VBS, Tenth Avenue North, a few flowers & a How-To!

It has been an incredibly busy week, this week! I am Heidi Claire, super-sleuth extraordinaire, in our VBS progam.  I normally do the craft classes, but couldn't pass up the chance to be on stage! And our stage ROCKS! It took us the two weeks prior to get this all painted and assembled, but it is SO neat!

There is Chef Pierre practicing his lines, as I get a picture of him while he is not paying attention.  Once he noticed me, he scooted back stage to get out of the pictures.... silly Chef!

During the last week of painting & stage prep, my middle son and I went to see a concert - Tenth Avenue North. It was a much needed time to blow off some steam before VBS started, and they were SO good!! It was so HOT here in San Antonio, but they didn't let the heat slow them down one bit!!



While I didn't have time to work on my flowers for One Flower Wednesdays during the daytime this past week, I did have two hours between sets at VBS to get some flowers put together!

The picture is very dark... I tried to use my camera and the batteries were dead. I tried to get a picture with my iTouch and my son didn't plug it in to charge, so the battery was dead. So, I had to take it with my phone. :-)

I need to remember to update my tally on the sidebar, it's been a while... now I will have to sit down and count hexies....

I finished one of my sewing pouches for a friend, lets see if I can put it into a How-To. 

----OK, no How-To at this point.  Blogger keeps automatically turning my pictures and half of them are upside-down or sideways... so I will need to figure this out before I can write this.  It may be because I am uploading them from my computer rather than using picasa.  Whatever the reason, I will figure it out after VBS is finished.... sorry!!!

Another Wednesday - where has the week gone?!

I had alot of time sitting at band practices and orthodontist visits to get more flowers done for One Flower Wednesday!

Here is my A4 block for Dear Jane:

I am currently working on a teddy bear for a friend.  He will be dressed in some clothing made from her MIL old clothes.  I will also be making another teddy and a doll from those same clothes.  I will post pictures of those when they are finished.

The rest of this week is crazy busy, so I probably won't get to post again until NEXT Wednesday.  I caught a cold last Saturday and that has really slowed things down.  Now things are piled up and I don't have time to slow down anymore!  I have to get ready for our Quarterly Meeting tomorrow and then I leave to cook for the High School Retreat!

I have a plan, and will be talking to my friend today.  You see, I have a longarm quilting machine.... my baby has been in its crate for four years (since we moved to San Antonio) because we have NO room to set it up.  I am hoping to rent some space from a friend to set it up and I am hoping to be able to rent time out on it to other quilters.  Has anyone done this before?  I seriously can't pay to have a place to set it up if I have no $$ coming in from it!  Eventually I hope that I will slow down enough to be able to take in quilts myself to quilt, but I have alot of practicing to do before that will happen and very little time to practice! :-( I had a whole loft to myself in Delaware, just for my machine and quilting stuffs...but I honestly never got very good with the machine.  I often left the loft in tears because I couldn't do what I wanted to do with it!  We'll see how things go this time!

Fall-O-Ween Blog Hop - Day 1

I am so excited, today starts the Fall-O-Ween Quilt Designer Blog Hop! Gudrun has organized a fabulous 10 day hop with a free pattern each day from a different designer. Check it out!!

I finished the first project just a little bit ago...I love candy corn, so couldn't wait to get started!

I have another halloween project that I want to do that has a stencil like pumpkin, so to make this match I did the candy corn as a raw edge applique and put a tiny space between the pieces (don't know if you can see that in the pics) to make it look more like a stencil. 

I also used fleece as my triangles rather than the prairie points, just because I wanted them to pop and I had this BRIGHT orange fleece left from another project.  My son thinks I should make another and add fingers to either side and triangles all along the top and bottom so it looks like a monster is trying to eat the candy corn.  Perhaps I will make another when this hop is done....

For now, Day 1 project is finished and already on the table ready for supper. Can't wait to see what we will have tomorrow!  I have co-op tomorrow, so will check early in the morning to see if there is anything I can cut and take with me to hand sew in the morning when I have a few free minutes here and there.  If not, I will take my hexies as usual and start the hop project after supper when we get home.

Quilt Medicine

"Mom, can you finish that tonight so I can cuddle in my blanket while I sleep?"

Luke wasn't feeling well, he still has a bit of a cold, and that was his question the third day I was working on getting his quilt finished.  I still don't have all the quilting done in the animal blocks, but I went ahead and did the binding so he could sleep with it while he was sick. I haven't been able to get it back from him the last three days to finish it.  Even at 17 years old, quilts bring comfort when you are sick.

Working on an UFQ...

I am pinning a quilt that Luke pieced, 6 years ago??... when he was about 11 years old. He wants fleece on the back, so this is a first for me! I am not using any batting, just the top & the fleece. :)

My back is so sore from all the yard work yesterday that leaning over the table pinning this is taking a looooong time because I have to keep stopping and sitting for a while.  He wants to sleep with this tonight... MAYBE I can make it....

Lil' Buckaroo Delays are Over!

I haven't been on the computer to update for days, so this may be a long post today!

First off, my Pfaff is in the shop until who knows when!  I had dropped the foot off Friday when it quit working and I couldn't convince it to get going again.  It has died several times over the past couple months, but I was always able to get it to work for a few more days...no such luck this time.  So there was no quilting over the weekend, instead we replaced the back fence and met our wonderful backyard neighbors!

I didn't hear from the shop all weekend, so Monday morning I dropped by to see if he had looked at my pressure foot and the sad news was that he thinks its my engine, not the foot.  So I took the foot home and asked my hubby if he wanted to go back with me to take my machine, and he did.  When we got to the shop, they plugged my machine in and it wouldn't even TURN ON!!! 

"Probably the motherboard, and I can't even look at it for about 10 days."

On the way out to the car, I was close to tears because all I could think was that I no longer have a backup machine and I wouldn't get my grandson's quilt done in time for his birthday! So, my wonderful hubby asks if I want my birthday present early this year. Who in their right mind would say NO?? We turned around, went back into Grome's and asked for a demo on the Janome that I had been looking at.  It is a really neat machine, and is much cooler now that it is sitting in MY dinning room!  So my Pfaff snobbery has been broken by a Janome...

So I have spent Tuesday (after getting ready for Bunko) and Wednesday, quilting the Lil' Buckaroo quilt for my grandson.  I am doing a meander all over except for the cow print border, it just has a looped line more like a rope.  I will probably do a similar thing for the outer border as well.  The stars have a swirl between their points, inside the circle. In the center of the star I outlined the cowboy.  I hope to finish the quilting today, we will see if my headache allows that though....

Lil' Buckaroo part 2

Well, I did get the top pieced and the borders on. I had to wait until I could clear the table to lay out the backing, batting & top, but got it all pinned and couldn't figure out in my head exactly how I wanted to do the quilting.  I know I wanted to do a swirled line, like the cowboys rope... but couldn't picture exactly what I wanted.  So I pulled out my extra backing fabric & batting and made myself a sandwich to practice on... and my pressure foot stopped working AGAIN!!  I took it apart and cleaned it, checked the contact and put it back together and it would only come on in one spot, and it was impossible to hold your foot steady enough to leave the pressure there and WAY too slow to actually quilt.  So I took it apart again and made sure the contact was making a good contact and where it was supposed to be and all looked well, but it is still not working. :-((   So I am off to Grome's Sewing this morning to talk to the man about whether we should rebuild this food or get a new one.  The pfaff foot I need runs $90, and my machine is about 14 years old....come on!!!  Well off I go, wish me luck!

Lil' Buckaroo

I always have loads of projects running.  Right now I am working on a quilt for my grandsons second birthday. I am sure he is quickly outgrowing the crib quilt I made him last year!  I have all but one block pieced and hope to finish piecing the top today and start quilting it tomorrow.  However, I am pretty sure that my youngest son has shared his bad cold with me. So fingers-crossed, I will feel well enough to get this knocked out this week so I can finish my stained glass project!