Ok, time to quilt!

The baby is better, I'm feeling a bit punky but better than I was yesterday. I'm ready to quilt! I WILL have this quilt done by midnight, Sunday. I am going to machine quilt it, I've decided. Since it is for the baby it'll be stitched in the ditch and around each block---I may attempt to do some stippling for inside the blocks, I'll have to practice first.


I've also decided that my giant Christmas quilt is going to be hand quilted and I even have an idea now of how to do it! I just needed some inspiration and the ladies at the Quilter's Corner Club, Quilter's Who Care and Ohio Quilter's group and of course, Alex Anderson and her wonderful guests on Simply Quilts have provided me with SO much inspiration that I want to make EVERYTHING I see and EVERYTHING I dream up!


After spending the week with a sick baby (poor thing, he's better now!)and being sick myself and having 3 other sick kids, I need a major sewing break. I'm gonna tell DH when he gets home that I need a bunch of time this weekend to sew--but we need to make sure he has time to do what he wishes to do as well. I WILL get this quilt done! After all, I have at least 10 snowmen blocks to make for the snowman swap I belong to--and whatever other swap I decide I have to join!

I will not be posting again until the quilt is done, I hope to be posting pictures of it this weekend, check back, it'll be here!!!

Have a good, safe, warm weekend!

Winter is here, again....

In the past, before taking my kids out of school to homeschool, I have watched the crawl early mornings to see if school would be closed due to the horrific winter weather outside. Time and time again our wonderful school district (NOT) has kept them open, even when every single district around us was closing left and right. This year, we actually had two--TWO! cold days last week (when they have stayed open in the past for the same type of temps) and tomorrow (or really, today) they are closed again due to the blizzard going on outside. I guess they really couldn't be foolish enough to stay open, we'll be lucky to get the service truck out of the drive tomorrow so DH can get to work, let alone the tons of school buses that go up and down our street all day.

We are getting TONS of snow right now! My 10 yo and I went out around 4pm to shovel and there was probably a good 6-8 inches on the ground. My wonderful neighbor came over with his snowblower and did the majority of our long drive for us--so I reciprocated and baked him a batch of chocolate chip cookies! Here is the snow level on our table in the backyard (we use this to gauge our snowfall)at 4 pm. Click on pictures for a larger view.


Here is our table now, at midnight:


We've gotten a foot at least with up to 8-10 more inches possible by morning! Pretty cool, huh? I love snow!

Here is the snow fall as of 10 am this morning! Now the drift against the fence is due to the neighbors snow blower, the rest of the huge drifts are all real!
With the blizzard-like winds, there is major drifting--some areas of the backyard are 3-4 feet, some 3 inches. The dogs are loving it, although when they first ran outside, the snow right outside the door is an almost 3 foot drift! They jumped up and found an area that was less deep---but hopped around the yard in the drifts, LOL!









As you can see, the dogs are lovin' it!



Here are pics of our drive and the street. It's really hard to get a sense of how deep it is--of course, it's nothing like what they have up in Oswego, NY but it's our worst storm since 1993 they are saying. I'm thinking it's almost as bad as the storm of '78, I was twelve and we got HAMMERED with a major blizzard. Too bad it's so cold out, the kids would love to be playing in the snow!


My poor baby is sick still. This started yesterday with a bad tummy and everything coming out from both ends. We kept him hydrated and loaded with pedialyte. Today he woke up all flush, now he has a temp and a high one at that! So, I've been keeping him dosed with motrin and continue to keep him fed with motrin and water and some of my homemade chicken and rice soup and more pedialyte, of course. I'm hoping this will go through him by tomorrow because the roads are gonna be worse than today and the doctor suggested that we not take him out since it will be so cold. If he still has a fever tomorrow, I'm gonna assume it's an infection and he'll have to be seen by someone for a possibly antibiotic. Unless it is a virus, of course. I'm just hoping for his sake, he's better---poor thing!

Well, the baby was up all night, I think he finally fell asleep around 5, although DH was up with him at 6:30, changing him and giving him a pedialyte bottle before he had to leave for work (poor guy, heating and cooling guys have to be out in all weather!). It's 11:30 and the baby is still sleeping, I'm just gonna let him sleep, hopefully he'll feel better when he wakes. Of course, with him up all night, I got nothing done with my WIP. I'm gonna go up and make hot chocolate with marshmallows for the boys, throw some laundry in the washer, mix up a couple of loaves of bread and try to get a little sewing done on my WIP before he wakes up. But, as we all know, the best laid plans..........

It's not like I'm going anywhere, LOL!

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!

Exhausted

It's been a busy, exhausting, heartbreaking week. My eldest son, whom I just got back home in August (he'd been in a specialized foster home for 8 years due to severe behavioral issues) ran away from home AGAIN this past week. He's still under protective supervision of the county since he does have severe issues---and they had to take custody back because he just wasn't doing anything he was supposed to be doing. A week ago, he and I had been talking and he told me that his friend said to him that he was so lucky to have the life and the family that he has and he was so lucky to have a mother that loved him and took good care of him. He told me that his friend was right. Two days later, he was on a downward spiral that ended up destroying his life as he knew it. As we knew it. So, he is now gone and I am heartbroken and sad. I was so hopeful about him being home.

The worst thing about it is that everyone said this would happen, that he wouldn't be able to live at home and do things right. I'm glad we at least tried---as heartbreaking as it is to have to lose him again---at least I know that I tried my hardest to give him the love and family he craved, even if he didn't seem to want it when he was here.

Needless to say, I haven't had the time or the energy to work on any projects. Some good news, we finally met with the mortgage broker and he said he is definitely going to be able to get us into a house, most likely the one we want. I am hoping we hear good news from him soon, we can use some wonderful, happy news.

Quilts, quilts, quilts

I'm trying to get pictures together of all the quilts I've made over the years. I still have stacks of pictures to go through to get some of my older quilts together. I'd like to make an album with pictures of each quilt, the story behind the quilt and even fabric swatches if I still have some. I thought that would make a nice keepsake for whomever is interested after I am gone. I have to get over to my mother's house and take pictures of all the quilts I've made her. I have 2 quilts that I've made for me over the years, and one isn't even finished! This year, I am pledging to try and complete a quilt a month---and get all my WIP's and UFO's done. I am also pledging to buy fabric whenever I can afford to do so---my stash is very low---very low. Even if it's a stack of fat quarters a month---that's something! I have so many quilts I want to make this year--mostly wallhangings but I have to make a bed quilt for me and DH (queen size--big!) and a bed quilt for each of the boys and my daughter. I am taking a machine quilting class at my LQS so I can get the stippling down, I've never been good at that! If you are interested, feel free to take a peak at the quilts I have pics of so far, it isn't much but they are mine (well, I made them, anyway!)

Signs of Spring

The seed catalogs have started to arrive in my mailbox which means spring is not far behind! As I look through each beautiful catalog and try and decide what I don't want to grow this year, I have to plan two gardens. Since I don't know for sure if we will be here in the spring/summer or at the farm we are trying to buy, I need to try and buy and plan for both. Here, I have little to no space for a garden, I grew tomatoes last year and I had a nice herb garden going, but nothing else. I can get a flower garden going in the front of the house since we pulled out all the carpenter ant loaded bushes last summer. Now, if we do get the farm, I will have tons and tons of space. I will have a large area in front of the barn.
This is look down from the barn, I'm not sure how big it is but it is a huge area and it's mostly fenced in which will help against larger veggie eater animals!






Here is a look up to the barn:

As you can see, the barn needs a lot of work---but it's a barn! I would be grateful just to have it as is!
Anyway, back to my gardens. I would have that whole area in front of the barn for a large garden. I would put a herb garden over by the house so I could actually have a kitchen herb garden.



Here at this house I have this area to plant things


Not much space, as you can see, LOL! There are other areas in this backyard but most of the backyard is taken up by our pool and with the kids splashing, I wouldn't want that water to get all over a garden, so I'm kinda stuck. I have the plots above in containers so the roots don't get covered with clorinated water.

I am planning on purchasing all organic seeds. I don't plan on selling produce as of yet, but I would like the ground tested at the farm so I can find out if it's loaded with chemicals. I am considering raised gardens anyway so even if the ground has issues I may be able to get around it with raised gardens. There are 2 wells on the property, I'm assuming that the one has gone dry but having been a city girl my whole life, I'm wondering how we will handle watering the gardens and plants and even the animals we plan on having. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

While I was reading through one of my Yahoo lists, I found a post about a site called Citizenre that is about solar power and how this company will rent out all the equipment you need to go off-grid. DH is totally sold, I am partially sold. I know that DH wants to be able to have battery backups, which this company doesn't offer, what energy we wouldn't use goes back to the grid with their system (I think it is called a Net meter system). Plus, he wants to utilize solar and wind and I'm not sure that they allow other forms of energy to be hooked up to their systems. All things to consider and find out about along the way. All I know is that I want to be able to use my computer and sewing machine whenever I want and for as long as I want so whatever system we have should be able to handle at least that much! LOL! I wouldn't mind living off-grid, at least I wouldn't be as uninterested about it as Ed Begley Jr.'s wife, Rachelle is on their show Living with Ed on HGTV. I think most of their antics are hyped up for the show---they really seem like a very happy couple. We've been getting greener and greener in our living---it's a slow process with the kids, they are used to living a wasteful, un-environmentally involved life. I hope we can change that!

I am still looking for time to work on the quilt. My eldest is moving out this weekend so I'll probably be busy cleaning up her room and moving the boys into it. I wish she would stay home, but she seems happier where she is---seems being the operative word there. I know she likes being in charge of her life and not having to answer to me---so that is something, anyway. I still miss her.

Ok, off to figure out dinner, I may be back later!

I got tagged (sorta) on Quilting Fitzy's site so I figured I'd join in the fun and answer a few Q's myself!


Do you own a gun? No no no no no!

What do you think of hot dogs? I love hotdogs, with chili and onions and cheese and mustard!

What’s your favorite Christmas song? I love so many--years in choir gave me an appreciation for all types of holiday songs. My favorite? Here we come a'wassailing, Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella, Rockin' around the Christmas Tree--oh geez, so many more!

What do you prefer to drink in the morning? nice, fresh ice water

Can you do push-ups? Maybe 5, 10 if I am lucky

What’s your favorite piece of jewelry? I don't really wear jewelry, but DH bought me a beautiful necklace that a friend of ours had made, so that is probably my fav.

What is your secret weapon to lure the opposite sex? My cooking!

Middle name? Ann

Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment:
1. I need to get working on the quilt
2. What is the baby doing NOW????
3. I need more chocolate!

Name 3 drinks you regularly drink:
1. water, water and the occasional Sunkist soda

What time did you wake up today? 6:37 am

Current hate? hatred

Dislike? Bush, the war, terrorists, the IRS, green peppers

Favorite place to be? in my quilting studio (my bedroom, LOL) or the kitchen or outside on a warm, sunny day working in my garden!

Least favorite place to be? a crowded elevator, the dentists chair, any crowd anywhere

Where would you like to go? Ireland, Scotland and England--oh and Tuscany!

Do you own slippers? Yes, but they have bumps that are supposed to feel good and they don't, so I never wear them.

What shirt are you wearing? My purple Hanes v-neck t-shirt

Do you burn or tan? Burn & peel and then tan

Favorite color(s)? green

Would you be a pirate? Yeah, especially if I could look like Kiera Knightly!

What is your favorite holiday? Christmas

What songs do you sing in the shower? anything that comes to mind

What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child? Vampires, witches--especially the White Witch from Narnia--she was gonna pop out of my closet!

What’s in your pockets right now? Nothing

Last thing that made you laugh?My 10 year old going on about how funny the baby is!

Best bed sheets as a child? anything clean

Worst injury you’ve ever had? Fractured my ankle when I was walking on the railroad tracks when I was 16, walked a mile home on it and then went bowling that night--didn't go to the doctor until the next day, LOL!

Are your parents still together? Divorced in 1975

Do you wish on shooting stars? YES!

What is your favorite book(s)? The Mists of Avalon, The Lord of the Rings, The Stand

What is your favorite candy? Reese's Cups or Rolos

What song did you have played at your wedding? Haven't actually had the ceremony yet--I'll let you know!

How is the weather outside right now? Snowing, big, fat flakes, 32 degrees, windy

What was your first thought this morning when you woke up? Get the baby a bottle

Those are always fun! I also took a Jung Typology test today, I turned out to be a ENFJ type--which is Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Judging. Here is a brief description:

ENFJs are the benevolent 'pedagogues' of humanity. They have tremendous charisma by which many are drawn into their nurturant tutelage and/or grand schemes. Many ENFJs have tremendous power to manipulate others with their phenomenal interpersonal skills and unique salesmanship. But it's usually not meant as manipulation -- ENFJs generally believe in their dreams, and see themselves as helpers and enablers, which they usually are.

I guess that can pretty much describe me. I'm gonna go back and take some of their other tests, it's always something fun to do when you have nothing else to do.

And, no, I didn't get to work on the quilt today. There is always tomorrow.......