In Memory of Cleo

 This is Cleo. She was almost 13 years old when she passed away.  She used to go rafting with her family and loved it. she was a really pretty Lab.

As it happened, I had a lot of the Lab fabric left so it went perfect.

the back is red fleece with black paw prints. The poem was a favorite so I included it in the label..

Linda's finished quilt

I know it's been a while since I last posted but the finishing took a while. It ended up 97 by 115. It was to big to pin at home so I had to take it in to my office and use two of the big tables to lay it out. Ethan showed up after I got it all laid out and started pinning. We pinned for about 3 hours...that's a lot of pins.

Because it's so huge, I wasn't able to do all the machine quilting but I did do all the straight stitching to hold everything down, plus the binding. Linda will have to do the rest of the cross stitch in the center.

the quilt has 30, 16 1/2 inch blocks. It was so big that Ben and Ethan couldn't hold the whole thing up, so we folded it in half and I took the picture of them holding it up in front of the garage. It was hugh. It should fit my sisters queen bed with no problem. She didn't know what it looked like except from the couple pictures already posted or what other colors I was using.

She was really happy with the final results.

Progress has been made.

Well it's been a while since I last made an entry. I've been busy and lazy, no access to my laptop and lazy. Our office is moving next month. Our lease runs out the end of June and we had to find a new place. Our new place is a 45000 sq ft warehouse with a small office. We have had to build several offices for the few of us who are moving in, not suppose to be done before the 10Th. Our HR, Clinical, Housing, Development and Volunteer Coordinator are all at other of our locations. there just wasn't enough offices for us all yet.

Anyway I've had my sisters quilt top finished for a while now but it's so big it would have taken me forever to pin it for quilting. We have two 6' tables at work that would be perfect so I figured I needed to get it pinned before they started moving the excess furniture. So I took the 20Th off to put the back together, pick up the batting and press it one more time...plus get all the pins & clamps ready. So last Saturday I was up, showered and in at work by a little before 9.

I managed to get the back down and clamped, stood back and said "holy s--t". There was no way I was going to get this pinned in one day by myself so I called home to see about Ben bringing Ethan down. He had said he'd help but thought I'd do it alone.. By the time he gets there I've got the top all clamped and have started to pin.

Here's an up close shot of one block with all it's pins. This was one of 30 blocks, 29 more to go plus the border. We worked on the top until about 1:30, we'd already turned it for the 3rd time and decided that the last 4 blocks could wait for home. So we finished pinning the last set and were on our way home by about 2:30/2:45. it was a long day.



I use the same big black clamps for my quilts as we use at work. they work pretty good. The other two boxes were full of safety pins when I started. as you can see one box empty and the other pretty darn close. I still need to set my table up and pin the last four blocks and I think I'll have to dig into my 3rd box to have enough.


the move date for the admin office is the 21st. They are going to move our office first so they can move the phones at the same time. Then Tony and I can answer the phones the rest of the day while they are moving everyone else. I'm taking the next week off, Wed and coming back to work the next Wed. Just in time to finish to do the end of month, end of quarter and end of year.. Our Audit starts the beginning of July.

Nothing planned for the mini vacation but I'm hoping to do a lot of machine quilting on my sisters quilt. I've also got my Moose pined and started the machine quilting on it too...so I should have plenty to do.

enjoy the Memorial day weekend..

Beautiful day

Friday's I'm off at noon. This week I took my camera with me. We had an extremely warm day. It was just gorgeous, 70 degrees. I decided to stop my Cassandra's office and the clouds were so neat so I took a couple pictures.

I don't usually have my camera with me when I see clouds like this so I had fun. Of course I only kept a couple.

We have such large flocks of Canadian Geese in our area and I've always wanted to take pictures. So today I decided it was the day. I ended up driving to a couple different spots and nothing. Then I decide to head off towards Ethan's school to sit and read until time for him to come out but as I was driving the sky to the right of me just got black with them. Of course there was no place to park so I had to drive past, turn around and come back. I took several pictures and if you click on the picture to make it larger you will be able to see the geese just

hovering over the wet lands..we have a large area set aside for that. After a while they just got up and flew off again.I just sat there watching then hover then settle.

I decided to drive up a little further and found a place to park at the bottom of walking path that goes through the wet lands. This was the view I had..just gorgeous.

I'm sitting there and all of a sudden I can hear them but I can't see them anywhere. Then out of no where they start showing up...but in long lines. It was tough to get pictures but I was able to get a few that really turned out pretty nice.

I even got one where I was looking straight ahead then folllowed them over head and snapped the picture.

I was so tickled that I got some good shots on my first time out shooting pictures.

Again if you click on the pictures you can see the geese a lot better. I'm hoping I can get out and get a few pictures this summer instead of sitting on my duff every weekend. Not that I'm quitting quilting but in between projects I need to be a little more active.

Hope you all enjoy my new hobby...

Happy Easter

Well another month has passed and so quickly. Can you believe it's Spring and soon Easter will be upon us. It's time to put up another wall hanging. This is my second applique made in 1994 and I think so far one of my favorites. It's my Bunny Angel. The lady I took this class from won so many awards from Keepsake quilting she stopped competeing. She was fantastic. I really love to applique but sometimes it takes a little to long from start to finish. Most of the time I have a small project that I can work on inbetween my machine projects. I have this one hanging up behind my desk at work.. Mid month I'll take it down and put up my Log Cabin Bunny. I really like that I have some place at work that I can make new ones and change them regularly. It's nice to show off my handy work.

Happy St Patrick's Day

Well, it's St. Patrick's Day once again.. This is my latest creation. I had a pattern from an old quilting magazine for the Shamrock in a multiple block table runner. I try to hang something seasonal behind my desk at work so I thought only one shamrock and the Irish blessing would work best.

I appliqued the top shamrock and just sewed the blocks together with an inch green frame. Would you believe it if I told you I did it over a weekend. Well really I started it on a afternoon of the 5th after a drive up to Portland and back and finished the binding on Monday night to have it at work for March 7th.

Since I have my April one all done, a flying Easter Bunny... will post next month...


Happy St Patrick's Day

Latest Memory Quilts

Well it's been a little over 2 months since my last post. I haven't been just sitting around either, well not all the time. If you have been reading my blog, you'll remember my telling you about making a memory quilt for Lucy and a memory Pillow for Gretchen. On Ben's birthday, Jan 5th we found out another Fur baby had passed and an others cancer had come back. So in a rush to get them done I started two more quilts.

Amber was 5 years old when she passed from something as silly as swallowing a rock from the back yard. This caused a problem with her bowels bad enough to need surgery. Poor thing didn't come out of the anesthesia. She was such a pretty silly girl, I just felt I needed to do another. So I started selecting pictures and deciding which pattern to use.

At the same time we also found out another fur baby who had whipped his cancer for a couple years, had it come back. He was not expected to make it to another Christmas. So I was busy picking two sets of pictures. There was no real deadline but at the same time I was making my gift one of the other ladies who does mosaics was making her gift. I thought if I could get mine done in time, I could send it to her and she could send them together. What's amazing about her is that she is the one who lost Gretchen not all that long ago, so in still getting over her grief, she is helping someone else get over theirs. The hardest part of making these quilts is to figure out when you have enough pictures and the right sizes to make them. I was almost finished with all the pictures and had the black frames done when she posted a tribute to Amber and the picture just had to be in the quilt too.. I pulled out my flannel wall, put the pictures all up and after sitting back and looking at several layouts, finally worked out the rows.

Well, I worked like crazy getting Amber's quilt done and shipped it off to North Carolina. Amber's quilt and mosaic were sent to Germany. Veronika received her gift on Friday and was so touched. She knew the mosaic was coming but not the quilt so she was doubly surprised when she opened the box.

As soon as I shipped Amber's quilt off, I started on Zooies.

For some reason this one held a special place in my heart. I think because this time the fur baby was fighting to stay alive. Because they had gone though so much in the past with his cancer, I wanted to get it to her before he passed. With each update from his mom, getting it done quickly was important.

I was wanting to get my quilt to them so they would have memory of Zooie wrapped up in it after he was gone.

My gift was received the middle of February. Here is a picture taken by Karla of Zooie wrapped in his gift. Zooie passed away on March 3rd having lost his battle with cancer. Karla said she has wrapped up in Zooie's quilt whenever she misses him.

I'm so glad I was able to get his quilt to them before he pass. They were able to wrap him up and now have Zooie smell to comfort them too.

I have enjoyed making my memory quits and will continue to make them when needed. The funny thing about them is, is that I haven't met any of these families and since they are spread all over the states and now in Germany, I probably never will. But the out pouring of love and support the Flickr site has will do me just fine. I've made some terrific friends on the Flickr site.