

I hope all of you are having a wonderful week and enjoying the last days of summer.

Fun at my favorite Quilt Store

When I traveled to Medford to pick up our exchange student at the airport I had to take a side trip to Ashland to my Favorite Quilt Shop. It is Fabric of Vision. Sandy has such fun fabric and is such a very nice woman.

These are some of my purchases. I love all of them however none of them go together.
I just thought they would be worth adding to my stash. Someday I will find just the right project for them.
These robots are just the cutest thing I have seen in a long time.
And who doesn't love the day of the dead fabric. I only got a fat quarter of this one but I am wishing I had gotten more.