It's getting better all the time

Well, a week has past and things are better, calmer. The storm of activity around my eldest son's behavior has quieted. He is doing ok at the group home he was put into and he will be entering their independent living program in a week and eventually they will get him his own place (under their supervision). He turns 18 in September so hopefully this will teach him how to live with common sense and how to survive in the world. That is a tall order for the agency, DS thinks he knows everything and it usually isn't up to par with the real world. Of course, most teens think they know everything, so maybe it isn't so uncommon. The other boys and I are probably going to go see him this week, I am looking forward to seeing him, I don't think he'll ever realize how much I miss him and wish this never had to happen.


On a lighter note, I knitted my first project this week. I made myself a hat. It looks pretty good, there are mistakes in it that I can see (I miscounted on the rows were I had to K2tog and then k so many, reducing it every other row. Somewhere I miscounted on a row and it threw things off, but of course I am the only one who noticed! Here is little Seamus modeling my hat, just for you!

My birthday was Saturday but DH was on call and ended up working all day until 7!!! He wanted to take me personally to my favorite quilt shops but of course they were all closed. We went to JoAnn's and I got some border stencils, some chalk pencils, some knitting needles and cables, and a bunch of flannels for my snowman quilt I want to make. The pattern is in the current issue of Fon's and Porter's Love of Quilting Magazine and it is called Jolly Snowmen. I went to their site to see what the price of a kit would be since they advertised it in the magazine, but they don't have a kit for this quilt. As a matter of fact, I am having trouble finding plaid flannels ANYWHERE! It calls mainly for reds and greens--I seem to be finding lots of blues. I got some nice stuff at JoAnns but I still need a lot more greens and some green herringbone and gray herringbone which I have not been able to find in flannel at all. I will probably just use wool (if I can even find that!), since the quilt is supposed to have a woolen look, anyway. I am planning on hitting a couple quilt shops this week to take a look and DH is going to get me a walking foot for my Bernina as his present to me (Yay!!! I've wanted one for years!!!) My mother and Aunt came over today and I made dinner for us (it was my mom's birthday as well, I was born on her 20th birthday!) My mom gave me some books, a quilting book that had different, original stuff in it, a book from the 70's on fabric art and stuffing fabric to make things---it's pretty neat but very dated, LOL! The last book she got me was a book called Folk Art Friends; Hooked Rugs and Coordinating Quilts. The funny thing is that I saw this book on Ebay 2 weeks ago and bid on it, I really wanted it and I ended up losing the book because I forgot about the auction, LOL! I was bummed but figured I'd either end up getting it at Amazon.com or Borders and I never bothered mentioning it to anyone. Lo and behold, my mother finds it at the Border Outlet store and buys it for me because she thinks I'd like it, LOL! Is that a hoot or what???

My current WIP is going to be finished this week--or that is the plan, anyway! I figured out how to do the mitered borders--I've done mitered bindings but never wide borders. Luckily for me, they did a show on attic window quilts on Simply Quilts this past week and they were showing how to do mitered borders and I think I've got it down. I DVR'd the show, just in case I need a reference!

I've decided my next quilt (if not the snowman, or I will make it as I am making the snowman, LOL!) will be a scrappy string quilt. I don't have a lot of scraps, though. I stupidly did not see the value of scraps until the last year or so and threw away many, many scraps (yes, I am hitting myself in the head repeatedly!) Now, (in my defense) the scraps I've thrown away were always thin pieces, or short pieces, nothing I ever thought would be of any value. After getting a link to quiltville.com and checking out her string quilts and other's she had pictures of, I knew right then that I had to make one too! Plus, I am ready to try paper piecing---it's frightened me in the past but I am ready and willing to tackle it---plus after seeing it demonstrated on my fav quilt shows, I think it's a lot easier than I thought. My problem is the fact that I don't have a lot of scraps. Of course, I can just cut up stuff in my stash---but I think that whole point of these types of quilts is to use up your scraps and I'd like to stay true to that point of it. SO, it may be a while before I actually make one, hehehe!

Holy guacamole, it's nearly 4 a.m.!!! I'm heading to bed, have a great day and come back and see me again, soon!