Summer Begins with Surgery

Our last day of school was Wednesday. It was a great end to an excellent school year! However, I realized I missed more days of school this year than any year of my 20 years of teaching all because of my gallbladder. I saw the surgeon on Thursday and he agreed my gallbladder needed to be removed ASAP. I was begging for sometime next week, but he could do even better--he scheduled me for surgery the next day!

The surgery went well--ahead of schedule. I got lots of attention from the nurses as there were not many surgeries on the docket for the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend. I arrived at 11:15am and was home by 4pm including the hour drive home. I only needed ibuprofen for pain.  Aside from my incisions, I already feel better having my gallbladder out. My doctor thinks I should be back to eating normally in two weeks and be able to attend my week long training in Denver in mid-June

I spent Saturday in bed, but managed to start embroidering this sheep and finished reading my first book of summer. I think I will remain in bed today and keep working on my sheep for Slow Sunday Stitching. Check out what everyone else is up to here

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2016/05/slow-sunday-stitching-muscle-memory.html

 I wanted to share this sweet end of the year present I received. It was all in an adorable summery box which included a journal that says "Queen Bee," a monogrammed mug, a Starbucks gift card, and the dahlia plant. So thoughtful!

This week, I hope to feel up to sitting at my sewing machine and working on my Scrap Dance Tango project. I am also supposed to host my book club on Thursday and I hope I can pull that off with some help from making pulled pork in my crockpot and making my hubby clean the house. 

Have a great week!

Graduation Day

Today was high school graduation day for my only child, Heather! 

 

 We took a couple of selfies before hand--she looks gorgeous and I look sick. Friday morning, I was finally diagnosed with a gallbladder full of gallstones, so I spent the weekend in bed trying to make it to her graduation. I made it!

She was ranked number one in her senior class and has nearly a full academic scholarship to Colgate University! She is planning on double majoring in mathematical economics and political science.

 

 Here she is giving her Valedictory. It focused on not peaking in high school--it was a little "spicy," (her word for controversial) but got the most applause of all the speeches. I think everyone liked when she said, "I sure as hell didn't learn anything in American government."

 Here she is with her friend, Matt, he is a math genius like Heather and will be going to the Colorado School of Mines.

This is her and Kyle. They have been academic rivals since the third grade. He will be heading to the Air Force Academy.

 Meg and Heather have been seated next to each other for years because of their close last names. They will remain in close proximity as they are the only two heading east for college.

And last, but not least, here she is with her bestie, Lexi. She graduated early and has been at CSU this last semester. I think they will enjoy the summer.

I hope to get my gallbladder removed this week, so I can feel like doing something besides lying in bed watching TV. I also want to eat normally again--I am so sick of oatmeal and toast and would kill for a cocktail. The sooner, I can have the surgery, the sooner I can feel better and start my summer vacation!

I Joined the 21st Century!

 Happy Sunday! I confess, I have not touched any sewing this weekend. I am going to pin the Modern Herringbone Baby Quilt after I finish this post. I did pick up this quilt from my LQS on Friday afternoon. I made it several years ago when my friend still owned the shop. I do not recall what the pattern is called, but I made it from the reproduction section and it was my first time using my Pfaff for the machine appliqué. The quilt shop sold to a new owner who I did not care for and she is selling the shop to someone else, so I thought it was time to get it back. After several unpleasant visits, I finally got this beauty back. It is pretty good sized 65 x 75 inches after washing.

 I  am not sure who quilted it, but each block has a large rose and the sashing has leaves quilted. The small cornerstones also have tiny flowers quilted in them too.

 The four corners each have a rose quilted in them and they show very well in the black with white polka dots.

The flowers, berries, birds, and vines in the borders have been quilted around highlighting their detail. I like the black and white polka dot for the binding. I took these quick pictures with my new iPhone 6S this afternoon--I finally upgraded my dumb slide out phone. This phone takes much better quality pictures than my iPad! Now, I may just have to explore a new frontier--like Instagram. Have a great week!

Mother's Day 2016

 Happy Mother's Day to everybody! I celebrated yesterday with my mom. We had an amazing day quilting together--I got there at 9am and did not leave until 6pm. We did take a break to run to the Thai food truck and grab lunch. I worked on this Modern Herringbone Baby Quilt.

These were the fabrics that I started with. I think they look amazing in the quilt! The good news is I have lots of leftovers and I am thinking of making another baby quilt out of them or maybe something for me...

My daughter spoiled me today with a lovely present--some gorgeous bracelets, bath bombs, nail polish, and salted caramel cookies. We also went for fro yo, stopped by Jo-Ann's, and finished up at Target. At Jo-Ann's I picked up this lavender fabric for the baby quilt's backing and the navy for the binding. I am going to make a few herringbone strips to make the backing wide enough. The baby shower is Thursday--I am not sure it will be done by then, but it will be done before the school year is over! Have a great week!

May OMG Goals

 Happy Sunday! We have a gray day ahead with likely showers--perfect sewing weather. I made this sunshine bucket this week to donate for a silent auction to benefit our high school band. I hope it sold for a pretty penny...

 The last couple of months I have not set any goals for Red Letter Quilts' One Monthly Goal (OMG), but it is now May and time to go big. My last day of work is May 25th which means I will have a whole week in May to just sew and relax. First up, I need to finish these 24 Pixie Baskets. They are gifts for my fifth graders since they are moving on to middle school. I asked them their favorite colors and shopped in my stash to find them personalized fabric combinations.

 My second goal is to turn this fantastic grouping of fabrics into a scrappy baby quilt. This is for one of my coworkers who is expecting a baby girl in mid-June. She told me she was thinking of navy and coral for her nursery colors, but she also loves purple. I decided to add in some aquas. I think it will be gorgeous! I am thinking of making a Modern Herringbone Quilt like the purple one in my blog header.

My final goal for May is to quilt my Butterfly Garden Top. I bought the white with navy swirl yesterday for the backing. I want to use this quilt as a table cloth for my dining room table and I think it will be fantastic for summer. Join the OMG May Link Up Party here

http://redletterquilts.blogspot.com/2016/05/omg-may-goalsetting.html

We are heading over to my mom and dad's for gourmet pizza dinner tonight, so I will bring my Down in the Garden for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Here is the link for that

http://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2016/05/slow-sunday-stitching-muster.html

Have a great week!

Goldilocks & the Colleges

Any of you who have followed my blog for awhile know I have only one child, my daughter, Heather. She is a senior and graduating from high school next month at the top of her class. We took an impromptu vacation over our Spring Break a few weeks ago for her to pick out where to go for college. We visited several colleges back east and I nicknamed it the Goldilocks Tour! We had a great time.

Each school was a better and better fit, but she decided on Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. The campus is gorgeous! It is the quintessential New England college town. The shocking thing was that it was the most rural college we looked at. She is not a big fan of the rural area we live in and this is even smaller. The town has 3,000 and the school is about 3,000--the nearest Target is 35 minutes away. Sounds nice and safe to me!

 It is a highly selective liberal arts university and they offered her a wonderful financial aid package that is grant based--so she will be able to graduate without any student loan debt and it is cheaper than sending her to college in the state of Colorado. This is the willow path on campus and legend has it that if you have your first kiss on the willow path, you will eventually marry who you kissed. I told her to avoid the willow path!

The surrounding area is full of gorgeous farms and livestock. They also awarded her an Alumni Memorial Scholarship which means she gets $6,000 during her four years to spend on internships or travel. As an AMS, she gets to move into the dorms earlier and do some bonding activities with the other thirty AMS students. We did not understand all of these perks and what an honor this program is until we arrived for our tour and we were met by the dean. She had the opportunity to attend some classes, meet some students, check out the dining hall, etc. It was quite the red carpet treatment.

 

Although Colgate University is one of the most expensive universities in the country, they offer need based financial aid which makes it more affordable than most state schools. Many private colleges offer more financial aid than public institutions and are not out of reach for your children, be sure to take the time to research some of them--most of their websites offer financial aid calculators to help give accurate estimates of your costs.

If you want to see some more amazing pictures of Colgate click on this link

http://www.businessinsider.com/colgate-university-has-the-most-beautiful-college-campus-2014-8#

 Now on to quilting! I quilted the Sweetheart Baby Quilt this morning--nothing like last minute, the baby shower is Tuesday afternoon.

 I will spend the evening hand binding it for Slow Sunday Stitching. Check out other handwork here:

http://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2016/04/slow-sunday-stitching-creativ-festival.html

I hope to wash it tomorrow and show you the finished product soon.

Have a great week!

Two Birds with One Stone

 I got back from our college trip a week ago and went straight back to work. I got an email about a baby shower for one of my coworkers in TWO WEEKS! I have been asking her about her nursery theme and colors since she found out she was having a girl in January, but she had not made up her mind until recently. She is going traditional with light pink, white, hearts, and bows. I needed a simple, quick design--I found this Sweethearts Quilt free pattern from Cloud 9 Fabrics. I decided to make mine smaller, so it is 48 x 48 before quilting and washing. I made 33 hearts and was able to have no fabrics repeated. Sorry about the terrible pictures, but we got over an inch of rain in the last couple of days and it was too soggy to get any pictures outside.

I hope to quilt it on my Pfaff this week and bind it next weekend--just in time for the baby shower. There are left over half square triangles and I think I will sew them together and make a pouch out of them. I was asked to donate something for a silent auction and a pouch with some lotion and other goodies will be perfect--that deadline is a couple of weeks too! Nothing like killing two birds with one stone.

Have a good week!