Quilts

I don't have time to write much today, so I'll just post a few pictures.

I'll do my quilting project before I show pictures of the big quilts that the others did. My little area started off pretty neat, but as time went on, it got messier and messier with all those little snips of pink and green and got scattered all over the room. I would find pieces in places I could have sworn I'd never been before - on the staircase, in the kitchen, in other people's areas.

It was nice, though, to have room to lay all my pieces out and sew and iron them on without interruption.

Meanwhile Sherry across the table smoothly went through her pile-o-purple and turned out a fabulous quilt that I will post pictures of tomorrow. You can see that the first picture was taken before our 3rd table mate Vista arrived. We kind of spilled over onto her table.





Now you can see Vista's neat work to the left. It was nice getting to know her and seeing the pretty things she was turning out - quickly. Pictures tomorrow.

This is how a block looked before trimming.

And this is how it looked after trimming. That was my favorite part.

I had to number them because there were 30 of them, and they had special places to go even they all looked alike.

On Tuesday afternoon, I finally had enough done that I could sew the sashing between the panels and lay it out in rows. It was very tricky trying to make sure the front pieces were in order while keeping the back right side up and staying with the pattern. What a relief when it all matched up.

This last picture is one row of the wrong side - strips with pink sashing - and under it is the other side with green sashing.

Tonight I'm working on pinning those strips into 1/2-inch strips and tomorrow I'll top stitch them down.

It's coming along and fun to do.

Big nice amazing quilts tomorrow.

Late Bloomer and More Red Rooster

Look who decided to finally bloom.



This is a sad little Christmas cactus that just doesn't like this house. It used to have bunches of blooms from Thanksgiving until Christmas, but I'm thinking it needs some sort of boost. This is the best it could do, so far.

There are so many pictures and so much to mention about the retreat that I think I'll just limit today to food - although there were not too many limits on it. Every day we were served 3 meals a day. We would start smelling the food cooking and try to guess what it was long before the dinner bell rang.

Here's where we ate. A beautiful dining room with windows on 3 sides and decorated beautifully.


There was a menu posted every meal, and there was not one thing served that I didn't like, and that includes brussels sprouts, broccoli, and carrots. My favorites were the jambalaya, the crunchy slaw, and especially the cornbread. We had cherry cobbler, poppy seed cake, and almond joy pie, among other things, for dessert.

Breakfasts were great too. The first morning we had waffles with strawberry syrup, bacon, and scrambled eggs. Another day a hash brown and sausage casserole, sausages, and eggs. Always with a biscuit.


More pictures of the dining room and food.

We were even taken care of between meals. Quilting takes a lot of energy. There was always coffee ready and a little refreshment room with a refrigerator filled with drinks and plenty of snacks.
I'll get around to actual quilting tomorrow. And there was a whole bunch of that done. We didn't just eat all the time.

Back Home Again

From the Red Rooster.

We flew the coop today right after lunch. Sorry for the chicken jokes, but we've been surrounded by hundreds of chickens and roosters for the past 4 days - not real ones. The pictures over the next few days will show some of them.

It was the greatest trip, just wonderful. From Sunday night to Wednesday afternoon, we had nothing to do but sew, read, talk, and eat in the most beautiful setting.

Debby and I met Sherry and most of the others at a Cracker Barrel in Cullman for supper. It's funny how the others were so unfamiliar then but ended up seeiming like old friends. I didn't take any pictures there (so as to delay the "she's weird" impression from the others) except for this interesting cabbage/kale? in the flower bed out front.



Also interesting was the way we got to the house. I think we had 7 cars and only 1 person who knew the way. We had one person who had to get gas, so we all lined up at the service station ready for takeoff.

If there's anything I hate worse than merging onto a congested interstate (which it certainly was Sunday), it's merging on a congested interstate at night with all those lights coming up behind me and not knowing what lane they're in. Luckily, we all got on without incident. We did our best to keep up with the leader who wasted no time getting there! After we left the interstate, we had about 20 miles to go of winding back roads. Coming back today it was nice, but at night we had no idea what we were getting into.

It was cold and damp, and we had all taken about 20 bags/suitcases/boxes each and had to get those unloaded and up the stairs to our rooms and sewing areas (which were thankfully downstairs). That was the worst part of the trip - except leaving to come home.

I should have taken a picture before we moved our things in, but this is our room - even roosters on the bed covers. It was fun to lie in bed each night and talk until 1 or 2 of us fell asleep. Debby and Sherry had not seen each other in 16 years, and we had not all 3 been together in about that many years, so there were lots of things to catch up on and lots of things to remember and laugh about. That was one of my favorite times.

This is the cozy little area in the hall just outside our room and another bedroom for 4. There were quilts everywhere and little arrangements. It was just hard to take it all in, and I kept seeing something different every time I looked around. The Christmas decorations were all up, which made the house even more beautiful. It will be tomorrow before I can get all those pictures posted. Get ready for Red Rooster pictures for several days!

Here is the front of the house and the lake across the street taken Tuesday when we ventured out for a walk - the easy-going-down-the-hill-but-rough-coming-back-up walk. The weather was great that day, crisp and good-smelling and just cool enough to be comfortable.

I'll save the other pictures for tomorrow - and the next day - and the next- but here is a view from upstairs of our sewing arrangement. We each had our own table and many times borrowed space from our neighbor.

I hope these ladies don't mind their pictures being here, but there was almost no time when the room was empty. We could hear sewing machines when we woke up every morning, and even after we went to bed.

01/01/11

I like how that looks.

And we'll have 01/11/11 and 11/11/11 this year.

Not making any promises but I'm going to try to keep this blog more up to date. I know I'll regret all the things I've missed writing down.

It won't be right away though, because it's time for the long-awaiting quilting retreat. Tomorrow!

I'm all packed and ready - kind of - taking way more than I need but worried about forgetting something.

Isley's quilt is the first thing I'm going to work on - maybe the only thing. I've done all the embroidery - 15 squares - and layered the other ladybug squares with batting.

Now it's just a matter of strip quilting all 30 of them and then joining them together. Once the binding is on, it will be finished.

Here are some of the embroidered squares.







All the squares but not in the right order.

If this is all I get done, I'll be happy. I'm just looking forward to being with my cousins and a bunch of other quilters. I'm sure it will be an inspiration to me just to see what they're doing. I plan to take a lot of pictures but won't be able to post them until I get home Wednesday.

It's THAT Kind of Day

27 degrees - feels like 14 - at 9:00 a.m.

I brought Darby's Christmas blanket into the bedroom because the sunroom is just too cold, and Stella immediately took possession. They're dealing with it.

It will be a good day if I can stay inside and quilt and read and do laundry.

Warm house. Coffee. Cranberry candles. Good day.

Pink and Green Turtle

To join the other critters on the quilt.

The only reason I had time to do the turtle is because my internet service was out for awhile. Work emails are begging for help and offering overtime, so I have to put my pleasure on hold and carry on for the good of my new company, wherever and whatever it is.

Sadly, my favorite coordinator is no longer with the company, according to an email we received yesterday. That's bad news for me in that she knew all about me and put up with my needing to change my schedule at the last minute or when I didn't get enough lines to make everyone happy. Besides, although I never met her face to face, she was just a nice person to talk to and always pleasant and friendly. I don't have a forwarding e-mail for her, but I hope she's the one who left the company other than the other way around and and has another job.

The good news is that things are a little chaotic as they usually are with a merger, and maybe no one will watch me closely and see if I don't get enough lines.

My first report this morning the doctor chewed and swallowed all the way through her 8-minute dictation, and my nerves were shot when I finished it. Those sounds are amplified when they're speaking right into your ear, and it drives me crazy. Eating hard candy or cough drops is another pet peeve. Don't they know that you can hear it every time it hits their teeth? UGH. And you can't escape, just knowing every few second you're going to hear it again.

So, I'll be hoping for some good dictators this afternoon and a few cups of yummy cinnamon roll coffee. I think Mama just made some cinnamon rolls to go with the coffee too.

Ladybug Quilt

Ok, it's back to a little quilting - or getting ready for it. When we go away for the quilting retreat in January, I want to have several things ready, so I'm starting Isley's little ladybug quilt. She's not actually here yet, but I'm slow, so maybe by the time she makes her appearance, she'll have a quilt.

Her nursery is pink and green with ladybugs, and it's been fun to think about what I'll do.

I sometimes get in trouble without a pattern, but I'm kind of making this up as I go along.

It started with this fabric.

And I added some more.


This will be one side of it. Each space will be filled in with embroidered bugs and birds and flowers plus a turtle and an owl. The 5 diagonal spaces will have the letters of her name appliqued in a combination of the fabrics.


Wow. Wonder if this will work.

The other side will be made up of strips of all the fabrics, and each square will be quilted as I go along.

Here are a couple of the critters. I'm a little rusty on my machine embroidery, but it's coming back to me. Some of them need a little pressing and trimming and maybe some starch.




Those owl eyes needed 2 layers of white. Too late.

I think I'm going to like it, and most of all, it's a lot of fun.

Comments

I love it when people comment on my blog. Sometimes I'm not sure anyone but my immediate family reads it. And I'm probably flattering myself that even they do! It would probably help if I would find something interesting to write about and not just take pictures of trees and cats.

I hardly go back and read old posts, so I was lucky to find this sweet message from the post about Emily's race back in October.

Tad Doviak said...
Hi, I'm Tad from Tad Needs A Job. Congrats to Anne and Emily for winning the costume contest. I do, in fact, still need a job. Kind of. I'm "underemployed", which mostly means I have a job that pays less than I'd like.

But that's not why I'm here. I'm here because I love to do the urban races and just wanted to let you know how much fun it was to run this race. We had a great time with Anne, Emily and the rest of the racers in Seattle.

Thanks, Tad. They had a great time too.

This is especially nice because Tad was the winner - the real winner - not just the one who dressed up the craziest. I would like to have a picture of the winning team....

Speaking of comments, the anonymous one on the last post gets a frowny face. I'd want to be anonymous too! :-0

IT'S GREAT TO BE AN AUBURN TIGER. WAR EAGLE.

I'm not yet clear if I should be a Huskies fan or a Cougar fan. Someone win me over.

IT'S GREAT!!

TO BE!

AN AUBURN TIGER!




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WAR EAGLE

Intruder

Mama found this little guy in her bathtub this morning.

Here he is on the front porch thanking me for his freedom. He'd just better be glad he has legs or he would have been looking at a violent end.

Mama walked into my room earlier with a bath brush in one hand and a dust pan in another asking for help. She thought he was pretty cute (about 2 inches nose to tail) but didn't want any part of removing him.

So how would he have gotten there? These girls are not talking.



Time for quilting again. How about this for some serious cuteness?

Can't wait to get started on this, one of my 3 to take to the quilting retreat.