Yay! A Sew Day with Patti!

Yep, Patti makes large rectangle! I'm sure it will be on MSNBC or CNN as soon as word gets out. Patti came over this morning and sewed all day. She's been working on bag organizers but her giant rectangles have become quite the joke between us. I sewed, but it doesn't seem like I accomplished a thing. I have a quilt I'm working on and I got about a third of it quilted. Garry was kind enough to make us lunch and deliver it to the sewing room. Oh...the sewing room is coming along. I'm sure I'll move things around several more times before I'm done, but it's working out well. Garry got my shelves put up while I was helping with a funeral dinner at church on Thursday. He's been scoring a lot of points lately. Wooohoooo! My custom made cutting table arrived a week or so ago. Corian top, custom drawers/baskets that lift out. Some shelves. I'm extremely happy with it and it was worth the wait. OHOHOH! I almost forgot ... I have been having a hard time wrapping my head around the whole applique thing. I wanted to do it, but when I tried it a while back, I had the biggest mess you ever saw. I had heat and bond, freezer paper stuck to everything I owned. It didn't go well at all. Then my friend, Sharon, was here last week and gave me a mini lesson and some tips. So...here's what I made tonight!

Uh huh...I made a flower! I've got a long way to go, but I'm working on it!
I guess that's all I've got so I'll leave ya with some sewing room pics.....



This is my spot for a friend to come sew! I wanted to make sure there was always room for Patti, Val or Sharon to come sew with me. (Jen or Jill...maybe one day you can use that spot!)
This is the new cutting table. I had them build it with pull out drawers that hold these baskets. The baskets lift right out. I really love it!

Thanks for all the well wishes for Tator. He's doing better every day. Still on the steroids, but healing. He's going crazy itching right now. It does appear that a hawk attacked him in the back yard. The hawk was circling the yard yesterday and if I get the chance, I'm gonna shoot him with my bb gun. It will shoot 22's but I'm not sure it's safe for me to have real ammo. You all know I'm sorta nuts, right?
Well, later gators. Bed time, church in the morning.

Gone to the dogs!

Happy Wednesday! Even though I have my office in my house, I still get excited about "hump" day. It's been an eventful last couple of days around here. For several years, I was a dog breeder. Maltese. I still have the Mom, Popcorn, the Dad, Tator and one of the pups Q-Tip. Don't point and laugh at them about their names,now. Garry named each one of them and they have learned to live with the indignity. My groomer left her job after the birth of her second child. She was in my vets office, so it's pretty easy to get every thing they need done in one shot. But, then they started a new policy where if I just took them to be groomed, the vet looked at them anyway and charged me and additional 33 bucks per dog. I was pretty put out about it. 33 times 4 is ... too much money! So, I had been trying a couple of new groomers, but not happy with any of them. Now, my vet assistant is a sweetie! She sent me a letter and mentioned that she had clippers now. Yesterday was dog grooming day here at Casa One I. Wanna see?


Last Friday, Tator started acting odd. Like he just didn't feel good. Remember these are long haired dogs. Lots of long hair. We just kept trying to figure out what was wrong with him. Then on Monday night, he started smelling gross. Really gross. And then he was sleeping and wouldn't wake up. So, a little after midnight, I insisted we take him to the Emergency Animal Hospital. A person knows when something is just not right. Ended up, he had two bad wounds under his fur and they were badly infected. You couldn't see them though. They kept him overnight, put him out and shaved him to his neck. He was on an IV for about 24 hours. He's a very sick baby right now. We got to pick him up last night and he's on steroids now. The pics are scary, so if your squemish....don't look.
I'm so glad I took him in. We might have lost him otherwise. I still can't figure out how he got these wounds. The dogs yard is completely fenced in. They have about an acre to run in. The only thing I can possibly think of, is that when I got my tomato cages out a few weeks ago, maybe he got poked on one while running around. They are rusty on the ends, so that might have caused this. The vet thought that might me reasonable, too. Poor little guy.
Then, I have one more dog, Mugsy. Mugsy is odd man out. He's a shitzu. A guy I used to work with bought him as a pup. Said he couldn't do a thing with him and named him Stupid. When he asked me if I would take him, I had to do a lot of talking with Garry. Garry told me when we got married, "No animals". Ha! So, about a year after I brought him home to see how it went, Garry asked me if we were keeping him...ha again! Of course we're keeping him. He's getting old now, but he's the best dog. And...he got a day of beauty too! I just can't thank Jennifer enough for coming over and doing all of this. I asked her if she wanted me to keep looking for a new groomer and she no, she'd just come over and take care of them. She is a real animal lover. I guess she sorta owes me though, because she's the one who stuck me with The Parrot. She's coming over on Tuesday to trim up Tator's head and do the parrots beak and nails. She'll also help me keep an eye on Tators wounds. I'm just sick about him getting hurt. I'm really a great pet owner and I love them all. I would never let anything happen to them. Poor little guy. They all seem much happier when they are shaved though, and after this fiasco, I'm going to keep their hair shaved in the summer and short in the winter.
No quilty stuff going on here, just gone to the dogs this week....

I'm a Yakadoodle tonight with lots to say....

Yep...moving a sewing room can be a dangerous thing. I have found stuff that I had forgotten I had. And the orphan blocks? Oops! They have filled their own drawer. Now, my living room that I am moving out of looks like this....sorry...it ain't pretty..... The furniture that goes in that room is downstairs. One of "the boys" (that means he rides dirt bikes with Garry) came over yesterday to help him move it all back to the living room, but Garry has a cold and it was sprinkling rain outside, so I told them to wait and do it another day. I really don't understand where my laid back attitude is coming from. It's not like me at all. For example, my oven broke right after Christmas. I still haven't replaced it. I should have by now, but it just hasn't seemed very important. I keep telling everyone "It's not like Picasso lost his brush", but that's not really true. I even own another oven that I love. It's in my other house about 20 minutes from here. Still....just not worried about it.

So...back to the room.....here's what the sewing room is now looking like.... I thought I would be able to leave the treadmill in that corner, but once the other furniture leaves the downstairs, I think the treadmill will go to the back of the downstairs. I need more sewing room already.

Next up....We had Craft Day at the church building last Saturday. Anyone recognize this happy face? Yep...it's Patttttiiiii! She's busy sorting Happy Hour blocks. Sharon is right there, too...working on a GMFG. She's a very talented woman!

Here are couple of other friends!
We're a lucky bunch of women to be able to use this building whenever we'd like. I even melted a big fat iron mark in the middle of the floor last year and no one even seemed to care. I just knew someone would be mad at me, but they just said that I had left my mark!

I finished a Bento Box Quilt. Don't tell Val because I've owed her a quilt for two years and she is getting this one..... I got the quilting and binding all finished yesterday. Washed and dried it last night and it's all wrapped up now. She's suppose to be coming over tomorrow to sew with me, so I'll give it to her then. Patti is suppose to come over tomorrow night and/or Saturday and sew with me too. Garry was suppose to go up north to the cabin, dirtbiking, but he's been very sick with a cold this week. He's still worked all week, but he's loopy at this point. I think he had a fever tonight because he was kinda weird. Making strange jokes and sweating. We had Cindy's choir concert tonight at school and he didn't look too good there either. So...I'm thinking I'm going to have to cancel his weekend. I can't have him sick all next week. He's not gonna be happy about it, but one of us must be the adult here. It must be my turn this week. I did start a couple of more quilts this week because it seemed more fun that moving the rest of the crap all over the living room ... here they are.... More Bento Box blocks..and
99 happy hour blocks. I absolutely love making the Bento Box quilts. I can see a lot of these getting done around here.
So....that's my week in a nutshell. A big darn nutshell, but I had a lot to say today. And...now....I'll take my leave and hit the hay.....
Later!

I'm moving....

out of my current sewing room and into the downstairs. I have a finished basement with a lot of space, but I hated it down there when I first started quilting. But....look at this mess.....

I have no room to even think about using my quilt frame. It's just sat there and I've piled crap all over it. It's turned into expensive storage. I need a large space to use it and my downstairs is just sitting there full of other crap we don't need. A lot of stuff went to a yardsale pile and the garbage today. The whole area down there is the same as my whole upstairs, so it's about 1100 square feet of junk area. So, I sweet talked Garry into helping me start cleaning it out today. We didn't even have a fight! Amazing! I will still need a large part of it for storage and stuff, but half of it will be my sewing area now. I'm going to just hang curtains or something to partition half of it off. Here's what the end I got cleaned out looks like now
I don't have a clue where that ratty old sofa sleeper couch came from, but it's leaving. I can't even lift one end of it or would already be outta there. I did get my fabric and moved down there today. When my son moved out (ok, I forced him to move out, but that's another story) he left piles and piles of stuff down there. It's all leaving too. Look at how much room I'll have when I'm done though!
Yep, that's a big fancy treadmill that I don't use. I couldn't get to it before, but I think I'll be able to use it when this mess is all cleaned up. I'm very excited. And yep again, that's a big pile of play station steering wheels. Garry picked out the ones he's keeping and called his buddies to see if they wanted any of the ones he isn't keeping. They want them....when do boys grow up? Garry said he can put some of those daylight lighting fixtures in down there and that will take care of why I hated it down there before. I guess that's all I've got for now. I'll be sore tomorrow, so maybe I'll go start moving smaller things down there now......or not!

Insert imaginative title here

My brain barely works most of the time, so I can't think a good title. Retreat was so inspiring for me. I got almost nothing done, but I have been a busy little beaver since I got home. And...I'm happier lately. Going away for a few days did me a world of good. Yay! So...I'll just post some pics of what I've been up to since I came home and again thank you to all the wonderful women at retreat that have given me back my mojo....

This is my version of Amanda Jean's pattern found here

This last one, a Bento Box, is almost finished being quilted. I'm stippling it, of course. My new fancy special ordered cutting table should be ready to pick up this week. I'll be posting lots of pics of that when I get it. My plan is to move my frame and machine to the downstairs so that I'll have some room to actually use it. I'm just stacking up quilt tops until that happens. I have three guys who are going to come and move it all for me....it pays to feed single men occasionally....they'll do almost anything you need done then. I really can't use my frame at all in the space it's currently in and I'd like to start quilting on it instead of my Sapphire. I have several things to get done this week. A member of our congregation passed away over the weekend so I'm going to help with the funeral dinner on Thursday and another friend's divorce will be final on Friday, so I thought a distraction would be good for her and lunch is always a good distraction. I've also got my Thimbleberries meeting on Thursday morning and I'm a month behind now, so I need to get last months blocks done.
Thanks again to the Prolific Online Quilters! What a wonderful group of crazy women!