Grandma's Tulips...... this picture shows the damage to the stitching on one of the tulips, and it also shows a little of the dirt on the quilt that I'm afraid to try to wash away. The batting in this one is a lumpy cotton batt. I'm very in love with this quilt, just the way it is and will one day find a way to display it without causing more damage to it. I will think of my grandmother every time I look at this quilt. I still miss her terribly after 14 years and am so thankful to have had a hard working woman such as her in my life. She had a very rough life, having had to quit school before she even learned to read and write so she could help with chores and things at home. In this day and age, can you imagine pulling a 2nd grader out of school permanently because of the need for help at home? While it's appalling to think of today, it's just the way it was for her. She never knew how to read or write, nor did she ever learn to drive, but the woman was amazing with needlecrafts. She sewed anything and everything and also did some beautiful crochet work.

Ok, I'm off now.Got a lot to do tomorrow, on my day "off". Going to be a rough weekend. I have to take our dog to be put down. She is as sweet as she can be to us, but is vicious whenever anyone else comes around. We've put it off as long as we can, but we cannot have a dog like this with the baby coming. Dd and her dh are even afraid of her, and it's just to hard any more. I tried to get DH to get rid of her 2 years ago when she first showed signs of aggression and snapped at a friend who was just sitting in the back yard with dh and she snapped at him. But, nooo......he wouldn't hear of it. Now, 2 years later, she is worse and I'm using the baby to finally get him to agree to getting rid of her. I hate to get rid of her as much as he does. It's nice to have such a good guard dog, but she's to good, if you know what I mean, and anyway........enough of that. Just think of me tomorrow, as I'm sure I'll have a rough day. I hate that I have to be the one to do this, but if I don't, it won't get done..........

Just a quick note this morning.... I finally remembered to take a picture of this quilt my grandmother made over 50 years ago. It is in sad shape, as it was used a LOT when my mom was a little girl. I just wanted to share it while I was thinking about it, but now dh is ready to go out the door.......have a great day everyone!

My Day off

Well, I finally had a day off on Friday and here's what I did! Part of the day, anyway. I worked on THE quilt. Now my goal is to have it done by this coming Friday and hope my friend doesn't have a quilt on her long arm so I can quilt it if I'm off again(which I'm supposed to be, but we all know how plans change in the blink of an eye). If I can't do it on hers, I may just quilt it on my machine. Still thinking on that one. The kids' anniversary is 2 weeks from today and I am determined to have it done by then, though I won't give it to them til the end of the month so I can show it off at our guild meeting! Aren't I mean?

And here is a picture of the apron I showed the fabric for last week. The apron was a simple pattern and went together pretty quickly. The fabric was gorgeous and I have a little of it leftover and trying to decide on a wallhanging design to use it in!

Ok, now I'm heading back to the sewing room for a bit before dh decides I need to cook dinner! Hope you all are having a great day. We are having a much needed rainy weekend here. Great day for staying indoors and sewing!

Here ya go, Jane! Jane asked for pictures of the quilt I am working on with the stars in the sashing. This is as far as I've gotten with it. I have all of the blocks done(on the left) and about half of the sashing pieces done. They are a royal pain in the bottom because I followed the directions(against my better judgement) in the magazine. (Quiltmaker......from last year sometime). I have my own way of doing things normally, but for some oddball reason, when I was cutting this one out last year, I followed thier instructions. Normally, I would have done this a different way, but since I already have them cut to do this way, I'm stuck..lol....Will definitely follow my gut next time!

And here are more of the pieces for the Strip Twist I started for the guild samples. I figured if I had to make a few, I may as well make several! It's kind of addictive! BUT, it adds yet another UFO to my pile........sigh. For those of you who read the article in Quilters Home, I have to say, I will not be able to keep my promise of finishing half of my UFO's b4 starting any new ones because since that interview, I discovered I'm going to be a grandma and a quilt for Caleb(what dd and dsil are naming my grandson) will have top priority as soon as I finish ONE certain project. (the one in piles in the picture above).
Our guild broke into groups and each group is making a goody basket to raffle off at our towns Founders Day in September. My project was to make a Fall apron. The fabric below is what I am using. I got it all cut out today, but didn't find anything in my stash I liked (that I had enough of) to do an edging. The directions call for purchased binding, so I'm hoping to find some I like tomorrow at Walmart.

I'm not sure what is wrong with me. It is 11:01 and I am still up. I have to get up at 3:40, so I guess I should give the bed another try. I went to bed earlier, but after 30 minutes of laying there wide awake, I decided to go ahead and get back up. The only thing I can think of, is I drank 2 glasses of that new diet Jazz pepsi today......but that was b4 5:00, wouldn't think that would still be keeping me awake. But, since I don't do much caffeine, that's the only reason I can think of that I can't sleep. Normally, I have a hard time keeping my eyes open by 9:00!Anyway......off to bed I go..gn everyone!

LOOK!!! I CAN Sew!

Well, I finally found time to spend in the sewing room today!! Worked on these Strip Twist blocks from Bonnie's website:www.quiltville.com where I have asked her permission to use these as my guilds' bom this month. I hope I get her permission now that I've made the samples! If not, I guess it'll be back to the drawing board for me! Tomorrow, I have to make an apron to put in our basket that we will be raffling off at our town's Founders Day in September. 2 days in a row in the sewing room........not sure I can stand it! OH, I ALSO dug out the stuff for dd and dsil's quilt and worked on it a bit! Now that I have things out, maybe I can do a little sewing in the evenings after supper again!

We spent the evening with friends and it is WAAAAY past my bedtime, so I think I'll keep it short and sweet this evening! (oops, it's MORNING already!)

Introducing...........Caleb Michael

Yep! DD found out today, she is having a boy. Well, the doctor said she was 90-95% sure she saw "Boy parts" lol. For those of you who can't make out the picture, tilt your head a little to the left and you'll see his face. It looks almost as if he's smiling at you. We are thrilled, of course..though I can honestly say we would have been just as thrilled with a girl! I can't wait to hold him now! NOW I can start planning that special quilt! DD's dh asked the Dr. if he could paint the nursery now and she told him wait til next months' appointment! lol As soon as they decide on a decorating theme, I'll plan accordingly!

Just wanted to share the news! Hope you all are having as nice a week as I am! Work stinks, but who cares with news like this!

OOPS.......... a few days ago, Laurie Ann requested that I post my salsa recipe and I had forgotten til just now. And Jane, we make so much salsa because as you know, we eat a lot of hot and spicy foods and I use our home made salsa when I make chilli, taco meat, breakfast burritos and a few other things. Plus, we keep the kids (dd and dsil) supplied with it, too, as they love it as much as we do. Not sure how much of it dd will be able to eat this year, though! DH is insisting we make it HOT this year, and with dd being pregnant, she may not be able to handle it as well as she has in the past!...........Well, for anyone who is interested, here is the recipe:

Salsa

• 1/2 bushel of tomatoes
• 10 bell peppers
• 15 yellow banana peppers ( mixture of hot and sweet)
• 1/2 cup salt
• 5 yellow onions
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• At least 2 tablespoons pepper
• 10 tablespoons corn starch
• 1 tablespoon garlic
• 4-8 jalepeno peppers

Chop all vegetables, then combine with remaining ingredients and cook til boiling. Let boil slowly for about 1/2 hour, stirring frequently. Ladle into hot canning jars and seal in boiling water bath 45 minutes.

This is the basic recipe we received several years ago. We no longer follow it very closely as we add extra peppers(habenaros) and I'm not a measurer! The only thing I measure is the salt and vinegar for some strange reason. Guess because I am strange! hehe. Also, dh likes to squeeze the juice out of the tomatoes because he doesn't like a runny salsa. We use a food proccessor to "chop" our veggies because we make so much. Hope you all enjoy it! We found it a very good recipe and have had lots of compliments on it.

SMILE??? This is the face I got when I told my 2 y/o nephew to smile. He did it several times, so we decided he didn't know how to smile! So we tried to explain it to him and my aunt said, "Jimmy, show your teeth and smile" and the picture you'll see next is the result of that. He's such a sweetie. Sometimes I wish I lived closer to them.










We are hoping to find out the sex of our grandbaby this week. DD called me Thursday night and asked me if I wanted to hear it over the phone or if I wanted to wait and find out in person.......DUH!!! I told her to call my cell phone and if my break was over and I couldn't answer it, to leave a msg so I could check it when I had a free minute!
I had bad news at the sewing machine shop yesterday. My embroidery machine was in bad shape and needed several hundred $$ worth of work.(a $224 part and that didn't include labor), so instead of getting it repaired, I put a down payment on a newer one! I'm getting one that takes the same cards I already have, so I'm not losing all of that. I have 3 months to pay it off, but I bet I have it b4 the end of September! He threw in one of those machine cases on wheels, a walking foot(this one is a sewing machine with an embroidery unit, whereas my old one was strictly emb.), a serging foot(cuts off the excess as you use an overlock stitch like a serger) and a new design card. I asked him if I could pick out my design card when I came and picked up the machine since by then I should know what my dd is having! There were some cute ones that would be fine for either/or, but I figured why pick one out now when it won't do me any good til I get the machine off layaway, anyway!
Hope everyone is having a good Sunday. Me, I've got yet more salsa to make! We're up to 28 quarts, I think. Our goal is at least 40, I think, so we should have those today then the rest of the tomatoes, I'll just can plain. Have a great week!

Vacation pictures......at last......... well, life is back to "normal". Here it is only Thursday and I've already worked 44 hours and have to work 5 1/2 tomorrow. We've also been busy in the evenings making salsa. 17 1/2 quarts and more to come. That doesn't really sound like a lot to some, but after an 11 hour day, it sounds like a lot to me! Anyway......such is life and we'll be glad we went to all the trouble later in the year. We just love our home made salsa. We eat a lot of it and I even use it when I make chili......yummy!

Above is a picture of me holding the twins I had made the frog and turtle quilts for. I got to meet thier mom, finally and I absolutely loved her. She greeted dh and I at the door with hugs, even though she'd never met us before. She fits into our family just fine! And the babies were adorable, of course! Mom loved the quilts. Her first comment was on the size.....they were huge when compared to the boys, but like I told her, by the time winter gets here, she'll be glad they are big!

I'm sure I told you about my nephew chasing the geese away from our campsite. Well, here is the picture Auntie Ann took while running after him with the camera. We were afraid one of the geese may decide to turn around and chase him, so we tried not to let him get to far ahead, but it was hard to run after him and take pictures all at the same time we were laughing our butts off! As you can see to the left of the shot, big sister couldn't let little brother have ALL the fun (or attention) so she had to give chase, too.

I haven't really had time to do much sewing, so no new quilty photos, but I will share a few more vacation pictures in the next few days til I get some pics taken of the old quilt my mom sent home with me. But for now, I'm going to call it a night and get some sleep. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Camping... We landed in SC on Sunday, then on Monday, we went camping til Wednesday. This picture shows how we "roughed" it! When dh and I go camping, we go in tents and sleeping bags, so this was really living in luxury for us! Mom and Dad were a little upset they didn't have thier new camper yet, it's supposed to arrive this week, but thier old one is still extremely nice to us. We slept in the one on the left, which belongs to my aunt and uncle because they had a little more room and Mom and Dad had my niece and nephew. We could have fit in thiers, but we just decided it would be easier to sleep in my aunts.

We got home late last night and it feels good to be home. We did have a little excitement at the airport, though. I was picked randomly to "pat down". Ok, no big deal, I cooperated and it was over in a couple of seconds. But then when dh came thru the metal detector, he set it off. He'd forgot to take his phone off his hip, so that set it off......he tried to hand it off to me, but the guy jumped between us and wouldn't let him. We hadn't thought about it, we were just doing what was normal to us(him handing me things to hold for him). It was really funny afterwards when we got to talking about it. Anyway, that still didn't fix the problem. The snaps on his waistband and pockets of his shorts were setting off the wand. The guy had to feel to make sure nothing was in his pocket, then they made him unsnap the waistband and show them the snap there. As I said, we laughed about it later, (ok, I laughed during, too) but it's nice to know that they are taking so many steps to assure our safety. This trip was dh's first ever flying and I hadn't flown since I was 11 years old, so it's been a while for me, too. He loved it and I see more flights in our future!

Now things will get back to normal and I can get caught up on everything. Unfortunately, that includes going back to work tomorrow..UGH....oh well, life goes on. Hopefully, I can catch up with all of you this week, too. Hope you all have a great week!

Still on vacation... Well, I'm still on vacation and am on Dad's computer, but have no access to any of the pictures we've taken so far. He's in bed and I forgot to ask him where he put the disk of the pictures he took with his digi camera. I left my digi at home and opted to just bring my trusty 35mm. At least I hope it proves to be trusty! I have taken 3 rolls of film with it and almost finished off 2 of those waterproof disposable cameras. We flew in on Sunday at about lunchtime and Mom and Dad were waiting for us at the airport. They then took us to my aunt's house where she had a very nice lunch waiting and those adorable twins were there waiting for me to hold and love on them! There were also a few other family members there and we had a nice visit. Then, on Monday, we all took off for the lake for 2 days of camping. There were 9 of us and we had a great time. My 2 year old nephew is a little sweetie pie. It didn't take him long at all to warm up to us and we've thoroughly enjoyed having him around. My 5 year old niece has kept us entertained as well. I have missed having little ones around and it has been fun to watch the 2 of them play and they are pretty free with hugs and kisses and that makes it all the better! The highlight of the camping trip, though, was watching little Jimmy run towards the lake chasing the flock of geese away. They were getting a little to close to the campsite for comfort and he kept telling them "Away.......Git...." and picked up a little stick and went running after them hollering "Git"...and " Away". Of course, Auntie Ann was running along behind him with the camera. I just hope the pictures turn out good since I was laughing so hard, I'm afraid they may be blurry! We were afraid of what would happen should one or more of the geese decide to turn around and chase him, so we were trying to not let him get to far ahead of us, yet stay far enough back to get good pictures.

Today, I delivered the 2 baby quilts to the twins. Thier mother wasn't at the lunch on Sunday, so I waited to give them the quilts today when I met her. This was the first time I had met her. I really liked this girl. She greeted dh and I both with a hug and she absolutely loved the frog and turtle quilts I gave the babies. I had a picture taken with me holding both of them, so as soon as I get home and get those developed, I'll be sharing. I also talked dh into holding them both to pose for a picture! My dad was teasing him about needing practice since we have a grandbaby on the way! Hard to believe in 8 months, "our" baby will be the same age as these 2 are now.

Jane asked about the quilting I was getting done on this trip....NONE! Actually, since my embroidery machine hadn't got fixed like it was supposed to have, I didn't get the labels for the baby quilts done while at home, so I had ironed on some and brought my fabric pens with me and colored those. Have not really had a chance to do much sewing since I got here. I did do very little on the Cathedral Windows, but not enough to show any progress yet! I do almost have the 2nd block finished, though, so I guess I will be able to post a picture ot that soon.

Well, I guess I've caught up on my trip so far, so will close for now. Hope everyone is having as good a week as I am!