My grandson in utero

Okay, this is way exciting! Here is the ultrasound of my grandson, Benjamin! Do you think he's got my nose?!!

4-23-26 to 2-07-08

This Saturday will be the first anniversary of my dad's passing. I can hardly believe it. I miss him so much. It doesn't matter how sick he was before he died, I still wasn't ready for him to go. I feel him in my heart and I know he doesn't want me to be sad, so I try to remember and smile through the tears. I love you daddy.

Quilting Inspiration

I have a load of quilting books that I've either purchased over the years or inherited from my folks but lately I find myself going to the internet and surfing for inspiration. There are many websites that offer free patterns that you can print right off, and also galleries that let you see other quilters work ... I have more ideas of things I'd like to do "someday" than I probably have days left in my life. Some good sites are: www.compuquilt.com, www.eQuiltpatterns.com, www.FreePatterns.com, McCall's Quilting Online, www.paper-piecedpatterns.com, www.quiltblocksgalore.com, www.spooloffish.com. If you're like me, you'll see something on one that catches your eye and you'll jump to another site and so on and so forth. I keep the things I've printed off in three ring binders in the clear page protector sheets. I love flipping through the pages and thinking, oh, yeah, I really wanted to make that! Sun's shining, life is good.

Wee bit of winter

The great big snow storm that was being predicted has apparently blown out to sea. We got a half-inch or so last evening, little slippery coming home from work, but no much anticipated day off of school or even two hour delay. Today's my day off ... I'm going to make a lasagna and told Steven to ask Ashleigh over for supper. That means some tidying up and dusting is in order (when I'd much rather be sewing!). That's okay, another weekend's just around the corner. Here's a picture of a tree in backyard (taken from the bathroom window). Stay warm!

Table toppers/table runners

Can you tell I'm not too into football? Here we are in the middle of the SuperBowl and I'm blogging! I have a table runner in progress that's supposed to look like apples. I'm doing some fairly detailed hand quilting in the large solid areas, but it's a tone on tone cream background and cream colored thread, so I'm not sure it's going to show up enough to warrant the time it's taking. And those purple disappearing marking pens? They're great, but don't mark more than you are going to stitch in one sitting, because they do truly disappear! (Isn't it funny how the lessons you learn the hard way are the ones that really stick with you?!!) The square table topper is one I made a couple of months ago. I made a runner for my china cupboard as well, but there's too much stuff on it to photograph it. Someday everything will be in it's place, but until then, I don't/can't sweat the small stuff. Life's too short!

Crazy Quilting

Sometimes I just start sewing with no real outcome in mind. That was pretty much what was going on when I found some muslin squares in the boxes of fabric Peggy gave me. I had been doing some research on foundation piecing and read where you could piece right onto fabric, rather than on paper, so I thought I'd play around with it. The result: a new pillow for the couch and a table topper that still needs the binding hand sewn on. The pillow top was actually paper pieced, in two sections for each square, then four squares sewn together with border added to make it big enough for the pillow I wanted to cover. Then I just made a simple envelope back (There, Renee, THAT's what it's called ... I just couldn't think of it when we spoke on the phone!) and ta-da! .. a new accessory for the living room. For the table topper, I just kept adding pieces and pressing as I went. In some places you have to turn an edge under and slip stitch, unless you're going to do a decorative top stitch (which I did with a simple zig-zag) and then the hand stitching isn't necessary. SuperBowl's on ... Steelers are up 3-0 and it's already the second quarter. Be time to get up and go to work before I know it!

Another movie date!

We saw the previews of "Taken" when we went to see Gran Torino, and it looked good. So we decided yesterday afternoon to go in to see it. Was kind of a last minute decision (in fact, Ronnie was in the middle of baking bread), kids weren't around, so we decided, why not?

Well, all I can say is that if you like an action thriller, this is the movie for you. It was amazing! Probably what I would say isn't even my "type" of movie, but it was so, so good. And just from the perspective of being a parent, the concept of your child being abducted... my heart rate was up from the first five minutes of the film until it was over. I highly recommend it. Had I seen this movie BEFORE Rhonda asked if she could go to Europe her senior year of high school, I would have said No!

Came home to discover I needed to come up with a last minute baby shower gift. I remembered some flannel fabrics I already had cut into squares, so I decided to see if I could do a marathon project. I've been wanting to try a rag quilt so now seemed to be the time. The whole concept sounded basically simple ... sandwich a smaller batting square between two flannel squares and sew an "X" through each, corner to corner. Sew your squares together with your seam allowances to the FRONT of the quilt (very important detail ... just ask my seam ripper!) , using a wider than usual seam allowance because you are going to "clip" a fringe into this seam allowance before washing the quilt. The initial washing before presenting as a gift starts the "ragging" process (thus the name) and fluffs everything up. Despite having to use my seam ripper (or my "un-sewer", as my dad called it) and having to go back and re-sew some seams where I clipped too close, I was tickled pink (okay, it was blue) with the result. Softest thing I've ever made ... I forgot how nice flannel could feel. And, duh, I forgot to take a picture of it before I sent it on it's way. I had some squares left over, so I whipped up a quick burp cloth to match while the quilt was in the dryer. I attached a little gift tag that said "Just because spit happens doesn't mean you can't still be cute!" Once I was done, I realized I had a headache, probably from being worried I wasn't going to get it done in time. Oh my, now I can breathe!