House and Home

Things have been a little crazy around here.  We have a graduation coming up.  We found out yesterday, Lola is the valedictorian!  She has worked sooo hard to accomplish this.  She has way more driven than I ever was at that age. She has 1  A- for her whole high school career.   She will be attending school in Indiana, about 5 hours away.  We have been busy trying to get the house ready for company.  Nine family members from out of state will arrive starting on Friday.  We have gutted the kitchen and reworked the landscape for the event.
Today is a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  Here are a couple pictures showing the new status of the beds.  The house is 14 years old and lots of plants were overgrown and needed to come out.

The magnolia tree shown here probably still needs to come out….it has very little growth on the lake side.

We reworked the step area with these stones.  The larges stones on the left side are over 250 lbs. each.  See the stain touch ups that still need to be done before the party.  The staining took about 3 days last fall.  The bracket on the side of the deck is for an old satellite dish, works works great an umbrella fits in there to shade us while we cook on the grill, so we kept it.

What do you do when one of the established plants die?? Stick a decorative stone there and hope it looks like a design feature.

The quilts for the graduates are coming along nicely.  Here is the latest finished one.  The is the “Brown Quilt” by Judy L. over at the Patchwork Times.  I did a little manipulation to use a cake layer that DH had purchased on one of his travels.  I love how this turned out, it is for my nephew.

See the pot on the right….my leaf lettuce.  The garden is in and 2 pots of leaf lettuce are starting to produce.  We have had a long cool spring so it took a while before I dared harvest any of it.
Soon another quilt will be done (over half quilted) and the first one to get handed out is possibly Saturday.  I can’t decide whether to have a sleep over for all the girls or gift wrap them and take them to the open houses.

This is the one in progress.  Name suggestions from all of you helped me choose, "Caribbean Blue Sea".  Thanks for the help.
Happy Quilting,
Just Another Quilter

Happy Mother's Day

To all those Mom's out there.....Happy Mother's Day

Take some time today for yourself...
To remember the sniffling colds, or the late night trips to the ER.

Take some time today for yourself...
To remember the giggling, tickle time with a book.

Take some time today for yourself...
To remember the making of forts in the basement out of all those quilts.

Take some time today for yourself...
To remember the graduations (from preschool to now).

Take some time today for yourself...
To remember the joy on their face looking at the Christmas lights.

Take some time today for yourself...
To remember the Easter Egg hunt when the basket was bigger than they were.

Take some time today for yourself...
To remember the first time they were driving.

Take some time today for yourself...
To remember the first love interest break up.

Take some time today for yourself...
To Thank God for what you have in your life.

Happy Mother's Day

Whatcha Reading

I do some reading and a lot of audio book listening.  Over the years I have found favorite authors, ones that are thought provoking and ones that let you just settle in and enjoy.

I am always looking for a new author.  I recently just found one.  Marie Bostwick.

Lola works at the library....if I see something interesting I will have her try to get it for me.  My recent shopping endeavor to the LQS had me looking at books for sale by the register.  A new quest for Lola, find the beginning of the series and start ordering them in.

Marie Bostwick's first book "Fields of Gold" is an excellent book.  One night the clock was past 1:30am before I forced myself to go to bed.  It is time to have Lola looking for some more by Marie.

I have since continued the series. The follow up novel is "On Wings of the Morning".  This follows the son born in "Fields of Gold"  Some of the time overlaps and it is nice to see the sons reaction to the same events.

Marie Bostwick also has a series about a women who divorces, leaves Texas and starts up a quilt shop in a Connecticut. The series again has some time overlaps and shows some of the same events viewed by a different character. These books are "A Single Thread" and "A Thread of Truth", just to name a few.

My favorite book to this point is "Fields of Gold".  All her books are enjoyable and bring you into the characters lives.  Somehow, the "Fields of Gold" does more.

Stop by your local library and check one out.  Our library will order books in from other local libraries for easy check out and return.

Just Another Quilter

Name This Quilt!

The turquoise & white quilt that still needed some borders, now has some borders.    This quilt is based on the Moda Bake Shop Sugar Pop N Change.  With the limited amount of fabric remaining, the quilt needed some design changes.  The changes look great.  Not only did the change let me play with the “Accuquilt Go” that DH picked up for Christmas, it also turned the notch up on the “looks hard but not be hard” that I aspire to achieve.

This quilt needs a name.  Help!  Let’s hear some suggestions!
Just a couple other quick projects.  Here are the two pincushions sitting back behind the quilt.
The top fabrics were purchased from the local junk shop.  The containers are a peanut butter jar and a Pringles container.  Sand comprises the center with a layer of batting over top.  You can see the sun is out today, but the wind is whipping through at almost 30 mph giving a wind chill of –1 this morning.

Man, isn't it Spring, yet!

Check out what "Quilting on the River" has going.  She is just down river.

Happy Quilting,
Just Another Quilter

Another one bites the dust!

Our area has a few quilt shops.  A few speckled in some of the small towns in the area.  When I am in the area, I stop in.  On Saturday, MJJR was in a band competition about 30 minutes away.  In between competitions, I ran over to their LQS.  Lots of vehicles in the parking lot….some were in front of a sign saying…”Please don’t”.  I parked and checked out the  8” x 10” sign before I went in.  “Please don’t park in front of the dumpster” was pinned to the large sign saying, “Closing the business”.   The LQS is in an old church that still has all the old pews.  The fabric sits on the pews, the long arm sits up in the altar area.  Classes are just to the side where the choir would sit.  The owner was approached because of the acoustics of the building.  It is  going to be turned into a recording studio.  The owner always wondered how she would sell the unique building when she was ready to retire.  She shot them a price and they accepted.  She left on her terms, and will now long arm out of her house.  It is sad to see it go.
We lost the shop where I took my first lessons over the summer.  The shops lease was up and the second grandchild was on the way.  She always wanted to retire when the second grandchild came, the announcement came within a week of the lease renewal forms.  She also moved the long arm into the home.

Happenings…

The Turning Twenty Simply Sashed came back from the quilters.  The binding is almost done.  It looks great on the deck railing.  Bailey wanted to get into the picture today.
Soon the deck will be full of snow.  We are scheduled to get 3-5” of snow with high winds this afternoon.  The schools have issued an early out for the girls.  MJJR is disappointed.  What middle schooler wouldn’t want to come early.  One who has a basketball game scheduled against the arch rival and is predicted to win.  Yesterday’s game was a close match with MJJR hitting a 3-pointer with 0.8 seconds left on the clock to tie up the game and lead the team into overtime.  The team lost in overtime, but what a great game. 
Lola has logged over 1000 miles looking at colleges and interviewing for scholarships at 2 different universities.  Understand, Lola is a perfectionist with lots of drive.  At this point the decision is: who will offer the most money and what can each school offer her, not will I get in.  With that same knowledge, pray for this girl as she makes these hard choices in the next 2 weeks.  Also, as she learns there are all kinds of people in the world and some are more difficult to work with than others.  Pray that she holds her own and stands up for the decisions that she has made.  Pray for those that still haven’t learned what leadership truly is and teach them that giving respect will help them get respect and to not just rule with an iron hand.
Off to get the hair trimmed and pick up salt for both the driveway and water softener.

Just Another Quilting Mother

Does your spouse think you are spoiled!

My spouse always thinks that my life is soooo much better that others.  He thinks that he spoils me sooo much.  He is right,  he buys me sewing machines, fabric, templates and even scissors.  I will certainly not be trading him in for a new model any time soon.  I have an awesome life, great kids, great house (with a new kitchen coming soon), and a wonderful husband.  Just a reality check though, my husband travels an awful lot, my family is 5 hours away, his family is at least 7 hours away.  My youngest takes some extra attention and my job includes making life threatening decisions for others.
So, back on topic: I came across someone who has me beat.  Last week I met Long Arm Quilter, Linda Price.  Long Arm Quilting is her business and this is her studio. 
Starting at the bottom of the stairs (her basement retreat) on the right, the long arm.  Did you see her batting stash on the back wall?

Swing to the left of this photo, the other long arm.
Be sure to check out all the gorgeous quilts hanging.
If you swing again to the left, here is a little entertainment and some storage.

Now, this is a pretty great space, but there is no real great comfy space to do your piecing around the Long Arms.  The piecing alcove is nearby and is set up great.

Where is this located….if you take a sharp right coming off the stairs.  Check out the large ironing station here…that is my quilt sitting there on the ironing board.  These next 2 pics are blurry, sorry.  Here is the area between the piecing alcove and the 1st Long Arm. 

This is the next area just past the alcove. The blurry item on the right in the middle of the pic is the design wall.  The tables are the cutting station. 
The owner of all this again is Linda Price (her Facebook link—I do not have Facebook so I don’t know what you will find in there, but I bet, great quilts).  She is one of the nicest Long Arm Quilters I have met.  She is also a Longaberger Basket Representative.  Linda had a few friends over to hang while we were there, every day is like a retreat.  She did say that it takes a little effort to decide that you want to go turn everything on and get started.  The group headed off the do a little shop hopping not long after we left.

I can’t wait for the call and see what she decided to do with my quilt….my instructions, an overall pattern. 
One last photo.  There is a quilt hanging right to the left of where I am standing taking the photo above.
What a place to get some inspiration. 
Just wait until the next time the husband says that I am spoiled.  We will be having a chat.
Just Another Quilter