Thursday, April 28, 2011

While I was organizing.....

It's amazing what you come across when you start to really organize!

I decided I wanted ALL of my quilting fabric in my sewing room.  I had all my fat quarter tubs, and all of my strip and scrap tubs in there, but all of my more-than-one-yard pieces were still on the third floor.  And that made it really hard to see what I had when trying to pull fabrics for a quilt.  So, about 400 trips back and forth, up and down the stairs with armloads of fabric.....and it was all together!

I pulled the two big bookcases down to my room, and refolded everything, and put it back on the shelves, all color coordinated!  Yikes!  It looks fabulous!  And I can see EVERYTHING!



Funny how you don't think you like blue very much, but then you look at your stash.....and well.....3 stacks of blue!  Sheesh!  Who knew!?!

So, as I'm pulling all this fabric out of the 3rd floor room.....I came across 3 projects that I had totally lost track of!  And I'm so glad I found them, because one of them is nearly done!

This baby quilt, shown on a queen bed, is nearly done with the hand quilting!  It's all hand pieced, as well.  And I'm keeping this one for a wall hanging when it's finished, because there is no way any baby is going to spit up on this!  lol



This Ohio Star was started when I lived in Massachusetts, about 13 years ago!  It has about 25 of the 63 stars hand quilted (machine pieced).  This was my first try at hand quilting, and someone should have told me that you shouldn't start on such a damned big quilt!  Sheesh!  I was so sick of black and red, I just couldn't look at it anymore, much less work on it!  I do like it, but it's going to be a slow process of finishing it.  We'll see what happens!

This Drunkard's Path is near and dear to my heart, because this was the one I mentioned a few blogs back, that my dear friend Rita helped with a little hand piecing on it.  It's got a little bit of her in it, so I will never part with it!  It had about 3 hours of hand quilting on it at one time, but I took that out a few years ago, because I would much rather machine quilt it, and get it on a bed!  It's a monster size....oversized queen!  There's just no way I would ever get the hand quilting done!

Isn't it fun to find things that you had totally lost track of!?!  There's a whole lot of memories connected to these 3 quilts, as well.  I loved finding them.....now I just need to get busy on them!  lol

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

regan

Friday, April 22, 2011

It's doing it again!

I walked by the Christmas Cactus this morning, and noticed it had about 8 blooms on it!  Most of them have already passed, but one was worthy of a pic or two!  So, as I'm keeping count now.....it did a full bloom  November 29, a partial bloom on February 27.....and now a smidge of a bloom on April 22.  Sheesh!  This little guy just wants to go go go!  Love that!


Hubby brought me breakfast in bed this morning.....eggs, bacon, toast and coffee!  Yum!  He's a keeper!

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter!

regan

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Roll Roll Cotton Bowl top is done! Yippee!

Yesterday, I announced that today I was going to spend the entire day cleaning up my desk, cleaning up my sewing room, and sewing!  That's it!  Well......my desk never got touched, but I did manage to pick up my sewing room a bit, enough to get my RRCB organized enough to finish the top!  Sweet!  My desk is a nightmare, and I'll just have to save that for another day!

Here is the pic I posted on Feb 8.....


and here it is with the borders on.....


I'm just loving this top.....and I can't wait to quilt it!  It's not exactly the RRCB that is the mystery.....I left off the alternate blocks of string pieces, because that was just going to make it way too big for us!  Nothing in our house is king sized.  I'm really pleased with the size it turned out to be.....perfect for a queen sized bed.  (I have it shown on the queen in the spare bedroom.....it totally clashes with the antique quilt on the wall, but my bedroom's a mess.....no pics can be taken in there!  lol)

And on a totally different note.......

I've been a little freaked out for the past week, and I just need to share this.  I had my physical and mamo on the 28 of March.  Two days later, they call me and say that I need to come in for another mamo and have additional images taken.  That's fine, cuz I think I always wiggle too much and they almost always have me come back for another shot.  So, I go back on the 7th of April.  It's a different technician than the first time.  We take 5 more images, and after each one, she studies the monitor, and then heads into the back room, where I can see in the reflection of the artwork that there is another monitor in there, only bigger.  Then she comes out, and we take another.....total of five and we're done.  So, she's explaining to me that the radiologist will look at the images and then discuss them with my doctor, and my doctor will call me with the results.  And this is all fine and dandy.....just as always before.  And then, I close up my gown and head for the door.  And as I'm reaching for the knob, this gal comes up beside/behind me, and then gives me a hug around the shoulders, and kindof leans her head onto my shoulder during the hug.  It was not sexual in any way.....it was more like a good friend saying goodbye!

Now.....I've never met this gal.....and she was very nice during the whole procedure.....but this hug was like she was saying "I'll never see you again.....and I'm gonna miss you!"......and all I was able to think of was......WHAT THE HELL DID SHE SEE IN THE IMAGES, and now I'm totally worried!

So I spent the next 6 days worrying, freaking out (a little, not bad though).....and trying really hard not to think about it all.....and then I got my letter saying everything was normal and fine!  Whew!

So.....I'm just wondering......has anyone ever been hugged by the gal......and would you freak out a little, too?  Just wondering!  I'm normally very cool and calm about my physical and mamos......especially since I usually get called back for more images.  But this was just a little different, and unexpected.  I just hate to think that I'm being so weird over someone being extra nice to me.  Anyway.....just needed to share that, and get a new perspective on it.

And aren't you glad I didn't try and put a pic (of any kind) to this little story!  lol

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

regan

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Getting back to normal.....

Here it is, the 6th of April, and I'm just now feeling like I'm home.  We got back from NY on the 29th, but I guess we're getting older, and my recuperation time from vacation takes a bit longer these days!  Sheesh!

I finally got back in the sewing room, and figured I needed to prepare something red and white!  I'm just still in that mode, and I can't think of anything else these days!  So I got to planning, and cutting, and this was going to be my next leader/ender project.....but I just couldn't wait to see a block finished from it!  HA!


This works up to be a 6" block, and I have enough of this particular white to make a good sized lap quilt.  I chose a fairly thick white cotton, to help eliminate the shadowing from the red.  I've used muslin whites before (in my baby quilts) and the amount of time I spend trimming seam allowances to keep the darks from peeking through is just about enough to make you crazy.....and on this quilt it would have!

This pattern was one of my favorites at the red and white exhibit.
LOVE IT!

The snow is finally melting away, and we are doing a little dance!

Have a great day!

regan