My OPAM, another Trip

This trip was pieced before 1992; I think. I knew I needed a small project to finish for July so I pulled this out. Unfortunately? It needed to be quilted every 1/2 inch due to the scrap of batting I had chosen to use. If it weren't for nap time this would not be finished. Tyson took a nap 2 days in a row and I quilted. I bound it this morning when I had to sit for 2 hours. I didn't take my thimble and I learned that 100% cotton batting is tougher on the fingers.

Another trip quilt

I've been helping a friend make quilts. This is her third quilt; I think it turned out great and she'll find it is MUCH easier to quilt than her last 2 quilts.

My daughter-in-law is coming!

What will I do when my daughter-in-law comes? Rejoice and then leave. Really.

Angela finished her treatments on Tuesday and so will be flying here on Wednesday. The boys would be sooo excited that I wouldn't be able to stand them so we haven't told them the change of plans... I think that maybe being told the day before would be good. (Notice how ambivalent I am about it...) Thinking about it though I don't want the kids to think that we aren't telling them the truth and they can't count on what we say being truth ....so telling them the day before that the plans have changed and let them be excited for a day would be okay....AND the other grandma has them then.

So I got thinking about a list of things to do when she is here.

1. Fabric stores; I want to visit this one and this one and this one. I'm looking for a special fabric to finish a customers quilt. A rose colored or brown colored 30's print. So far no luck but I hope these 3 shops, that are further from my house, will have a better selection.
2. Quilt a quilt...or a dozen quilts. The one I started yesterday needs to be quilt every 1/2 inch. I really should have read the batting package before I had it half quilted.
3. Clean my sewing room; sort and get rid of some of the stuff. Since my daughter-in-law is an organizational fanatic I'm going to take advantage of her.
4. Linen closet; sort, get rid of or cut into potholder kits excess towels.
5. Movies; What do you do with old VHS movies? I was SO glad I had them when the grandkids came but do I really want to keep all of them forever? Six months ago I may have been willing to get rid of the Barney ones but they were the most valuable for 'turning off' Jimmy.
6. Make more stripe blocks.
7. Finish charity quilts. One is ready to quilt and I want to do it. Normally they are tied but I can practise my quilting on it...
8. Finish duvet cover.
9. Leave for a weekend with my husband. It is our 32nd anniversary next month and we WILL leave for it. We talked about going somewhere for the 25th and again for the 30th but we didn't. Isn't it traditional to do something BIG on your 32nd?
10. One thing I'm not going to do is laundry! That will be her assignment since we figured it something that doesn't have to be done when having a bad day but then can be caught up on on a good day.

I'm sure this list could be much longer but the movie is over and my grandma hat is sitting next to me waiting to go back on.

Stash report

Surprise, surprise I didn't get to the sewing machine after finishing a customer's quilt this week. I also did not buy any fabric this week. I DID think about quilts and I even cut out a block for the block of the month that needs to be finished by Tuesday. I helped a friend use up some of her fabric; does that count? I guess not.

How on earth will I get a 'Works In Slow Progress' done for July? I have 1 week..... Aha! I have a small, almost doll size (a Trip around the World) that I might be able to get quilted...

so my numbers are the same as last week.

for the year;

in: 20.25 yards

out: 91 yards

I did make corn muffins, strudel muffins, pancakes from scratch 4 times, raspberry syrup, 16 additional meals AND managed to get a 12 year old to do all the laundry...now THAT was work. I can report failure on the potty training front and the clean house front; although most of the toys are picked up, and put out of reach, so the floor can be vacuumed tomorrow.

'nother quilt

This is my latest quilt. I didn't make it, I just quilted it. I hadn't quilted on photos before, here I just sewed on the edge of the photo but 1 was so large the maker and I thought it needed to be quilted through. Isn't it grand having a mother make this for a daughter's first year away from home?

'Trip' quilts

I thought I'd list all the 'Trip Around the World Quilts I've made... even picture a few of them.

Melissa's first big quilt

Jackie's quilt

Stacey's quilt

Doll quilt

Charity quilt for Baytown Quilt guild

Christmas with snowmen

Red and blue

Andrew's baby

Jeffrey's big boy

Green

Rainbow

Hawaiian Quilt #1

Hawaiian Quilt #2

Hawaiian Quilt #3

Hawaiian Quilt #4

Hawaiian Quilt #5

Several of these do not LOOK like 'Trip Around the World' but are constructed the same. I don't have any pictures of the one's that are not linked to other spots on my blog. Sooo I've only made 16 of these. I've taught 2 classes how to make them and one of my students, Gwenda, ONLY makes trip quilts. I asked her last week how many she had made; 'about 20'. I'm teaching a friend how to make one now; for her third quilt.

Another friend, Ame Carlson, commented on this post that she has made about 100 of the trip quilts since my first class teaching her how many years ago. How I would love some pictures of these many quilts. (She moved away soon after the class and so I had no idea that she had made ANY more... so cool to get in touch with her again.)

*edited one more trip quilt:
Andrew's big boy quilt; blogged about here.
#6 Hawaiian quilt blogged about here.

Stash report

This week was a week I should have quilted like crazy but couldn't get up the energy to work hard. It has been HOT here for weeks. I don't think it has been this hot since we moved here 30 years ago. My a/c keeps working and our home is comfortable but something just makes you want to drink lemonade and put your feet up. When the boys left for scout camp last Saturday I juiced my remaining lemons so making lemonade would be easy, and my lemons wouldn't rot since I didn't think I could drink the 2 bags of lemons sitting on my counter. I measured them and put in 1 cup of lemon/lime juice in each zipperlock bag. It worked great and cooled the lemonade down even faster when I made a batch for the returning scouts.

Out 5.25 yards: My husband put up a board so I could photograph quilts better and I decided to put up flannel and use the same space as a design board. Last night I looked up flannel and figured it would cost about $24 to get the 5 yards I needed, so this morning I grabbed my 40% off coupon and headed out the door; literally with my keys in my hand I saw a picture in my mind of folded flannel on a shelf and decided to go upstairs, again, and check. There it was; my design board, folded on my shelf with other flannels. Five and 1/4 yards. $24 just went back in my pocket. I figured it was left from the diapers I made 14 years ago (hey, they were cool, fastened with Velcro and faced with pretty prints.) I tore it in half, stitched it together and hemmed it. Finished.

Here it is with my stripped quilt; it looks like I need a few more blocks. When the a/c comes on the blocks fly to the floor. :(

In 0 yards: I went shopping to 3 new, for me, quilt shops and still didn't buy anything. I have a list...and they didn't have ANY of the things I needed. I need a 30's fabric in rose or brown... do they make such a thing?

Totals for the year

In: 20.25 yards

Out: 91 yards

Do you think I can get it up to 100 yards next week? Come back next week if you really want to know.

Could you tell?

I have about 2 hours and my boys will be home. My daughters worry if I post about being home alone; so I don't. This has been a wonderful week. Lots of sleep and running around. I actually had time to write posts and I quilted one customer quilt and the stabilizing of one of my quilts. Looking back I should have made stricter goals but it is summer. This was my vacation. I laid out in the pool with a book and found it so boring that I fell asleep. I didn't cook. Nothing except 1 can of soup the first day and something for the grandboys on Sunday before they left to stay at their other Grandma's... the fun one.

I picked up a meal at Gringo's and ate it for 5 meals! (Gringos is my favorite Tex-Mex place in town.) I met a friend for lunch, I had berries and ice-cream for breakfast, and assorted fast food. I craved brisket enchiladas but no one makes them like I do. I've tried Gringos nachos in the past but they are a greasy mess, so I went to another Mexican restaurant in town and theirs were worse. Today I tried Papasitos beef nachos thinking they would be as close as I could come to my beef enchiladas... they were pretty good, not greasy, no pourable cheese, chunky guacamole very good and enough for 3 meals! I'm still craving MY beef enchiladas though. I guess I'll get over it since I'm not willing to cook a brisket when neither Roger nor I are supposed to eat beef.

Red and white quilt

This a an exchange quilt organized by the Bay Area Quilt Guild in March 1993. Evening Star with Puss in the Corner. After that my record keeping failed me, no notes on when I put it together or quilted it. (I looked for this quilt but it doesn't want to be found! How do I loose quilts? I'm pretty sure it is in 'the pile' but not willing to take off the quilts one by one... there is probably a date on the label...most of my quilts get labels.) I think it was quilted and bound by 1997 when we moved into this house. My Mother loved this quilt enough to make her own version but I don't have a photo of that one.... Verna, are you reading this? Can you e-mail me a photo of that quilt? I'd love to look at them side by side.

Disaster happened when it was washed. Some of the reds bled on to the white. It looked terrible so I bleached it to get the pink out. I figured since it was already ruined ...it was that bad the bleach wouldn't hurt. Soooo of course the bleach took some of the red out; one of the reds was orange, another couple were pink. so I got some red craft paint and painted the red back in. I ironed some freezer paper on the edge where I didn't want the paint to go and used a very dry stencil brush. It recovered and looks great. I'm not sure it will ever be washed again though.

My first quilts...

There's a quilt parade going on...

Here is my 'almost first' quilt;

This, ladies and gentlemen is Reed's baby quilt (he's my second child-and is now 29!). I made a similar one with a brown teddy bear on pink gingham for the oldest but I think I gave it to it's owner without photographing it. The turtle and the teddy bear were designed with a front and a back to be sewn together and stuffed for a toy. (I might still have the back pieces around here.) The turtle looked the same on the back; the bear's back was just brown printed fur. It was 'tied' while it was embroidered with large stitches and yarn. It was a fad in 1978 in Utah and since we moved away that year I've never seen another even similar.

I posted this morning (before reading about the first and last quilt parade) and posted what I claimed to be my 2 quilt. I had forgotten these existed but found it while browsing through my pictures looking for my other 'first' quilt.

My last finished quilt: I blogged about it here. It was an exchange I organized before Andrew was born 12 years ago... I finished it in May.

I have to post the quilt I was looking for; the one that I think of as my first, a different 'Trip Around the World.' It was my first pieced quilt. It is Melissa's quilt; originally it was tied with pearl cotton but gradually they came untied and I quilted it on my domestic sewing machine. I put a 'fatt batt' and a regular batt in this. I think I was slightly insane; we were living in Baytown, TX! It was too hot to sleep under and too big/heavy to wash in the washing machine. It still got used in the winters and it is very faded. Melissa was about 4 when I made it, she is now ... well she's older than Reed.

So it you want to see other's first and last quilts go over to Simplify and check them out.

blue quilt

I started this denim quilt 1977; my second quilt to start. My husband was still a college student and we had been married for a year. I finished it several years later when I added the border. My notes say it was finished in 1981; so it is 1 of my first 4 quilts.......... the first one I started is STILL not finished. (The order of started quilts is definitley NOT the same order as finished quilts; not at my house anyway..) It has a polyester batting and was finished envelope style so has no binding. I used a red sheet for the back. This was the quilt Brian slept under most of the time. I could never understand how he could stand it since it is so heavy. It has always needed to be washed at the laundrymat since it won't fit in a regular machine. You can see where it has gotten holes in it....be careful about which worn bits of denim you use. There are also worn bits all around the edge where it was turned under to meet the back. binding might have been a samrter way to go. The design worked well with the denim because it doesn't have a bunch of seams meeting so the seams are not real bulky. Other denim quilts I've made were just squares and 4 seams meeting together were very bulky.

red white and blue

This quilt was inspired by a photo in Country Living magazine.... about 100 years ago.... not really. But I finished it years ago and had been inspired years before it was finished. My daughter named it the 'picnic quilt'. I found the navy 'sheeting' at Hancocks during a sale; it was ridiculously low... 60 inches wide 100% cotton and I think it was $2.00 a yard! But then 100 years ago that was a LOT of money. I used the 'cut no squares' technique. The back was also one of those VERRY VERRY cheap fabrics purchased after the flag or Constitution bicentennial... It is simply quilted on my domestic sewing machine with diagonal lines.

There is a date on the label but I can't find the quilt! I made one trip upstairs looking and refuse to make another. If you want the date.... I'll edit this tomorrow after I find it and I sleep... today has been a very long day. FUN but long. (I promised a red, white , and blue quilt a day and I keep my promises.) Finished in 1994; started in 1993...this is one of my fast quilts!... I did gather the fabrics for at least a year before the '93 start date; when I found the navy on sale I already had all the reds I needed; then I started the cutting and sewing. I only had 4 children at that time so it went much faster... ;)

I went to visit Houston quilt shops and had lunch with a friend. Gwenda had the great idea for us to meet at the Houston Temple after the quilt shops closed. So I had to stop and buy a skirt. I bought 3! 'Ross dress for less' saved the day. The only one they had that went with my red t-shirt was very thin; so I bought a black skirt to use as a slip since it was only $10. Then I got a linen skirt for $14. It was also very thin but didn't go with the shirt I wore today. I was rushed for time so I'm trying to figure out where/when I could change... At the red light a block from the temple I pulled the skirts over my head and rolled up my capris and I was dressed!

Hurrah for the Red, White and Blue...and Gold

This is what was in my long arm today. I stabilized it and took it out to get ready for a customer's quilt. This was Quakertown Quilts First Saturday Sampler several years ago; anyone know what year? I used the polyester invisible thread and went around each block and across on either side of the gold sashing...now I have to make some decisions about what else to quilt on it. Luckily I don't have to twiddle my thumbs while getting my creative juices running.... I can quilt on someone else's quilt.

My Mother made this beautiful red, white, and blue quilt. We love it although we don't get to see it very often; it lives with it's maker in Denver. We would love to visit both but we are committed to taking care of 2 young children this summer.

July 4th

Today is the day my husband, the scoutmaster, and my 2 boys; 12 and 13 years old and 9 other scouts leave for scout camp. I am sooo looking forward to being alone. First I have to get them to leave.

At least my kids are not the only ones that forget stuff; but their parents are supposed to be better organized than I am. After all they are young.

I wonder if they will ever leave when planned?

I remember 20 years ago that Roger did leave for Scout activites when the planned time arrived.

Friday, July 3rd

Friday night the scouts came over to pack up the trailer so they could leave early Saturday morning. I was just a little bogged down. One mother came in to say 'hi;' brought her younger child in to play with the grandkids which was WONDERFUL! They had just started to whine and get on my nerves cause I wanted to get the kitchen cleaned up...Becky just rolled up her sleeves and helped me in the kitchen until it was cleaner than it had been since the grandkids came. WONDERFUL FRIEND.

I find that the older the scoutmaster gets and the older the scoutmaster's wife gets the harder it is to find stuff and get it all together for the camp-outs. I think we are missing a whole organization gene between the 4 of us in this house. That means each of us has less than 1/4 of that important gene. It's a problem.

How many 57 year old Scoutmasters do you know? I wonder if there is a graph somewhere about the age of scoutmasters? When do you get to old to do this?

Since my children are concerned if I post about being home alone I decided I'd write the posts and just post them a week late.

Patriotic quilt

This is the quilt that I did not get hung this week. It has been finished for many years and this is the first time it has not hung in my entry for half of June and all of July. I will find it and drag it to quilt guild tonight for show and tell. Can't get much more patriotic than this. This was an exchange I did with a group of dedicated quilters in 1994?. I was so excited that my work was good enough to go with theirs. I did the Eagle block and luckily a couple of participants dropped out and I had enough for each corner. I finished it in 1998. Evidently I quilted this the year after the 6th baby was born! Jeffrey was 3, then the 4 older ones were 12, 16, 19, and 20. I don't know when I did it but once I had the quilt set up to quilt it was relaxing for me to sit and quilt at it for awhile occassionally.

The back was purchased for $ .50 a yard!

And yes my boys are on the roof of our garage to hold quilts for me. It is way to hot to do that for a few months; so this is an old photo.

This week I'm going to post a patriotic quilt a day. (Well, at least they will be red, white, and/or blue.)

Stash report: 0 purchased 0 used.

Swimming Progress

Tyler's surface dive


Jimmy's Progress

Swimming

I've been swimming with my grandsons every day...I was trying to figure it out but I think I've been swimming everyday all summer long for....27 years. Well, I missed most Sundays and most days we are on vacation...but when children are small we'll go twice a day. It's hard to make a mess when you're in the pool.... I'm going to try to get some of the latest videos we've made to show Reed and Angela their boys swimming. But so far no luck.

Happy 4th

I had an uneventful 4th. At noon I got very ill for about 4 hours. I called a friend and she came over and took care of the boys while I laid in bed and shivered for 2 hours; when she needed to leave she took my grandsons with her for another hour. When I came downstairs I saw that she hadn't been idle while she was here either. She mopped the kitchen floor and helped the boys pick up toys and got the clutter up in the front room. What a lift it was to come downstairs and see the cleanliness of it.

I felt much better and went and got TV dinners for dinner, picked up the boys, 'cooked' dinner, took them swimming. When we came in they had a new toy to play with that the same friend had sent home with me. Then bedtime.

No fireworks,

No parade,

No potato salad,

No watermelon,

No Texas barbecue,

but peace.

It's so wonderful to have friends.

Gaming upside down

This morning my son claimed that the game on the Wii, or was it game cube? was boring. Can't have boring... so he did this:

I imagine that playing upside down makes it a bit more challenging...

but then this happened.

COPYCATS!