Springtime...(And still with the eyebrows)

Hello Everybody! It's a lovely Spring around here - a little rain, a little sunshine, a little warmth and a little cold, beautiful flowers - perfect!  Still getting lots of quilty type stuff done around here:

This one is quilted, going to start binding it tonight for an eight year old granddaughter:

 Here is a fun Christmas one for a wonderful Sister in Law, it is a little crookedy, I used a Missouri Star Quilt Pattern and the Half Square Triangles are all on the bias - not such a good idea for me: (Hopefully I can "quilt that out")

 We are trying one of those home delivery services that deliver dinner, ready to cook for 3 meals. It's called "Blue Apron", we got a week free, and it's pretty tasty. Tonight, I can't even pronounce it, but it had potatoes, eggs, swiss chard, peppers, tomatoes and it was yummy! I was pretty impressed it looked just like the picture. The one I made last night didn't look good enough for a photo, I burned the sweet potatoes a bit, but it was good too.

We had some fun visits from some kids and grand kids - my favorite thing!

And those eyebrows! I painted one on the other day and showed Mr. Handsome, so he could see the difference between that one and the "natural" non-existent one. He remarked that I could put on the expression of my choice every day! I could have a "mad" day or a "surprised" day, etc. He is a pretty funny guy!  He said I'd better not go blind, because he'd have a really good time, putting my eyebrows on every which way for me! (Ha - fat chance!)

Do the Hustle

Hustling right along here getting quilts done. I've quilted several and am just finishing up a couple more. Two more sister-in-law birthday quilts to complete and then it's on to other projects. I must say, give me a deadline and I'm ON IT!

 Below - for Jen, she was very happy it was "colorful". I am currently making another quilt with this same pattern (Missouri Star Quilt Company) for another fab sis-in-law, but I will be using white for the background squares, not different colors, it should look substantially different - always fascinating with quilting - color placement.

Below - for Danica's baby boy arriving in June - this one is actually quilted now, just one more side to hand stitch the binding down on.

 Below - a fun quilt for my amazing Mother-in-Law to cuddle her great grandchildren in (birthday in a week!)

Below - A little summer table topper, I made it with a panel, since one of my Bees has a "panel" challenge this month. It's interesting, I can do denser, more intricate quilting on little table toppers, but I do NOT have the patience to do this on larger quilts. 

 I also actually sorted through some fabric that was just thrown in my stash after using bits and pieces of it INCLUDING cutting down pieces smaller than a fat quarter into my "scrap" sizes - I'm pretty boring, I only have two: 5" squares and 2 1/2" strips.

In other news, we got a ceiling fan installed over our bed (will be GREAT for those hot flashes this summer). We have an inexpensive IKEA bed and a really big and heavy mattress (king-sized), while moving the bed back after installing the fan - the frame BROKE!  We got it all glued up and slept on our mattress on the floor for a couple of days, then put it all back together last night. This morning I got up early to use the bathroom and when I got back in bed, it made a suspicious noise - I was VERY still after that.  I shudder to think what will happen when any hanky-panky starts up...

The fan looks great though!  Hope you are getting some quilting in - or whatever it is that makes your heart go pitter patter!

Quilting Along

I went to a three day quilting retreat last week with my bee and it was lots of fun! Of course I don't have any pictures, but take my word for it, it was fabulous! Fabulous food, friends and fun!  Here is a little corner of my studio with a pile of quilts I'm working on and a few I need to quilt:

 Here are some more cute pics from our Florida trip - and some cute people from Florida:

 We went to Disney World - our first time, we went to Epcot, a beautiful, not too hot day for it:

 We are off to St. George next week for a day to do a walk through of a house we are building down there, it is exciting, even though we are just going to rent it out for awhile, it may be our retirement home in a few years. I've always been afraid to build a new house, too many decisions. There are so many decisions when we do all of our remodeling, I thought I wouldn't be able to take all of the choices for a WHOLE HOUSE! (I also thought maybe my marriage couldn't take it!). I think now, it would be fun to build a house to live in now.  I shared this new attitude with my son, Shane, and he said, "Mom, it's taken you 50 years to figure this out? You didn't need to live through all these remodels and live in the ghetto!" That boy is funny.

Off to quilt today as I have realized that my next sister-in-law birthday is TUESDAY! Yikes!

Back in the Saddle

We are back from our two week trip to Florida and on a cruise for our 36th anniversary!

 We had a great time, although I was getting over a little cold when we left and I ended up with laryngitis for the first 3-4 days of the cruise!!! This presented a problem when we were having dinner with our table mates! The first night, we all smile at each other and one gentleman says, "Hi, I'm Mike, this is Ann" the other couple chimes in with their names, and then from our side of the table, DEAD SILENCE! Finally Mike turns to us and says, "I'm sorry, I didn't get your names" - ack! Mr. Handsome said later that he was waiting for a break in the conversation to introduce us, that man is a "slow talker", there was plenty of time! It was very hard for me to let him carry the conversation for both of us, as I am very chatty! (Several men, when they learned I had laryngitis, said he was "lucky" - HA) We had a great time, swimming, tubing, and just relaxing. We also got to visit our wonderful "Florida kids" and grandchildren. 

 This star quilt is a project I will be working on, hopefully sometime soonish...(That sounds VERY uncommitted, doesn't it?) We had a block exchange in one of my bees and we did different sized stars in Civil War colors, It's going to be a challenge to put together for sure! I even took a class on it at Quilt Fest last September, to get ideas for putting together different sized blocks - we'll see...

 Here is another class I took, from the wonderful, entertaining and talented Melissa Corry! It's an Irish Chain and I used a jelly roll and some fun newsprint for the back ground. I am also hand quilting it in a "big stitch" with Perle cotton - another class I took, lots of fun! It has a minky back, so it is a bit of a challenge to get that needle through! Hoping to finish it this summer for a daughter's birthday.

 This little table topper is from another block exchange, we did 6" "Fall Blocks" and I needed a Thanksgiving topper, so this fits the bill perfectly!

Here is a scrappy around the world I finished, I actually made three of them with scraps, I'd been making blocks for a LONG TIME, I finally made 3 throw sized quilts and gave them all away.

This is the latest, on the design wall, super cute, it's called a "Charm Pack Mashup", made with lots of charm squares - and I certainly have a boatload of those! I am doing it with a dark background, which I will either love or hate, it has LOTS of bitty pieces and is turning out quite tricky to put together, since the stars kind of interlock. I may enter it in a quilt show, but we'll see if my ego can take it - I am NOT a very precise quilter (I prefer quantity over quality, unfortunately) so I cringe when I read the "critiques" of my quilts when I enter them in a show...

Here is another Farm Girl Vintage 6" block to end with - happy quilting!!!

Crazy, Beautiful Life

     I have had quilt tops piling up a bit and decided to give each of my sister in laws a quilt for their birthday this year.  How hard could it be? I asked myself. I started early and gave my November SIL hers and patted myself on the back for having such a good idea, etc. WELL, I should have realized by pretty much ALL of the rest of the birthdays are before July 3! And there are 7 of them, counting my wonderful Mother-in-Law! Yikes, it's a little hectic around here. Add in that I was finishing a quilt for  my son's birthday in March and doing one for my granddaughter's baptism in May, and two nieces expecting beautiful babies - well, you get the picture!  I travel quite a bit in the spring, visiting my children and their families who live from coast to coast and in between too!  Good thing I work well with deadlines!

    Am loving my new "Little Red" Bernina that I can easily use upstairs, while hanging out with Mr. Handsome, it is helping meet my fun deadlines. I got this wild quilt done this weekend, ready for delivery tonight before we head out of town for an exciting little trip.  

     I am also working on a "Farm Girl Vintage" (Lori Holt) quilt with some friends and we met this past week and I worked on a few blocks. We are doing the 6" size - they are adorable, too bad we need like 59,000 to make a quilt since they are so small and cute!

I got a fun, new cook book "The Pioneer Woman" "Dinnertime" and we made these Hawaiian burgers last week and they were to die for!!!!

 And, last, but not least, I got an "old lady" pillowcase!  I LOVE it. I have curly hair, which is losing some (okay a LOT) of it's thickness and loveliness, I was tired of waking up with frizzy/straight hair, so I ordered this baby up on Amazon (I LOVE Amazon, but that is a post for another day) for $8 and now when I wake up in the morning, I don't despair quite as much. It's supposedly good for wrinkles too, but since I'm on the chubby side, wrinkles aren't coming on too quickly, so I don't worry too much.

Hope you're having a great, quilty life!

Little Red, Eyebrows and More

So I've made a goal to do a post at least once a week. Very exciting news, I got a new little Bernina today! Her name is "Little Red"

I LOVE my trusty Bernina 1130 (1989) , but it is SOOO heavy to haul up the stairs for quilt retreats and sew days. I have a little Singer Featherweight (1938), which I can take, but it's just a little lacking in speed and options. So, Mr. Handsome and I went down and picked this little cutie up this afternoon. I've promised to sell the Featherweight to offset the cost...

I'm in charge of a quilt challenge at my local guild this year and we are doing a "Gradated Quilt". I whipped this baby quilt up so I could show it at the meeting last month, to illustrate the challenge:

But I am working on this bad boy for my big finish in November:

This gorgeous quilt is from Melissa Corry's Book "Irish Chain Quilts"

Onto other news:

2 of my kids and their families are done with school this summer! One family will be moving from Kansas to Wisconsin this summer with their 5 beautiful children. The other will be moving either to Minnesota OR Arizona - they are still deciding which offer to accept. They are currently in Florida with 2 more of our exceptional grandchildren!  I am sure I will continue to spend much of my time flying around the US to visit them. (I will still have one family in Florida, one in California and one in Utah)

Finally - Eyebrows:

Eyebrows - now that mine are pretty much non-existent, I am obsessed with eyebrows! I am especially envious of gals with full, thick ones. I myself had super thick eyebrows for most of my life, in Jr. High, my friend begged me to pluck them - practically a uni-brow, but alas, those days are gone - over- plucking, age, etc. has resulted in their demise.  I know there is that micro-dermabrasion procedure that can last awhile, but I'm a chicken and I've already spent my pennies on Little Red. I am using "Wunderbrow" currently and I like it okay, except when my eyebrows look totally unrelated when I put it on - some days are just fine, they match, but other days, I just don't know!!! Now that I notice everyone's eyebrows, I do notice that some gals paint them on, others have very pale ones, others are blessed and I guess it really doesn't matter, so I should just calm down. Maybe if I spent more than 5 minutes putting on make up, I'd be happier with the result, but I'm pretty tired of putting make up on the same face that I've been doing for the past 40 years - oh well, I'm off to sew!!!!