Slooooooower than trying to walk through molasses

The internet access in this part of breezy Ohio is slower than trying to walk through molassess. No I have not physically tried it but it certainly created a good brain image :) I've about completed a small tapestry while waiting to read me e-mail over the past few days and have decided that some of the broohaha ones are going to have to wait till I get home for a response. I'm dedicated to celebrating Thanksgiving and the fun, froth and joy that can surround that event.

Another slower than molasses moment came when DD#3 and I were dropped of at Michaels so that DH could go to Circuit City. It was only supposed to be for about a half hour but we got into the yarn section and my daughter decided she wanted to buy some for a scarf. I swear the child looked at every single color and finish on the shelves and eventually we came out with 2 balls of variegated brown :) I threatend to package them up for Christmas but she would have none of it. I snuck in some fat quarters for a wall hanging for my sewing room (what can I say they have sewing machines printed on them !!!!) Please don't anyone tell the ladies at Dusting Your Stash or I will be in deeeeep trouble.

Happy Thanksgiving y'all

We are doing all the usual Thanksgiving stuff. Travelling through weird traffic, staying with my wonderful mother-in-law, helping make Thanksgiving dinner, shopping, eating fast food, travelling some more, interacting with relatives etc. etc. etc.

I love the idea of Thanksgiving and wish that in our troubled world more people would extend the hand of friendship on a daily basis instead of hurt, kill and conquer. I hope each one of us is able in some way to make our part of the world a better place to live in and does it with dignity and grace.

frprenescnnailrt - say what?

So I am taking a short break from helping my mother-in-law make Thanksgiving dinner and all will become clear as mud in a moment.

I am a member of a number of Yahoo groups. Our intrepid leader at Lady of Steeles Hand Embroidery Crafters posted a scrammbled up puzzle for us to work on over Thanksgiving. She has given me permission to post it here.

1. orsisscs
2. eleden
3. ofsls
4. opho
5. gtiantb
6. eatrptn
7. treaiaml
8. bgansikwetes
9. rany
10. tflriaumqe
11. efrruatncepi
12. ilutq
13. rsecsasrefrd
14. eclolbtaht
15. wcoalsleilp
16. tbloilucqk
17. htsoiwdesl
18. dweorkr
19. lhlanagwgni
20. frprenescnnailrt

Enjoy. And no I have not unscrammbled #20 yet :) My intent was to save the list for when I am travelling home but I got my mother-in-law started on it last night and wouldn't you know it she has solved all of them except one !!!!!!

Photographs to come

I am going to have to quite saying "photographs to come" in my blogs :) I have them. They are downloaded. Can I get them uploaded so that I can post them individually? Noooooooo :( 

I'll keep tinkering but it should not be this difficult. Maybe I'm missing something - yup - instructions !!!!

Twelveby12

I was trolling through some sites for inspiration and found this fascinating group of designers. Their current theme is math so I decided to give it a try with one of my Scottie dog blocks. I now have a basic 12"x12" entitled "How many times round the block?" using a number of my green colors. Photo to come.

It's our dear son's birthday to day and he is off camping with his scout troop. Rather him that me is all I can say. It's supposed to be about 14 degrees overnight.

Cross Stitch Corner - Just for a change - cross stitch

Our darling doggie took me for a walk this morning. Seriously she did :) She was none too thrilled when I cut it short. My ears were aching from the cold. Muffs were in my other jacket which was not much use.

When we got home I finally dragged out all my cross stitch projects and took photographs of the WIP's. A number of them just need outline stitch done which should not take too long. I knew I had a lot of projects (including my tapestry stuff) but 2 drawers full !!!!! Good grief. Enough to keep me busy for a loooong time.

Got to go. It's my turn to use the WII :) then we have to work out what we are going to do for our beloved son's birthday.

WIIFit

So DD #3 is now home and we are taking turns doing the WIIFit. It's great and a whoooole lot of fun. She is very good at all the different sections she tries. Me..... well my hand eye coordination leaves a lot to be desired and my WII age has fallen to my actual age :(  We have both managed to lose some weight and are trying to use it every afternoon as part of our "fitness" program ;)

My brain is definitely in quilt design mode because I keep looking at the little people and thinking there goes a fun looking village quilt using lots of brights.

The computer came back from the dead

Happy day :) Our main computer is now back up and running. My DH bought something off the internet and was able to retrieve all of my files. Saved us about $600-800. Now I can get back to writing my assorted family histories. 

Happy day part 2 - I found all the full size patterns I had made a few years ago for an applique quilt. I'm not sure if I want to tackle a queen size cover yet but at the very least I can do a large wall-hanging for above my bed.

Textile Corner - Scottie Dog madness

A few days ago I finally found an applique pattern for a Scottie Dog that was the right size. Yesterday I was playing around with some of my small quilt blocks and decided to use the pattern. I was so pleased with the finished result, in darker colors than I normally use, that I got going on another one. For the second one I used some of my Mary Engelbreit fat quarter stash and it turned out quite Christmassy looking. Now that I see the two of them together I feel inclined to make some seasonal variations :)

"Boston Grandma" sent me a fabric card as part of our one-to-one exchange at Postcard Pizzazz. It is a really gorgeous fan on a purple background. It arrived last night and we all ooohed and aaahed :)

Photographs of everything to come.

Speaking of photographs - my Snapfish quilt album came in the mail today. It turned out quite nicely for a first effort and I learned that I need to take some sharper images.

I took a jaunt over to Joann's this morning and ended up having a lesson on machine embroidery. Quite fascinating, but at the moment too expensive for me to justify a purchase.

Favorite links

If you want to have a look at some of my wall hangings in progress look under favorite links and it will take you to my Picasa upload.

Feed back is always welcome :) Some of my WIP's need embellishing so I am at the thought process with them.

Quilting of another kind

I had some fun Thursday through Saturday learning how to make a photograph album at Snapfish.com. I used some pictures of the quilted wallhangings I have been working on over the past few weeks and am looking forward to the album showing up in my mailbox some time in the next couple of weeks. It got me thinking about ways I could use parts of my quilts in photographs so I am going to play with that for a while.

John also got going with the online albums and put together a Christmas present for his mother. She loves Iris and has a fairly extensive collection in her back yard. He has taken numerous photographs. I would love to take some of his photographs and turn them into quilts either by doing applique or learning how to do fabric painting.

If you want to be inspired by what other quilters are doing go to www.quiltersshowandtell.com I found out about it today at one of the yahoo groups I am on and am just in awe and what some people are producing.

Another quilt site I ran across is www.lenorecrawford.com My jaw just dropped to the floor at her artistry. One of these years I will get serious about my quilt learning curve but for the moment I am happy to play :)

"Patriotic Stars" 2008

I call this wall hanging "Patriotic Stars." I started it last year.

Thursday 13th November 2008

It's been a while since I last posted, not because I did not want to, but because our main computer died. This has impacted a number of things, mainly my genealogy and family history writings. Hopefully John will be able to get the information from the hard drive retrieved soon. So I was without a computer for a while and have been learning how to use a MAC.

So what has been happening for the past few weeks ?

I spent a month moving contents of rooms around to create my sewing room :) It's up and running and I have been having a wonderful time finally getting most of the quilting WIP's completed. My DH got all my photographs downloaded to my desk top last night and I should be able to post them here within the next few days. It has been very energizing seeing my stack of finished projects get larger and my stack of WIP's getting smaller.

We had an unexpected house guest for two weeks in the middle of October. She had a number of very stressful events happen to her in the space of a few days and needed somewhere to stay while she put her life back in order. She has now moved back to Utah and is doing well so far.

On Sunday 26th October we had a big event at church. Our ward (congregation) was split and we went with half the members to create the new Bellevue Ward. We were all released from our callings (assignments) which means that I am no longer Relief Society President and John is no longer an advisor to the High Priest Group. So we have had Sacrament only meetings for the past two Sundays and this Sunday will be Stake Conference. The following Sunday we start back into our 3 hour block and with 3 wards meeting in the building there is going to be some overlapping of schedules.

On the 28th I had my birthday. I am now 50 !!! While I am older I don't necessarily feel any wiser. We went to The Melting Pot for dinner which is a great fondue restaurant in downtown Nashville. We finally got round to using the gift card my brother-in-law gave us for Christmas a couple of years ago :) One of my friends surprised me with flowers, balloons and ice-cream. Way to go Linda :) She pointed out that one of the balloons said "aged to perfection".

So today I will be working my shift at our local Family History Center. I was supposed to do Tuesday as well but DD#3 was out sick from school so I spent a good chunk of my time catching up on housework (had migraines since Thursday evening) and taking photographs of projects. 

Have a great day y'all :)