Shelves up in laundry room, cleaned and organized!

Got the pantry done, the buffet, a few of the cabinets......off to the laundry room!

Organization

I decided to stay home from work another day. Glad I did. The kids didn't go back to Louisville until mid-morning, so I got to visit with them a bit more. Today is going to be a day of organization! It is really shameful, all the food that has gone to waste. I cleaned and organized the pantry and filled almost three bags of old food. I need to make a commitment to do this at least twice a year, so I can get the food that we aren't going to use to a food pantry before it goes out of date. I've been counting my blessings this morning. It is truly a blessing to have more food that you can eat, a warm home, clothes to wear, family.

I purchased some new wire shelving for the utility room. I may get ambitious and try to put them up today. I would love to organize the laundry room after I finish in the kitchen. Such a great day to be at home! Probably won't do much sewing today, but today just seems like a good day to GET ORGANIZED! Hope you are counting your blessings and enjoying your day too!

McDaniel Family Christmas Photo

Here is the "normal" photo, at least as normal as we can get!


And here is the annual "goofy" photo....lol

Flying Squirrel

My friends on facebook have already seen this pic. This is a flying squirrel our cat, Jesse, brought in the house last night. It was fascinating. Jim managed to catch it in a dish towel in the laundry room, but not until after it "flew" or jumped from one shelving unit to another. We put it on the screened porch and it stayed a few hours. It was gone this morning (we propped the door to the deck opened). We read about how you can make them pets and they form bonds with their owners, and even will sleep in your pocket! I was so proud of Jesse, that he didn't maim or kill it, but just brought it in to show us!

Christmas Week

Ahhh...Christmas week. How wonderful. Off work. Visiting with family. Cooking. Cleaning (yes, I do love to clean). Walking in the 50 degree weather. What a blessing. Hope your week is just as wonderful.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Phillipians 4:8

finished

I've been working all afternoon and evening on the Thangles quilt. Got it finished, bound, washed and dried. Just put it on the bed. After all my complaining about the quilting, which I am still not that happy with it, the overall look is good. What do you think? You can click on the stitching picture to get a closer look. I've learned a whole lot on this quilt. #1 my quilting machine is maxed out at a 13 inch reach. which means you can't fill a 19 inch block in one pass, #2 better check the length before you decide you are going to reload it to do the borders (barely fit on the machine), and #3 if you are not really good at free hand draw your designs first on the blocks before you try it free hand.

Free style quilting

I dont' know when I will ever get good at this. The pictures show the parts I am pretty pleased with. The holly leaves and berries I put in the solid squares are pretty bad. My machine spread was not enough to do what I wanted so I added ribbon around the holly leaves. I ended up doing ribbon around the other squares also, because I just can't do stitch in the ditch at an angle. The solid squares are so bad, that I dont' want to post them. Thank goodness this quilt will stay in-house. Maybe after I am finished and I wash it, and put it on the bed, I will be more pleased. But now......hummpht!

Pictures

The pictures don't really do this little project justice. It turned out very cute. It is for our department secretary for a Christmas gift/going away combination. She will be going to a new job soon. Hope she doesn't look at my blog before tomorrow. I plan on giving it to her in the morning.

Gift Quilt

Here is a little project I just completed. It was a very inexpensive kit from Fabric Cafe. I used the plummage pantograph on it, but this isn't a good picture to see it. It will be a Christmas gift for a co-worker.

Thangles Christmas Quilt

I finally got the Thangles quilt top finished. This will be a bit of a challenge to quilt, because it will need to be custom quilted. I am still not quite comfortable doing custom quilting, but I am going to give it a try. This one we are keeping, and I hope to have it finished and on our bed by Christmas. Jesse wanted to get in the picture.

New Pantographs

I received two new pantographs today that I had ordered. I am excited to use them. Both are Jodi Beamish designs.

Miscounted

I didn't count my squares right; there are 112 and I finished them tonight! I hope I can get some more of the white pieces made and sewn on this weekend.

windows progress

when I finished the last six here, I will have completed 104 - yippee! only 1700 more to go.....ugh, that sounds terrible.

Present Pillow

I know comforter sets are beautiful, but, I admit that I prefer to see a quilt on a bed. I removed my beautiful comforter for a brightly colored quilt. I added a Christmasy lap quilt and topped the bedding off with a little present pillow I made this morning. Isn't it cute?

Thangles

I've got 11 of the 12 thangles blocks finished. Next weekend I'll get the final block and setting kit and put this one together.

In Memory of Chase Austin Ruffner

The infant son (4 months old) of a young Christian couple in our community suddenly passed away yesterday afternoon.. No known health issues. Evidently he stopped breathing while taking an afternoon nap. Please pray for the parents, grandparents, and 3 year old sister. If you would like to contribute to his memorial fund to help them with the burial costs click on the icon below.

I finished the quilting on this quilt. Love it. The back is pretty neat also. Click on it to enlarge and you can see the quilting design and the signatures.

Leaves and acorns

I am making good progress on quilting using the Autumn Oaks pantograph. It is pretty dense but really fairly easy. As you can see my co-workers signed the back of the quilt with their retirement congrats. I am very happy with the results so far.

Top Finished

Met my goal to get it finished before I go to bed!

random thoughts

You can never go back. I often find myself wishing for the past. Simpler times. Some events prompt these thoughts. One such event - we celebrated the 60th birthday of a dear friend last night. The picture slide show took me back....the friendships, the dear ones who have gone on, the simple lives we led. Where sitting outside with friends was a normal way to pass the evening hours in the summer. Playing rook, riding in Cade's Cove, church - Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening, Friday night football, I could go on and on. Yes, we have more material things now - better cars, nicer homes, more money to spend....but some relationships are gone. Some have changed. Makes me sad. But, you can't go back. Hard for me sometimes. I'm not complaining. I know I am very blessed. Maybe just wanting to say - choose your steps carefully, you can never go back and change your footprints.

New projects

The fall quilt is one my friend, Wanda, made. I needed some quilting practice so I quilted it for her using the "Lithe" pantograph and Mother Goose thread. The table runner is one I stitched up today. The picture doesn't do it justice; it is really pretty.

Custom Quilted

I finished the scrap quilt. Well, actually I still have one side to bind but wanted to get a picture while it was still daylight. I did lots and lots of custom quilting on this one, practicing my skills. My feathers are pretty bad. Guess that means I need more practicing!

TV Stand

Back a few weeks ago we got a new TV. I gave away our old entertainment center and the old TV after I hurt my back lifting it. We ordered a new TV stand. It is awesome and was unbelieveably easy to to put together. I love it! In one of these pictures you can see how it folds open. Cool, huh? Easy to put together, good quality, looks good, and delivered to my door with no shipping costs or tax. Can't beat that.

Scrap Quilt Progress

I finished the scrap quilt top. Now, to get it quilted.

Know why I love hardwood floors?

The short answer is because they are easy to clean.

The long answer is because when your hunter kitty slips past you with his maimed bunny rabbit catch who is dripping blood and who hops from the back door, through the living room, through the dining room, through the kitchen, to the back hallway and back to the kitchen, the blood splatters are easy to remove with your handy-dandy Shark steam mop!

A nice bed

Cats and quilts. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. No, that isn't a "real" quilt on the machine, it is my practice piece. So, I let Jesse get up there and go to sleep. Looks comfy.

Quilting History Book

One of the blogs I follow (great one - MaryQuilts) organizes her quilting in folders on her blog site. I wanted to share how I capture my quilting experience. The pictures show my quilt book, the introductory page, how I sometimes add fabric scraps, slide "thank you" notes inside the sleeve with the picture and description of the quilt. Sometimes I just love to look through my book and remember all the fun stuff I've made. The quilt on the cover isn't one of mine. It is a "hope to, one day" quilt.

Wedding Gift

I couldn't remember if I had ever posted a picture of this quilt. The pattern was from a book called "Cookies and Quilts" but I don't remember the name of it. I used the Lithe pantograph for the quilting. I finished it some time ago, but didn't want to post a picture just in case the recipient happened to go to my blog. I gave it to her yesterday and she really liked it.

Things I learned

Here are a few pictures of what I learned at my recent machine quilting skills class.

Back Pain

No quilting today, no work today either. Did a stupid thing, trying to move a TV by myself yesterday and strained my back. At least, I hope and pray that is all it is. I've been in the bed all day, and I don't seem to be any better. I've read on the internet that it usually takes 2-5 days to recover from back strain. Man, it hurts. Keep me in your prayers! - thanks.

Back home

ALWAYS when I travel the first thing I do when I get home is unload and start the laundry. Not today. Got my quilting machine back on the table, dusted it, oiled it, checked it out, and then loaded my practice piece. That should tell you that I am excited about all the stuff I learned this weekend. I've always said that I didn't want to machine quilt for a business.....but maybe when I retire......

I also bought a couple of good books. One came with a DVD, "Pajama Quilter". I watched it tonight with my little white board in front of me and drew, drew, drew. The other book is by Pam Clark, "Design with lines." So many good ideas, can't wait to use them.

I accidentally left my folder and camera, but they are mailing it to me. Hopefully in a few days I can post pictures of what we did.

Skills class

Once I get home I will post some pictures of some of the stuff we learned. Today we learned how to adjust a pantograph border pattern to ensure you stop the pattern at the desired design. Also, we learned how to do various border patterns for sashing and borders, practiced several different methods of back filling, did some echoing, and did some ruler work. Tomorrow morning I have a 1/2 day maintenace class for my machine. I'll be heading home tomorrow afternoon. I am such a homebody; I am already wishing I was there, even though the class has been great.

Learning new stuff!

I am currently in a skills training for two days. I dreaded coming, mainly due to the long drive I had this morning in rush hour traffic. I made it fine and am really enjoying it. It is a small class with only three students, in the home of the Gammill dealer. Today she went over all the types of batting, thread, and various issues a long arm quilter would encounter in her business. We also got to practice several different free hand styles. I learned so much! I am looking forward to tomorrow.

I need some suggestions....

I really need some help with this one. I show it layed out on a beige sheet for the background but now I am thinking maybe something darker for the background, or should I just use cream? I would still like to use navy for the stars. The stars will go where the ends of the strips meet. Suggestions anyone??

Use your imagination

My scraps were piling up, so I decided to use them on my next project. My friend, Wanda, convinced me to use this pattern. You'll have to use your imagination. There will be stars in the centers connecting the strip pieces, and some kind of neutral in between. I am thinking of using navy blue stars, but red would look good too. Maybe a beige for the neutral. Any suggestions? I've only worked on this for 3-4 hours today and made great progress.

Picture

Completed Cats

Thanks Deanna for the pattern! I finished the cats. It is not so bad afterall. I did use the black border (thanks to Charla's advice). I quilted eyes, mouth, and whiskers on each cat. I also quilted the names of the four cats my friend has had into four random cats. I even quilted little mice around all the border. Hope she likes it! For some reason, I can't add a picture.

All Wrapped Up

Is not this the cutest little block with the 3D bow? The pattern is called "All Wrapped Up" and our guild is using it for our next block drawing.

By the way, thanks Charla for the advice about the black border for the cats. My goal for tomorrow is to get some black fabric and have the cat quilt finished before the weekend is over!

What do you do?

What do you do when a quilt you are making as a gift, just doesn't turn out like you want? Do you give it to them anyway? I don't have time to start over with something else. This cat quilt was a cute pattern, but my choice of varying batiks, well, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. I need a border, so my only idea is to take the scraps and make a 2-3 inch pieced border. I think I will make them varying lengths. I will finish it because I always HAVE to finish things, but I guess I can tell her it is for her cats to lay on. Surely they won't mind the odd colors!

Cats

I am trying to make a cat quilt for a cat-loving friend who is retiring. I picked a lot of batiks to make it.....I am a little worried that it might win the "ugliest quilt" contest.

"Movie Time"

My sister made this quilt for my brother, the filmmaker. I quilted it for her while they were visiting.

Family

It is so nice to have family come home, even if it is for a funeral. My sweet brother-in-law is such a worker. He just can't sit around. So, here you see him power washing my screened porch, something I've been wanting to do for weeks now.

He's there; we are still here

Henry Lenore McDaniel May 25, 1918 - August 16, 2009

Dad update

He is still here with us, but the end is close. My brother from California is here, my sister and her husband from Oklahoma are here. My sweet, sweet husband is grilling for all of my family tonight. Mom needed to rest and I wanted to stay here with Dad. Tonight might be the night. He will be having a grand time soon, it will be those of us left here that will need your prayers.

Not good news......

Please keep my dad in your prayers. He is in the hospital with kidney failure after acute pancreatitis. They've put him on comfort care now, just morphine, and have removed most of the tubes and monitors. He is 91 and has lived a long good life. we just want him to be comfortable until his time to go.

Finished the binding.....

Too hot to do anything outside, so I worked on the binding today while Jim watched movies on TV. I have to be doing something; can't just watch TV.

One bound, one to go

Ready to bind