Before...

 After...

Before...

After...

Really it's just a shuffle.  I did get rid of a huge box that had the baby crib in it.  It got stashed out of the way in my quilting room, but now it's on the way to the dump.  (Did I ever tell you that I have a dumpster?  Best $45 a month we spend.  No worries about what to do with large boxes and getting the trash out on a certain night.  Monday night/Tuesday morning I hear that big truck and it's music to me ears.  With a big family, it's as essential as it gets.)  Anyway, I switched the cutting table with a sewing table.  Now when I sit at the serger, I'm not looking at a wall, but out the window.  The rest was just a little straightening.  Some of it is beyond that, but it's just aesthetics and it works as messy as it is. The after pictures aren't dramatic, but it feels better. 

 Sweet Eva cut out a dress for me.  It was 60" wide fabric that had to be cut while it was opened flat so there was no cutting it on the counter as I usually do.  I just wasn't up to wallering on the floor, but she was a sport.  It was a silky fabric which made it even more of a challenge.  Now it's cut out and I just need to tinker with the tension on the serger and get the walking foot on the brother sewing machine.  A little nervous.  I've never sewn knits before.  Donna assures me it's easy.  We shall see. 

You can see that I am at the end of the quilt.  So close.  I hope to finish it, today.  

Doodling... 

or noodling- as my auntie says.  I'm making progress on this quilt.  Only 2 more passes to finish it up.  I'm taking an ibuprofen break.  It'll kick in pretty soon.  

We are expecting little Samuel's birth any day now.  Laurie and Joe are having a date day. I believe this is the first time they have gone out without Gabriel(he's 18 months old).  They waited so long to have him-8 years-that they are doting parents and take nothing for granted.  You've never seen parents more enraptured with their child.  And now there will be another one to love.  Laurie's mother, Donna, is here and she is soaking up Gabriel.  She lives a fair distance away and isn't able to see them that often. I'm really blessed that we all live together. 

I think I'm going to have Rebekah help me rearrange my quilting room.  I plan on learning to sew knits and I need to get my serger out of the corner.  There's plenty of room there, I just would rather be looking out the window. Now that I'm not piecing as much, I don't need the cutting board often- just for trimming quilts.  So everything is going to rotate.  I think.  I should take a before and after picture.  I think I will.  

Hope you all have a lovely week. 

Nines

Time to ponder...

After I get a quilt on the frame, it's time to ponder.  I have an easy chair that  faces the quilt and I think.  What design should I quilt?  Sometimes it takes me a couple hours and sometimes it takes me a couple days- or even longer.  I'm almost decided on this one.  My mom did the piecing and my brother, Craig, choose it as his.  Those borders are a bit of a stumper...  I rarely put a border on my quilts.  But it's an effective way to grow a quilt to the desired size. It makes knowing what to do in them just a bit more of a challenge. What to do... what to do... I think I'm going to quilt the bulk of the quilt in biggish chrysanthemums.  But the borders...  and there are three of them.  All different?  All the same as an overall pattern?  hmmmmm 

Easter Dresses...

Hard to get 3 squirmy girls to be still for the second it takes to snap a picture.  But you get the idea.

Latest finish,

I've been a bit distracted from the quilting train by making Easter dresses for the grandbabies.  I love this scrappy one.  Joe- our oldest son- did some problem solving and my machine is up and running.  Turned out to be the tension of the upper hopping foot- something I hadn't fiddled with.  Sometimes you just need a fresh perspective. 
I quilted this in random baptist fans. 

I made this green and pink one years ago.  It has been in the nursery in our old church. They are moving to a new building so the wall hanging came back to me. I'm kind of amazed that they remembered who made it. I have a thought about what I'll be doing with it- and some of my other quilts.  (There are just so many.)  But I'll keep the plans to myself until I see if it's feasible.
 

 Easter dresses.  When my girls were little, I always made them new dresses for Easter.  Following that tradition, these little dresses are for my grand daughters.  The fabrics are what I had on hand for quilt making but worked quite well for dresses.  There's a 4 and 3 years old and two 1 years olds.  I had a really good time making them.  Hopefully I'll have some pictures of them wearing them soon.

 So... I wash my laundry separately from Willliam's. I'm not saying I don't trust him to remember to remove pens, chapstick, and tissues from his pockets... but really, I've been burned before.  Yes, I could check for these myself, but honestly, I'm doing good to get them in the washer. Crazily and living on the edge, I put a pair of socks in his load.  Just one pair of socks.  That'll teach me. The rest of the laundry came through unscathed.  Just these socks were a tissue magnet.  I've never seen anything like it. They're my favorite pair so I guess I'll be putting in a movie and de-tissue-ing.

My daughter, Bekah, likes to make Ukrainian painted eggs.  Aren't they cool?  They are made by adding layers of wax and then dying them with layers of dye.  The candle is used to melt the bees wax in a kitska- a little funnel. After they're dyed, she uses the candle to remove the wax and the pattern is revealed.  She them blows out the white and the yolk, adds a coat of varnish and washes out the inside.  Perfect for decoration. 

Happy Easter to everyone!

Looking at blessings...

Do you ever need a reality check?  Man, I do!  I've been on the verge of tears all day.  Whether an over sized sewing machine is working properly should not impact my happiness.  It's stupid.  

I am so blessed.  Here is our second son, Dan, and his lovely wife, Sonia.  They live in Boston but they've just returned from a trip to West Africa and are considering a mission in the next couple of years.  I know their hearts are already there. They are also expecting our 10th grandchild.  Isn't she an adorable mama?  They will be amazing parents and I know their child will be blessed to have them. They bring us so much joy. 

So why am I whining about a stupid quilting machine?  Honestly.  Wake up!  Live in this moment.  Be positive and pursue happiness.  Put those negative thought over there.  Way, way over there. "Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart..."  Psalms 27:14

Well, the quilting machine needs a new "thread escapement finger."  I've been struggling with the thing for a month now and our son, Joe, spent 5 minutes with it and found the name of the part and ordered one.  It will arrive in a few days. Cool.  

In the mean time, I'm hand quilting and, for the most part, I'm enjoying it.  I have type 1 diabetes and so I check my blood sugar. A lot. I have callouses on the first two fingers of my left hand.  Unfortunately,  when I'm quilting, that's the hand on the underside of the quilt "feeling" when the needle slips through the layers.  Only I can't feel it because of the callouses.  You'd think this would be a good thing.  But then, I end up sewing my finger to the back of the quilt.  After hours of practice, I've finally been able to figure out how to work on the skin around the callouses.  Which will probably give me bigger callouses. 

Picked up my new glasses, today.  Sat down at the computer and figured out, nope, this isn't going to work.  Not at the computer.  The monitor is too far away for the bifocals and too close for the distance.  So I'll need a pair of glasses for doing computer work.  Gettin' old. But the new glasses work great for quilting, so there's that.

William is in a mad dash for preparing eight people's taxes.  He has 2 weeks. Let's hope he makes it in time.  He doesn't seem worried so why should I? 

The freak Spring storm- where we received a few inches of snow- has turned our winter grasses green.  Color!  Oh how I've missed it! It's so bright with the sun shining. Beautiful.

Gonna run.  We went to the Library today and I have a new Debbie Macomber book. Now what did I do with my cup?