Vintage Quilt-Row Three completed

I finished the third row of the Syracuse (Utah) Guilds 2008 row quilt. We began in February with the Hearts and 9-patches, which I had done before. March was 3-D Pinwheels, which was a new block for me to do. This month was the appliqued umbrellas. I have always appliqued by hand, but decided to do the 12 blocks on the machine. This has been a learning experience for me. I use to piece all the time time, but I have been concentrating the last couple years on appliqued landscape and pictorial quilts. You are never too old to learn a new block or technique!

The dress is done, so this weekend..

I can do something else! Weeding....sleeping.....cleaning....quilting.....reading! So many choices!

V's dress is very cute. I'll have photo's tomorrow when they attend the actual prom. V is very creative with her sewing. She has been in my sewingroom since she could crawl, so maybe some magical sewing fairy has influenced her for the good all these years. She finds a pattern for a basic dress, then goes from there. Her prom dress is a retro 1950-1960's look. The pattern is a strapless fitted bodice with a pleated skirt that goes just below the knee. She added straps that are trimmed with ribbon that she also used in a belt. I did the zipper (badly) since she doesn't do zippers. She is alot more advanced in her sewing ability then I was at 18 years old. My Mom was a supreme seamstress, so I never had much need to do it myself if Mom could do it faster, easier and better. It is definitely prom season on the blogs....over at dressaday and quiltswithlove both have posts about creating prom dresses.

We made our annual trip to J & J Nursery last night for veggie garden plants. We start alot from seeds each Spring ourselves, but some plants don't do well that way in our area, so it's easier to buy plants. We got tomatoes, peppers(sweet & hot & call 911!), zucchini, cucumbers, and pumpkins. We are also going to try cantaloupe and watermelon this Summer. I picked up 6 new herbs to add to my kitchen herbs. It's still freezing at night, so the plants go out on the porch during the day and back in the house during the night. Izzy the cat has attacked a couple plants for fun.....bad kitty!

I have continued the indexing for the Family History project online. We had a new assighment come out today......letters and documents for the Freeman Project. Some of these records will be the only records some African American searchers will ever have to follow their trail back to their own ancestors. There are all sorts of records, so when I sign on to index them, I never know if I am going to be looking at a land record, or a marriage record, or a death record. We are trying to have everything indexed and double checked for publishing to the internet by June. Lots of work to do!

Happy weekend!

Everything but quilting

I think I have done everything but quilting today!

I spent 2 hours in the storage room cleaning up/inventoring our food storage. Our Church encourages to have a one year supply of clothing, food, and water on hand for emergencies....disasters, loss of spouse, loss of income, etc. I usually do some canning each Summer to Fall, like jams, salsa, tomatoes, fruits. I don't think we could live on what we have currently for a year. Maybe 5-6 months. I would also be serving very boring meals....lots of tomato based meals or treats (cakes, muffins, brownies). Could I live off of brownies and spaghetti sauce for 6 months? (I think I actually did, back in college!)

Today was also a windfall of postcards. I received mail from Germany(2), Malaysia, Maine, California & Connecticut. I need to purchase some art/museum cards at a local museum to send out by the end of the week.

Daughter V has not finished her dress for the Prom. Let me see, today is Tuesday and prom in Saturday......oh, she has loads of time. Talked to a friend Jenny yesterday, and she said her mom didn't have her dress done in time, so she sewed Jenny into it about 15 minutes before her date arrived. That's cutting it too close for me!

Happy Earth Day!

Another UFO bites the dust

I finished this UFO today....about 10 years after I started it! I took a class about 10 years at the Utah Quilt Fest, held that year in Park City.....it was so long ago, I THINK it was 10 years ago. I took a class to learn needle turn applique and this is the result. I also took a class on 3-D flowers, which I added to a appliqued basket block that now hangs in my livingroom. The third class was a technique class to learn different ways to do curved piecing and applique. The teacher provided a bird pattern to practise your favorite curved technique. I enjoyed the class, but never did do a bird wallhanging or quilt.

Park City Fest was the only time I stayed in a hotel to attend the annual Utah Quilt Fest. Usually I just drive back and forth (or just not attend). This year, the Fest is being held in Ogden Utah at the Eccles Center, which is about a 20 minute drive from me. I will definitely be there for the quilt til' you wilt Friday night/all night sew-in, plus I usually help with the donated orphan block class....last year I won one of the orphan block quilts (donated it to QOV). I am also excited that Jane Sassaman(I'm sure that is not spelled correctly!) is coming to teach...I love her art quilts with all the circles and embellishments!

On to the next UFO......and I have SO many to choose from!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy 18th Birthday V

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to you
Happy 18th birthday, dear V

Happy birthday to you!

I love you, baby girl!

Where did Spring go?

We had wonderfully warm temps for a few days......now it is snowing again! Argh!!!!!!

I went online to Quilting Arts TV and printed out some instructions for a couple of techniques I would like to try. The show itself is so-so, but I do enjoy that they show at least one new technique each week that I have not tried yet. I printed out ideas for using paintstik and a purse made of one square of fabric. I made the smallest purse today...good size for a small child.

We celebrated V's 18th birthday last night. We go as a family out to dinnner (birthday person's choice) the Monday before the b-day. V picked Applebees. The group included me, Hubby, V, daughter E & her hubby B with baby Tayge, V's best friend C & V's boyfriend N. N's birthday was just last week, so we celebrated his 21st b-day too. I just sat at the table and watched everyone gabbing. I think we had 2-3 conversations going at the same time almost all the way through dinner. I've got a good looking family!

V and I are going shopping to get the material for her prom dress. She picked out a little purple satin. Her best friend C had just picked up her dress when we went to dinner....bright pink with a shawl jacket. They are looking for another boy for their friend, then they will have 4 couples to all go to dinner and the dance together. Cotillion is the last dance of the year, and only for Seniors at the school, so V is (hopefully)going to go with just the girls.

I tried making a ATC (Artist Trading Card) today. I have been asked to be in a few ATC exchanges, but have always opted out. I have been thinking about one exchange that has a Shakespeare theme. The card I made is my version of "Romeo & Juliet". I am still not sure I want to do it....gonna give it some more thought.

Some of my favorite things

My niece Kaylene, on her blog, talked about some of her favorite things.....so, I got thinking about some of my fav's. Of course, the top of the list would be Hubby, kids, and grandkids. Next on the list........

Dance.....I love to dance. I was on the dance team in High School and took some dance classes in college for excerise. I am not very good at it, but I love to dance.....especially when no one is looking!

Surfing...I tried it a couple of times and totally wiped out, but it was fun! I use to love to watch the surfers in Manhattan Beach (California) ride the waves by the pier. Okay, I was mostly watching because they were cute boys, but I still like to view surfing competitions on TV.

Paradise.....I like to imagine I am back in Western Samoa gazing out at a deserted beach! I would love to go back to Pesega, especially if they have gotten rid of the HUGE cockroaches!

Paris....I went as a child and would love to go back again as an adult. I would spend days wanders the back streets and museums and shopping.........shoes! My favorite building is the Eiffel Tower.

Of course, quilting and chocolate and others things are on my favorite list.

What are your favorite things?

Weekend, here I come!

Natural Arch in Southern Utah

Partition Arch in Utah-Photo by Roger Beau

I felt like sharing some photo's of Southern Utah. The red rock formations and arches are especially beautiful in the Winter with the red colored rocks peeking out beneath the snow. The Summers are EXTEMELY hot.....usually 100 plus degrees. I have a large file of various photos for future journal quilts I would like to do with a red rock theme.

I received the directions for the 3rd row of my vintage quilt.....appliqued umbrellas. Our quilt meeting was good.....lots of show and tell and a nice trunk show. We passed out the 4-patch flannel blocks that were made last month. We have enough for 6 donation quilts for Quilts4Cancer. Next month, we are having speakers come and talk about sewing/quilting room organization.

I finished quilting a flannel quilt that I am going to donate to charity. My flannel leftovers from years of Christmas PJ's were threatening to take over the whole room. I cut the scraps into 3, 4, 6, or 12 inch pieces....like 3 inch squares or 4 by 12 inch rectangles. I started with the largest pieces and did a queen top of all 12 inch blocks. Next, I still had a few 12 inch blocks left, to which I added the 4 and 6 inch pieces together. I ended up with 3 tops in "girl" colors. Eventually I'll do the "boy" quilts too.

I enjoyed my sewing machine class last night...sort of! It was the 2nd of two classes that came with the new Viking Sapphire 830 machine Hubby bought me for Christmas. The first class was very basic. This class was more on the added/extra features of decorative/other options the machine could do. I ended up being assisted by a new employee who was learning how to teach the class, but she sat almost in my lap and kept trying to program my machine. I finally had to say something (nicely) about needing to do it myself if I was going to learn. She finally walked away and started doing inventory. Carol, the head teacher, realized it wasn't a good class for me and said to come back in sometime and she would help me.

I think I'll do the quiltathon this weekend with Judy at Patchwork Times....so many projects, so little time!

Quilt meeting today

B-17 in flight

I am headed out to quilt meeting in a few minutes. I have my 2nd row of the vintage quilt along with my MIL quilt top (not quilted...yet) to share in show n' tell. I am looking forward to the meeting today. I need something quilty to get me going again.

I have kept at the indexing. Currently, the Irish birth records for 1944. Still the usual names, except a new girls name has shown up that was extremely popular....Carmel. Ever hear of it? Me either! These records were right at the end of World War II....was Carmel a favorite actress or something/someone to do with the War? It's very time consuming indexing these birth records...each record of 2 pages/2 columns each page is about 300-500 names. A lot more reading than the average 100 names in the USA Census records.

I really enjoyed watching General Conference (Church)on TV Saturday and Sunday. I especially liked a talk about being a young mother. Now, I am very far from a young mother, but the advice to any mother was good....the idea that you have these little spirits for such a short time and you need to make every moment count, but you need to also take care of your own physical/emotional/spiritual needs or you won't be any good to anyone!

Between conference sessions on Saturday Hubby and I went to the Hill Air Force Base air museum and Roy city museum. I had been to the air museum before ( a long time ago) but not the Roy museum. Both were very interesting. Growing up with a Dad who designed and flew bomber airplanes, it was interesting to look at the results of some of his labors. The museum had a B-17, which he flew and a B-1 which he helped design. The Roy museum was a fun little city museum. They had 3 quilts that I tried to photograph, but the quilts had plastic over them for protection that showed shiny in the photos.

I got the receiving blankets and burp clothes made for the baby shower that V went too. Mommy to be sent a verbal thank you for the cute fireman blanket. I also made a block for the retiring President of the Utah Quilt Guild....very easy block in tropicals and white. I used the scraps from an old lavalava (skirt type clothing worn in Samoa) I had left over from when I was a kid in Western Samoa. I fussy cut out the words "Talofa" and "Samoa" for the block-Talofa means hello/love you/welcome...kind of like Aloha. I also cleaned out my closet in the sewing studio...very scary! I was going to try and get another service quilt finished for the Cancer project, but it didn't happen. Oh well, there is always next month!

What are your doing in your quilting World?

I got tagged

I had to ask someone what getting "tagged" meant, because I got tagged by a fellow quilter blogger. I am to list 5 unknown/unusual things about me, Suzanne:

1.I am adopted and have met my bio mother and 3 of her 6 children. I talked to the bio father once on the phone for about 15 minutes. I have met 3 of his 9 children. Out of the total 15 children, two of us have the same bio parents(four bio mothers/one bio father=15 children)

2.I am terrified of being trapped underwater, like in a submarine.

3.I am not athletic, but married a man who is a wrestling coach and loves to play baseball.

4.I have a hard time driving a stick shift car-propably could in an emergency

5.I am a control freak about driving...I must drive everywhere we go...I have an understanding Husband!

Okay, so I am suppose to tag someone....how about my niece Marian!

What a week!

I got looking at my blog and realized it had been a few days of no posting...the days have been just flying by this week.

I got involved in a few new postcard exchanges: Things with feathers, Springtime, Critters and Museum art postcards. This week I 've gotten cards from all parts of the USA, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, and Europe. The best card? The one from my niece J and her family in the Azores (South of Portugal).

When last I posted I was taking dinner to the new three. It went great. We had baked chicken with onions, cold mustard potato salad, brown rice done in a chicken stock with mushrooms, rolls, tropical jello salad with mandarin oranges, pineapple and raspberries(from my vines), plus a couple of veggies. For dessert....E's favorite....apple cobbler. Her MIL loved the dinner and not having to cook for a change....said we should do this once a week! I had planned to steal baby Tayge, but he had a meal of his own in mind, so E spent most of dinner nursing in the other room. It sure was hard to go home. I just didn't get enough baby/grandma time!

I have not sewn for an entire week....very strange! I am going to make a couple of receiving blankets for a baby shower tomorrow-another boy. My sewing room is so clean, I almost hate to destroy it!

I have done alot of indexing for the Family History program this week. The project did a major computer upgrade on Tuesday, and now it is even easier/faster to index. The 1905 Wisconsin Census is finished, so now I am doing the Irish 1945-1958 death index. The most common names: Boys-Thomas, Michael, Patrick and James....Girls:Mary, Margaret, Bridgit, and Ann/Anne/Annie/Anna.

On to the sewing room.........