Happy Birthday Jake!
Jacob is 13. He's DS #3. His birthday was yesterday, but since it was already a holiday, we decided to postpone until today. Of all my children, he is the most difficult to describe in words. He is creative- he built me a beautiful bedside table- long and narrow, with only three legs, but very stable. He loves to cook and even has a notebook dedicated to his favorite recipes. Personality-wise... it's hard to say. He is more easy than my other children. He is considerate and thoughtful. He notices things. When he was only 2 he quit taking naps- but stayed in bed the entire 2 hours- daydreaming. He has never needed anybody to keep him company, but he is very sociable. He loves being outdoors and hiking and swinging from trees. He has the type of personality that catches subtle humor when it passes by everyone else. He's the kind of kid other people notice and offer him business cards, so he can call them when he's grown and apply for a job. He's goofy and playful. Determined and driven. And now he's a teenager. Gulp. And we love him to pieces.

There are moments in time...
when you catch a glimpse of what your children will grow up to become. When Joseph was about 10 months old, I can still see him so clearly standing on fat, wobbly legs, looking out the storm door. The sun was shining on his face and his full lips were pursed in concentration and it hit me- this child of mine will someday be a man. The moment I saw 2 year old Daniel running in the sunshine, with mischief in his wide eyes, as his daddy sprayed him with the garden hose- it hit me, I can see the man in him. Well, I'm crying now as I look at these pictures and I realize that they are who I saw... only better. I am still seeing the men they will someday be, but they seem so very, very close now. It is quite a jolt. This is before their first big night out- they just went together. Buying the suits was easy- the shoes, another matter. They wear size 12 and 13. Now that, I didn't see!

22 down, 2 to go...
Just thought I'd share the progress I've made with the GFG blocks. I am almost done with #23, and #24 is cut out and waiting. I am hoping that I can get those 2 done before our vacation. I need to find some setting fabric... then I can work on putting it all together while I'm gone. No, not all together, but work on it. I'm leaning toward a pretty leaf-green hand dyed.

The day has been more productive than the past couple days. I was up until 6am, this morning. Fell asleep to the sound of the birds waking up. At 6:10am a freight train made it's way through the fields and kinda spoiled the mood, but not for long. Slept until nearly 10. Still...

The 2 oldest boys are getting ready for their first formal. It is an alternative to kids who don't dance and the boys seem to be looking forward to it. Daniel needed his pants taken up and Joseph needed his pants let out... typical of those two. Joe says he's all brawn and Dan says he's a lean machine. They have a banquet and then all the kids change and go to the middle school to play in the gym.

We made 15 pounds of peanutbutter fudge which we shaped into eggs and coated in chocolate. Down, Sarah. I am getting ready to pipe flowers onto them as soon as I get the boys' hair cut. See? This is my break. The little ones colored 5 dozen eggs and, after that, I needed to walk away from the kitchen. I don't know that there is an odor more... less... well, vinegar and boiled eggs... it just doesn't do anything for me.

I got the girls' bodices done for their flower-girl dresses. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Now there's just the skirts and the horror... a zipper. I've never had a happy experience putting in zippers. I feel a bit guilty as this is the first year I have not made the girls a new spring dress. But they'll get to wear these fancy dresses in just a couple weeks. My nephew is getting married on the 5th of May.

I did some quilting between 4 and 6 am. Probably not the optimal time to be doing that particular task. I'm thinking about ripping it all out and doing a meander. pitiful. I need to get it done as there are a couple more that need to get quilted before... vacation. I hate deadlines. My mom says that she used to invite people over just so she'd be motivated to clean. I think I might do that but when the guests arrive- I'd be long gone. Fight or flight? I'm a runner for sure. But I'm being a good girl. Two hair cuts, coming up!

Been a "funny" kinda day...
I finally feel like I've caught up on my sleep. We have never changed to this daylight-savings thing, and now that we are stepping up with the rest of the country, I miss that extra hour in the morning! Then, the Chicago quilt show got me up very early and kept me out very late... But this morning I woke up feeling pretty much myself again- didn't hurt that the sun was shining and the weather, warm. Supposed to be thunderstorms and maybe tornadoes, later. Figures.

• I put two more rows onto Sarah's quillt for our quilt challenge. 6 down and 7 to go. Almost halfway there. I am wanting to get all of the top finished before I go to Florida in a few weeks- that way I'll only have to quilt and bind it when I get home.

• I should have worked on the two flower girl dresses that I cut out, yesterday, but I didn't. I still need to cut out the lining- acetate- read that, slick as snot and I am not looking forward to it sliding all over the place. Plus, I have two and a half more weeks until they need to get done. All the time in the world, right?

• Worked a while on binding a quilt for a graduating college student. I have two weeks to finish that, so it shouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, I tried something new. I have heard other people talk about sewing binding on with a quilting machine. Haven't a clue how one would do such a thing. Tried it anyhow... very wavy binding. Oh well, I figure it'll do. Then I realized that I cut a corner off that same binding when I was trimming the quilt- something I usually do before I bind. Oh well, if I pull it tight, I can bridge the gap. More waves.

• Made a huge dinner and now I am feelin' ill that I ate so much. Sometimes you need to do that- just so you'll remember how lousy it feels. And you won't do it again any time soon.

• I worked on my "bones" quilt. Now that was fun- in a dysfunctional kinda way. I had all of the letters for the words together. Even had two of the borders of words together. Then, I know I worked longer on one word than I did the entire sentence. It was a 4-letter word. YOUR. Now doesn't that look simple? But I wanted to bend it around the bottom left-hand corner... and that's backwards to my way of thinking. Ugh! I finally got it put together in such a way as I can live with it, not thrilled, but I'm more than willing to settle at this point. I thought I was going to be able to finish all the borders and maybe even put them on. Should have known that today was not a day to finish things. I ran out of Kona black. I have used scads of the stuff. And I am so closed to being "finished!" Ah well.

• Wanted to take a picture of it to blog, but I am all out of batteries. Been that kinda day. Close to being perfect, just not quite.

• The picture above is of Wonder Wallets, by Lazygirl. I like her patterns. This little wallet has four pockets and will hold folding money, change, business cards and credit cards. Perfect to put in a jacket pocket when you don't want to carry your purse. A fat quarter makes two. The top one is, of course, Sarah's. They are supposed to have buttons sewn onto the front flap... but I couldn't find my button box... See? Been that kinda day. Funny.

Dahlias for Darilyn...
Darilyn (www.tropicalscreamer.blogspot.com) has been planning a dahlia quilt. She bought the templates and ordered the fabric. But she has recently chosen to set the dahlia aside in favor of a "sampler." I didn't know of this development when I snapped a picture of a dahlia quilt at the show in Chicago. I liked it for its unconventional colors and I figured Darilyn would enjoy how bright and cheerful it is. Of course the fabrics are hand dyed. It certainly doesn't look traditional and doesn't it seem to just glow? Enjoy, Darilyn! Are you sure you can't work on the "sampler" and the Dahlia at the same time?

My little haul...
may seem kinda pathetic, but I am delighted with what I have and you might get a glimpse of how my mind works. Scary, huh? First, I tend to be single-minded. I wanted some new pantographs. I find I have a love/hate relationship with pantos. They do seem to be a quick fix for those quilts where no amount of quilting would ever show, but at the same time, they seem to go on and on, forever. I only have a few, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to pick out a few more. I had a mission and I bought 3 pantos. A Keryn Emmerson(my favorite- she's all loose and flowy- "Flourish",) a Nancy Johnston, "Dragons Breath" and a Judy Allen, "My Favorite Leaves." That was my main goal for the day and I was done within the first hour of the show. Now what? The problem with these things, for me, is sensory overload. I like so much of what they show, how could I ever decide what to get? I tend to just give up. I want to be sure that I'm not buying something that I will later not be so thrilled with. Impulse buying. Nothing worse than buyer's remorse and in my book, I'd rather wish later that I'd gotten this or that than wish I hadn't, you know? My other 2 "big" purchases was the nifty little 1/4" seam allowance pressure foot for my featherweight. I am already so excited about this $16 splurge... I have been sewing up a blue streak for the past couple days. Ahh... the security of knowing where the 1/4" seam falls!! I also found these little rubber feet for the FW. Mine are dryrotting. $2.50. My Dad would roll his eyes and say I was ripped off, but I thought it was neat that they had them available. Then, at the end of the day, I came across a box full of old orphan blocks, or "bones" as I call them. Felt like an expectant mother looking through a nursery window. "ahhh..." "ohh..." When I came across these 2 maple leaf blocks, I had get them as they were just like a quilt my grandmother made. $2. each. gulp. I plan on making a wallhanging out of them. There were a few other small purchases for Sarah- mostly giggle items. All in all, I came away feeling pretty good about it. There was some hand-dyeds that tempted me just a bit, but then, I figure that if I ever save up some money, I'm headed straight to Darcie's. So there was no rush there. I saw a nifty cup holder that clamps onto the side of your sewing table. It had a little place to hang a Wal-Mart bag for clippings. That way you don't have to worry that you'll knock your tea cup over onto your sewing. But my son pointed out that you might find strings in your tea and that wouldn't be so good. Good point, I thought. But I'm still thinking about the cup holder part, and wondering if my ingenious husband couldn't whip me up one. There was some lovely reverse-applique items and squares at very reasonable prices... that was a tough one to resist. But, again, I couldn't make up my mind, so I walked away with none. And really, working at a quilt shop kinda keeps the "over-eating" under control. The Quilters' Toy Box, in Muncie Indiana, has all of my favorite things. Lots of hand-dyeds and batiks. And I know that if I see something I like at a show, like a pattern or a gadget, I can just let Tanya know and we'll pour over catalogs until we find it. How cool is that? Most people don't realize that a lot of smaller shops will do this for them- at no extra charge. I'm such a spoiled brat. Now if I could only figure out how to pace myself with chocolate chip cookies...

The Chicago Quilt Show...
As I was getting up at 4am, Friday morning, I was wondering, "Why?" I have never gone to a quilt show without Sarah. And who's idea do you think it was to go to those? Sarah's. So I guess I decided to go to this one just to prove that I could do it by myself. And I might actually enjoy it... you never know. So I got on the bus at 5:30am and rode the 4 hours to Chicago. I decided to do the vendors first, as it seemed everyone else was crowding into the exhibit hall. Found some goodies, I'll post them, later. Then I went into the quilt show and was enjoying the traditional quilts and finding the art quilts... interesting. They had the aisles set up so you walked through art quilts then traditional, then back to the art ones and then traditional again. It was kinda nice and kept things from blurring all together. About a 1/3rd of the way through the exhibit, I looked up and stopped dead in my tracks. My jaw dropped to the floor and I grabbed the lady's arm beside me and said, "I know this quilt!! This is my uncle's quilt!" She looked confused and said, "Your uncle made a quilt like this?" NONONO!!! This is his quilt!! I was so tickled to see it there. I found the posting that said, yes, the quilt was made by Gregory Leighton of Perrysburg, Ohio. My mom's twin sister's husband. He had sent me some pictures of the blocks as he was working on them, but I didn't know that he had finished it and it had been quilted- and such a beautiful quilting job! (Thought I'd remember the quilter's name, but after getting in at 2am, my brain is even mushier than usual.) I didn't tell him I was going to the show- I live a lot closer to Ohio than to Illinois. What a wonderful surprise it was. I took lots of pictures and kept telling everyone who stopped to look at it, "My uncle made this quilt!" Isn't it gorgeous? A beautiful, maverick quilt! Entirely hand-pieced. The far right corner isn't in shadow, it's just the way he placed the darks. The lady I was with said she was surprised that I had recognized it, but how could I not? It is very distinctive looking- it's just so Greg! The block is a very old pattern, but the fabrics are mostly hand-dyed. He loves the hand-dyed and uses grey as a neutral instead of the more traditional cream. l love it, love it, love it!! It was worth getting up at 4am just to get to see it hanging there among all the other beautiful quilts! When we returned to the bus that evening, I found my friend Martin and his wife Sharon and I started to tell them of my exciting news- then Martin says, "The one called "Fish Chowder?" Yes, yes!! He remembered it, and thought it was great also. He said to be sure to tell Greg how much they liked it and they even remembered the name. How cool is that? I bet Sarah would have recognized it, too. Well, I need a nap. I just wanted to share my thrilling news.