Therapy Quilt

I finished my therapy quilt!!! It was a lot of fun. I quilt other people's quilts as a job so when I quilt my own pieces I tend to do one of two things: I either quilt it quickly and simply just to get it done or I say 'why not?' and try something new. This quilt was a 'why not?' quilt. I tried Superior Bottom Line thread and some 'wonky' quilting (a new word I learned from the blog ring). The Bottom Line thread was nice, yet very, very fine. It worked great in the bobbin but didn't hold up well as a top thread. So, technically, HALF of this quilt is quilted with Bottom Line. I gave up part way through and used So Fine (also by Superior) as a replacement top thread. Superior says that Bottom Line is 'Designed by Libby Lehman for quilting, embroidery, bobbin, binding, and appliqué', but if it only works as a bobbin thread for me, then it's a bobbin thread. My guess is that it's a great hand applique thread, but I do so little of that. As for the 'wonky' quilting, I quilted diagonal lines in each of the logs and made a strange sort of spiral. Nothing new to other people, I'm sure, but something I've never tried myself. All in all, I love this quilt. I'm sure it'll be a gift at some point but I enjoyed having it around. It was truly great therapy. Please notice my darling daughter's fingers and socks as she is stretching to hold this quilt for me. Isn't she sweet?


This next quilt is another Moda University quilt. I'm not 'wowed' by it but it's pleasant and best of all -- it's done. It'll be a gift at some point. This time, please notice my husband's handsome hand and my darling daughter's beautiful red cuff. Such a supportive family!


I realized I never posted about my husband's event. It was wonderful. Truly. After the agony of shopping for a dress and shoes and a wrap and a bag... it was actually all worth it. My husband works for a very, very large company and he is a technology dude. That's most of what I know about how he spends 60+ hours a week. Anyway, he and his group worked on a technology product. They finished on time and on budget and the technology is selling very well. That is what this party was for. The company wanted to say thanks to the technology dudes and to their significant others for all their hard work and sacrifice. It was great to meet the people my husband works with as well as their spouses. The food was great. The music was great. The speakers were upbeat and brief. And there was actually a comedian who specializes in technology humor. Well done. Oh, about the clothes: they fit me well, fit the event well, and made me comfortable enough to speak to 'big bosses' when introduced. To sum up: I overthought the clothing and such, but it paid off in a very nice evening. Now, since I have this great dress, I am planning another great (smaller) event so I can wear the dress again. Convenient time for an anniversary, right?

Another day, another book

I listen to books. Like, a lot. Really. The ladies at the public library have a shelf just for me.

I just finished Breaking Point by Suzanne Brockmann. It was a real popcorn book. Spy adventure love story stuff. It was R-rated, so I wasn't that comfortable listening to it without headphones with my youngest child around. Although it was action, etc., it was still funny and I loved Patrick Lawlor's voice. Unfortunately, the library doesn't have too many more books that's he's read. There are several people with voices I love, and he just made my top 5 list.

Mental health day

After a too busy week with too little sleep, I try to schedule a mental health day. I'll turn off the alarm clock and unplug the phones and spend a day doing whatever suits me best (as long as it doesn't involve working). Yesterday was my mental health day.

Unfortunately, I forgot the 'unplug the phones' part, so my day started at 9 with a call from a dear friend. Good thing I really, really like her.

After the call, I spend the rest of the day engaging in quilt therapy.

dictionary.com defines a quilt as:

A coverlet or blanket made of two layers of fabric with a layer of cotton, wool, feathers, or down in between, all stitched firmly together, usually in a decorative crisscross design.

and therapy as:

Healing power or quality.

I define quilt therapy as:



This quilt is from Eleanor Burns' Bear in the Woods quilt book, and I made the top yesterday (entirely from stash). I'm not sure my therapy is complete. I may have to take more time off to quilt and bind this quilt.

Please note, you have seen and will probably continue to see red/pink/white scrap quilts from me. Did I really buy all that fabric? Someone must have snuck it in my sewing room while I wasn't looking.

Out with the old...

A while back, I led a quilt group at my church. Ladies (and gentlemen!) learned the basics of quilting while enjoying each other and making quilts to give away. After a year, it became too much for me to do alone and no one else stepped up, so it kind of ended. We finished several quilts and gave them away (some are in the Ukraine, even!), but the rest of the partially done quilts make their home with me. This one only needed a binding, so I finished it. I'm not sure where it will go, but someone will definitely love it.

At long last

Ding, dong, the witch of a week is dead.

I'll try to catch up in several posts.

First off, thanks for all of your kind posts about this quilt:

It was a shop sample with Lakehouse Fabrics. I must humbly admit to being not very creative at all, especially since I followed the designer's pattern for the quilt. The entire quilt is fussy cut so it took forever, but the fabric was so darn cute, I barely minded.

I will try my hand at creativity, though, with the leftover scraps. We'll see what happens.

Saturday, so far

I was teaching today, so no more customer quilts were completed. I did manage to finish binding a shop sample and the fabric is too darn cute.

It started out as those huge flowers shown in this picture from last week:

Still Quilting

I finished listening to Lifeguard by James Patterson. Pretty close to a popcorn book. Now to find another one. I really liked that this was read by Billy Campbell. He was in Once and Again, Gods and Generals, and the crummy guy in Enough. He does a wonderful job with the different voices. I'm going to check the library and hope that he's done other books.

Friday

Did you ever have a day when you just couldn't wake up? Well, it's 8:30 at night and I'm still waiting to wake up. I'm physically tired, but looking at the calendar for the next few days makes me even more exhausted.

I finished a customer quilt today, with several more due too soon. Since I have so much quilting to do, I'll be able to post on books that I've listened to while working.

Here's the first one:

Due to an issue in the local schools, I was looking into books that have been banned. This one came up as one of the top banned books in the last 50 years. I finished listening to it today and cannot say that it's my favorite book. I wouldn't have banned it, but I wouldn't have had elementary school students read it, either. It has some interesting things to say.

You know how mindless and fun movies are called 'popcorn movies'? In order to finish 7 more quilts by Tuesday while teaching and fulfilling other obligations, I need a good 'popcorn book'. Mindless fun that keeps me from noticing that I'm spending hours and hours standing at the machine. Suggestions? I have several books from the library in the house, and the 900+ I can download from the library. I'll try several and see what works.

A Fun Day

I was sitting in the car during my daughter's ridiculously long orthodontist appointment today thinking of all the things I have to do in the next week. Once I enjoyed a few moments of being ticked off, I gave up and just enjoyed my 2 hours in the car.

I brought a quilt to bind and nearly finished the whole thing. I'll post a pic when it's completely done. I finished listening to Over Her Dead Body by Kate White.

The novel was OK. What was neat was that Lea Thompson read the book. Lea Thompson was the star of many of my 'date movies' with my husband. Tough to pick a favorite -- Back to the Future? Surely not Howard the Duck. Space Camp? I'll have to go with Some Kind of Wonderful.

The next week will be light on postings. My husband's Event is tomorrow night. I'm teaching 2 days of longarming workshops. I have WAY too many customer quilts to get done by next week. And many, many more things to do in the next week or so.

My new resolution: Stop Overcommitting Myself!

Perfect Weather for Quilting

The view from my sewing room door yesterday:


The view from my sewing room door today:


Which is why I'm doing this:


and this:


and this:


in front of this:


I love snowy days!!! Doesn't everyone?

Bear in the Woods

My friend and I are making Eleanor Burns' Bear in the Woods quilts and today was our first sewing session. We were hard at work cutting up our stashes:


We cut all the fabric for the log cabins and each pieced one (mine is on the left):

Our homework is to finish the other eleven. And here is my Bear in the Woods partner:


I told her I'd make her famous. She's not only beautiful and talented, but brilliant as well.

I Finally Finished!

This is what I do with my 2-inch scraps. I've made 6 or 7 over the years. Most of the quilts have gone to my kids' friends for graduation presents and are all used and loved. This one will go in the graduation quilt pile. I finished the quilt and quilting in 2005, but didn't finish the hand binding until last night.

The 2-inch scrap bucket is overflowing, so it's time to start another one, I guess.

Public Libraries Still Rule!

I just finished Point Blank by Catherine Coulter. I borrowed the unabridged CDs from the library.

I enjoy 'thrillers' (as this book was tagged). This is the first of Ms. Coulter's books I've read and it was a great car book. It was obvious that there were other books in the series to fill in the alluded-to backstory, so I look forward to getting them from the library and letting them make my errands less painful. I live 6 miles from the closest gallon of milk, so any errand takes a bit of time. (We live at the beginning of nowhere -- I've been to the middle of nowhere and we're not even close!) This book was 10 hours long and I finished it in 3 days in the car? That's a glimpse into my life, I think.

Oops, I did it again!

I thought taking yoga was good for me.

I was in a car accident 10 years ago and have been in near-constant pain from a back injury ever since. I've done the doctor and chiropractor and all sorts of exercises and stuff, but avoided medication and surgery. (I've also avoided losing the extra weight, but that's a whole other story).

So my dear quilt friend started taking yoga and a few months later I joined her. My back pain went away within a week and I haven't had a problem since. It's only been 5 weeks or so, but I've been amazed at how wonderful NOT being in pain feels.

All's well, right? Wrong!

See, the yoga studio is in the same plaza as our local quilt shop. It seemed like a good idea. I mean, I'm at the shop meeting customers all the time and would be more likely to go and do yoga if it was some place I already was, you know? So three times a week I'm at yoga, and three times a week I'm at the quilt shop. It would be rude not to stop in, right?

Look what followed me home:

Another entire bolt of white-on-white fabric and a yard of sale fabric. The 'only a yard of sale fabric' is thanks to Bonnie at Quiltville. I've been enjoying her site and decided that pieced backings are in my future. Otherwise, the 'one yard' would have been 'the rest of the bolt'. Babysteps, right?

Still, my fabric will outlast my ability to use it all. Of this I am sure.

And the winner is....

Saving Private Ryan!

Continuing my Tom Hanks movie run, I pulled Saving Private Ryan from the shelf (we have a dvd stash as large as my fabric stash!!!).

Great movie. It's strange how you can see Matt Damon in Harrison Young, the actor who portrayed James Ryan as an older man. Excellent job of casting.

I wonder if there are any more Tom Hanks movies on the shelf???

Completed Quilts

I've posted photos of new fabric, but none of completed quilts. These quilts represent what I've finished in 2006 so far. Hopefully many, many more completed quilt photos will be added to this blog in the near future. I have many, many UFOs to clear out.


I finished these last night. I needed a runner for my dining room table. I made the other runner for my friend for her birthday/Valentine's Day. The block pattern is from Nickel Quilts and I just added some sashing and borders. They were entirely from stash. Yay!

This is a fun quilt. I made enough blocks from my 'brights' stash to make three quilts. I also found an entire bolt of sky blue in my stash that was a great background. Yards and yards of fabric used! I purchased the three backs from the sale rack at my local quilt shop. (LOVE sale racks! -- maybe that's why my stash is so huge?) I gave the first quilt to my son's girlfriend for Christmas and she loved it. This is the second done and it will eventually go to someone. Maybe a graduation quilt? The third quilt in the series is still in the UFO pile. The pattern is from McCall's Quilting Magazine April 2004, I think.
This is the first Moda University quilt. I signed up for the club at my local quilt shop. Isn't it fun hanging out with other quilters? Every month we make a block and get a quilt pattern. I normall don't do kits, but I've purchased all of them so far. This is the first one finished. I think it's called Hexagon Magic and it was incredibly fun to make. The hexagons are not actually hexagons. They are rows of trapezoids (?) sewn together. No yucky inset seams or anything. I was going to give this quilt away, but I've fallen in love with it and will keep it as a coverlet for my bed.

I'm not sure if the trend is noticeable or anything, but I don't make difficult quilts. I work as a quilter, so I tend to make simple quilts for myself. I'd like to finish them in this lifetime. The more difficult quilts I've started are buried deep in the UFO pile.

This blog has been a great motivation for me. I have to finish binding another quilt so I can post another picture!

Forrest Gump

Last week when I was donating platelets, the people at the blood bank were playing Forrest Gump. I was lying under the television set, so I couldn't actually see the movie, but simply listening to it reminded me what a great movie it was. I watched it a few days ago and fell it love with it all over again. "So I went to the White House, AGAIN..."

Since I enjoyed a Tom Hanks movie so much, I thought I'd watch another one. Last night I watched The Money Pit. My husband watched this movie while we were dating and it was hysterical then. Four years ago we bought our first home. It's a great house, but a bit of a fixer-upper. Watching The Money Pit. again after living through a few fiascos (ceiling collapse, leaking roof, broken pipes, etc.) made the movie even funnier. We haven't had the bathtub fall through the floor yet, or the stairs completely collapse, but the week is still young.

What Tom Hanks movie to watch next?

HELP -- I'm losing ground!

Today's fabric acquisition:



This is the new Lakehouse fabric for a sample for my local quilt store. And behind the cut fabric is an entire bolt of white fabric! My friend and I are making Eleanor Burns' Bear in the Woods quilts (other than the background, it uses ALL STASH!) and we each need 7 yards of white background. Unfortunately, I ordered the bolt thinking it held 15 yards and it's only 10. So, soon there will be another acquistion picture showing another entire bolt of white fabric.

Wow, I'm going to have to show some pictures of work completed in 2006 to balance out the acquisition photos. Soon, very soon.

Preparing for the Event -- stage three

Today was the haircut. I woke up with a bob and I'll go to sleep with a flip. Aren't haircuts grand?

Oh, and Jennifer is the BEST HAIRSTYLIST EVER. No, seriously, I mean it. One thing I won't be worrying about at the Event is my hair. One worry down, a thousand to go....

Guilty Pleasure

I recently downloaded Hellfire from the library and listened to it this morning. Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series is my guilty pleasure. How could you NOT love Scottish Highland romantic fiction when coupled with time-travel? I mean, really, what's not to love?

Hellfire was a novella about Lord John Gray. It was very short but very enjoyable.