Long Time, No Blog

It seems like forever since I've done a blog post.  I think this is the longest I've gone without posting.  It's been a busy few weeks and I haven't done much on the quilting front other then to finish ironing the mountain of washed fabric and getting it put away.  It's official now...I am definitely over capacity.  My once neat storage system in the closet is now messy looking because there is too much fabric in there and I had to resort to putting a lot of it on the floor in front of the wire storage units.

Before I fell off the blogging grid, I mentioned having some major personal issues going on right now.  I hadn't intended to discuss them on my blog, and I still won't in detail, but I decided that since this is a journal for me first and foremost, it probably warrants at least a mention.  It will also explain any blogging absences that may occur over the next few months.  In a nutshell, my husband and I are getting divorced after 17 years of marriage.  It is my idea, so it obviously isn't a surprise for me, but there are a lot of things to be discussed and worked out, as well as paperwork to be prepared and filed, all while keeping up with my job.  T arrived back in town yesterday afternoon, so today we started on documenting some things that need to be valued for the asset division, as well as organizing important paperwork that will need to be divided or copied (i.e. tax returns, etc.).  We are trying to do everything without lawyers, so while T was back with his family, I prepared preliminary drafts of the various divorce documents for discussion and negotiation.  The final preparation of the initial filing will happen as soon as we have all of the asset and property division issues nailed down.  Once the paperwork is in motion, we can start working on getting him moved to wherever he decides to go - the house in Texas or back to Ohio where his family is.  Either way, it will be a long distance move that will also take time to coordinate and execute.  With luck, we will be able to finalize the divorce very early in 2011 so life can return to normal, or a new normal as the case may be!

Since I haven't been getting any actual quilting done lately, I thought I'd just do a "pets on parade" feature for the rest of this post.

First up we have Maya.  As I mentioned in a post about her back in July, she has a stick obsession.  Whenever there is a pile of yard trimming waiting for disposal, she always roots around to find the perfect stick.  This time she hit the mother lode and found a nice thick tree limb.  She laid with it until Koda came and took it away from her LOL.

Tyrone has been sleeping at the end of the couch recently.  I'm not sure if he decided to get up the other day and then changed his mind, but here's how I found him.



Sassy demonstrating one of her unusual sleeping positions, which is not unusual for her at all!

And what is up with cats' obsession with laying on fabric?  Over half the bed was available to them, but no, Tyrone and Echo had to lay ON the fabric that I had pressed and folded to be put away.  And yes, Tyrone is on a stack of fabric.  If you look closely you can see a bit of it under his chin.  And Echo managed to spread his DNA on to multiple stacks of fabric.  Thank goodness for lint rollers.



I've mentioned in the past that Echo isn't the brightest bulb in the pack.  Here's where I found him the other night.  I was hand washing my swimming suit in the sink and Echo was laying on the vanity with his tail half submerged in the water.  He seemed to be completely oblivious to that fact.  It was so wet that I had to wring it out!

And finally, I almost added another pet to the menagerie this week, but instead opted to release him.  This baby lizard lived in my bathroom for about 24 hours before I decided that he stood a better chance outside than in my bathroom with the cats around.  I was THIS close to going and buying an aquarium, but figured that I didn't need any extra creatures to feed and care for right now.  He sure was cute though!



Christmas Gift #2 is Done!

I finished the second flannel baby quilt I wrote about here just in time to send it home with T so I didn't have to ship it later.  This one will be a Christmas gift for our nephew's daughter born last November.

Here is the front of the finished quilt - so soft and sweet looking - perfect for a little girl I think.

A closeup:

And the back:

And the front and back together.  I thought they coordinated very nicely and everything was from my stash, including the quilting thread!

I was also washing some fabric this week and look who had to "help" with that process.  Yes, that would be Sassy in the dryer once again :-).  And yes, I already failed at my "don't buy anything until the end of the year" pledge and I purchased some more Kaffe Fasset fabrics.  But they were so worth it, and basically free since I used some of the money from my recent Ebay sales to buy them.  So if they were free, that doesn't really count, does it?  LOL

Just What The Doctor Ordered

After dropping T at the airport on Saturday morning, I have spent the last three days in blissful solitude.  The headaches and sinus problems I've been having lately have all but disappeared.  Just goes to show how damaging stress can be.  I took the entire weekend off from work too, for which I will probably pay the price this week, but it will have been worth it.  I continued with my power sewing and also got some sorting done in the garage, paid the bills, got the house cleaned and did a load of laundry.  Oh, and I spent quite a few hours yakking on the phone with family and friends, which was great.

So back to the power sewing.  I'm sure you are anxious to see how the project I spoke about on Friday has progressed.  With the help of my QC team, I was able to accomplish quite a bit.

Echo supervised the fabric selection:

And Sassy helped with the pressing:

When all was said and done, I ended up with this quilt top I laid out yesterday.  After all that sewing, I wasn't in the mood to sew it together, but the rows are labeled and ready to assemble.  I will worry about the border selection once the quilt center is put together.  I'm sure I will have something in my stash that will work.  I also went way overboard sewing the light strip sets, so I've got a good start on a second quilt that will use these blocks. 

A closer look at the blocks.  Totally scrappy, which you know I love.

Echo tested the blocks out too and gave his approval.

After I finished laying out the blocks yesterday, I did a load of laundry.  As I came back to get more clothes to hang up, look what I found in the dryer:

When I came back the second time, Tyrone had apparently decided that Sassy must be on to something with the dryer, so now he was in it checking it out.  Goofy cats.

 

Power Sewing

I have some major stuff going on in my personal life right now that I don't intend to blog about, but suffice it to say that it's wearing on me mentally and I found myself unable to put two thoughts together for work today.  So what's a quilter to do when that happens?  Mindless power sewing, that's what!

I pulled out my 1 1/2 and 2 inch strip containers and came up with a basic plan.  I started with the light 2 inch strips and the dark 1 1/2 inch strips.  You can see that the containers are pretty full, so some of these strips needed to be used up.

One of my goals for 2010 was to make a quilt from my 1 1/2", 2", and 2 1/2" strip bins.  Of course I originally intended to make one quilt from each bin, but seeing as it's September already, I'm willing to fudge a bit and get a two for one by combining the different sizes into one quilt.

I sewed strip sets together today starting with a 2 inch light strip, adding a 1 1/2 inch dark strip, another 2 inch light, another 1 1/2 inch dark and finally another 2 inch light strip.  I plan to do the same process alternating 2 inch dark strips with 1 1/2 inch light strips, but didn't get that far today.  The strip sets finish at 7 inches wide, or they should anyway.  Not all of mine did, but they were close enough.

I cut 7 x 7 squares and then cut the rest of the strip set into whatever size I could get out of it.  The 7 x 7 squares will be used for the basic quilt I originally thought of and the leftover units will be set aside for now.  I think I have an idea for those too, but for now I'll focus on using the large units. 

Here's what I have to show for the afternoon:

I've got 14 of the large units made, but will need a lot more.  No worries though as I'm sure I will need many more mindless sewing days over the next number of months and now I've got a project to work on during that time.  I got quite a lot of smaller units too, so those will be a nice start to the other quilt I have in mind.

And of course I have to include the requisite cat picture.  Today Tyrone is the featured feline.  He usually doesn't get too much publicity as Sassy is usually hogging the spotlight LOL.  But as you can see, she still managed to get her time in as she is in the background of the picture.  Tyrone and Sassy were both supervising my sewing today and Tyrone was multi tasking by also doing the preliminary quality control work on some quilts waiting for basting.  I thought it was cute how he propped his leg up on the bed while he was sleeping. 

Basting, Quilting, and Basting some more...

I spent Saturday at Dawn's and got quite a bit done on the quilting front, in spite of a stash enhancement trip for Dawn, leaving to pick up lunch, and a tremendous amount of yakking going on.

The first order of the day was to baste and quilt the flannel baby quilt I posted about here.  T is taking off on Saturday for a three week visit to see his family, so if I can get this quilt done before he leaves, he can take both of the baby quilts with and I won't have to ship them at Christmas time.  His mother will take care of the wrapping for me.

For the quilting, I just did my wavy line grid pattern using King Tut in the Tiny Tuts color on both the front the back.  I really like how it turned out.  Here is the quilted, but untrimmed quilt:

A close-up of the quilting:

And the back:

Close-up of the quilting on the back:

The box from my sister didn't arrive until yesterday, so I couldn't do anything with the binding on Saturday, but the good news is that there was a half yard of the lavender fabric in the box, so plenty for the binding.  I got it pressed last night and will hopefully make and attach the binding today.

After I got the baby quilt quilted, I spent the rest of the day basting some other small quilts.  First up was this piece, which wasn't even supposed to become a quilt.  I made up this piece just to test out and practice the buttonhole stitch on my machine, but I ended up liking it so well that I found a border fabric in my stash and added it to make this little quilt top.  The binding will be the same fuchsia fabric as the inner border.

This next piece isn't really a quilt, more like a trivet.  I had an orphan block from that bargello quilt I posted about awhile back.  I added some borders and here's what I've got now:  

 

And finally, I also got this small quilt basted and ready for quilting.  This quilt is from my beginning quilting class in, ahem, 2001.  Nothing like procrastinating a bit!  The piecing leaves something to be desired, but I love it anyway, mainly because of the color combination.  Purple and yellow rock, in my opinion.  LOL 

Family

I tried to come up with a catchy title for this post, but in the end, I decided to just go with something simple.  Really, the post is about seeing family while on vacation, and pictures from those trips, but seeing as even the most recent vacation to see family was almost two months ago, I felt it would be misleading to put "vacation" anywhere in the post title.  I had planned to share these photos shortly after returning from my North Dakota trip back in July, but time has gotten away from me once again.  I still wanted to document the trip for my own purposes, so I decided to go ahead and do a post now even though it's way after the fact.  I also figured that I could use this as an opportunity to introduce you all to my family.

I'll state right up front that this post will actually contain pictures from my last two trips home, in 2008 and 2010.  I wasn't blogging in 2008, but we got some excellent family photos during that trip whereas this trip we either didn't get great photos or we didn't get a photo at all.

Case in point.  Me and my dad.  Somehow we never got a picture of just the two of us during this trip, or even a picture of me, my sister, and him.  During my trip in 2008, well, at the airport the day I flew back home, we got this picture.  My dad is actually smiling in it, which is a small miracle!  I liked it so much that Jen, my sister, had it enlarged to an 8 x 10 and I have it framed and hanging on my wall.

Also at the airport (nothing like waiting until the last minute), we got this picture of me, Jen, and Dad.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I should probably point out that my sister is the natural blond in the family and I am the brunette.  You certainly wouldn't know it by this picture, would you?  LOL

Jen and I managed to get a picture of just the two of us this year during the Fourth of July gathering at Dad's house.  Note to self - take pictures BEFORE standing out in the wind all afternoon and for sure before standing over a hot grill for an hour or two.  Dad and I teamed up on the grill and everyone said we did a great job, excluding the two hot dogs that rolled off, so the wilted hair and melted makeup were worth it for the memories.

Dad and Jen.  And another smile from Dad!

My dad had 13 kids in his family, of which 9 are still living.  All but one of those 9 live in North Dakota and 7 of them were present for the Fourth of July gathering.  It took some near threats of violence (not really, but it did take some convincing) to get them to pose together for a picture, but we did it.  Here are my dad and his siblings.  You might notice that the not smiling for pictures is somewhat of a family trait *sigh*.

Here are me, Jen, Gloria (Dad's significant other), and Dad.  Not as good as the picture from 2008, but we'll take it.

When I was home in 2008, one of my Dad's brothers stopped by and we managed to get this picture of them.  I hadn't seen my uncle in years, but used to spend a lot of time at his farm when I was growing up, so it was great to see him and also great to get this picture of he and my dad.   They are ten years apart in age, with my dad being the younger one.  And look, they are both smiling! 

My mom also came from a large family - 10 girls.  My poor grandfather.  What he must have had to put up with!  They are all still living except for my mom.  We lost her to cancer in 1992.  A bunch of my aunts and us got together both during my trip in 2008 as well as this year.  In 2008 we were only able to meet for dinner together at a restaurant, but we got some nice pictures from that gathering.

Here are the five aunts that got together with us for dinner.  The one on the far left is my godmother and two of the other four both lost their husbands in the last year, so it's been a rough year for my mom's side of the family.

The whole group of us:

I loved this picture that Jen took of me and my aunt Judy.  We spent many a vacation at her house when I was young since she lived on a lake and her kids were roughly the same ages as Jen and I.  I see her a bit more than the rest of the family because she comes down here for vacation sometimes and usually we can at least get together for dinner.  And she has email, so it's easier to keep in touch.

And finally, a picture of a few of us cousins and another aunt (that would be number six for those of you keeping count), from this year's get together, which was held at the home of one of my aunts.  My aunt is in the front left, next to her is my cousin Michael, his wife Patti, me, Jen, and my cousin Barb.  The gathering this year was at Barb's mom's house.  For those of you who have been reading my blog since February, it was Barb's dad that I posted about losing to cancer in early February and the day we got together was the day after what would have been my uncle's birthday, so it was nice for Barb and her mom to have a lot of family around that weekend.  Barb and I were pretty close growing up and Michael is the son of my godmother so we spent a lot of time at their place too.  I hadn't seen either Barb or Michael for over 10 years, so it was great to spend some time with them.

What I've Been Up To

It was a busy week last week with lots of personal and work stuff going on, but I did manage to get some quilting time in.  I spent Sunday at Dawn's and cut and layed out the second flannel baby quilt I am making for a Christmas gift.  I used fabric samples from my stash along with a new dot flannel that I bought in North Dakota and just cut squares and put them together. Easy peasy.  Here's the finished top.  I'm not going to add a border as I think it works just like it is.

A closeup of some of the fabrics:

And the backing and binding.  The backing is the plaid on the left.  It is a brushed cotton fabric that I had in my stash.  The binding is also from my stash, and hopefully some of my sister's stash.  I don't have enough of the lavender fabric left in my own stash, but when I was back home my sister wanted to get rid of her fabric so I picked out a box full to be shipped to me with some other stuff she's sending.  I'm pretty sure that she had some of the same lavender fabric and that I added it to my box.  I hope so.  Otherwise I have to go shopping for something.  Either way, I'll find out soon enough as the box is en route to me as we speak.

Most importantly, I'm happy to report that the quilt top has been inspected for quality control and Echo tells me that it has passed.  As a point of reference as to how big Echo is, the quilt top is 32 inches wide.

Of course I also have a couple of pictures of Sassy to share.  She looks pretty cute in this first one.

Unfortunately, you can probably tell that she's in the pantry *sigh*.  If she's nearby she comes running when you open the door and leaps in unless you can catch her first.  We've given up trying to coax her out and instead just shut the door and leave her in there.  With the intention of checking in a couple of minutes, of course.  Let's just say that she's able to survive in there for longer than a couple of minutes.  Or thirty. 

Here's another picture where she looks quite comfortable in a place she shouldn't be.  On top of the china cabinet.  She was watching me work out.  At least she was just watching and not offering any suggestions.