5 backs, 1 top

Thursday I got backs put together out of flannel I had on hand for the 5 crazy quilt tops that I finished this week and I got started on 16 blocks using a kelly green strip diagonally down the middle of each block then used strips to fill in the sides.

Yesterday was spent running around doing all the errands that I saved up over the course of the week so I didn't get much sewing done so...

This morning I finished up the squares. I used up all of the kelly green for the diagonals so I found some forest green strips left over from the sides of backs from Christmas quilts several years ago to make the lattice and the borders. I like regular crazy quilt blocks but this is a bit faster and easier and is fun to arrange with that center strip.

Also today, I have been tearing up construction paper into little pieces so my little boy can make a poster for school (did I mention that he is 17 and a senior?). I am willing to help out because he has a rather heavy load this trimester with 4 history classes and English because he needs to get all his required classes in before he heads of for a year as an exchange student to New Zealand! He will be leaving somewhere around the end of January/beginning of February.

Now my husband is working on taking out one of the windows in my sewing room to replace it so it matches the rest of the windows on that side of the house. Hopefully he doesn't have to rip out the trim in the inside but that might happen and I will have to do a lot of rearranging in here so we can get to the window area.

Delays

Work has been a bit slow in my sewing room this week. I just can't seem to get the focus. Part of the problems has been distractions and interruptions. The biggest one of those has been our son's wisdom teeth removal on Thursday. He is your average 17 year old who has been enjoying having his mom wait on him, bringing him non-chew foods like milkshakes, egg drop soup and tapioca.

In between the interruptions I have managed to get the UFO/WIP from July 12 quilted and got the binding on yesterday. I hope to finish handsewing the binding today so I can have another finished project!

My latest project is baby carriers as seen here. That's my daughter and grandson modeling the one I made for them. She now has two friends who are expecting and she wants to give them each one. I bought the fabric in the Home Deco section at JoAnn's when it was on sale. I really like their home deco fabrics for projects like this. They have fun coordinating choices that are easy to work with. I bought enough for three carriers and I got them cut out a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday I got the straps sewn and turned. Now I need to press them and put the carriers together. Hopefully, that can be off my list today also!

These carriers are very simple to make and simple to use. It is my daughter's favorite which is why she wants to give them to her friends. I am considering making them to sell but not sure if I want to get into that or not.

Another tank loaded

I worked in the sewing room this morning finishing the quilting the top I made for South Kitsap Relay for Life next weekend and getting bindings on that and three other quilts. Then I decided I should get outside and do something so I got my second stock tank in the ground and filled with dirt and I planted zucchini and kohl rabi in it. I also planted 6 or 7 hills of pole beans inside the deer fence with the berries. I was excited to see that my blueberry bushes have little baby berries on them this year. Not lots but enough for a taste. Knowing Jakob we will only get a few - he is worse than the birds!
When I was done in the yard the momma cats wanted to be fed and while they ate I watched the babies. They are getting braver and are coming further out of the box. One especially spent time by my foot. Lucy wanted to play with the babies but I don't think they are quite ready for that yet!

Sitka

Larry and I made it safely to Sitka, got our luggage and car and found our little girl. The weather has been somewhat rainy but today we have had sun so we were able to do a little more outside. To recap our time up here so far:
Wednesday: arrived, had dinner, found the B&B and checked in and drove to one end of the road.This is the view of Swan Lake and Sitka from our bedroom window.Thursday: went to the Raptor Center, chocolate factory, whale park and the other end of the road.Then we went to the quilt show and the museum in the same building. Larry and I went to the Sheldon Jackson Museum while Rebecca was rehearsing for graduation. Attended a BBQ at one of Becca's friend's home and went to Baccalaureate.
Friday: got Rebecca graduated and went to the reception following. We all took afternoon naps and then went on a cruise. We saw both a grey whale and a humpback whale blow and fluke. Pretty cool! Also saw sea otters and a sea lion or seal.
Today: We walked over to Totem Park and on the trail through the park. We also went part of the way up Harbor Mountain and to the north end of the road just checking things out some more. Right now Larry is napping in the car and Rebecca is napping here in her room.
In news from home, Jakob was excited to report that we have 8 kittens now. Chelsea is also excited about them and Layden is interested also. We are looking forward to seeing them tomorrow when we get home (not just the kitties but Jakob, Chelsea, Oli and Layden also).

Coming out of the woodwork!

I am feeling better again. Don't know what I had but I am glad it is over! It is good I am feeling better since we were very busy at work. We started with 7 calls and ended up going to at least nine! Tomorrow we have 7 scheduled also and we will get more phone calls. All in all, people are being pretty understanding about us being gone Wednesday through Friday and we already have 3 calls scheduled for next week!

Talked with Rebecca this evening and figured out what we need to bring of her stuff. Now I just need to get it packed up with our stuff. She will be flying to Sitka tomorrow and we go the next day.

The weather was beautiful today. It was still 66 degrees at 8:40 pm! I went out and rode the tiller through the lower garden area so maybe Chelsea, Oli, Jakob and Layden will get my strawberries transplanted down there while I am in Sitka. That would be awesome! Lucy was very good as I tilled. She sat and watched me go back and forth and didn't wander off until I had the tiller put away.

I finished one more of the quilts today so I am up to 6 now. I hope to get at least one more finished before we leave.

Darth Jakob

I am just not feeling quite myself today. Not really bad just a little puny. I worked a bit on the quilts. I finished off another one and got backs ready for all of the denim ones and have 5 pinned and ready to quilt (I ran out of pins or I would have done more). I also got all the extra backing fabric put away so the room is looking a bit better.

I also took care of paperwork stuff. I got all my bank statements and credit card statements tidied up along with all the deposit/withdrawal receipts and credit card receipts cleaned out. It has probably been 6 months since I really did a good job of it!

Larry should be home from the commissary soon so I will help get things put away and work on making dinner and then it will be time to work on bindings with my feet up.

I also got Norton installed and updated on both of my computers. Of course, the boy's response to that is that Mac OS X is a much better anti virus program but it will take more than that to convince me to step over to the dark side!

Flowers and Hearts/Leaves

I didn't get as much done on quilts today as I had hoped because we just kept getting pages for the business that I had to check and then I had to call the customers and then I had to let Larry know that he should call so I could tell him what the customers needed and then sometimes I had to call the customers back to get them scheduled. I also called about at least one part from our supplier. All in all a lot of phone calling. I also got 4 loaves of bread made so hopefully that will be enough until I get back from Alaska.

I did get two tops quilted and I even tried something other than a large meandering sort of thing. I added in some flowers on one and some hearts/leaves on the other. I was quite impressed with myself. I also did get three more tops sandwiched and pinned ready to quilt and machine stitched the binding on one more so I have something to work on while watching TV this evening.

Also, had to take Jakob to the doctor's office to have his TB test evaluated - the good news is he does not have tuberculosis. I am sure everyone was concerned about that one!

I even made dinner (second night in a row) and got the kitchen cleaned up.

Silver Linings

Today we were fairly busy at work and barely made it home in time for me to do the roto-tilling before it started raining. Part of the problem was getting the tiller started in the first place. Larry gave it a new carburetor but it still just isn't too excited about starting. We are thinking it might just need a new engine but it is old (somewhere between 15 and 20 years now) so do we want to put the money into it? It still tills nicely so we shall have to think about it.

We got a call about 2 pm our time from our little girl. Rebecca has officially made it to St. Augustine! Her friend Raven should have picked up to hang out for about a week before she heads to Sitka for graduation. So it took her exactly 3 months to go about 3000 miles across the country on her bike. Have I mentioned that I am very proud of her? Did I have to?

When we picked up the mail today I had a box from Deb with Rebecca's round robin quilt ready for the binding. I got that on it but had a denim quilt to finish the hand sewing on so I will work on Rebecca's tomorrow. I also got the next denim top sandwiched and ready to quilt so I might get some or all of that done tomorrow also.

I don't want you think think I am not proud of my other two children so I will tell you a little about them too. Chelsea and her wonderful husband, Olaus, have been working in their front yard this spring and have made a retaining wall and 5 raised beds to grow vegetables. The beds look quite nice even if they do take over our parking spot in the front yard! They are also the parents of my most precious little grandson, Layden, who I just can't get enough of.

Jakob is my 'baby'. He is working hard at school and in the process of applying to go to New Zealand next year as an exchange student. It will be hard to let him go but on the other hand we get the house to ourselves a year earlier! One always needs to look for the silver lining.

I don't think I did any sewing today! That is quite strange for me and I am not even sick. I did get some things cleaned up this morning and then there was work and after work Jakob reminded us that we had not had our monthly dinner out (his birthday dinner didn't count). So we went out and had dinner and then stopped at Jo-Ann's so I could use my 50% off coupon that expired today. I bought a whole roll of 90" wide Warm and White! It is huge. The boys were quite impressed. I wish they carried the 124" wide stuff but they don't so I will have to use this. I am guessing it will be mostly gone by the end of May when I need to have the denim quilts done and the other auction quilt.

If the weather is good tomorrow I will head outside for some weeding and mowing and maybe roto-tilling if I am really feeling frisky.

Rebecca is still on the move. She is nearly out of Mississippi according to the message I received through Jakob (not the most reliable message-taker in the world). That will leave two or three days in Alabama and then she will be in Florida.

Where are you?

I know that a lot of people read blogs but are a little iffy about commenting. Jakob, my little computer geek, hooked me up with Google Analytics. It lets me know how many people are reading my blog and where they come from. I know that I have had visitors from all over the US, but also from China, New Zealand, Australia, England, Germany, Czech Republic and several other spots. I just don't know anything else about most of you so I am hoping you all (or at least some of you) will step out of your comfort zone and comment and tell me your first name, where you are, how you found me and maybe what some of your interests are. Just click on comments at the bottom of this post, type in your comment, click on anonymous and publish the comment. It really is easy! Thanks!

Hot

Jakob commented yesterday that the water in the shower was awfully hot. I hadn't noticed it until I took my shower yesterday. We alerted the appliance repairman and he made a service call this morning and condemned our water heater. It seems to be leaking into the thermostat and causing it to overheat. Sounds like we will be replacing it tonight. We figure it is 15 years old so that isn't so bad - a pain, but not so bad.

In other news, I got yesterday off and got to have lunch with Vicky. I even was nice and picked up Jakob from school. On our way home we got caught in a hail/thunder shower. Very LOUD!!! I also got another denim top done so that is 4 of the last 10 for this year's graduates. I keep plugging away.

Talked with Becca last night. She had a rest day yesterday. She did some figuring and she is on track to make it all the way to St Augustine as long as she has no major delays. It is just three weeks till we are in Sitka with her for graduation. Pretty exciting - our first college graduate (I am sure I will get nasty comments from Chelsea but I haven't seen that diploma!). Now I don't want anyone pointing out that Oli has graduated, I know, I was there for the graduation but not for the birth!!!

Bruce is liking his clean home and the new food/friends. There are only 6 of the 11 fish left and one of the remaining is missing parts of his/her fin. Those of you who have watched Rebecca's video of her little turtles can rest assured that her babies are fine, NO TURTLES WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THAT VIDEO, she caught them when they dove off the mail box.

Spring snow?

Yesterday we celebrated Jakob's 17th birthday with dinner at Puerto Vallarta - probably his favorite place because of the fried ice cream. Last night he didn't have to clean his plate to get it though because he was the birthday boy and he got free fried ice cream once he sat through their birthday song and being fed a bite of ice cream and whipped cream by a waiter - oh, and don't forget the cherry on top! Evidently it was worth the embarrassment!
Today I feel kind of lousy with a cold or allergies or something. Not lousy enough to stay in bed but I feel kind of like a zombie! I did manage to get bread dough made along with bunny roll dough. I also boiled up the eggs and got them colored (yes, there was the ceremonial dumping of the dyes all together down the sink at the end). Most of the eggs and most of the bunny rolls will go to church for the Easter breakfast tomorrow morning though the boys will need some here too.
The weather outside matches my attitude today - gloomy and drippy! A big change from yesterday when the temps were close to 80 degrees! The rain is making the pear blossoms fall like snow from the trees outside my window.
Rebecca had a good day yesterday - she finally made it out of Kinder, LA. Not that it was a bad town, she just really wanted to be moving along.