Cursed & April Goals

 I think I am cursed! Every vacation I have I always end up being sick. Of course this week is my spring break and we planned to meet my sister and her family in Salt Lake City to entertain my niece and nephew while their dad had his first week of chemo and radiation. I woke up Monday morning with the stomach flu, we made it 45 minutes from home on our way to SLC and we had to turn around and get me back to bed and a bathroom. Needless to say it was a major bummer! My teen did not get to see her cousins, drive for hours, or shop in a big city and I lost two days of my vacation to staying in bed. The good news is my brother-in-law's treatments are quick and he is not having any terrible side effects, so they have been able to do some fun family activities.

 I signed up for a new embroidery BOM and it arrived yesterday afternoon. It is called Journey of a Quilter and is through the Material Girls in South Jordan, Utah. (I was planning on visiting while on our trip that did not happen.) The first block's arrival has been my only vacation highlight so far! It came with these lovely embroidery floss colors, but I prefer to use perle cotton and was able to find most the colors in my perle cotton stash. The colors I did not have were ordered on-line and have already shipped. Got to love Internet shopping if you live in a rural area!!!

Aren't these fabrics happy? So happy in fact, I dragged my behind out of bed yesterday afternoon and put the block together. I don't think I messed it up which is amazing considered I had a decongestant in my system!

I actually followed the instructions and pieced it before doing the embroidery. I still need to trace the embroidery designs on, but I am so thrilled I splurged for this BOM project. I am going to back the whole block with Warm and Natural batting to provide stability and hide my ugly embroidery stitches from the front.

Here is the picture that forced me to sign up. All that Bonnie and Camille fabric and bright happy colors at least inspire spring, but we had bits of snow today and may get an inch tonight. Not feeling much like spring...

 Here is another embroidery BOM I have been working on. It is called Let It Snow. I have half of the embroideries completed and started piecing the blocks today.

 I had several laughs because my teenager was learning how to drive a stick shift in our driveway this afternoon. The windows from my sewing room have an awesome view of the driveway. We borrowed a friend's old Jeep truck for her lesson. My hubby managed to show her the basics, vacate the truck, and then she just drove it in circles on our big driveway. She managed to use a quarter of a tank of gas. She may not have been able to drive to SLC, but she drove lots of circles! She has also been looking at cars online and has realized many of her favorites like Mini Coopers and VW Beetles are sticks, so she is determined to conquer driving one.

My April goals are:

1. Complete my Goodnight Irene blocks for the quilt along

2. Finish up the Let It Snow embroideries and piece its top

3. Make a tote bag for a swap on Flickr

4. Piece my top for the Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge 2014

 

I think four goals are enough for me this month!

Trip Preparation

My teen and I are taking off at the crack of dawn in the morning in order to meet my sister and her family in Salt Lake City by midday. My brother-in-law has his first radiation and chemo in the afternoon and we are going to entertain my niece and nephew. They have a long car ride and so do we, so we will probably try something physical. I am working on an embroidery BOM called "Let It Snow" my sister had bought it and never started. I made one years ago in all blues. This one is done in red and green. I have about half the embroideries done and hope to make a big dent in these while staying in SLC.

I have signed up for an new embroidery BOM called "Journey of a Quilter" and would like to have this top assembled and ready for hand quilting before I start this new BOM that should be arriving any day.

My mom called this morning and asked for a favor which is really shocking because it is usually the other way around! She is home recovering from her knee replacement surgery and using a walker. She realized that she needed some sort of tote/carrier for her walker and was wondering if I could make her one. She was thinking a bigger version of the get well fabric basket I had made, but I went online and found a tutorial on Youtube called Sewing a Walker Tote by Jimmie Lanley. I did not have enough coordinating Velcro, so I made ties. I also did not divide the pocket on one side, so she will have room for her iPad or a sewing project. I also quilted one of the body pieces to give it more stability. It only took me about an hour and definitely would have been quicker if I did not quilt it, but it fit and should do the job! I did not get a good picture...

 

While in SLC, I want to make it over to Material Girls as both my mom and my sister say it is fantastic. I am hoping to buy some more Scrumptious fabric if they have any available and see this new BOM in person considering I have already signed up for it based on pictures. Also, we will raid Trader Joe's. I borrowed the coffin sized cooler, so we can really stock up. Of course no trip to a big city is complete for my daughter without some serious mall shopping.  She also wants to do some of the driving over and home, but we will see how the weather is! Her driving 75 mph scares me, but we are only 4 months from her driving on her own. Yikes, I feel old! Happy Quilting!

 

 

Get Well Basket

My mom had knee replacement surgery today and I did not want to send flowers, so I combed Pinterest and saw suggestions for goodies to help your stay in the hospital. There were some good ideas, but I decided to make a fabric basket instead of using a gift bag. Lately, I have been on a big kick of making bags and pouches. I really wanted to try to make a fabric basket from this tutorial  http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2008/05/tutorial-fabric-basket.html I made the larger size. It came out so darn cute. I used some Scrumptious fabrics by Bonnie and Camille.

Here it is with the goodies. I put the following in: a book, a water bottle, water flavor packets, lotion, hand sanitizer, cozy socks with grippers, lip balm, chocolate, and mints. There was plenty of room! We dropped by the hospital this afternoon and dropped it off and she loved it!  I want to try making the smaller sized fabric basket and might even whip up one for an Easter basket for my teenager! 

Calendar Advice?

I managed to piece the base for the perpetual calendar I have been working on. I cut up a "Wishes" charm pack to use for the border. I plan on quilting the border diagonally through the squares with perle cotton. I can't decide on the color and would love to hear some advice from you all out in blogland. I was thinking of black, but I could also use red or lime green. The backing is lime green with a red dot.

 I colored all my embroidered numbers and started sewing them and flipping them. I chose to use Velcro instead of buttons and elastic hairbands as the pattern called for. I think the Velcro will be more durable, but it sure took forever to sew it on the base and all the number backings. I will have to hand stitch the numbers closed. I need to gather hand work for our Salt Lake City adventure, maybe these should come along!

I was totally caught unprepared this last Christmas with gifts for my coworkers, so I have made it a goal to whip up some little gifts throughout the year in preparation for Christmas 2014. I made this cute pouch using this tutorial http://www.noodle-head.com/2010/10/scrappy-make-up-pouch-tutorial_20.html

It is hard to see, but I quilted the pouch with a wavy quilting stitch on my Pfaff that I have never used before. It is adorable and I can't wait to use this quilting stitch for something bigger and that will show the quilting more. I have had my machine for 2+ years, but I am still learning all of its features. I tried the zipper foot today, but I think I did better without it.

I am heading in to bed early as I have another cold. I will embroider a Christmas BOM I inherited from my sister...

 

A few of you have asked about swaps and there is a new one starting on Flickr for April where we are making tote bags. You have to join Flickr and create a mosaic to sign up, but I managed to make a mosaic by googling "how to make a mosaic for Flickr" it was pretty easy. Here is the link to the Flickr sign ups http://www.flickr.com/groups/super_swaps/discuss/72157642807057383/ if you are interested!

FNSI March 2013 & Charity Quilting

I have been trying to be productive on Friday nights and not just come home from work and lay around. Last night, I cut, fused, and appliqued all the initials on the book covers I need to make for my 5th grade students. I did sew some of the book covers together too. Then today, I assembled and sewed the rest and hand finished them and added the buttons on the book mark. I made 15 last night and today. I made another 1 last week and need to pick up fabric for the last 2. 16 down and 2 to go!

I woke up again stuffy this morning with a big sinus headache, so stayed in my sweats and did not leave my house. Tomorrow, I need to prep some more hand work for Slow Sunday Stitching and hope to work on my Goodnight Irene blocks. Here is the link to the Friday Night Sew In if you would like to see what others accomplished on Friday night

 http://sugarlanequilts.blogspot.ca/2014/03/fnsi-sign-ups-dont-miss-out.html

 

I also decided to sign up for the Hands 2 Help Charity Quilt Challenge. I plan to dig through some UFOs and finish up least one to send to Happy Chemo! With my brother in law battling brain cancer, it seems appropriate to send something to benefit other cancer patients. I have the button on my right side bar if you want to find out more information!

Easter Door Banner

It dawned on me this weekend that I did not have an Easter Door Banner. I have several with flowers that would be ok this time of year, but I really want to make a door banner for every holiday. I combined some patterns I own and came up with this simple one I made completely from scraps. I finished it last night and hung it up immediately to please my OCD hubby who gets very bothered by having holiday decorations up after the holiday (he prefers taking the Xmas tree down on December 26th and has even suggested taking it down on Xmas afternoon!)

 

I have spring break coming up the week after next, but I have offered to go care for my niece and nephew while their dad starts chemotherapy and radiation. They live in Nevada, but his treatment will be in Salt Lake City and my sister would like the kids there that week since they are off from school. My teenager and I will be in charge of entertaining the kids. I probably won't get in as much quilting time as usual, but it will help the situation tremendously and I should be able to check out some quilt shops in Salt Lake City. Any advice on quilt shops or activities for an 8 and 9 year old in Salt Lake City? Thanks!

Week Update

After my productive mental health day on Monday, I was able to get quite a lot of handwork done this week. These are the wool felt blocks for Quiltmaker's March/April "Love Blooms Here" BOM.

I am all caught up and looking forward to the next magazine with the next blocks. I also worked on embroidering some blocks of a BOM quilt I inherited from my sister. I traced some more blocks to work on this week and prepared a Christmas tree skirt for hand quilting.

I realized today that tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day and my husband will want my shamrock door banner promptly removed on Tuesday. I dug through my bin of spring quilts and while I have several door banners that would work for spring, I did not have anything that was exclusively Easter. I combined some elements from other patterns I have and dug into my scrap bins and made this up today. I am pinning it this evening and plan on hand quilting it with perle cotton tonight and tomorrow night to hang up on Tuesday.

I have been working on some other things, but they are top secret as they are presents!