2010 comes to a close...

and I am ready to see it go!  2010 had lots of good family moments, but more than its fair share of heartaches and issues also.  We had some painful transitions to go through and I didn't get nearly as much quilting done as I would have hoped.  Sigh.

But, 2011 is a NEW YEAR with new hopes and dreams.  I hope and pray that this year will run a bit smoother and have fewer of those nasty (forced) transitions!  We are settling in rather well to our homeschooling routine and the boys are thriving, so I am pleased about that.  Actually, that is one transition that was painful (the situation the necessitated a total upheaval) but I am gradually letting go of the hurt feelings and gaining a sense of peace and acceptance.  I think this was one of those things that just had to happen in order to make me see what my kids weren't getting from our situation at the time.  Now, they are beginning to love learning again.

I wish all of my readers a joyous and blessed New Year!  Hope to hear from you all really soon!

More Antibiotics and a Special Delivery!

Well, hubby started feeling bad yesterday, so this morning he went off to the doctor like a trooper.  He NEVER wants to miss work, so it was a little unusual for him to voluntarily go, so I knew he felt really badly.  Looks like he has a bad upper respiratory infection.  But, he is really good about taking his meds, so he will be quickly on the mend.

Right now, DS12 is the only healthy person in the family.  He has finished his antibiotics and is getting rather ill with the rest of us sickos!  Today, I took DS14 back into the doctor's office (for the 3rd time, no less) to pitch a fit and finally get him some help.  But, after I pitched a fit on the phone and refused to see the doctor in the group that had been so un-helpful, I got to see my favorite doctor and she, of course, came to the rescue and now, I am confident that DS14 will be on the mend shortly.

It's been an ordeal to try and regain some semblance of health around here.  Not fun at all!

Of course, I didn't like it that I still had a cough and couldn't go and be at the hospital while my honorary grandson was born.  They are worried about infection and I totally understand that with mommies-to-be and babies in such a fragile condition.  Even though I am on day 4 of my antibiotics, I figured it best not to scare anyone.  So, sadly, I stayed home and got messages by phone and text while I took care of my own brood.

But, I am still a little bit sad about it.  I wanted to see him, even if only through the nursery glass.  I am told that he has a head full of jet black hair and a perfectly pink complexion.  I will do my best to see him tomorrow and welcome him to the world.  I will take my mom with me (the honorary Great-grandma).  The doctor said he would hook me up with a sample of cough meds if necessary to get me past the nurses once it was certain that I wasn't contagious any more.  He totally "got" the baby thing when I explained it to him.  It seemed silly at the time, but I just might try it tomorrow!

A little bit of progress

A few blocks completed and pressed for Dad's lap quilt.  The colors are supposed to line up so that it makes a cute, secondary design when the blocks are alternated without sashing.  It makes the pattern, but not quite the correct way since I messed up the order of the colors.  Oh well.

Life is a little wonky, right?  Especially on bronchitis meds!  LOL!

Right now, all of the little 9-patch numbers are done and I have done the first 12 of the snowball blocks.  12 more snowballs to go and then we can start assembling and making decisions about borders and backings.  I will be very much relieved when this final gift is completed.

My Mom tells me that Dad, "sits around and shivers like a chihuahua!"  Great visual.  So, I figure that he really needs a quilt.  He is diabetic and is feeling the cold more these days.  Mom, however, still has hot flashes and thinks that the proverbial "Nanook of the North" is sweating in his igloo!  Now, I hope that Dad will get to cuddle under his very own quilt, made of guy fabrics, and stay completely and totally warm!

We can only hope!

Whew!

What a whirlwind week we have had!  Two sick kids, doctor's visits, doing math at home to play catch up (yuck) and trying to get things together for the Snowflake Event that starts tomorrow.

The snowflakes were the fun part!  Loved that!  I am waiting to put the finishing touches on my twig snowflakes so that they can go on display this evening and be blogged about tomorrow.

Pretty much, the week can be summed up with this photo:

Sleeping kids (snoring included) with big ol' size 14 teenage feet sticking out from under the quilt they stole borrowed from their mom.

575 Posts and a new finish!

It's hard to believe that this is my 575th post!  When I started this blog, I wasn't sure if I would have much to say or whether anyone would want to read it.  Looks like I have kept on writing and a few folks continue to read, so it's a good thing!  It's been a good outlet for me and a way to connect with others with similar interests.  So, for you who read this blog, thank you!

I have been kind of restless today, possibly because I am trying to decide what I want to do, gift wise, while waiting on my sewing machine to arrive.  I guess it has made me a tad more productive.  I managed to get the binding on a quilt that I had quilted as a QAYG and had been waiting for the binding to go on.  I had used a friend's machine to do the seaming and was folding it to the back and stitching it down.  Right as I got to the final foot or so on the last side, my kitty, Natasha, decided that the quilt looked good enough for her and she just hopped on up!

Yep, my quilts are kitty approved!  Now I just have to get brave enough to wash it and pray that it stays together (unlike the shirting quilt).  Wish me luck!

The tree is up!

 The boys took a much larger part in getting the tree up this year.  They stuck with the process for the entire time and worked along side us instead of playing or leaving the room while we parents did the work.  Even better, they decorated the entire tree and not just strips at their personal eye levels.  We didn't have to go back and move ornaments around after the fact.  We listened to Christmas music and talked, reminiscing about ornaments that were sentimental.  I really enjoyed it.

That evening, I had completed decorating the mantle and hanging the Christmas quilts up.  We lit the candles and dimmed the lights.  It was warm and beautiful and full of all of the Christmas-y magic.  We were together.  It's all that matters.

Oh, How I Love it When the Kids Share with Me...

NOT!  Well, not this time, at any rate.

What started as seasonal allergies (ragweed, yuck!) has slowly turned into sinus infections for all of us, one by one.  DS12 had it first, then DS14 (very mild case) and now lucky me!  The doctor did set me up with 2 weeks worth of antibiotics and an antihistamine spray for my nose (which works so fast that I am coughing and sneezing just moments after I take it).  The only bad thing is that the spray either runs down my throat tasting horrible or it's the drainage.  Not pleasant at all.

But, I am taking the new meds and am sure to be on the mend very soon.

Which is good, because I have quilts and lots of Christmas gifty love to work on!

Off to the doctor I go.....

Sniff.  I give up.  Really.

Two weeks with a sinus headache is just too much.  Hubby suggested I take some benadryl last night so I could sleep and help it ease up if it was allergies.  It helped (sleep is always a wonderful thing), but I woke up still hurting.

So, after school today, I am going to the doctor to see what help he offers.

Sigh.

Baby steps...baby steps

Well, in between out of town guests (love them!) and sick kids (allergies backed up sinuses and now kiddos have infections and ear infections, too), I managed to get a little bit of quilting in.

Thanks to a friend who gave me an older sewing machine that has an awesome straight stitch (but no zig-zag), I am back in business.  The star on the left is machine pieced this evening.  The one on the right is hand pieced.  I love them both.  Right now, I am thinking of keeping the hand pieced block and making a wall hanging out of it.  I love the hand pieced block, but I am afraid that the machine pieced one might stand up to various washings for a baby's use a little better.

But, I absolutely love having both blocks hanging up to view them.  I am using old, discarded, I mean vintage shirting fabrics for these.  It's soft and masculine.  It is the kind of thing that I would have hung up in my kiddo's rooms for years since it isn't  kiddie type fabrics

Now, I have to machine piece three more blocks and borders.  We are taking a break from school right now, so it's a good thing that I have suddenly been gifted with a machine.  God is SO good to me!

Ragweed, ACK!!!

Apparently, from the stands of yellow flowers I see growing everywhere, ragweed is in full bloom around here.

Lucky me.

Judging from the fact that my entire brood (self included) is coughing, hacking, sinus headache-y, and tremendous mucous making machines, that we are officially allergic.

Yay.

No Fair!

Between helping to take care of my Mom, homeschool for 3 boys, and starting a new business venture (slowly....s l o w l y....), I feel like I am hardly able to get anything done (including laundry) well or even at all, sometimes.

You would think that with the economy and how tight money is for us, that since we are home more that we would be able to get so much more done!

Lately, I am so spent from our homeschool time that I take a nap when I get home. I need the break--dealing with my oldest is totally emotional! But, it eats into my productive time, if you could even call it that.

I guess I need to be more regimented. I am expecting the boys to help more around the house with chores, etc. I think that maybe this place will look relatively presentable in the near future. Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

But, I am absolutely itching to quilt. Something fabulous. Really fabulous. Now!

I need to make a baby quilt for a friend who is having her first baby. She wants navy blue. She liked my suggestion to add lighter blues, and maybe some white or cream. But, even though I have pored over the internet looking for ideas, I can't settle on anything. My mind is just so addled lately that I am taking way too long to just focus.

I am thinking with that color scheme, that thrifted men's shirts could look fun and very "little man" for the quilt. I've even got a few shirts, just no inspiration that I can claim. My stash fabrics look a little too floral and cutesy for this quilt. The mom is not wanting anything feminine at all, so my swirly little scraps are out this time. I do love the idea of creating an heirloom for my friend's new baby without breaking the bank! This economy does keep us being creative, doesn't it?

It's crazy. I even have a bed sized quilt basted and ready for hand quilting and I just can't seem to get started. It's like I am too tired to pick it up, even though I love to sit and quilt of an evening while the kids and hubby watch a movie, etc.

I have got to get past this little slump I am in so I don't lose my mind. I need my quilt therapy (I can't afford the other kind--LOL)!

Out of Sorts

It sure seems odd that I am not posting quilty things lately. I am kind of at a standstill for a few reasons. We are just starting our second week of homeschooling and that's a little involved from a planning standpoint. I am starting a new business and my kick off event is this Saturday, so I am frantically cleaning house, attending training, watching training online, etc. Worst of all, until I can earn the money to purchase the new sewing machine, it is unlikely that I can get anything done at all. Sigh.

I did find out that a young friend of mine wants red, white, and black for her baby quilt, so that is another project on the back burner. Her baby is due just before Christmas.

So, I feel like I am in a quilty fog. Lots of projects adding up, but not working on any for now. Ick.

It's Hard to Keep a Secret!

But, unfortunately, it is very necessary sometimes, especially when the secret involves two matching gift items for nieces' birthdays! I have been dying to post more about them, but I knew that my tech savvy nieces might see them. So....

Without further ado!



This is a purse with two interior pockets made for my 9 year old niece. She seemed to think that it was cool!



This purse is for her big sister who is turning 14! Yikes! She seemed to love that hers was scaled up with a few extra details to differentiate it.

So, I have made two gifts this week. Unfortunately, neither one was a Christmas gift. So, I have to get cracking on that front!

Great News!

I got an email this morning that absolutely blew me away! Rae Ann of the Stash Manicure blog asked me to be a contributor. I will post on July 20th about the purse I just finished.

This is a blog that I frequent for inspiration and the contributors are amazing quilters, designers, organizers--I am completely out of my league, but am loving it!

Look for me here on July 20th!

Finally, a quilty (kind of) project!

The other day, when I took my Mom with me to The Gardener's Quilts in Jackson, I saw this really great purse on display. I checked it out carefully and came home and made my own version of it (sans pattern--can you believe it?).



Here is the interior of the bag. It has 4 pockets, 2 narrow pen/pencil slots, and a look of fabric to hook my keys on. Love it!



The fabric is Nautical and Nice by Sandy Gervais for Moda. I bought a jelly roll to participate in the Jelly Roll Quilt Along. Since my job and family life went haywire, I never did more than a wall hanging with the blocks, so I decided to use the rest in a way that I would enjoy every day.

Ooh! I just bought more Sandy Gervais fabric today! It's a Frolic Jelly Roll and I will be making birthday gifts out of it soon!

A Dream of a Man

My hubby did the most wonderful thing for me tonight. He found a book on our bookshelves about fixing sewing machines. I am sure that I bought it at one point, but I am not mechanical at all.

Well, long story short, he fixed my sewing machine! He hasn't tackled the one that is horribly out of time, but maybe he will. He took my very simple straight stitch machine that wasn't making a reliable seam. I had tried every tension trick that I had ever learned (and made up a couple). He took it apart, found and solved the problem and it now works better (and much more quietly) than when it was new, even.

I pray that there is a new machine in my future so that I can continue to make my Crazy Shortcut Quilts which need some fancy stitches, but I am thrilled that I am not permanently sidelined without any machine.

What a wonderful man!

Fun!

Lately, we have been having some issues. It has been really hard as a family to deal with my lack of an income. Since I am home schooling this year, there is no income to look forard to. It's been a bit of a bummer as we adjust. I was deeply in need of some fun....

Yesterday, I took my Mom to the Gardener's Quilts in Jackson. For her birthday, she wanted to pick out materials to make a friend a quilt for her first grandbaby. So, I took her to their new location.

What a cute little store! It was brightly lit and well organized and Mrs. Jan, the owner, is always wonderful to see. Can't wait to go back when I can buy a bit for me.

They will be offerring a scrap quilting class soon which ultimately ends up with a star quilt. I am really excited because I know of someone who would just LOVE a quilt for Christmas.

They also had an adorable little purse on display, made from jelly roll strips. I really liked it and came home and sorted through jelly roll strips that I already have. I found some of Nautical and Nice by Sandy Gervais in red, white, and blue that fit the bill! I had originally purchased it to do a quilt along, but after doing a few blocks, I couldn't fit it in my schedule. So, instead of feeling really bad about it, I will make my blocks into an adorable wall hanging and use the rest of the strips for my purse. I am so excited!

Can't wait to finish and show pictures!

Vacation

Okay, it has taken me just over a week to get my photos onto my computer and share a bit of our wonderful bit of respite at Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia.

It's my favorite place in the whole world.

We met a dear friend, her oldest daughter, and nephew and got to have a wonderful, if whirlwind visit. They were only there for 2 days, but we enjoyed every moment of them.

As you can see, the kiddos love to play in the low surf and tidepools. With jellyfish in the deeper waters, the kids have learned to be kind of careful and stay in the shallows. We swim in pools, we wade and body surf a bit in the ocean.



DS 13 got a little excited when we arrived. He seems a bit happy to be back on island time!

DS 12 and my friend's lovely daughter had a great time!

Putt putt was a blast! What handsome putt-putters I have!!!


A parting shot of my friend and her younguns trying to figure out strategy!

One part of our vacation that I don't have any pictures of is our turtle walk. Years ago, we took a class with the kids on how to go on the beach and night and look for endangered loggerhead sea turtles. We have been roaming the beach late at night with red lights (turtles aren't disturbed by the red light, but a regular flashlight can disorient them) ever since.

The one night that I was able to go (no exhausted kids to watch over so others could go) we met a really nice fella and his daughter who were newbies. We actually saw a turtle finish her nest and return to the ocean. It was so great to see this through the eyes of folks who hadn't seen it before. It awakened all of my teacher instincts.

Love that!

I have been remiss

I haven't posted in awhile. It's been odd, but I haven't been terribly sure what to say lately.

That is definitely not like me.

So, here is an update of life lately:

I haven't blogged about it much (if at all), but I got horrible blood test results back in February and March. The doctor really scared me. I knew that I was overweight, but I didn't realize that my health had gotten quite so bad. I wasn't just "fluffy." I was a ticking time bomb.

So on March 28, 2010, the doctor's blood tests confirmed that my efforts (and they had truly been genuine) to make improvements through diet weren't working, so he put me on a diet which he had found to be truly helpful. It involved buying my foods, drinks, shakes, etc. from a particular company. It was a "moderately low carb" plan.

I was (and am) seriously averse to "frankenfoods." I had begun eating clean and following a good plan on Sparkpeople.com that follows the USDA guidelines, so I had already been cutting out a lot of processed foods from my diet. That left me in a quandry.

The program that the doctor uses has a great history of success, but it is also expensive. I realize that I probably spend close to this for food for myself each month, but certainly not in a single payment! I just don't have that kind of cash to throw around, so I did lots of research and asked my doctor lots of questions and came up with a way to do this myself.

I went back to check a lot of the original research that was done on low carb diets. I know, I am a nerd, but I really wanted to understand how to make this work without the fake foods. Eventually, I settled on a more moderate version of the Atkins plan. Dr. Atkins had done all of the original research, but I took my doctor's advice and went fairly moderate. I never went into Induction at all, but went straight to the On-going Weight Loss phase (OWL).

So far, from March 29th through today, I have lost 38 lbs. and am feeling better than I have felt in years. I am walking every evening with my family and it feels pretty good (even if it is HOT!). I seem to have lost my taste for, and cravings for, intensely sugary foods. I don't even really want them. Believe me when I tell you that this has never been true for me in the past, no matter what diet I tried.

My goal was always to lose enough to be in a healthy BMI with about 5 lbs. of wiggle room for maintenance. That is a goal of 120 lbs. It seems unbelievable that I could ever be that weight. The last time I weighed that was probably in 7th grade (1979 or so). To reach that weight will entail a loss of 118 lbs or so. Literally, half of me. It's a daunting goal.

As far as mini-goals, I had hoped to lose 50 lbs. by my birthday in early October. I really think that I might be able to pull that off now. It's amazing. I have tried so many times and not experienced any success. It seems foreign to me that I could actually pull this off, but I really seem to be doing it.

My doctor says that my metabolism has been so damaged over the years (not so much from yo-yo dieting, because I was never very successful with dieting) from a slow, continual climb in weight that this program is just about the only way for me to lose. I don't know that it would be right for everyone, but it is certainly a healthy option for me.

Oddly, I was so focused on improving my health that I didn't really realize how much that my quality of life would improve. Or, how much I would enjoy going blueberry picking, or for a brisk walk on the beach during vacation or just our little walks on the track every evening.

I think I haven't blogged about this until now because I was very ashamed of how unhealthy I had become. I also don't think that I ever really believed that I could do this successfully.

It's taken me 38 lbs and almost being out of the dreaded "200s" to feel like maybe, just maybe, I was wrong. Maybe I can make this happen. Maybe I can shop in regular size stores. Maybe I can feel young again.

Just maybe.

A Birthday Finish!

I may not have been really up to date with my blogging, but I do have a wonderful new finish to report. My Aunt, who we affectionately call Dee (not her real name) is having a birthday today. Fortunately, I don't think she reads my blog, so I can post a sneak peek here.

It all started with these....

I won all 3 patterns earlier this year from Janice and Marcea at Abbey Lane Quilts. I was completely smitten by the Abbey Bag pattern. Don't get me wrong, I adore them all, but the Abbey Bag seemed just the thing to make for my quilting Aunt.

I have been collecting a bit of Vintage Sheets in order to make an old fashioned looking summer quilt for hubby and I. We love that shabby chic meets cottage meets grandma's farmhouse look, especially in our bedroom. It just so happened as I was searching for a magnificent gift idea that I got my package back from the Vintage Sheet Charm Square Swap that I participated in!

Hmmm.... Great pattern. Lovely Vintage Fabbies. I love it when a plan comes together!

Here is the completed Abbey Bag laying flat while the glue dries.

Here is what it looks like in use, the snippets bag hanging off of the edge.
Love that lining fabric and pocket!

Here is the closeup of the flower portion. My machine is getting really clunky/weird, so my flower petals are kind of wonky. But, hey, wonky works for me!

All in all, I adore this little pincushion/snippets bag combo. It even has a double pocket for scissors, seam ripper, etc. Plus, it's pretty and could be made easily out of my stash VS, which saves me money as well.

Can't beat that!