oh me oh my

Yep, our first Frost! Son Joe found out early this morning that there was frost last night...he was not a happy camper! Next weekend, first weekend of November, we will be setting our clocks back an hour. UGH! That messes with my sleep.
Yesterday I was able to finish a customer's quilt on the longarm machine, pinned a second one, but never got back down to my sewing room. This morning I will work a little bit on a quilt that is due for a magazine and then I will finish up customer's quilt on the machine.
I think by the end of the weekend we will have to do some "winterizing" of the house/yard. The side porch glass needs to be put back in so screens get taken downstairs to storage. I will have to clean that porch too....I will need to remember to clean the front porch, I have some empty pots that need to be taken care of. For the last several years in this house, I have not done anything to "winterize", I keep telling myself...oh you've got time...go do something else...then winter hits....I don't like snow and cold so winterizing did not get done. I would like to decorate this year too, don't know if it will happen. Most of the time I have to make myself get up and just do something...I would rather be sewing.
This past Tuesday, I cleaned up the office. I boxed up 5 boxes of books (2 book shelves), had the boys take all the boxes to the attic. I also had boxes in my sewing room that needed to be taken to the attic. DONE! Got rid of lots of paper too. Now to take the bags of paper to the recycle bin and get them out the house. Cleaning up the office felt good too! I was able to hang 3 pictures and a quilt in here.  I'm enjoying this room, now to get the carpets cleaned...got bring out the kirby!
Once I emptied those book shelves I had the boys carry the 2 book shelving units to my sewing room. I'm always looking for better ways to organize my room. About 2 weeks ago I purchased three cone/spool holders at JoAnn's. 2 of them are cone holders and 1 is a regular spool holder. I now have my cone holders on top of the 2 shelves with all my thread in my sight. Next I have to hang my spool holder, but I have to reorganize another area before I do that.
The previous owners did not know how to hang pictures and such. They used HUGE nails and screws. They hung an acording style coat holder right outside my sliding glass doors in the sewing room with 2 HUGE nails and I cannot budge them out of the wall!!! I don't how they secured them, nothing will pry them loose!! I would love to get rid of this thing because my spool holders need to go there....oh well...I will have to figure something else out. We've been in this house for 4 years and I still can't figure it out! LOL
I've been designing with my eq7. I'm going to submit two designs over the weekend and next week...I need to tweak the quilts first then submit.
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
Happy Sewing!

TGIF!!

I'm so glad its Friday! I have no reason other than ITs FRIDAY! I'm hoping the rain goes away and it turns out to be a sunny day. The weather man said the clouds were going to go away and we should see some sunshine today.....winter is coming though....

Yesterday I pieced about 50 blocks for neice's quilt. Today, I have to press all seams open, I know this is such exciting news for you to read. There is something exciting though, while I was pressing the seams open I got this urge to come check email. It was about 5:30pm. So, I came upstairs to check my email and there was an email I've been waiting for. Actually, I had convinced myself that my quilt pattern had not been accepted since I have not heard anything so I was expecting a reject letter/email. I was wrong! My quilt was accepted, F&P accepted another one of my quilts!! How Sweet!!
I don't have all the details yet, that will come soon.
Today, I will be heading over to Sew Many Things for their Open House event. They want past students, who have completed projects to come in and show off to prospective new students. Pam showed me how to recover a cushion with welting. Pam is a great teacher! So, I'm going to bring my cushion.
No pictures to post, sorry....
Happy Sewing!

What a weekend whirlwind trip!

This past weekend I was invited to go to Chicago with two sisters who own a new business called Sew Many Things. This shop caters to ALL sewers! They teach everything about sewing, it is great! Anyway, their employee, my friend Dawn, could not go with them and she is in charge of the "quilting dept.". So Dawn suggested they ask me to go with them. At first I was dreading it, the drive all evening on Saturday and then drive back home the next evening. 
We arrived in Chicago about 1:30 in the morning, so that was actually Sunday. Got checked into the hotel and all of us hit the hay. Woke up between 7:30am and 8am got dressed, checked out the hotel and headed over to Troy.
It was fantastic!! Troy had great seminars, small in attendance, but none the less they were great! And the fabric, oh the fabric! RJR, Windham, Blue Hill, Timeless Treasures, Henry Glass, Benartex!! Troy has their own line of fabric called River Hill, I think that is the name. I enjoyed every minute of it and I am soooo glad I went! We were the last ones to be checked out at Troy. I think we left the building by 8pm. I pulled into my driveway at 2am.
I'm exhausted, but I had a wonderful time! Thanks to Sew Many Things for inviting me to go!

Beautiful weekend

What a beautiful weekend we have had!! The sky is blue and temps are perfect...80 degrees...love it! Not to hot, nor is it sticky heat...you know humidity....
Our quilt show was fantastic! We had lots of "traffic", great attendance and all the silent auction quilt sold! Amazing!
Yesterday I made a neat remote control holder, here is a picture:

See, the remote control is in the middle poking its little head out....
That is all for now, I'm off to prepare Sunday dinner, tortelini soup. Then head to church, and allow the soup to cook while we are gone.
Happy Sewing!

Quilt Show!

Today and tomorrow is Quilt show!! My guild is having their quilt show this weekend. I was there yesterday helping with some setup and got to look at some absolutely beautiful quilts! My brain was just in aw of the workmanship, the creativity of all these quilters! Amazing!
Unfortunately, I waited to late and did not get my forms in for my own quilts to be displayed...sniff sniff...I was just swamped with life and did not stop to do it...my fault, no one elses. I will survive.
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
Happy Sewing!

New block I attempted this past weekend

This past weekend, I had planned on working on other projects but I just could not get this one out of my head. I made 3 different ones, trying to make the block end up at 12-1/2" unfinished. Here is what I finally finished with and I can thank a friend of mine, Margaret Serda for the cheddar color going into this block as my background. So, what do you think: 

And here is another picture of it, I'm trying to show the black fabric, I love it!

Today's agenda: longarm machine! Oh wait, I have to finish piecing the last row of my Dr. Suess quilt. Here is what I would like to have finished on the longarm machine by Monday:
3 crib size quilts
1 lap size
6 customer quilts....I wonder if I can get all this finished with hurtin' knees?

Happy Sewing!

Working on crib size quilts

These past few days I've rotated from working on crib size quilts to queen size to just trying to figure out the math for a new block. My knees are killing me though, especially my right knee. I'm thinking that maybe we will have to bring my sewing studio up to the family room and let the boys have my studio for their music room.

Designed this quilt yesterday, I love it!

Happy sewing everyone!