Another No-Quilting Week

It's been a long drawn out week that I thought would never end. Nothing extraordinary happening at work but just seemed like when Thursday rolled around, it should have been into the next week. I wanted to take a personal day on Friday but the receptionist was going to be off at noon and it was the last day of the month, so not possible.

I am going to see about next Friday. Ben, Ethan and Cassie are all driving to Redding on Friday for a run on Saturday. It will be a nice weekend for the girls and I...very quiet and completely free to do as I please...except feeding the girls, the rest is all up in the air.

It's funny...the East coast is getting dumped with tons of snow and we are having a weird winter/spring. Days up into the high 50's and off & on rain. Which could only mean new buds..
I'll have to take some pictures of the pretty pink budding trees. And the Daffodils are outrageous. They almost grow wild around town and are blooming in stages.

I've been finishing up on my recipes and have almost all my favorites in the computer and printed out for my cookbook. I still have a few on cards that I want to get on the computer and then printed out but no hurry for those. At least I don't have all the pages laying around loosely anymore and that was my main goal.

The guys are out at the movie and library, so I'm doing laundry. folding cloths has never been a favorite past time of mine but it needs to be done.

There probably won't be a lot of quilting over the next couple weeks. Since I took the week of spring vacation off, I'm trying to go through a little at a time in the garage to get ready. I don't want to be working in the garage the whole week. Since I won't have but a day or two off again until Christmas I do want to enjoy a few day of rest.

Until next time...

No quilting weekend

Well, this weekend was very productive but not quilting of any kind. Since it was too cold to work in the garage cleaning and I had my card table up I decided to do something else I'd been working on for a while and that's organizing my recipes. I have my recipe box with cards but things just aren't fitting anymore. We have been making copies of recipes off the Internet to try and the ones that have been good, keeping but they don't fit and i don't want to fold them up. So a new book was in need.

The kids wanted to go to Barns & Noble this Saturday morning. We go, find two tables then sit and look through magazines...have a morning coffee and pastry. This is good for me because it keeps my quilt magazine buying to a couple instead of several subscriptions and big purchases. If I like several of the patterns then I pick it up but it is safer this way. Most of the time I see several I really like but know I'll never do them so it saves me dollars.

What's also good is that I can sit back and read my book in sort of a quiet atmosphere and chat with the kids. This week I looked at my magazines and went in search of a recipe book and found one on the discounted shelves. It's from Betty Crocker, had dividers and a little heavier set of pages you can put into your printer and print your recipes with cute borders. I know I could have gone to Staples and bought a notebook but it wouldn't have been as cute, plus with the discount we get and a coupon and the already low price, it only cost me about $6.00 and it already had all the stuff with it. Oh, it also had a pad to make my grocery list on.

So while the cloths were washing and Ethan was busy doing whatever, I proceeded to put all my pages to work. I was able to go back on-line and print out a bunch we had on the nice paper. A lot of the recipes are wrinkled and spotted. Oh, the other thing the book had was two clear plastic sheet you could put your recipe between and still be able to point and not get it dirty. Just wipe it off.

This got me to thinking about my other recipes on cards. They are on the small print side and typing them up and reprinting them in larger font (old age creeping up) would be more beneficial for later. So now I have a dozen or so on the laptop ready to thumb-drive and print.
This is something I've been meaning to do for ages so it's working out pretty good. I've also been making a recipe book to give to Cassie of those I've collected from family and ones we've used as she's grown up. I might do this for Ethan too but it will probably be a while before I give him his. He does like to cook too, just not sure how much yet.

This will be a work in progress too but I think I'll work on it in the evenings and again this weekend to see if I can at least get what I have done. If I stop now it will stay in the box and collect dust and I'm really trying to consolidate stuff...

Another, Almost Finished Project

Well, as you can see I finished my moose today. I had it all put together last night but then discovered two missing pieces for the antlers but since it was so late decided to wait until morning to finish. It is now hanging up on my design wall. The only thing left now is to sandwich it together and quilt.

I do like the looks of him but I'm sort of disappointed the fabric was not quite the same as the original pictures. The area around his nose and eye was a little lighter so they stood out a little more but Ben says he looks great. I guess I'm just so used to looking at the picture while putting it together I see the difference more. Overall I think it turned out pretty good. Not sure where I will put it in the house but it will definitely go up somewhere.

I've sort of neglected my room for a while just bringing stuff up and setting it around so I'm going to try and clean it up a little. Figured I could clean this week and sandwich it together and quilt it next weekend. The binding will be the same as the outside border so it won't look much different.

Once I get it quilted I'll have to think of something else to do that isn't quite as intense. Once I began tracing the pieces I started having second thoughts but he's great.

Happy Valentine's Day

Well, with the 3-day weekend came a lot of busy work. I'm wanting to clean out the garage and get rid of a lot of unwanted stuff. I had been checking into a drop box to be able to junk it all at once but it was so expensive. When I talked to the Maintenance Manager at work I found out they were given permission to work for employees. So I found out if I get it all together they will bring the big truck and haul it all to the dump for less than $75. Almost a quarter of what it would have cost me to have something dropped. It's hard for me to do it alone so on Sunday Ben and I went through several boxes and took a load to a friends dumpster (not something we can do all the time). This gave us a bunch of big empty boxes that I can use when going through other stuff. I have spring vacation week off so if I get my act together I can have it ready for them to pick up one of those days or even sooner if lucky.


Because Ben was so good to help, I made meatloaf and real mashed potatoes for dinner. When they came in to dish up their dinner they both thought I was crazy because the meatloaf was in the shape of a heart. Well, it is Valentine's day.

Then for dessert I made a small devils food cake...also in the shape of a heart. It turned out really good.

Moose Background

I didn't do any real work on the moose last night but decided to put the borders on even though it says to have the moose ready to assemble first.
Again if you click on the picture you can see how much more vivid the colors are. I was really tempted to lay the nose down but it was getting late and if I started I'd want to keep going. The area from here up to the antlers has a lot of tiny pieces so it will take a little more time.
With the 3-day weekend coming up, at the rate I'm going I might have the rest of it done come next Monday. Then the quilting.

body parts

as you can see, certain parts do make the quilt. If you click on the picture and see it a little bigger the eye just sort of pops out at you. I love the nose. The picture used a little lighter fabric for the outside left section and that around the nostril. I was almost thinking about using some of the lighter fabric and redoing it but Ben said I should wait. There is more to the antler but I decided since I couldn't put it on until the body was done I'd wait. Sometimes his ideas are pretty good.

oh, if you happen to click on the picture to see it up closer, you'll see another picture in the background. this is a picture of me around 75 out target shooting when my X was stationed on Adak Alaska in the Aleutian chain. Another fun time.

Not So Busy Weekend

Well, it was a busy weekend. Ethan and I went grocery shopping Saturday morning. We had to pick up a bag of dog food so while we were in the area I stopped at the local quilt shop, Something To Crow About. It had been a while since I was in last and they had rearranged everything. They have a rather short ceiling so at times it looks dark but with the rearrangement of the tables it looked pretty good. No I didn't buy anything but was sure tempted.

When we got home Ethan helped put away the groceries and went off to play his game we rented before it had to go back on Sunday. We don't rent very often but this was a new one and he had been really wanting to play. Me, I went up to my room and played with my moose a little.

Sunday was pretty quiet. Cassie came up about 1 and we started fixing the Mexican layer dip for the big game. Instead of meat and cheese, I fixed carrots, celery and dips, crackers, salsa and chips. Wanted something a little different. The kids both whined about it be good stuff but they still munched away.
I fixed the dip on the platter for them and a small plate for me to take up-stairs. Tootsie was going crazy. We set up the long card table with chips & salsa and the dip. Lucky for me she stayed with them and I only had Chase.
I did remember about 3 or so that I hadn't done the laundry yet so between taking care of the cloths, I worked off and on most of the afternoon and evening and made pretty good progress.
I had slept in to about 9 so wasn't tired but decided 1:30 was late enough to stay up.
They suggested you do the eye and antlers first and set them aside, then continue with rest. Well I did put the eye together and part of one antler and decided that it wouldn't make a difference if i did the antlers first or last because they go on the background last regardless. Besides I wanted to work on the moose. I got several pieces onto the background and the little side border on then the bottom border. Then I decided to work on the nose and got most of it done but now need to sort of put the two together. I think the tough part is going to be the quilting.
I am sort of disappointed because the fabric doesn't all match the picture and I'm not sure how it will look. It has light spot on the nose but the fabric is one of the brown/rusts. Will just have to see what comes next.
I'll try and take a couple pictures of the pieces and post them tonight or tomorrow. I might have to rest my hands tonight and fold laundry instead. They were sort of stiff this morning.

Did anyone watch the big game with the husbands? I switched it off and on, mainly wanting to see the commercials. Loved the Doritos w/dog color and the Clydesdale's. The horses are always a big hit with me. Oh, the Betty White w/snickers was pretty good too. They have cut way back on the super commercials..

pieces trimmed

Well, it took me all week, a little each night to trim away the excess fabric and fusible. What was nice about having this to do at night is that I could sit with the heating pad on my neck and shoulder. They have both been aching a lot lately.

Now the real fun begins with laying them out. According to the instructions, I need to stitch as I go. I've not done that before so we'll see how it works out. I do have to put the base of the moose down before I sew the first little border on, then I can think the outside border comes next before I finish sewing it together. This is going to be a real challenge.

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday and I have all day to sew. Tonight is prepping the Mexican layered bean dip for the game. We make our own pi co de ciao and guacamole to go on top so my Saturday night sewing is sort of put off until tomorrow. Cassie found the recipes in the Pioneer Woman's Cookbook and they are very good. Ben is going to drive up to Salem in the morning for a run, then back home for the game. It's just us so nothing special but it's still a sewing day for me. Can't wait.

Having a project like this that stretches out over a period of time makes the work week go by so much faster. Really gives me something to look forward to and incentive to not stress during the week.

Huge pattern

I had taken the picture before but forgot about it so here is what the pattern looks like. It is up on my design wall next to a 7ft cabinet so you can see how large it is.

part B of Step 1

Guess there really isn't any part A or B but it's still part of the tracing process. Finished all the tracing mostly Saturday and all the excess paper away. Figured the detailed cutting was for later. On Sunday, as you can see by the picture I fused them all on to the fabric and then cut them out.

I did sort of follow one of their hints. Each pattern piece had two sets of numbers (A1-5 and #4). The first was the pattern piece number and the second was the fabric number. Remember I said I had Ben come in and help me decide which colors were what and then put numbers on each to keep straight. Well they suggested you put them in bags. Since I didn't want to drag out bags from the kitchen, I used folders. I put a small post-it with the number on the tab and as I cut the fusible out I put the pieces in the prospective fabric folder. Then when I was ready to fuse the pieces to the fabric I just had to go folder by folder. Since the pieces sort of roll it kept them flat. This, I think is a good suggestion for any pattern that has a lot of pieces.

I did start cutting out one of the colors and it is going to be slow going. A lot of the pieces show the fur in points and small points at that. Of course it was about 10:30 when I started to cut so that might have been a factor to look at. I was wanting to start the cutting before bed to at least see what they looked like. The fabric is all different designs and until you start putting it together, don't see the Moose. I've done several smaller projects batiks before so know it will work out fine.

Now the hard part will be, how much house work like dinner, laundry or family time will I forgo to work on my moose. At least I know during the week I come home and start dinner right away. If I had time to sit at my table first, dinner would probably be late. Laundry now is sitting in a basket from Sunday waiting to be folded.... oh well there is always tomorrow....