Another UFO Finished

Finished UFO #2 today...........it was started in 1994! It is a classic "what in the world was I thinking" quilt............one that you would never dream of making today and shows your growth in quilting. I won the blocks (which were all different sizes) in a guild block exchange back in '94, bought the setting fabric at Walmart, used a 100% cotton batting and started trying to handquilt it.......end of story until this month. When going through my UFOs I rediscovered it, deemed it a perfect medium to on which to practice free motion machine quilting, and set to work. It will be a donation quilt for the local battered women's shelter, which is our guild's outreach. And I learned allot while working on it.

As you can see from the photos, I had plenty of help on this baby!

Since you have met our schnauzers, I thought it was time for Poppy to make her entrance into the blog, too. Poppy, our rescue dog, is 1/2 schihtzu, 1/2 lab........quite a strange mix. But, what a sweet girl she is, and a quilt-loving, lazy bones, too.

Back to stitching now..........don't want to lose my momentum.

Happy Birthday

Well, it's a day late, but yesterday was DD#1's 36th birthday. How can that be? Boy, I am really getting old, and so is she!!! We will actually celebrate her birthday on Sunday with a family dinner. This is a recent photo.

I have not accomplished any stitching or hooking since Monday. I just haven't been able to get motivated. My sister is here from Alabama until tomorrow, and then Sunday is birthday dinner, so I doubt that I will accomplish a great deal over the w/e...........maybe tomorrow night?

Tomorrow my sister and I will go to the LQS to try to chose setting fabric for some fan blocks (18 of them) that she inherited from a friend who has passed away. I will put it together for her and then she will have it quilted. I will probably just set it on point and add borders. Should be pretty easy...........and I can shop for fabric vicariously and still not break my "no buy". Not bad, huh?

That is about it for tonight..............

Tuesday night

Yesterday was a glorious day full of rug hooking, friends and hospitality. I desperately needed it, as the past couple of months have been particularly difficult for me due to the declining health of my mother. I worked on my Persian folk rug at my class, and my teacher praised the border!!! I was quite pleased with myself :-) At the afternoon hooking I got most of the first part of the binding on the Primitive Baskets Rug. So, along with a fine time, I also accomplished allot. Roxie is hiding under the Persian rug, but you can get a glimpse of the border design.

DD#2 called tonight to say that DGD has learned to crawl!! What a smart baby, and what a little charmer she is. This is a photo of her at Christmas in her smocked dress that I made.

I am not feeling very productive tonight....I have tomorrow night's dinner in the crockpot, ready to turn on in the morning. That is going to be the extent of what I get done. I think I am going to sit and veg for

awhile. Some nights are just like that.

Sunday night

Where does the w/e go............laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, visiting my mother at the nursing home, preparing food for the coming week. I accomplish allot, but there is just never enough time.



This afternoon DH and I rode through part of the county that was hit by a tornado last week. It was extremely devastating, and one of our friends had considerable damage to her property. Thankfully she and her animals are safe. In fact, despite all of the property damage, no one was hurt.



Tomorrow is my monthly all day rug hooking day. Two friends and I will leave at 7:45 a.m. and drive the 2 hr. drive to Athens for a 4 hr. class with Eric Sandberg, a nationally known teacher. We are working on wide cut Persians, and mine is an Azerian, which is a folk story rug. Afterwards we will go to our Hooking Guild for an afternoon and evening of hooking along with a pot luck dinner. We won't get home until around 10 p.m. It is a great day, and I always look forward to it. I will work on binding my sister's rug at the Guild hooking time. I should have finished it by Christmas, but life got in the way. I am posting a photo of the rug, "Primitive Baskets" by Karen Kahle. She is one of my favorite hookers and designers. This rug was lots of fun to hook, and I busted stash doing it...........all of the wool, which is mostly #8 cut, is leftover from previous projects!



Off to bed now.

Second Saturday Night

I am on quilting overload after today. This was the last day of the BOM program for two quiltshops........and I was doing two versions of the BOM at one of them. I have setting options and fabrics whirling around my head like a tornado!!! Now I have decisions to make. Actually, one was already made, as the Basket quilt at Red Hen only had one version made up, and I had preordered the finishing kit on that one..........an allowed purchase, of course. The only other fabric I bought was for the BOM blocks, so I remain "No Buy". I don't quite know which settings I will chose for the other two sets of blocks, but I bought two patterns which I will probably end up using. It should be fairly easy to decide on setting and border fabrics for the traditional blocks, but the blended will be a challenge. I will post the blocks at some point.

My only other purchases (and I made a trip to JoAnn's) were for snaps and batting. I did get a free fat quarter at Red Hen for taking my internet coupon in.

Didn't get to spend as long with my dear friend as I would have liked, but I was able to get a photo of us together with the wonderful quilt that she made and hand quilted for me as my Christmas gift this year. I love it!!! She used a batting by Mountain Mist called Cream Rose. The quilt is so soft..........like snuggling under a cloud.

Rascal, my little male schnauzer, and one of our three dogs, was sitting on my ottoman tonight looking way too sweet, so I am going to be compelled to include his photo. Gotta love those doggies.

I am not much in the mood to stitch tonight, so maybe I will just putter in my sewing room and clean a bit......or do a bit more sorting. That can always prove interesting........

Here I go.............

After debating the issue in my mind for several months, I have finally decided to try my hand at blogging. Do I have enough time to be consistent........probably not. But I will never know unless I give it a try.

Having joined the Stashbusters group @ Yahoo a few months ago in order to try to get a push at finishing up my UFO quilt and other needlecraft projects, I noticed that lots of quilters were blogging. In fact, I can hardly get through the posts on Stashbusters, because I am voraciously perusing the blogs created by all of these gals. Talk about inspiration! Not only that, you really get to "know"some of the people through their blogs. People that don't even know I am "in their lives"..........guess you might call that voyeurism????

Anyway, here I go with my own blog, devoted to those things that interest me most on any given day, and particularly to my needlework and quilting.

I have finished my first quilt UFO of the year, and am feeling quite pleased with myself, even though it is only a little doll quilt. I participated in the Jo's Little Women Club at my LQS last year.......finishing several sweet little tops, but only getting a couple quilted. This is one of those, Jo's Humble 9-Plaid Doll Quilt, and it is one of my favorites. It is quite simple and afforded me an opportunity to practice my machine quilting, using a crosshatch design.

Tomorrow is one of my favorite days of the month........Second Saturday! I get to go up to Marietta and spend the day with my very dear friend. We will hit our two favorite quilt shops.

I am finishing up the monthly BOM programs at both. Since I am a part of the No Buy program on Stashbusters, I will be shopping with that in mind. The finishing kit for one of the BOMs has already been purchased, and I will pick that up with a clear conscience, as it is allowable. I also need a batting for another UFO that I want to get finished. Will let you know if I am able to keep my spending in check!