Busy, busy, busy!  Holy smokes, where does time vanish?  I think it has something to do with running around like a chicken with your head cut off (who came up with that awful scenario?) and not noticing that life is happening all around you.  STOP!  SMELL THE ROSES!  Ha!

We've had grandbaby birthdays - Nathan turned 3 (how did that happen????), Colin turned 2 and Aubrey turned 1.  I made mention that next year we would not have grandchildren aged 4, 3, 2 and 1 and not one of my children paid any attention to me.  :0)

I've been quilting up a storm and putting on the dreaded bindings - three this week.  I really think that must be a record!  If I'd get off the computer, it would be 4!  Here's pictures of a couple that I've completed this week.

Holiday Doorway

Strip Club - Candy Corn

Four Patch Fancies - Christmas

And the big time sucker has been moving everything out of the storage unit and into the garage.  When we decided to move the shop last year, we only had about 6 weeks to do it.  That sounds like a lot of time but look around your house, imagine it's 5800 square feet stuffed with stuff, how long would it take you to pack it all up NEATLY?  See that was the sticker, packing it so we could find things again.  The staff did a Herculean job but it was still boxes and boxes and more boxes that needed to be sorted through.  

After moving, I didn't want to ever look at all those boxes again so they sat in the storage unit waiting.  Well the time finally came as we've sifted, sorted, pitched and stored things until we didn't need that big of a storage unit anymore, so we decided to downsize.  A "slight" change of a quoted price of a smaller unit decided that we wouldn't use ANY storage unit but would put it all in the garage.  

If I ever decided to do something like that again, would someone please put me out of my misery BEFORE it happens?

Two strapping sons, moved it all in about three hours.  Piles of stuff all over the garage.  Ugh.  Shelves were set up, bunches and bunches of clear storage boxes were purchased and almost everything is now in bins, on shelves, neatly labeled in the garage.  

And the car might actually fit in there!

Until next time.

A Trip "Home"

Home again, home again!  We spent last weekend in Gloucester for Courtney and Brian's wedding and seeing family.  It was kind of strange staying at a motel when you go home but with Mom's house sold and Sooky's house overflowing, a hotel it was.

The marshes, Good Harbor Beach and Salt Island

We stayed at the Vista hotel overlooking Good Harbor Beach.  This was the view from our balcony - not too hard to wake up to!  This is one of the most popular beaches in Gloucester and it was PACKED all weekend.

Good Harbor Beach

Jim and I took a walk on Sunday night around sunset to escape the heat.  We used to do that when our oldest son was small and it was so hot.  All the natives head to the beach after supper to cool off.  We didn't have air conditioning back then and my Mom's house and my brother's don't have it either so it was REALLY nice to go back to the air-conditioned hotel room!

My Mom has a line up of pictures in her room.  So we decided that the six of us - my two brothers, sister in laws, Jim and I - needed to take a picture since we were all dressed up, so she could have one of the six of us gussied up.

I went around taking pictures of lobster buoys and pots for a pattern that's rattling around in my head.  My older brother thinks I've lost my mind every time I tell him I'm looking for something.  One year I was looking for portholes I knew were around my mom's somewhere.  When I asked him, the look he gave me was priceless.  I did find them but haven't done anything with that idea yet.  This time I was looking for old buoys, wooden ones.  He had a couple stashed here and there that I took pictures of.   He did tell me where I could find a couple of walls of buoys around town, so I played tourist and held up traffic to take some pictures.  The natives just love when tourists do that . . .

And then of course it was the wedding.  My niece Courtney married her Brian in a gorgeous, simple ceremony on a pretty Saturday afternoon where the weather cooperated and it wasn't 100 degrees in the shade.  It was fun to see them start their lives together, mortify my nephews by singing along with the songs from the 70s the DJ was playing, watch my nieces and nephew be great parents to my great nieces and nephews and dance with Jim to an oldie but goodie.

It was nice to see cousins, brothers, sister in laws, nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews and my Mom.  It's true that you don't realize how much you miss home, until you go home and then you have to leave.  Gloucester will always be "home".

Hello again!

Well it's been awhile since I've written, life just seems to march along at a steady pace doesn't it?  So what have I been up to?  Well there was the trip to see my Mom in Massachusetts, the quilting cruise to the Caribbean, a trip out to Minnesota for Jim's Dad's funeral and a vacation to Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks topped off with a stay in San Francisco for Bernina University - phew!  You could say we've been traveling fools this year.  And we're home for a total of 7 days before heading off to my niece's wedding in Massachusetts next week and then off to Janome Institute in Las Vegas in late August.  I'm tired just thinking about it!

I don't know what it is about vacations but after about 10 days, I'm ready to sleep in my own bed.  We were gone 12 to California and while the parks were absolutely gorgeous and I love getting together with friends and colleagues at conventions, I'm ready for my own bed, my own routine and puttering in my garden when 10 days have gone by.  Ten seems to be the magic number for sleeping away from home!

My sewing room still isn't done . . . .the little room is perfect, the big room, well lets just say it's more organized but it's still a mess and my cutting table is probably worse than when I started.

All that mess is a direct result of my designing and tweaking more patterns lately.  My trusty graph paper is always with me and I have EQ7 on the lap top.  I spent a wonderfully relaxing afternoon on the patio at our rented condo in the foothills of Sequoia National Park scribbling on graph paper and figuring in EQ and came up with three new patterns that you'll see later this summer.  

Waves & Whitecaps

Before I left for CA, I finally took a pattern that's been floating around in my head and on scraps of paper for a little over a year and figured it out, sewed it and sent it off to be quilted.  Waves & Whitecaps is the result and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.  I used two of the batiks I designed for the shop and two blocks to make the pattern.  I love when two blocks form a third pattern!    

The sample was supposed to be queen sized for my bed but time got in the way and I ended up doing a lap size.  Either way, I love it!

How about you?  Are you sewing more this summer?

Until next time

Falling Off The Face Of The Earth

I really didn't fall off the face of the earth but I might have been hanging off the edge for a bit.  I went to Kaye's College in Las Vegas at the end of January and had a wonderful time - until the day after I got home and I started to feel funny.  The "kid" - young man - on the plane next to me sniffled the whole way out to Vegas and I really thought I'd dodged getting sick.  HA!  Then there were people getting sick at Kaye's College - including Kaye! - and I felt ok the whole time I was there.  

Two projects almost done!

I had a wonderful time sewing, chatting, learning.  Who can complain about 5 days of non stop sewing?  Not me!  AND I actually finished two quilt tops!

I came home Friday night and was tired but fine, Sat I started feeling iffy and by Sunday I was in bed - fever, chills, coughing- UGH!  Of course being me - did I go to the doctor?  NOOOOOO.  Not for 10 days and then just because I was sick of coughing.  First round of antibiotic and cough medicine with codeine.  

A week after that I'm STILL coughing, 2nd round of antibiotic and a stronger cough medicine with enough scary warnings on it, I didn't take it.  Did I mention I don't like taking medicines?

I'm finally finishing up the antibiotics - which were HUGE by the way - and the cough is almost gone, as long as I don't laugh, then all bets are off.

So I haven't touched the sewing area.  I'm still half way done.  BUT Jeremy's birthday is next weekend and my grand plan is to have all the kids help move furniture around while they're here celebrating.  They don't know it yet and SHHHHH, don't tell them or they'll find excuses not to come.  Sara's birthday is the weekend after Jeremy's, what I don't get them to move the first weekend, I can con them into moving the second weekend.  Of course by then they'll be on to me . . . .

Till next time.

Sewing Space Cleaning, Sorting & Pitching Goes On and on, and on . . .

I bet you all thought I'd finished long ago right?  HA!  I'm about half done.  I admit that my cleaning, sorting and pitching took a bit of a rest the last week or so but I am still working on it and I am making progress!  I don't want to even add up the amount of money I'm spending on plastic bins . . . .  I am happy that I'm finding plastic bins made in the USA, BJ's Costco and Home Depot all have them.

Shelf One is now full.

My little stash room is now full.  

Bins hold yarn, (I've been knitting since I was six and my Mom started me on big needles and blankets for Barbie, Midge, Skipper and Scooter), fabric, buttons, trims, embellishments and Crazy Quilt stuff.  

Shelf 2 still needs to be organized more but  at least I have places to put things away!

Bindings, Strips & pre-cut squares 2 1/2" and 5"

More of the stash is sorted.

Up off the floor and onto a high shelf just in case the basement floods.

My back up sewing machines (yes I realize that I have a bit of an addiction there . . . no wait, it's not an addiction, it's a collection!)











It's amazing the stuff you find.  I've come across three quilt tops I'd forgotten about, one I don't even remember making! (I think that just might spark an obsession discussion)

My children don't believe me that I'm actually cleaning it, sometimes I can't believe it either. I must have been crazy to start this . . . .