Stitched With Love

Last finish

2011-11-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

The last time I finished a quilt... June! It's Bonnie Hunter's Crayon Box, made with hand dyed fabrics and a colorful batik.

Freshly washed and ready to mail off to my friend. I offered to make her a quilt almost 3 years ago, of her own choice. She quickly claimed this top, but it'd be another 2.5 years before it actually arrived at her house! :P

My cute little helper. :) All quilts need an adjustment and tugging, right?

Leah

In Simple Words

2011-06-10T21:32:00.000-07:00

A little guy had his first birthday yesterday.

He's only said "mama" so far, and is on the cusp of walking.

We're also moving at the end of this month.

Lots of decluttering going on, but not so much with my quilting stuff, except for a few magazines.

And a wee little bit of quilting accomplished.

Now I just need to label, take pictures and mail it off to a good friend.

Leah

Am I a quilter any more?

2011-04-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

That's that question that gets tossed around my brain these days: am I a quilter any more? I feel more of a poser than a quilter these days. I buy fabric, look at patterns, talk quilt... but where are the quilts?

After a few weeks of thinking about it, I realize I DO want to be a quilter. I've asked my husband for help, help me find time to quilt. It's not easy with baby Caleb around. Quilting will be done in stolen moments, but I do want to put some valid effort towards it everyday. I miss quilting.

I did go to my guild's quilt show in February. Not a lot of quilts stood out to me... but I had Caleb with me and needed to hurry because he was fussy.

And getting in the way. ;) I did manage to buy a few extra minutes by letting him nom on the camera.

Something that really helped the general flow of the household was giving up my sewing room. Yeah... it's Caleb's room now. Out went the two sewing tables, cutting table and computer table. In went Caleb's crib, toys and a twin mattress.

The mattress was supposed to be for me, so I can sleep and nurse Caleb as needed in the middle of the night. Well... he's taken to the twin mattress MUCH better than the crib, it's pretty much his bed now. He's napping there right now. :)

Cribs make good places to stack quilts, right?

But yes... I finally have my first finished quilt of the year.

Meander quilting with loops and stars. I sure started using my quilts more after Caleb was born.

Caleb might be a handful these days...

...but he can be pretty cute too. :)

Leah

Caleb likes quilting

2011-02-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

Caleb is always helping and testing out my quilting supplies.

Hand dyes taste like fiber, you know. ;)

He's measuring pretty big these days.

It's not hard to see how the placenta cord was so wrapped around him when he was born.

It was wrapped around his neck 3 times, his torso 3 times and his foot 3 times.

I lost my foot pedal after letting him play with it several times. Finally I decided to get down to his eye level and found it pushed under the fabric shelves. Little stinker. :)

I try to make little as possible off limits, but if it presents a danger or he's abusing it, I'll take it away. Or take Caleb away from it. My ironing cord is permanently UP whenever I'm not using it.

He's been teething the last few weeks, so anything he gets his hands upon is as good as in his mouth too.

Maybe you can see a few teeth through the gum in this picture. I got tired of him taking chunks out of the batting, so that got stashed into the closet quickly. :P

The last two weeks have been a little rough with Caleb teething. He's cut two out so far (top left, bottom left) and I'm anticipating two more before we get a break. And more sleep!

Very little crafting going on, but my niece had a birthday 2 weeks ago and I put together a purse and apron for her.

I did kinda cheat, the purse and apron can be bought from Walmart, I just added my personal touch. No actual sewing done. :D

I so badly want to get back to quilting more, I just haven't figured how to balance it all.

Leah

A good start

2011-01-16T02:19:00.000-07:00

A good start to the new year, more sewing time!

Organized fabric, mostly cleared table, cup of tea, sewing away... yup, happy hours. :)

My little helper is never far away though.

He's allowed to make a mess in order for me to get quality needle time. I just make sure he doesn't have any potential access to needles or pins; he's gotta stay away from the cords belonging to the sewing machine and iron.

I'm a little slower at the machine, but it works out well. :)

Leah

It's a new year

2011-01-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

It's a new year, and I hope to be blogging back in full force! I've got a good reason, my mom has spent a week with me giving my sewing room an overhaul. :)

This quilt was given to the lady that runs the local breastfeeding support group. She was lamenting that the babies didn't have something to protect them from the wood floors... and I pulled up this cheerful quilt for her.

She also adores Caleb (her son is named Caleb too), and clearly Caleb finds her comfortable enough for a snooze. ;)

May you sew more stitches in 2011!

Leah

Busy Boy

2010-11-21T20:52:00.000-07:00

Caleb has been a busy boy! Events include traveling to California, dipping his toes into the ocean and finally meeting his great-grandfather.

I also celebrated my 28th birthday, been trying to get ready for the holidays and will be spending Black Friday doing a serious declutter. I have no room for quilting, and Caleb is hitting the next level of mobility. He's tried to grab at my sewing machine a couple times now, and tested the edibility of fabric. ;)

Leah

Slacker

2010-10-21T18:09:00.000-07:00

I've been unhappy with how few pictures I've been taking of Caleb lately. I went a little camera crazy the other day. ;)

He really grows by leaps and bounds. He discovered his toes the other week. He's working harder on sitting up.

He also disregards all my begging for him to stop growing. He might be 4.5 months old now, but wears 9 month outfits! A doctor appointment earlier this month put him at 18 pounds and 12 ounces. I'm sure he's over 19 pounds now. My back would have given out a long time ago if it weren't for chiropractor visits. :)

Caleb is still breastfeeding. He shows no interest in food yet, even when we bring it within inches of his hands. But he does enjoy going after the keyboard when he sits in mine or Chris's laps.

I shall blame all future typos on him. ;)

Leah

Close ups

2010-10-03T07:06:00.000-07:00

Here's some close ups of the quilting on my mom's birthday quilt. I did something different in every row.

Playing with a tight wiggle
Loops and stars
Circles on a line (inspired by Christina's blog)

Vines and curls, the hardest row!
Frequencies
Big circles

Double loops
Tight meandering
Single loops with "mom" written in thread. It might look like "wow" in some spots. ;)

A wide open peacock swirl
Squares and corners
Connected loops

I really pushed myself out of the box on this quilt. I wanted to show my mom what I'm capable of free-motioning. She plans to "hire" me to finish her quilts. Yes, this is a shameless nudge!

It still cuddles just fine, even if it might not be perfect. :)

Leah

Happy Birthday Mom!

2010-09-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

A little bit early, but I made my mom a quilt for her birthday. Caleb got to help a lot. :)

I was dreading the pinning part, but I couldn't remember why. Then once I started pinning, it hit me that the last time I pinned, I was over 40 weeks pregnant with exceedingly swollen feet.

Caleb surprised me at how well he was able to pull off the wrapping paper. It was absolutely hilarious to watch! He'll be in great shape for Christmas.

He got his whole body into it, hands pulling, feet pushing. He's such a big boy - and the scale agrees with me! At 3 months and 4 days, I had the chance to weigh him on a baby scale and he popped out 17 pounds and 11 ounces. Zowie! We're just about to start using 9 month clothes in a few weeks.

The quilt was 9 blocks by 12 blocks, so I made 12 rows of different quilting styles. Just having fun showing off to Mom what I'm capable of doing.

I was crazy, started the quilting Wednesday night, finished Friday morning and had the binding sewn on by Friday noon. Then I spent pretty much every moment Mom wasn't here hand stitching the binding down. Got it done in time! But I was prepared to give Mom some thread and a needle to finish it herself if I had to. :)

A tall brother makes an excellent quilt holder. At 3.5 months, Ben was 20 pounds and 5 ounces. So Caleb isn't the largest baby for my side of the family. We do hold hopes that Caleb will be over 6 feet tall as an adult.

Happy Birthday Mom... three weeks early! I'm sure it'll look great on your couch and will be snuggled with plenty of times. :)

Leah

Milestones

2010-09-06T21:12:00.000-07:00

I've hit a couple milestones. First, my blog reached 6-figures of visitors. :)

And yes, thanks for stopping by!

Then I finally finished my first quilt since Caleb was born.

The batik snowball and 9-patch.

Backing fabric, using a hand dyed piece.

If I don't use my nice fabric now, when will I use them?

A close up of a corner.

It went off to a friend who gave me a portion of her cloth diaper stash. I wish her happy cuddling! :)

And I'm afraid every blog post will now have a shot of Caleb in it, one way or another. ;)

He's really learning how to grab and hold onto things now. He was in the kitchen either watching me do dishes or Chris and I cook. We try to include him in most of the stuff we do.

Leah

How close?

2010-08-28T21:20:00.000-07:00

How close do you allow the quilt to get to the batting's edge?

The quilt is supposed to be 48.5" square, and the batting is 48". I think with a couple too large seams, the top was closer to 48" in one direction.

Too close? Probably, but I don't have a better option. My other batting is too thick to use the fleece for the backing. I really want a nice, warm quilt for Caleb this winter.

If I start now, will it be done by Christmas? :)

Leah

Slow down!

2010-08-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

Somebody tell Caleb to slow down, he's growing too fast. :P

The first picture was when he was 6 days old. Cute and small.

Second picture is just before he was 4 weeks old. Just a little growth. I'll let it slide. ;)

The third picture? Exactly 10 weeks old and he looks gigantic!

I love his expression, it looks like "oh no! I grew! How do I stop?" He's such a good baby, I don't want this time to disappear in a few blinks.

He's also discovered a lot in the past 2 weeks. His hands. That he can actually grab stuff. He kicks the duckies in his bath tub. He'll try to talk back to us sometimes.

I've also started cloth diapering... that probably gives him another inch on his bum. ;)

Leah

Baby Caleb is growing!

2010-08-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

He's getting to be such a big boy now. :) He hit his official 2 month mark yesterday.

He's sweet and cute to wake up in the mornings. Full of smiles and laughs. :) And speaking of such, I think he's about to wake up for the day.

Leah

Multi-tasking

2010-07-30T23:09:00.000-07:00

Time flies, and yet there's not enough time to do all the things I think of. Then I gotta multi-task.

At that moment, I had a load of laundry going, was keeping an eye on Caleb and trying to sew down the binding on the quilt. Very slow going, I've only done one side so far

But all Caleb has to do is give smiles and you can quickly forget a lot of stuff. ;)

Leah

I caught it!

2010-07-15T22:30:00.003-07:00

I finally caught the dimple on Caleb's left cheek!

Yup, he's figuring out how to smile now, and it doesn't always involve farting either. ;)

Oops, there's lightening outside. Monsoon season's here. Better turn off the computer.

Leah

Finding routines

2010-07-08T00:16:00.001-07:00

We've been trying to find "normal" and "routines" in our life with baby Caleb. It was going pretty well until the weekend, where he started to show signs of a growth spurt by non-stop nursing. I did find time to make this onesie for him.

I put it on him after church on Sunday, and about 10 minutes later he showed his "appreciation" for it by having his first poopy diaper blow out. Thanks kid. :)

We often lay him out on the couch during the day, the swamp cooler blows nicely on that spot.

And a piece of cotton fabric is cooler than a blanket or quilt for him to lay upon.

There's been a lot of cuddling and hanging out.

Which also means a lot of one-handed typing, like now. :)

I don't mind, babies don't keep.

Leah

Baby Life

2010-06-27T19:01:00.001-07:00

This would sum up the events of the past week: baby fluids. :)

Some major spit-ups; several pee-on-mom incidents; a couple quilts mucked up with poop; and the carpet has received all three. :P

Thankfully he's cute most of the time, and we'll keep him. ;)

Chris and Caleb on Father's Day.

Me cuddling with Caleb.

Not too much later, he let out his biggest spit up yet. Covered him, my shirt and pants, the couch (so grateful that it's leather! Easy wipe up) and the carpet. I scared Chris pretty badly with my shriek. :P

We're getting really good at one-handed typing!

I like to make fun of Caleb when he sleeps with his mouth open and I'll mimic him.

I also tried to brush his hair into a mohawk.

Poor kid, but he won't remember any of this. ;)

Leah

My hands have been full

2010-06-18T17:14:00.002-07:00

My hands have been full with this little guy! Although I suspect that he knows when I'm trying to blog and decides right there and right then he needs to be nursed, have a diaper change or takes a nap and I can't access my computer. :P

On Tuesday I went into my sewing room, dug up the acrylic paint and painted "100% Breastmilk" onto a plain white onesie. Tuesday is also the day I ditched my maternity clothes and put on my "fat pants". Today I'm wearing some normal and more snug capris! I'm absolutely thrilled how the weight is melting off of me right now.

Caleb did pull out the full stops on Monday, and managed to poop and pee on a quilt when I was trying to change him. And this is despite having a cloth diaper under his butt for "extra" protection. What can I do, but just laugh? ;)

One thing that surprises me is how we're using my quilts so much more. Lay one on the floor, put one at the changing station, have one next the recliner like above, toss another one on the couch. Gotta make more quilts... someday. :)

Leah

It's a boy!

2010-06-11T22:35:00.003-07:00

Whew!! On Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 10:38am, I birthed Caleb. :)

The whole thing from the first contractions until he was out was just about 12 hours. I didn't even suspect that it could be real labor until I already hit 5 centimeters dilated. There were some rough moments - it was back labor and my hips were super tight. There's no doubt if I had a normal hospital birth, I would have ended up with a c-section. Instead, it was exactly the home birth I wanted, and I hardly tore either! No stitches needed. :)

I've been up and about, you'd think I gave birth a week ago, not 2 days. Nursing is going very well too, my milk came in today and Caleb's eating like a champ. And of course, has his days and nights mixed up. :P

He was born at 10 days overdue, 7 pounds 8 ounces and 21.5" long. He hardly cries and has been cuddle all day with my mom and sister that are visiting. :)

Leah

I'm ready...

2010-06-06T07:31:00.002-07:00

...but apparently the baby isn't. :P There was a little mistake on my part with the due dates. I've been saying all this time I was due on May 27th, but it's actually May 30th. All it means it that today is the start of 41 weeks.

Here's the baby's corner! Well, the ball and pool are for birthing. I pulled out all the 0-3 month clothes, all the newborn diapers and other baby stuff that we might need in the first few days. The gray bin holds cloth diapers, which will be used in a few weeks. There's also the bear quilt that a couple of my quilting friends made for me. The blocks say stuff like "Born to be wild", "Unbearably Cute", "I love bear hugs". The white and pastel crochet blanket is another gift from a church lady.

I think we're driving a lot of family members crazy with our laid back attitude about the baby's delay. It must be very roomy in my uterus or something. But just think, it's going to have a GREAT set of lungs! ;)

Leah

Lofty Goals

2010-06-01T21:58:00.002-07:00

Nope, no baby yet... and I've reached the end of my limit on that! I finally said enough and started focusing on what I normally do, quilting. :)

It's going to a friend of mine, and the biggest hindrance was that I didn't feel like dragging the big roll of batting out. Not today! Got it out, and got 5 quilts paired with batting. Tomorrow's plan is to pin the quilt. I've already got the backing cut.

The full story of the baby is that Saturday night Chris and I decided that we wanted it to be born soon. We tried a plethora of "natural induction" methods... and obviously they failed. :P All I've got from it is a lower backache. But I could tell that I was getting incredibly cranky over trying so hard, so I said enough tonight. The baby will come when it comes. Given that Chris was a breech baby, and I was a very overdue one, I'll take overdue!

I'm still not that uncomfortable. I've weighed more than I do right now, about 3 years ago. My tummy doesn't feel like it's going to pop. I can breathe just fine, the baby has plenty of room to kick (like right now!)... so how about if I enjoy those last few days as I would normally live, instead of trying to push against nature?

I did figure making goals and announcing them on my blog might nudge the baby though. ;)

Leah

Due Date

2010-05-27T20:01:00.003-07:00

Yup, I've reached 40 weeks, and all I can say is that I'm tired. Really tired. :)

I don't feel as big as I look in that picture. I probably should though, because I had to ease myself in the booth at lunch very carefully.

There's been absolutely no nesting of any sort. See the bags of laundry behind me? Didn't get put away. I made the bed! Can I have a gold star? ;)

I measured my waist, it's 49 inches right now. Before I got pregnant, it was 41". I've also only gained 15 pounds. Sounds good to me, I'm looking forward to being able to wear a little more than the 5 bottoms and 8 maternity shirts I have.

I'm not ready to have the baby. I need another month or something. I don't have a hospital bag packed in case we end up transferring... but that's partly due to the lack of clothes. I can't find the crib mattress because it's been a catch-all for the baby stuff. At least we have the car seat in place! :D

The baby has dropped a little more, but isn't engaged yet. No other action has happened, not even Braxton-Hicks. It might be a full moon tonight, but I don't think the baby's feeling any pull to come out.

I love my midwife! Pretty much every visit we end up talking about sewing machines or quilting or related stuff. Yesterday she showed me a bunch of fabric that she wants to make a quilt with and we ended up discussing patterns that would work. Apparently not too many people get to see her sewing corner, but she saw my sewing room in less-than-pristine-condition, so it's only fair. ;)

I did get a wee bit of sewing done in the past week. I made some hotpads for Chris's birthday.

I know... it's not a very manly gift, but he definitely appreciates and uses them. I bet he'll be bugging me to make a cast iron pan holder next. And yes, he's doing the majority of the cooking (and dishes!) these days. I do stuff like turn on the crock pot. :P

I bet next week I'll be ready to start trying to get the baby out of me.

Leah

Happy Birthday!

2010-05-23T07:03:00.001-07:00

Happy 31st birthday Chris!!

Sorry to say, but I'm really sure I won't be giving you a baby for a birthday gift. ;)

Leah

Daisy Star top done

2010-05-15T21:34:00.002-07:00

I finished the Daisy Star top tonight! I'm definitely getting more comfortable with my new machine. The only thing I "miss" is the heel tap option on the foot pedal. I found myself jamming my heel down a couple of times trying to get the needle up or down before I remember it doesn't do that.

My tummy doesn't get in the way of cutting or ironing. I am probably taking an extra step backwards these days. And I'm pretty sure that the baby dropped! It's butt has been consistently 3" lower for the past few days. No more jabs to my ribs either. :)

The quilt ended up being bigger than I realized. Somehow I was mentally thinking "lap quilt", but "short twin" would be closer. I couldn't believe how well the borders worked out! I'm a bad girl, and I never measure my borders, or pin them. Just wing it and hope for the best. ;)

I highly doubt this one will be quilted any time soon. I just need to make sure that I cut some of the purple for the binding when I fold it away.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle sandwiching quilts until after the baby is born. :( My feet keep swelling all time. I just know going on my hands and knees for an hour will balloon my feet to unbelievable proportions. It gets kinda ugly as it is when I sew too long. Never had cankles before. :P

Leah

Machine humming

2010-05-12T19:39:00.002-07:00

I've been keeping my new sewing machine humming almost every day. Just before I received the machine, I started Judy's free Daisy Star pattern.

I took the easy way out and used the same fabric colors as Judy did. There's just some days where you don't want to think about what you're doing, just mindlessly follow along. :)

I'm still not very fast at the new machine. I haven't been able to find out how many stitches per minute it can do, but it feels faster than my 150 QE. No flooring the pedal for me yet.

Still need to add the borders to the quilt - but that means I gotta cut some more fabric. I'm not in the mood to cut, I just wanna sew, sew, sew with the 230 PE. :D

The baby has been behaving when I sew. It's also a rather handy thread catcher. ;)

It saves all the painful kicks for when I'm at the computer... like right now! Some days I just want to swear my belly button is going to split in half from the pressure and kicks. Ow.

Here's my mother's day gift from my mother-in-law.

My midwife and assistant really loved the necklace! There's more versions available, like Mom-Dad-Child; Mom-2 children; goes up to 4 kids I think. The brand is "Loving Family".

And I'm still trying to nudge in the nesting feeling, but no go. At least 99% of the baby stuff is all washed now.

I rigged up a clothesline on our patio. It might just be me, but the dryer seems to take forever with all the little stuff tumbling around. Just easier to haul the baby stuff home after washing and hang dry.

I certainly was fulfilling the stereotype of "barefoot and pregnant" as I hung up the clothes. ;)

Leah

Surprise Sewing Machine!

2010-05-08T23:07:00.003-07:00

It started off so innocently. My mom emailed me saying that she wanted to buy a quilting machine for herself. What would I recommend? My top three choices were a Bernina for piecing, a Janome 6500 or 6600 for the throat space or the Juki T-98 if she wanted to do a lot of free-motioning.

Mom quickly narrowed it down to the Bernina brand, from years of hearing how my sister and I liked sewing on them, I'm sure. :) I went on eBay to see what machine would likely to be the best fit for Mom. I was thinking one of the older lines would be fine for her. The one that stood out the most to me was the Activa 230 PE. Since it's a part of Bernina's current selling line, I told her to go to the local quilting shop/Bernina dealer and test the machine out herself. Then I admonished her to go home and think about the machine before buying, it's a big purchase!

She didn't make it home. :D It still makes me laugh to think about it, but she really liked the machine and bought it.

Then a few days later she let me know that I had a "baby gift" being shipped, and I should be on the lookout for it. On Friday I figured there might be a notice on the door saying I missed a package. Sure enough, there was a notice. Oh wait, it was for the US Census Bureau... oops, I haven't filled out the form yet. :P But there was also this box!

It couldn't possible be a sewing machine, could it? Perhaps it was just some accessory to go with my Bernina 150. Of course I ripped it right open, no need to wait in suspense! :)

Squeeeee! I've got my own Bernina Activa 230 PE! Completely surprised me, I never saw that one coming.

I had it up and running in less than 6 hours of receiving it. First I looked at all the pretty parts, then I went over the entire manual cover to cover, lastly I actually set up the machine. It went pretty smoothly, considering it was shipped all the way from California. I did thread the top thread wrong the first time, and it snapped after taking 2 stitches. An easy fix once I actually read the threading directions. :P

It didn't take me too long to decide to put the sewing machine at the end of the left table. Since the 230 PE has 6.5" throat space and my 150 QE has 7.75", I decided to make the 230 my primary piecing machine and the 150 primarily for free-motioning.

The really nice thing about the machines is that they take the same presser feet! And I hope the same bobbins too, but I haven't checked. I've been too busy piecing. ;)

Here's the new set up. Yeah, could use some tidying, but the nesting phrase hasn't hit me yet. The "I'm gonna sew for several hours on my new machine" phrase certainly has been here!

One of the reasons why my mom bought me the same sewing machine that she has is so that when we visit each other, it'll be a breeze to whip up a quilt project or two. We'll know how the machine works, no problem settling in. It also doesn't hurt to have a back up machine, I shouldn't be in so many tears the next time I have to take my machine in for a week or two for repairs. And someday, if the baby's interested in quilting (or just sewing), I'll have a nice machine to share and the ability to cut the motor speed in half! I don't need my heart in my throat. ;)

The only thing I haven't figured out is what this piece is for.

The manual was no help, and I can't figure out what it could possible attach to. Any ideas?

This is certainly a nice way to be initiated into motherhood. :) Happy Mother's Day Mom, and thank you!!

Leah

Full Term

2010-05-07T21:00:00.002-07:00

I've officially reached 37 weeks... the baby is safe to come any time, but I'm not ready! ;) The due date is May 27th - which is the same day as graduation at the high school Usually that means I don't see Chris at all. Plus this year his baby sister is going to be graduating. Bad day to go into labor.

Then Chris needs to go in on the 28th to turn in his keys and clear out any stuff from his classroom. So I've been ordering the baby not to appear before the 29th. ;) Thankfully it's listening so far, I haven't had a single Braxton-Hicks contraction or feel like the baby's dropped.

The baby actually has a lot of room still, only a handful of times has it actually kicked near my ribs. I have no trouble breathing still, so it's staying clear of my lungs too. Not exactly like I'm trying to run marathons either. In this picture, I'm totally sucking my tummy in. :P

It makes me look bustier! :D I managed to break 2 bras in 2 weeks. One's underwire snapped in half. The other bra's underwire popped through the fabric and tried to take my arm off. I was so annoyed about that. So I caved and bought 2 new bras and had to go up in a cup size. I still haven't bought any nursing bras either - I told you I wasn't ready for the baby to come! :P

Then I like to tell Chris my volcano story.

"See my belly button? It's the top of the volcano. And it exploded and all the red ripples are hot lava trickling down my tummy..." But I actually stopped feeling like I was splitting into two once I took up my aunt's suggestion of rubbing Vitamin E oil on my tummy.

Chris is going to be hauling me around tomorrow to get the last minute baby stuff we need. Like a tarp for the birthing pool, a hose to fill it up, 2 gallon ziplock baggies, and more stuff that I can't remember. My brain is a sieve these days. :)

Leah

Third Finish

2010-05-01T22:34:00.002-07:00

Third quilt of the year finished! Admittedly, they've all been baby or lap quilts. I'm just not up to snuff to do a queen. :P

In my other post about the Crazy 9-patch, I was bemoaning that one of my fabrics weren't as orange as I hoped. Solution? Quilt it with orange thread.

I had some leftover blocks, so I made a standard 9-patch for the backing.

The rest of the backing fabric fits the quilt well, as this was a rather off the wall pattern for me.

A close up of the quilting. I was experimenting with double loops, and tossed in some stars for variety.

I didn't put pressure on myself for perfection. There's spots where thread crosses over, single loops and triple loops because I wasn't paying attention and "trapped" myself. I branched out, and I'm happy with that.

I'm starting to think this journal keeps my quilting sanity! I don't have to worry about "momnesia" eating my brain cells and leaving me with a whole bunch of pieces to a quilt that I don't even remember starting.

You can tell from the dates that I definitely quilt in spurts. I almost wonder if I'll have time to quilt more once the baby is born, because my computer is in the bedroom with the crib. I'll have to keep the screen off and either nap with the baby or blow time quilting.

In reality, I have no idea how much the baby will change things. It might think a pile of fabric is fun to nap in, it might cry "hold me! feed me!" 24/7. I'll be finding out. ;)

Leah

Quilting repairs

2010-04-24T22:10:00.002-07:00

I think this is a first for me, but I needed to make a repair on my husband's winter quilt. The thread holding the binding busted a while ago (oh, like a couple years ago) but only now did I actually take 5 whole minutes to restitch the binding down. It's amazing how with procrastination, we can make a project much bigger than it actually is! :P

The most frustrating thing? The binding is fabric I bought from a quilt shop, and the thread was Aurifil, which can sell for $10 a spool. I wonder why buying "the best" didn't work out in my favor.

Hopefully the rest of the binding will stay in place! :)

Leah

35 Weeks

2010-04-22T21:25:00.002-07:00

Today I'm 35 weeks and I figured I was a bit overdue for a baby update. I don't know why I'm so bad about tummy shots, I don't feel awkward taking them. I didn't even have to look up the camera's manual to figure out the timer this time. :)

And ohh yeah, I can see some swelling in my face! I don't see it so much in the mirror. It's mostly my feet that swell and bug me, but it's not random swelling, it comes from certain stuff. Getting on the floor to pin a quilt? Major swelling. :P

Since I was on the patio, I figured I'd grab some shots of my EarthBoxes.

I took the easy way out this year and bought flowers from Lowes. $4 for a dozen and in my third trimester? Totally worth it. Hopefully the purple ones will revive soon.

My herb box is doing well. I didn't expect the parsley and chives to pop up this year, since they struggled to thrive last year. If you can call 3 blades of chives "popping up". :P

We mostly use the rosemary in our cooking, but I think I'm gonna have to nudge Chris to come up with a meal that uses oregano, it's certainly sprouting well right now. The lemon thyme is a new addition and half of it died off... I hope the roots are establishing themselves now.

Can somebody nudge me? Nothing is getting done around here without nudges. This post is a result of my mom "nudging" me by mentioning how much she liked seeing my tummy in my last post. :)

Leah

"It's interesting"

2010-04-17T20:36:00.002-07:00

Earlier this week I stumbled upon Oh Fransson's Crazy 9-patch Lattice quilt. For whatever reason, I felt an urge to make it. I decided to use not-so-well-loved pieces of hand dyed fabrics. If you put enough uglies together, it'll become beautiful, right? :D

There's a tip about pressing the seams open - do it!! At least for the first two seams, or else you'll find yourself trying to cut through 27 layers of fabric at once.

Right after I finished piecing the top together, I had this much thread left on my spool. Cutting it close! (And yes, that's my tummy getting in the way. It's also a handy thread-catcher.)

I thought that was my last Silver spool - that's how I know when I "need" to make an order to Connecting Threads, when I'm out of Silver thread, as I use that for all my piecing. Well, I found another half-used spool, so I'm good for a while. Good thing too, because we've got too many expenses going on right now. Can you tell that I just sent a big ol' check to the Arizona Department of Revenue? I could have bought 150 Essential Thread spools! :P

Here's the top itself. Yup, "it's interesting," just like Chris said. It's certainly not the normal quilt pattern I put forth from my sewing machine.

I kinda wish I had selected an more orange fabric, but I don't have too many of those dyed. And the oranges I do have weren't "ugly" enough for what I had in mind.

And what do you know, it's possible to pin a quilt at 34 weeks pregnant! :) I did have to get a little creative by straddling a pillow to give myself an extra boost. I could only do one row of blocks at a time, can't lean more forward. It took about 30 minutes of actual pinning time for this quilt.

Currently the baby is head's down, in a posterior position. I really want the baby in the anterior position so I can avoid back labor! I recently read that some ladies have good luck getting the baby to spin by spending time on their hands and knees every day. Guess I better pin a quilt every day.

Chris's comment on the backing of the quilt, "it's different." But you'll have to wait until I quilt it to see. :)

Leah

A little bit of nesting?

2010-04-12T17:34:00.001-07:00

Seems like I did a bit of unexpected "nesting" this past week. I'll admit to being extra slow, due to a cold! Yuck. Hard to think about where you want things when you're busy blowing your brains out. ;)

It all started with the crib my mother-in-law graciously bought for us. I was going to put it against the brick wall, between the bed and bookshelves... but I could just see the baby grabbing my hair or pulling down books in the middle of the night.

The bookcases have to go... and the only place is my sewing room.

But before I could rehome the books, I needed to clear out the pile of batting and fabric.

It totally exploded in the living room! Admittedly, the couch makes my fabric pile twice as big as it really is. :)

Once that pile was out of the bedroom, I put the three bookcases in and reshelved the books.

I did take care to put the more read and favored books on the upper shelves, since I knew the fabric would be blocking the lower shelves. Can't deny my husband access to his Dune books. ;)

Then last night Chris "bribed" me to get the fabric and batting back into my sewing room so we could cuddle on the couch and watch the latest James Bond movie.

A little snug, but it's the best I can do. Not to mention I'd rather have the baby pull down a stack of fabric than a stack of books.

Little ones sure make you rethink all your furniture arrangements! :)

Leah

Stretched

2010-04-03T22:08:00.002-07:00

Now that I'm 7 months pregnant, I'm getting stretched in new ways! My poor belly button looks like a frown (but it's not an outie). Now I'm developing an assortment of red claw marks on my lower tummy. Thankfully when the first one popped up, Chris just kissed it and told me he likes me anyhow. Since then, I just remind myself that guys like what's above and below the belly more! :D

Just about every day you'll hear me saying "oof!" because I forgot to make mental allowances for the growing belly. :P

Oof - I shut the fridge door on my belly again.

Oof - I was bending or squatting to reach something and hit my own personal roadblock. I've made Chris get stuff in the back bottom shelf or at the bottom of the chest freezer.

Oof - I couldn't get the regular restroom door to close easily at the gym. I just use the handicap stall now.

Oof - Chris was demonstrating something with his hands and whacked my tummy. This had us laughing pretty hard. :)

Oof - I was trying to get a little closer to the ironing board tonight and all I did was rock it. Good thing I was holding the iron, I'm not in the mood to deal with replacing it. :P

Hopefully I'll lose the stretch marks after the baby is born. I got some on my lower tummy when I was 20 pounds heavier, but once I lost the weight, they disappeared. Not that it matters, I'm not a bikini gal. ;)

Leah

Not gestational diabetes!

2010-03-27T22:31:00.003-07:00

The good news, I don't have gestational diabetes. I didn't think so with my blood sugar readings... but why did I get such a high number at the midwife's? Turns out that I was the first of 3 people to get unusually high readings, then she realized she needed to recalibrate her meter. I'm glad it's just a minor error, and not something actually wrong with ME. :)

But it did ramp up eating better in our household. Like pie for dinner. ;) That would be turkey pot pie, loaded with veggies.

Another night we had chicken corn chowder. Made with heavy cream, yum!

I'm not trying to do low fat at this point, I'm still one pound short of reaching my pre-pregnancy weight. I've only gained 17 of the 18 pounds I lost in the first trimester.

What to do with the leftover cream? Whip it up and add fruit, like blueberries.

It takes care of my cravings for sweets, without giving me a potential blood sugar spike from flour or sugar.

And sometimes we're just not feeling in the mood to do "real cooking" from scratch, and meals like this one get thrown together.

It's brown rice with some apple chicken sausage. Plus my water with liquid chlorophyll. I gotta take 2 tablespoons of that stuff everyday. It doesn't taste bad, but it stains my lips and teeth dark green. I love green... but not that much!

It feels good to know that I'm back on track with having a healthy pregnancy. :)

Leah

Carpenter's Wheel Finished

2010-03-20T23:44:00.002-07:00

Just taking a moment to show you the completed Carpenter's Wheel quilt that I gave teasers on a few weeks ago.

It shrunk down from 40" square to 38" after I washed it. I firmly believe that all baby quilts should be washed before gifted, sooner or later the baby will have an accident on it with frequent use. I don't want any poor parent secretly fussing "oh no! It shrunk, I better never let Leah see the quilt again, it would be hard to explain..." Nope, quilts should be given as they're going to get used and abused. :)

Leah

Five favorites from the show

2010-03-15T22:37:00.002-07:00

Just taking a minute to show my 5 favorite quilts from the annual quilt show. Five because that's how many pictures blogger lets me upload at once. :)

It's been a rough week, hence why I haven't blogged as much as I normally do. Last Wednesday I got a blood sugar reading of 189. The maximum number to have without raising a red flag was 140. Whoops!

So we started treating it like gestational diabetes. I bought a meter, strips and lancets. I began to test first thing in the morning and after every meal.

But no matter what I tried, or what carbs I added in, I couldn't get that high of a reading again. My numbers were very consistently normal - even after eating cherry cobbler. :P I would eat stuff that I was so sure that would give me a spike... and my blood sugar wasn't even 100.

I don't think I have gestational diabetes, but we're going to do the 3-hour glucose test to make sure. I even tried to recreate the food I had the day I received the 189, and I got a reading of 96. :) Nor do my numbers dip too low, another problem diabetics have.

It certainly ramped up my focus on good food and bumping exercise from 2-3 times a week, to physical activity every day. I haven't been feeling poorly, and the baby has been active as ever. Just a scare that caused us to get our butts into a higher gear.

Last Friday I was doing some sewing and my stomach started to hurt the more I sewed. After half an hour, I realized that I was sucking in my tummy because I was trying to get closer to the sewing machine! It's getting snug here. ;)

Leah

Quilty Saturday

2010-03-06T22:55:00.002-07:00

I started this Carpenter's Wheel towards the end of February, but didn't buck down to make progress until today.

I did modify it some, by making the blocks 5" finished so I would have a 40" quilt. I also put HSTs in the corners, instead of solid squares like the pattern shows.

Once the top was done... why not iron out a piece of backing? Then why not pin the quilt together while waiting for Chris to finish dinner? Hey, it's still early, I bet it won't take too long to quilt up either.

Then before you know it, it's covered with loops and the binding is sewn on too. Works for me! :)

The quilt is for a baby shower next week. I really want to get the binding done before Tuesday so I can wash it. Nothing like a soft cuddly quilt.

Leah

Hanging at the quilt show

2010-02-27T22:31:00.002-07:00

I used this quilt back in November to announce my pregnancy. There's no hiding it now! :)

So far my quilt hasn't sold, but there's still one more day. I'll have to find a place to hang it in my home if it does come back with me.

And I finally found a use for the bag I won from Winona. It held my purse, camera, car keys and name tag. I bet there'll be room for an extra diaper next year. ;)

Leah

First Finish of 2010

2010-02-21T00:09:00.001-07:00

Whoo hoo! First completed quilt in 2010. And Chris teased me that it might be my last. Hmmph, I hope not. :)

It's all leftovers of other quilts. The center strip is leftover ends from my Challenge Quilt, and the 4 side strips are leftovers of the Old Red Barn quilt along.

I never did get my design wall back up after moving. I usually can get away with the floor or ironing board, but I used my pile o' batting this time.

One thing that I've started doing is journaling my quilt progress in a sketch book with heavy-duty paper. For whatever reason, it really motivates me!

You can see a rough drawing of the quilt I had in mind, my math and my notes. Then I dated my progress. I'll have to add that I blogged about it on the 21st. :) I'm also planning to get a hard copy of the finish quilt and taping it to the other side. Sorta like a scrapbook?

Here's it being ready to be pinned.

I started getting a feeling that something was off...

...but I didn't figure it out until tonight and actually measured both sides. One is 46.5" long, the other is 45". Oops!

I realize what I did wrong when I was trimming the quilt, but too late now. Since I have a small fabric fold in the backing too, I'll just go ahead and keep it for the baby. :)

A great way to use leftover bits of other projects!

Leah

Gotta quilt faster!

2010-02-14T00:38:00.003-07:00

Here I made a backing for the pink and green quilt top I completed. I figured the white would make a great spot for the label.

And yes, it's ripply as it looks. :( I'm not sure why, but my guess is because I tore off the selvage, instead of cutting it off. Must have stretched the fabric? I just tell myself I can quilt it out! Tell me the same too, please. :D

The quilting is going to have to wait a little bit, as I need the batting from the yellow bag and there's a whole bunch of tops paired with battings that are waiting to be quilted.

I did get another backing prepared for a quilt in the pile, so that's progress! And nope, it doesn't ripple, since it's just one piece. :)

Leah

Road to Spring quilt along

2010-02-09T21:04:00.003-07:00

Been keeping my sewing machine humming with the Road To Spring Quilt Along. This top practically flew together.

After making the boyish train quilt, I was definitely in the mood for girly. :) But of course I can't give up my favorite color, green, so I mixed the two.

I jumped the gun and started piecing my "blocks" before the directions were released. Then I found out I was doing it wrong... but both ways lead to a finished top.

I just loved not having to match seams! Only needed to pay attention to which direction I was pressing the blocks.

And it grows...

I tried very hard to make sure that every 4 blocks didn't have any repeat of green or pink fabrics. Plenty of shuffling happened towards the end.

The completed top! It should be measuring 50"x72". Once again, a good bed quilt for a child under 10.

I was hoping to make a nice dent in my stash of older greens... ha! Not hardly. :P

I do kinda wish I had a higher fabric turn over in my stash so I could buy newer stuff more often. I don't want to buy something that's STILL going to be in my fabric stash 5 years down the road. Except for hand dyes, I never tire of them. :)

Leah

Goodies and LizzieB Crea8ive

2010-02-03T21:08:00.003-07:00

I squeaked under the deadline! Today was the last day the guild was accepting quilt show submissions. I was ready to turn it in at the last meeting, but I didn't know I was supposed to include the Challenge description.

I also made the decision to put a $250 price tag on it. For whatever reason, I'm not emotionally attached to the quilt. I think because it didn't quite turn out like I envisioned in my head. I wanted it to look like a flower, yellow center, purple pedals, blue and green leaves. The other thing is the yellow-orange fabric dominates the quilt, when I was trying to make the blue-green dominate by making it the biggest diamond. Between the very heavy quilting and use of hand dyed fabrics, I put a larger price tag than I normally would.

The program meeting today was Beth Hawkins from the LizzieB Crea8ive team. She did a slideshow combined with showing the actual quilts she had on hand. When she came to the blue sunflower quilt... I knew I would want that pattern!

We've had several trunk shows over the years, but this is the first time I actually bought a pattern. I just adore those flowers and figured it's about time I had a quilt made with them. :)

Lastly, all is going well in my pregnancy! I'm definitely starting to look pregnant now. This is my official 5 months photo. There's been a lot of kicking of the late.

I'm hoping to hit garage sales in the next several weeks, I'm on the look out for a bed for the baby. Our first thought was to get a pack'n'play, but I'm open to other deals we might find. Cash can talk a nice bargain. ;)

Leah

Choo-choo!

2010-01-30T20:03:00.002-07:00

I got the train quilt top done! This means I can move onto some other quilt projects that have been lurking in my head the past month. :)

There was 288 HSTs... just about wiped me out.

I timed myself, it took 50 minutes to just iron them open.

Then it took another 20 minutes to clip off the dog ears.

Good thing I didn't try king sized, it needs 972 HSTs.

24 blocks, and I managed to bust around 5.5 yards for this top.

I'm down to just inches on the blue, yellow and train fabric. That left either white or green for the binding... and any sane person would pick green!

I opted to put sashing on this quilt, even though the original directions didn't call for it. I just couldn't bear the idea of matching up all those HSTs seams. Yes, I'm a wimp. :)

I was hoping that the white in the quilt would give a railroad crossing look. Yellow yard, green shrubbery. Eh... pretty good for being all from stash except the train fabric. I really don't buy a lot of focus fabrics.

If we end up having a baby boy, I'll have a good quilt for him to grow into. It measures about 52x78. Not quite twin sized, but good for a child under 10. If I don't have a boy... we can always try again. ;)

Leah

A new mat

2010-01-23T20:51:00.002-07:00

A couple posts ago, I mentioned that I wanted to get a bigger cutting mat. I finally did! JoAnn's was having a 40% sale on notions, 50% sale on Kona cotton fabric, and through my guild, I have a 10% discount card for all purchases made. It just means that I got $65 of quilting goods for $35. :)

Not only is there double the cutting width, but my rotary cutter slides SO much smoother! I felt like swearing I had put a new blade on, but I hadn't. I think the biggest thing with my old mat, it just had a million little grooves from 4+ years of use. I was always needing to clean off little bits of green rubber from my blade. Yet if I didn't press harder, it wouldn't cut the fabric. Now I'm just whizzing through the fabric on the new mat. I did switch from Olfa to Dritz, merely due to the cost.

Currently I'm working on a train themed quilt... and frankly my heart isn't very into it. Yet I know if I don't push through and finish it, it'll never get done! I want to at least get the top made before moving onto a new project. I think the 288 HSTs really kicked down my excitement for the quilt. And it's just a lap size one! :P

Leah

For the guild

2010-01-15T22:17:00.002-07:00

At the last guild meeting, I snagged a baggie with 5" blocks and 6" border fabric, to make into this top.

What I had in mind, and what actually came out are two different things, but you can a semblance of a pattern going on for the most part. At the top, I had to get creative since I didn't have a perfect balance of brown and blue blocks.

Every year, the quilt guild asks that each member participates in at least one charity quilt. You can make your own or you can work with one of the kits they provide. Sometimes the kits are to put together a top, other times it can be a quilt to finish - just take what you're capable of doing.

I figured I should get started on 2010's charity quilt sooner than later, since my hands are going to be very full with the coming baby. :) And I bet the guild would forgive me if I couldn't find the time to get one in for 2011, but I hope that's not needed!

Leah

Half way there

2010-01-07T19:29:00.002-07:00

Today marks 20 weeks exactly, half way done. :)

I was thrilled that I made it to 2010 in normal clothes (non-stretch jeans), but on January 3rd, I caved and switched to maternity bottoms. I'm so glad my mom bought me a few back in October, I'm having a hard time finding stuff that works!

I tried on a pair of jeans I found at the thrift store - they were long! Everything about them was good, except they were really snug in the knees. I never had that issue before. When I got home, I asked Chris "are my knees fat?" Poor guy, he didn't know what to think or say. ;)

The funny thing is that I've only gained half an inch. Before getting pregnant, my waist was 41", then as soon as morning sickness hit, I puffed to 43" and didn't budge for the longest time. Yesterday I measured 43.5". I think it's a combination of losing some back fat at the same time I'm putting it on the front. Problem is my normal clothes don't want to conform to the shape change! :P

How are things going? Pretty good. I've got a midwife appointment next week - I'm sure it'll be rather routine, but she wanted to see a bit of belly showing this time. I've only gained 2 pounds over the holidays, and still 13 pounds less than my pre-pregnancy weight. Hopefully breastfeeding will be kind to my body also. :)

The baby is kicking up a storm these days - thankfully during the DAY. I'm not woken up with little jabs in the middle of the night. Haven't had any luck in getting Chris to feel movements yet (apparently his hands have a calming effect), but we're sure it'll happen in a good time. And we've gotten nowhere on names. Well, he's really good at eliminating stuff. :D

No more baby stuff purchased since that box of wipes. I keep telling myself that I'll hit garage sales as the weather warms up. Maybe I'm just waiting for it all to rain down from the sky. ;)

Leah

A cleaner room for 2010

2010-01-04T21:39:00.004-07:00

After Christmas, I figured the best thing I could do for my quilting was clean out 2009's messes.

I started off with my sewing machine. A bit of lint had built up from all the free-motioning.

I also put in a fresh needle. If you can't remember the last time you put a new needle in, it's time for a change!

Time to retire my free-motion starter. It's just two pieces of fabric with some leftover batting. This really has prevented moments of frustration over bad tension - it's on the scrap piece, and not the quilt. No need to get friendly with my seam ripper!

For whatever reason, certain Essential threads aren't holding their tension. I just blame the age (2+ years old) and the air (very moist in the summer, rather dry in the winter). Thankfully the bad free-motion threads still piece just fine, so it's not a total loss.

My cutting table certainly has seen better days. :P

I have a habit of slicing off the ends and then pushing them to the right. It's not so bad when it's fabric, but when I'm trimming completed quilts, it piles up real fast!

Nice and clean now. I can find my rulers, I only have 2 projects on the table; this is much more manageable.

Sometimes I ponder on buying a larger mat, mine is only 18x24. I think a 24x36 would be just lovely, but somehow I never remember about that when I go to JoAnn's. I guess it's not that important. ;)

I figured the year's end was also the perfect time to refold the pile of quilts. Don't want lifelong creases in them!

Refolding quilts will probably end up being one of the baby's chores down the road - they're perfect for it, since they would fold them lopsidedly. :)

All refolded, and a couple more quilts added. I was letting them pile up in the bedroom for no logical reason.

I might need to relocate some of the quilts, to shorten the pile. The cutting table is to the right of the stack, and since I'm left handed, I keep whacking my elbow into the quilts. Thankfully it doesn't hurt, but one of these days it'll take me by surprise and I'll drop an open rotary cutter on my other hand or something.

Don't think I'm perfect though, there's one part of the room I haven't even touched! The fabric and batting.

I kept digging through my fabric for "the piece I KNOW I have!" at Christmas. No time to refold it then. The batting pile is half back-less quilts, as I don't have ready backing pieces for them. At the bottom is the big ol' yellow bag with at least 30 yards of batting left. I definitely have everything I need for making quilts from start to finish. :)

Is your space all set for a new year of sewing? If not, what'cha waiting for? Santa Claus? ;)

Leah

Ann's NYE 2009 Mystery

2010-01-01T13:36:00.002-07:00

Yesterday Ann had her New Year's Eve mystery. You got a teaser of the fabric back in November.

I'm pretty pleased with how mine turned out. The only thing I would have changed is the yellow for some light pink. No matter, a butterfly border should pull the quilt all together.

I've already started a twin size quilt with train fabric. I figured I better start making some more boy quilts, since my husband's family thinks that's what we're having. I think that since we're already going "against the grain" (midwife, no OB, no ultrasounds, etc) the baby might be everything they DON'T think it is. ;)

Leah

Christmas 2009

2009-12-31T17:26:00.004-07:00

It was a very handmade Christmas on my part this year. Easy for me, since I already had the resources on hand. My wallet isn't complaining either! ;)

I made a card for my husband, using paper from our wedding invitations and acrylic paint that I had around.

You can't really see it, but the red and white paint shimmer - which also makes it hard to photograph! I used a pencil to outline what I wanted to paint (the words, circle and bow) and free-hand the ornament's center design.

For my father-in-law, I made a collage of his dog, Angel. I've been snapping photos of her all year long so I would have a nice variety.

Angel is now 10 years old, and since my dog died at 11, I'm very personally aware how little time she might have left. I really wished I had done something like this with my dog... but instead of living in regret over that, I opted to make sure others won't regret a chance to remember their pet! Of course, it helped that I see Angel almost every week. :)

For my mother-in-law, I made some potholders.

Pooh fabric on one side, Christmas on the other. I'll say I learned the hard way to keep the quilting simple! It distorts too much otherwise, due to the special heat-resistant batting.

For my husband's brother and wife, I gave them a quilt. It's one that I had around for several years, but never had a reason to finish it.

It's also one of the few boy-ish quilts I have - good thing, since they're expecting a son in February.

And here you can see them opening the quilt. Christmas is always a great time to use up Christmas fabric. How did I get so much of it?!

Kenya's about 7 months pregnant in this photo. All I can really remember is that she's 14 weeks ahead of me, and I'm 19 weeks today.

Kenya's daughter hugging her pillow and pillowcase that I made.

I wasn't aware of it, but apparently Starla LOVES to surround herself with pillows in her bed. Couldn't have given her a better gift I tried! :D

For Chris's expecting sister, I made a quilt to match their theme for the baby.

I made an uneven 9-patch, diced it into fourths and mixed it up. I really wanted to use the green for the sashing and blue for the cornerstones... but I didn't have enough green.

I had finished the quilt on the 22nd, and she found out the gender on the 23rd. I did tell Chris to pray hard that she's having a boy, I didn't have time to make a new quilt! :P Lucky me, no remakes needed.

Hopefully there'll be many happy hours of snuggling.

I've also discovered that I only like making handmade gifts if I can SEE you open it. I want to see people's reactions over something I've put many hours of work and care into. Hence why there was a lot of homemade gifts for my family last year, but I'm not planning the same this year. Can't see them!

Leah

Never tire of snow!

2009-12-28T23:05:00.002-07:00

A week ago I awoke, put my contacts on and turned on the computer. There was some ladies talking about snow on a forum, and I was about to write a pouting reply (because I want snow!), and I took a peek out the window to see if it was still windy... and I saw snow!!!

Let me just say it's a very good thing the baby isn't born yet, my squealing would have woken it up for sure. :P

I tromped all around the apartment complex with my camera, snapping shots of whatever made my heart sing.

The snow is gone now, but lucky me, I can still look up to the mountains for some white.

Since Chris had an early doctor's appointment that morning, I decided it would be a nice treat for him if I cleared off his truck.

When he came out to leave, I rewarded him with two snowballs from the powder on the hood. :D Of course, I missed him by several feet! I don't have a lot of practice throwing snowballs...

Anybody care to send me some more snow? I've got plenty of quilts and cider to stay warm. :)

Leah

I'm not panicking!

2009-12-21T20:27:00.002-07:00

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm not panicking at all over Christmas this year. Ok, yeah, I totally missed the boat with my side of the family and I'm just going to have to deal with it in 2010. Hey, they got Christmas on time last year for them. ;)

We had another midwife visit last Wednesday, and it's all good. Baby's heartbeat was 153, my blood pressure was 113/78. No weight gain! That one made me happy. :) And I'm not really showing yet. Yes, I'm 17 weeks and 1 day in picture.

The baby is still hanging below my belly button right now. My upper tummy is a lot of mushy parts and flab, my lower is almost rock hard. I can't go very far when I poke down there. The baby won't listen to me though, I keep telling it to stay off of my bladder!

Lots of sewing going on... and I told myself I wouldn't put that kind of pressure on me this year! Well, I didn't know people were going to be having babies left and right in the family. :)

Pillowcase for my... step-niece? Does that term exist? I'll buy a pillow for it and it'll be a nice fluffy gift to wrap.

Then I made two more pillowcases for our bed, to give to Chris. I had two sets of fabric that would work for the pillowcases, so I asked Chris which he liked better... and he was like "well, this one is more Christmas like. Is that what you want the baby quilt to be?" I pretended to ponder on it for a moment while I got my face under control. :P Then I told him babies aside, which pair does he like better?

Oh yeah... you can see a bit of my tummy at the bottom of the picture. Guess I'm showing a little more that I realized? I haven't needed to put any of the maternity clothes I have to work. Yet. ;)

Merry Christmas!

Leah

Tis the season of secrets

2009-12-14T18:19:00.002-07:00

I've been quilting! But I've been quilting on Christmas gifts. And since both my family and Chris's family know about my blog, nothing is safe now. ;)

So very spur-of-the-moment (less than 12 hours ago), Chris decided he wanted to do a Christmas tree. This Christmas will mark our 6th one together, and we've never decorated in any way before. The baby changes a lot of our ways of thinking!

Well, there's no Christmas trees to be had. Apparently there was a fire at the place that supplies real trees to this town, so there's a big shortage? My in-laws had to get their living tree from Tucson, a couple weeks later than normal. With that in mind, we decided to go for a fake tree. There's hardly any fake trees left either! We finally found one at Walmart that could work, we'll find out when we set it up tomorrow. :)

The other thing we're sad about is that we could absolutely not find any color Christmas lights for the tree. Well, we found red and purple, but want the multi-set. I'm hoping I can borrow some from my mother-in-law. If not, we'll just have to get out sooner next year and snag some.

The baby is doing well, I've been feeling it move since last week. :) Just 3 or 4 times a day, but I can tell they're getting stronger. I have a midwife appointment on Wednesday, I always look forward to those because I learn a lot and feel much more peaceful about having a baby. Oh yeah... I can't seem to keep my hands off of pomegranates!

I snagged some really big ones from Costco for $1.25 each. I'll remove the seeds (30-45 minutes) and then spend the next hour nibbling them away. Don't be surprised if the baby is born scarlet red. ;)

Mmm... I'm off to have another pomegranate!

Leah

First Baby Purchase!

2009-12-06T19:34:00.002-07:00

I've made my first official baby item purchase this weekend. I'm not counting the pregnancy tests I used, or the $500 check for the midwife. ;)

Yeah, baby wipes! I can't have too many of those, can I? Hopefully it'll last a couple of months at least. But I'm planning to buy a box every time I go to Costco. Clean bottoms are important 'round here. ;)

Another thing that I forked over some cash for was this lotion.

I'm trying to lotion up after every shower. I'm hoping to avoid stretch marks on my tummy with faithful moisturizing. I also make Chris do my back, it gets so itchy otherwise. Oh yeah, I like backrubs. :D This is the only lotion that hasn't made Chris rush off to the bathroom to wash his hands as soon as he's done rubbing me.

My sister-in-law that's due one week before me is WAY ahead of me in baby stuff. She's got a whole room dedicated to the baby, matching furniture set, and now says all she needs is a rug and the baby! I feel very behind compare to her. But Chris pointed out so long as the baby has clean clothes and diapers, plenty of boob time, a comfy spot to sleep, and plenty of lovin', it'll do just fine. My wallet thanks him. ;)

In other news, my baby sister went sky diving!! No, the picture is not upside down, her boyfriend is. :P

Sarah figured she better do this stuff before she starts having any kids! Good thinking.

In other family news, Pops is doing better! He's in rehab right now, and eagerly waiting to get home, I'm sure. Dad and Sarah cleaned up a couple rooms for him this weekend. I may or may not have had a moment of relief that people don't expect me to do heavy duty stuff now. ;) No filling up trash bags, no carrying full ice chests up the stairs, and no more carrying the laundry baskets. My tummy doesn't like the pressure of the basket. I've resorted to two Ikea bags for the clothes.

I'm at 15.5 weeks... and still in normal clothes! I did find a pair of maternity jeans at the thrift store for $10 and snatched them up. They fit well everywhere except on the tummy - too big. :)

Leah

Christmas on my mind

2009-11-29T13:52:00.002-07:00

After watching the Missouri Star Quilt Co tube tutorial, I had an itch to try my hand at making a few blocks. Thankfully, I had the sense to start off with one strip's worth, instead of an entire quilt! The bias edge is very strong on the white fabric.

Not directly Christmas fabrics, but definitely Christmas colors. I like how much work it looks to get all those slanted angles, but it was easy cuts with no trimming.

I think I'll go ahead and make an entire quilt! For no reason other than to avoid the real Christmas gifts I should be working on. ;)

Leah

Update On Me

2009-11-21T16:32:00.003-07:00

I had a midwife visit last Wednesday, and it went very well. I really appreciate that they take all the time they need (1.5 hours this time) and are very friendly and patient with my deafness. I got to meet another midwife-in-training, and I hope she's able to come for the birth.

They gave us some paperwork. Foods that have protein, emergency list - if I should call the midwife NOW or within 24 hours. A consent paper and then a financial agreement. Everything is in order and we made the first payment of $500. I do need to work harder on adding dark leafy greens, but they're pretty happy with my water intake and protein consumption.

My blood pressure was 111/74, a number I'm happy with. The assistant actually took my blood pressure twice because I was laughing about something else during the first take, and that can raise the numbers a bit. I can't imagine that happening at a doctor's office - a retake or laughing. :P

We also got to hear the heartbeat. They weren't sure how they could make me "hear" it. I could hear the sounds of the doppler machine... but how could I tell what was what? Well, the assistant brilliantly thought of tapping my arm when the machine was actually catching the beats. It worked great! It's just a little under 150 beats per minute.

They also felt for my uterus bump. The assistant started below my belly button and was working her way down without finding it. So the midwife took over and found the baby nestled very low, as you can see in the above picture. Most of my belly is NOT baby! :P

I'm officially at 17 pounds lost, but it didn't raise any flags with the midwife. I'm doing my best to eat all she wants me to, there's been no puking, blood pressure is good, heartbeat is good. The baby diet... how come nobody ever told me about it? ;)

And as you can see from my arm, I had to go in for a blood draw. I think I'd rather go through labor than do that again! After talking with some friends, I realized my issues stem from when I was 5 years old. I had to get a blood draw and I only remember them pinning down my arm and inflicting pain on me. Now that I have a more adult perspective, I'm willing to bet my parents had the blood draw done because I had suddenly lost the hearing in my right ear, when before I was only deaf in the left ear. I basically woke up one morning and complained to my mom that everybody sounded like they were speaking Spanish. So you have a little girl who can talk, but no longer understand what everybody else is saying... how do you make her understand what's going on with the blood draw? Plus my mom was trying to juggle a 3 year old, 1 year old and was pregnant with my brother. Realizing the big picture helped, but I was really emotionally drained for the rest of the day.

In other news, Pops is in the hospital with pneumonia. They're going to try to take him off the ventilator tomorrow. And thankfully it doesn't look like his heart is complicating things.

But I realized that even if he does die... I have no regrets. I have the sentimentally dear things, the quilts made by my great-great-grandma and my great-grandma's sewing machine. He's got a quilt from me, he's gotten to meet and know my husband. He knows about the baby too - I'm glad I didn't wait to share the news.

He better pull through... he's got a great-grandchild to meet next year! :)

Leah

Celebrating

2009-11-14T22:41:00.002-07:00

There's quite a few things to celebrate this week. Like, this is my 400th post! I didn't get my act together to have a giveaway though. Who cares, I can always celebrate my 461st post. ;)

I just had my 27th birthday. I was looking forward to it because the 12th of November also marked 12 weeks of being pregnant. Alas, the gas and food fickleness hasn't disappeared. I should wait until 13 weeks, when I'm actually out of my first trimester, eh?

I also celebrated my birthday by starting a new quilt. :D

I got lucky enough to snag a spot as one of Ann's mystery testers for the New Year's Eve Mystery. It's a really easy one! There's lots of HSTs, but thankfully it's a pre-sewing clue, not something you need to do on the actual mystery day.

The requirements are a focus fabric and 4 coordinating pieces. Since there's babies abound in my husband's family right now, I figured I better whip up a couple more crib sized quilts. :)

I also received a piece of rush mail from my parents - my birthday card with a generous check included. It's all going towards the midwife!! And then there was this picture of a totaled car enclosed.

I was thinking my dad had taken a picture of some car on his way to a job site or something... but no, it turns out the car was my brother Ben's. You'd think he would learn from his New Year's Day experience... but if you look at the last sentence of that post, I think we're going to have to go with "perhaps not." :P

I don't have the full story, but what I gather, he bought the car less than 24 hours before (I'm gonna guess he sold the Mustang), was going down some hill with a friend and obviously lost control. I wonder how that phone call to my parents went... "Everybody's ok. I kinda scraped up my new car."

I'm not worried - Ben text me on my birthday saying "happy bday!". That he got the right day tells me that he's ok. :) And if he applies himself, he can earn all the money he needs for a new car in a couple of months. And whatever the new car is, it'll be #6 for him. He goes through cars faster than I go through sewing machines! :)

Leah

Baby Update

2009-11-07T18:26:00.000-07:00

On Halloween night, my husband's sister Sarah and her husband came over to pick up our old green couch. Which I was so grateful for! I didn't need to help carry the couch down the stairs, nor deal with getting it to Tucson to give to another one of Chris's sisters. (He has three!) Then Sarah and James gave us their news - Sarah's expecting a baby!

(Nope, not her baby, some cousin of her husband's or something.) Sarah is due May 20, 2010 - exactly one week before I am. May's gonna be a busy month! She's planning on finding out the gender of the baby, and lemme tell you, if it's a boy, there's going to be a ton of pressure on me to produce a girl! :)

Actually, I'm feeling more pressure about the cost of having a baby. *gulp!* I went to Amazon.com to see what kind of baby stuff is out there, and it was just so overwhelming. I promptly chickened out and went to Costco.com and found it a lot less cluttered.

They've got this car seat that's good from birth to 65 pounds. $200. And this would also mean having one dedicated car for the baby, instead of using two bases and just snapping in the seat in whichever vehicle we were taking. I can live with that, especially since we wouldn't have to buy 2 or 3 carseats over the child's lifetime.

I'm planning to skip out on a crib completely and go with a portable option. I just need to find out if I can collapse it, as it's 29.3" wide, and our doorway to the bedroom is 27.5". It'd be nice to be able to port it from the bedroom to living room or sewing room as needed.

It's $90 at Costco and apparently Sears and Target carry it too (for $100), so I'll swing by one of those places and figure out if I can collapse it. If not... the hunt begins again.

Lastly... I'd love to do cloth diapers. Tell me I'm insane. I don't have a washer, I do my laundry once a week at my in-law's house. I'm sure my mother-in-law wouldn't mind seeing me twice a week, so long as the baby is in tow. :)

And cloth diapering isn't exactly a cheap start up. The 6-pack All-In-One's from Costco are $90. Or $15 a diaper, which is reasonable for AIOs. I'm not so insane though, I only want medium and large cloth diapers. The first few months will be crazy, and I'm just going to take the pressure off of me and go with disposables until the baby can fit into medium cloth ones. Maybe I can get my sister to make me diapers, as she'll have access to my mom's sewing machine and serger.

I'm not really showing yet. Just getting a thicker waist. I've already had to ditch out a pair of jeans. They made a big gap in the back, but was pinching in the tummy.

I stand at 13 pounds lost and 3 inches gained on my waist. Most of my morning sickness is gone and I'm able to eat breakfast when I wake up.

I can't wait until I'm in the second trimester with more energy! I'm itching to get back to quilting, and it's crossed my mind to fund some of the baby stuff with the sale of quilts. Cuz you know, my luck at winning the lottery is really small... apparently you need to buy tickets? :P

Leah

Didn't win

2009-11-05T19:04:00.003-07:00

I have no idea if I was even close or not, but I didn't win the challenge. It's ok though, I had about a dozen ladies congratulating me on the baby. Yes... I tried to sway things in my favor by saying on the description paper that the real challenge for the quilt ended up being able to finish it in time with morning sickness. Then I added my due date. :)

And oh yes! It was a challenge finishing it in time. I was THIS close to being done with the quilting... and I ran out of bobbin thread.

And I already used my "back up" bobbin, so I had to unthread the machine, wind up a bobbin for a mere gap and then finish it. Next was 2 hours of binding. I got it done in time... but not before dinner was made. Bad choice there, I ended up feeling rather light headed towards the end of the meeting. That prompted me to stash some carbs in my purse, in case it happens again.

Here's the quilt hanging with the rest. I think there was a total of 37 or 38 in the final submission.

The placement was pretty random by number, but somehow my quilt ended up next to a gal's quilt that popped even more than mine.

There's a total of 7 bobbins of thread in the quilting alone. The blue and green pebbles took 3 bobbins. I was kinda hoping if the design didn't cut it, all the quilting would. ;)

My original plan was to make water-like ripples in the blue and green sections, but I chickened out after a few inches of stitching. What my brain saw and what my fingers were doing were two completely different things! So I looked at some of my other completed quilts, and ended up getting inspiration from a wall hanging I did two years ago.

I'm planning to have the quilt hanging in the quilt show next February - I promised at least 2 people last February that I'd have something in the show for 2010! But it might be my last challenge or show quilt for a while, I'm expecting my hands to be very full after May. :)

Leah

Can I have a drink?

2009-10-29T18:32:00.002-07:00

I need some courage to tackle the quilting part of the challenge quilt. I can only give teasers of what the quilt looks like, because I know at least one quilt guild member reads my blog. :)

I will say it's hand dyed fabrics with black. Never get tired of that combination.

Here's where the real trouble is, plunging in to do the quilting. I even tried warming up on a piece of scrap, but I was nervous after adjusting the tension.

On the last quilt, I got my courage after drinking some hot chocolate laced with some mint alcohol. It was just what I needed to suck up and get over the "ack! What if it goes wrong?!" feeling. Can't do that this time, at 10 weeks pregnant. :P

Oh yeah, it's due Monday! Yikes...

Leah

The Real Reason

2009-10-22T16:51:00.002-07:00

The real reason why I've been pretty scarce lately... is because I'm pregnant. :)

I got a positive exactly a month ago. No, the above picture isn't it, I took another one this morning for the blog. ;)

Truthfully, I was just expecting to miscarry again. I've already had two, neither made it to 5 weeks. So when 6 weeks rolled around, I knew I had to tell Chris. I had light spotting, so I was kinda worried to tell him. Looks like it's sticking this time!

Just after 7 weeks, I told my parents. I bought canvas bags from Walmart and used acrylic paint and stencils to decorate it for my parents. My mom said it was her favorite gift for her birthday. :D

It was kinda funny watching her open it. I didn't let her until all my siblings were there, including my grease-covered brother. He was working on a vehicle.

So Mom starts to open it, "grand..." and then it hit her! Then she read the whole thing and Dad was grinning really big. He's been the #1 advocate for procreating, but I kept telling him it was improper for my parents to be grandparents before they're 50! ;) I couldn't have possibly timed that any better.

We also told Chris's parents 4 days later. They got a similar bag... but didn't quite get it. It's because my husband's brother's wife is expecting a baby late February and thought I got it for Kenya's baby. Nope, not quite.

Some nitty gritty details... I'm due May 27th. Actually, I want to say that I'm doomed on May 27th. :P That's graduation day at the high school. Typically Chris is gone all day, maybe I'll see him for a few hours in the afternoon. That day is also the day Chris's baby sister is graduating. I'm sure you can imagine that my in-laws and all the immediate family will be attending. AND it's also gonna be a full moon that night! Doomed, I tell you. :)

I'm 9 weeks today, 31 to go! I've been blessed to get my mom's morning sickness genes and haven't thrown up at all. I'm extra tired and super fickle when it comes to food. I've lost 7 pounds so far, but my waist gained 2 inches. Today was pretty rough for whatever reason, but yesterday I was able to get more food in me than normal. Never know what it's gonna be like.

Chris and I have decided to go with a midwife. The main reason is because we've been watching Kenya get jerked around by this town's medical establishment. I've grown up with good medical care, I have an idea what doctors should be able to provide. All we've seen is Kenya being sent from one place to another with nobody actually dealing with her problems. The doctors kept saying one thing, then "oops! We're wrong, you don't have that." Then they finally gave her a prescription that nobody carries and would have be special ordered. Matt and Kenya gave up and finally opted to just drive 1.5 hours to Tucson.

We've already met the midwife, she's just 3 miles from where we live. I really like her! :) When I walked into her living room, I noticed a tattered quilt on the couch, a sewing machine in a cabinet by the window and a cradle on a stand by a wall. She spent well over an hour talking about herself, how she deals with situations, answering our questions. I left feeling so much better about my choice. I truly do feel like I'll get the proper care I need, and not get jerked around like Kenya did.

And there you have it! The real reason why I haven't been too friendly with my sewing machine, even though I have a major deadline coming up - the challenge quilt! :P I can do it... I can do it... I can do it...

Leah

The weekend

2009-10-13T22:03:00.002-07:00

Last Friday we drove to Phoenix, so we could fly to California for my mom's birthday. We decided to take my car, so I prepared it as best as I could. Had an oil change, fluids checked, and my tires checked last Tuesday. I found out that I needed a new battery (mine was the original, 9 years old), and took care of that on Thursday.

I also took my car to the gas station and double checked the tire pressure, because the folks tend to under inflate it. I like to keep it at 4PSI below the max, they put it at 8. Also, for the very first time in 5 years of owning my car, I filled up the spare tire. Good thing too! It was at 15PSI and needed to be at 40PSI. All this attention to the tires, just because my sister said her boyfriend checks his tires monthly AND his spare. I had no idea you're supposed to stay on top of your spare.

About 120 miles from home, we had a blow out. Chris handled it absolutely fantastically. He didn't touch his brakes, he didn't swerve, he safely pulled over and there were no other cars involved, despite going almost 80 miles in the fast lane.

I was more shocked seeing the tire itself than the impact of feeling like we hit something and then started bumping forward. We immediately started to tackle changing it. I was scared I would miss the plane and not be able to see my parents. A highway patrol truck pulled over, and his presence was really encouraging. It took 45 minutes to change the tire, and then we were feeling rushed to cover the 70 miles left, yet dare not speed in case another tire felt like blowing. I pretty much had to hold back tears the entire trip, I just couldn't believe that I actually managed to fill up the spare tire in time. We would have completely missed the plane if we were stuck with a tire at 15PSI.

Thankfully we made it to the airport in time! We parked my car in the terminal and checked in. We'd deal with my car when we got back from our 3 day weekend. The plane was late for once, and we were actually happy about that! :) That gave us time to grab a bite before takeoff.

I had a great weekend with my parents, and my mom really liked her gifts of a personalized cloth bag and 2 yards of brown batik fabric. We did some clothes shopping for my mom, had the birthday dinner with my parents, siblings, and sister's boyfriend (she's pretty serious about him!).

I was able to glean information and ideas from my dad and brother over what to do about my tires. I put on new tires when I bought my car, 30,000 miles ago. They supposedly came with an 80,000 warranty. I felt gypped! Yet it turns out half of the problem may be due to the age of my tires, as they're over 5 years old. Rubber starts to fall apart, especially in the hotter states. After my blow out, I saw at least 3 more cars pulled over to deal with their tires, in an hour's time. It wasn't really hot that day, not even 90 degrees. And I'm pretty sure the tire that blew out was not the one I drove over a nail 2 years ago.

We decided to start from scratch and replace all the tires. I had a 9 year old spare, 1 repaired tire and one blow out. It took $997. Ouch! I truly feel like I managed to magically pull up a thousand dollars out of thin air, as Costco only takes cash or American Express, which I don't have. And you know from my previous post, I cleaned out the surplus to pay off the student loan.

We still need to deal with the rim, as it's damaged; and also have a professional look at my shocks and suspension system. I'm afraid that WILL have to go on the credit card, but hopefully I'll have it paid in full again around Thanksgiving. I don't give a hoot about the cosmetic damage. We'll get an estimate on the repair cost, but it's very far on the back burner to deal with.

In the end... I'm glad it went as well as it did, I've seen so many ugly blow outs traveling throughout Arizona. Rollovers, other cars involved, completely scorched vehicles, and even shutting down the interstate a time or two.

Leah

Rough Week

2009-10-03T23:34:00.003-07:00

It's been a bumpy week. Started off with Chris getting the flu - and I'm willing to put money down that it was the swine flu. It matches what I felt in late July, except he didn't get bronchitis. I also picked up a cold this week... we're tons of fun here. ;)

So in the interest of keeping all my fingers intact, I haven't been near the sewing machine or rotary cutter. But I did get some good news: a second student loan paid off.

Just one more to go!! It won't happen until next year at least, unless I manage to catch one of the mystical financial fairy godmothers. Haven't seen any lately. ;)

Leah

Sweet Dreams!

2009-09-24T21:33:00.002-07:00

Ahhhh! It's finished!!! I'm so happy. :)

Chris and I are sleeping under it too. We're still learning how to share a blanket after sleeping under our own beddings for so many years. Can you believe this is the first blanket of any sort to fit the entire bed? I need to quilt faster!

Oh yeah, I did turn the quilt "sideways" so we'd have more give and less hogging. ;)

Leah

I'm scared to say it...

2009-09-16T18:52:00.003-07:00

...but I think I'm quilting again!

Actually, I finally finished free-motioning the top tonight. About 7 months longer than I had in mind. :P

I was too scared to say anything when I got my machine back on Monday and promptly ran into my old tension issues again! Oh yes, there were tears!!! So I figured I'd make a sample piece and see if I could email a picture to Kelly to determine what I'm doing wrong. Then I realized dark blue thread both in the top and bobbin would be hard to picture... so I switched the top thread out. And the tension was perfect. Huh. Could it be the THREAD? I wound up a spool of blue thread (slightly lighter than what I had been using before) and it's quilted perfectly. And yes, all the thread is the same brand, Connecting Thread's "Essential Threads". That dark blue spool got thrown out! It'd also explain why I didn't have any problems during the first 70% of the quilt, as I had two dark blue spools - bought at different times.

It's not entirely the thread's fault though. Half of my problems may have been due to the previous guy who serviced my machine. Apparently he wasn't keeping so updated in the Bernina world and honing in his sewing machine knowledge. The very first thing Chris said when I got the machine back was how much quieter it is.

I also have 90 days to go back with any problems and have it fixed, free of charge. Today I have 88 days left. ;) I plan to quilt my heart out, I want the problems to show up now! And because I'm totally geeky, I also asked how many hours are on my machine. 71. Zowie... there was 62 in March 2008. That makes my actual needle-moving time is about 6 hours a year. Yet I can tell you I've made at least 10 quilts from start to finish, plus twice as many tops in that time period. I must be a very fast quilter... :P

Off to get the binding on the quilt in the picture!

Leah

Just waiting

2009-09-11T22:54:00.002-07:00

My sewing machine ready to travel to Tucson last week. Doesn't everybody buckle in their machines? ;)

First I went to the old Bernina dealership that I had gone to in the past. There was absolutely nothing to indicate there ever was a sewing business. Not even a note in the window. I went next door and asked what happened... apparently the owners retired at the end of May. Oops! My bad. So if anybody is wondering, the Bernina Sewing Center of Tucson on 4500 Speedway is gone. I guess there wasn't anybody to pass the business down to.

Onto the Hancock Fabrics on 22nd. I was a bit early and had to wait outside. Some lady was asking why I was there, and then she pointed out a sign on the window saying there would be a technician at the store on October 23. She didn't think they'd be able to help me before that. Not what I wanted to hear!! :P

Once the store opened, I was able to go straight to the Bernina Center inside. I was lucky to have the undivided attention of Kelly G., who manages that center. She was absolutely WONDERFUL! She explained to me that she doesn't do the cleaning and fixing herself, but that she has a tech that she brings the machines to. No chance of me getting same day service, but it would be 1-2 weeks. Sounds good to me!

When Kelly found out that I'm deaf, she started making sure that she was facing me the entire time so I could read her lips easily. Turns out that she's actively involved with the Tucson's Deaf Community. From what I understand, her son's best friend's parents were deaf and that spurred Kelly to take some sign language classes. She told me that every Wednesday morning, a bunch of deaf people get together to quilt. Wow, that was a new one for me. :) Kelly said if I ever move to Tucson, she'll be more than happy to show me around with the Deaf Community. I'm ready to move! ;)

Currently it's been a bit over a week, and I'm trying not to chop at the bit and patiently wait until next Friday to see what's up. I'm really hopeful that she'll call some time early next week. The service will be $90 (about what I expected) and I bought a new bobbin case. She charged me her "old" price, $75, since she bought the bobbin case before the price increase (new price is $120 for a bobbin case). She also gave me a 25% discount (I think she said there was some coupon for the entire month of September?), which bumped my out of pocket price to $62. See what I mean about her being a wonderful lady? :)

I have no idea what's wrong with my machine, or how fixable it is... but I sure left the store feeling so much better. :)

Jill had the lovely suggestion of alcohol to "fix" my problems. I gotta admit that I was tempted there for a moment! ;)

But Kim spoke up saying that she has the exact sewing machine as I do... and had the exact same problem. All I could think of was "I'm not alone! I'm not insane!!" Kim never did find a solution for her Bernina, and ended up buying a Juki TL98. She says the 150 is a wonderful piecer, and I have to agree; it just gets temperamental when it comes to free-motioning.

I'm strongly considering saving up for a Juki now. I'll wait on the results of my Bernina first, but my idea is to save $100/month until I have about $900 and hunt for a good deal on a Juki TL98. I figured I can limp the free-motioning along for 6-9 months on the Bernina, and then hopefully retire it to a piecing-only machine.

I'm wondering if it might be a more well known issue with Bernina 150s, except perhaps most owners don't try to free-motion themselves. Part of me thinks that a large portion of people that can afford Berninas can also afford to have their quilts professionally done or even own a long arm set up themselves. But every now and then, there's people who bide their time and faithfully seek the auctions on eBay and snag one for the fraction of the original cost. Like me. ;)

Here's to hoping that I'll be quilting next week!

Leah

Defeat, the longer story

2009-09-02T19:46:00.002-07:00

The problem is my sewing machines. Yeah... more than one machine. :(

I've mentioned my free-motioning tension issues several times before. January 2008. Cropped up again in March 2008. I took my sewing machine to the shop in March and it seem better... but it came up again in February 2009. I could still piece just fine, so I ignored it because I needed to get ready to move to a new apartment. I guess the car ride was soothing to my machine, and I was able to free-motion, for about 4 bobbins worth in June. Since then, it's been unbelievably off.

I finally give in, admit that I can't fix this problem myself, and have Chris call up the Bernina Dealer that I've gone to twice before. Hoping that I can have same day service so I don't have to be without my machine. He calls... and gets a message that the number is not in service. Huh? Maybe it's a fluke. It was late Saturday morning when he made the call. Weekends aren't the best time. Yeah, right. The only reason a number wouldn't be in service is because they're out of business or they didn't pay their phone bill. But I just tell myself I'll have Chris call during a weekday, just to make sure.

In the meantime I keep trying to make my tension work. I took my sewing machine for a 15 mile car ride. There. I said it. :P I blew a gallon of gas in hopes that the bumps and rumbling would jar it into behaving. It worked when I moved, why not again? After the ride, I tested on my tester quilt sandwich. The tension was behaving, it was beautiful. Ok... let's get back to the Thimbleberries quilt. But first I had to change the thread color... and just several inches later, the tension was whacked. Urg! I can't win. I give up, my machine needs help.

So today I figured I'd try to get my back up machine set up for free-motioning. Today was the quilt guild's garage sale, so I looked around for sewing machines or sewing feet. Nothing. I swung by a place called "Bos Sewing". Open the door, see a bunch of ladies sewing at industrial machines and endless lines of clothes. Oops. That's a sewing repair and alternation place. Last place I could think of in this town was a vac'n'sew shop. Asked if they had any slant shank darning feet...

...sure do! And for $10.75 it was mine. Alright! I can set up the other machine for free-motioning. It's a Singer 301, how can I go wrong? No. Don't answer that. :)

I go home, and I set up the machine. I'm carefully following the manual to make sure I'm doing it right. I get the tester quilt sandwich and get ready to sew. The needle starts going up and down, I'm having some trouble moving the fabric a little... then SNAP. Ugh. Broke the bobbin thread. Several times.

So I hunker down, pull out thread piece after thread piece... and there's one last one that I can't pull. I try to take apart the bobbin area, but it's just not happening. I look in the owner's manual for how to take apart the bobbin area, and they don't say! It's not fair, they give very detailed information how to take apart the top tension and put it back together again. Ok, gonna wing it. So I start to unscrew stuff, but nothing is coming apart.

Forget that, I'll just put it back together and throw the machine in the corner. Then there's this one screw that's recessed in and I'm having the hardest time to get it in it's place without dropping it into the innards. I had the brilliant idea to Elmer's glue the screw to the screwdriver. :) Shucks, it still sounds like a good idea. It was working, but I couldn't get the screw to align with the threads, so I kept unscrewing it to start all over again... and I dropped the screw into the guts of the bobbin area. I shake and shake the machine to dislodge the screw, but nothing comes out. The glue caused the screw to stick. :P

And that's when I admitted defeat.

Some tears later, I figured at least I can unscrew the stitch plate and see if I can tweezer out the missing screw. Ha! The screw was gluing itself to the stitch plate. :) Hastily put the screw back in place (it's crooked, I still can't get the screw threads to align) and crawled into bed. Blanket up to my eyes, tears dripping and soaking the pillow. Just completely at the end of my rope.

Chris comes home, I brawl out my eyes and tell him my sad story and that I'm all done with quilting because hand quilting doesn't hold any appeal to me. Afterwards, he picks up the phone and tries the Bernina shop again. "This number is not in service." Then I think he called 411 for the number, and they said there's no such shop on Speedway. What?! Their website is still up, Google isn't showing any indication that they went out of business. I have no idea what's going on with them. They've been in business for over 30 years! Maybe that's the problem, maybe the owners died?

Chris does some searching of his own and comes up with a Bernina center inside a Hancocks Fabric store. Called them up, but they don't let you set appointments. So I'm gonna go to Tucson tomorrow and drop off my machine for who-knows-how-long. Actually, I'm going to swing by the other Bernina shop to see what's going on with them. Then I'll go to the Hancocks Bernina.

I made up a sampler of my free-motioning issues. It's truly all over the place, and always on the bobbin side.

I've tried making my bobbin thread extremely loose and the top tension as tight as possible... and still get loops. :( No way can I finish quilts like this.

As for the Singer 301, the wheel isn't turning because something in the bobbin area is hitting something in the stitch plate. Yeah, real technical there. :P I'm just so spent in trying to deal with this problem that I don't have the energy to try to fix the 301. Perhaps I'll take it to the Sew'n'Vac place someday, but right now it's just getting pushed back to the closet shelf. As Chris said, "one problem at a time."

The next problem was what was for dinner. He took me out. :D

The current plan is to take my Bernina to Tucson tomorrow and find somebody to fix it. First the dealer that I've been to before, then there's two Hancock Fabrics that say they have Bernina Centers.

If they can't fix my machine, then I'll be shopping for a new one. I'll probably end up either buying another Bernina 150 on eBay (because I have a lot of accessories and parts for that machine already, $500); considering a Juki-T98 (a fellow quilt guild member had one for sale, on a frame for $850 last year, I think... maybe she still has it?) or getting a Janome 6600 (which would mean starting all over in learning a machine, and lots of money...$1500?).

I really don't want to get a new machine. I'm JUST about to pay off another student loan, so I have $1200 waiting to be sent. Chris said that if it does come down to a new machine, he wants to use the loan money. He'd rather have me happily quilting than his loan paid off right now. Isn't he so sweet? :) I'd probably still be crying if he hadn't taken charge and help my emotions come down to a more reasonable level.

That's where things stand. I can't do any sewing right now. I have around 30 quilt tops that need to be finished. I have thread, batting and backing for all those quilts. The cost of sending all those tops to a long armer would be more than what a new machine costs. I LIKE free-motioning. My sewing machine doesn't.

Thank you for all your sympathetic words! And if you have any advice or information, I'll happily listen. I'm game for anything at this point.

Leah

Defeat

2009-09-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

I'm ready to quit quilting completely!

Our "new" couch

2009-08-24T12:43:00.003-07:00

My parents gave Chris and I an old couch of theirs. It was well loved, especially by my dog Missy, and the rabbit Bambi. Time to get it cleaned!

I bought some Saddle Soap from the hardware store and it worked out great. You can really see the difference between the right cushion and the middle section. Saddle soap is easy on my lungs. I didn't have to take several breaks to get fresh air.

I'm afraid the seat cushions are beyond redemption. The grain leather has started to flake off from 7 years of use. I just hide it with a quilt and all is well. :)

My parents also gave me the stonework coffee table. It's great for stacking my books and drinks as I relax on the couch to read.

I suppose it'll also be good for watching movies too, but I don't think I've turned on the TV once since I got home! :)

Leah

My Kitchen Keeps Me Busy!

2009-08-18T19:53:00.001-07:00

When I'm not quilting, burying my nose in a novel or softening my butt at the computer... I'm usually in the kitchen! I figured I would give you a real-life peek at how my kitchen usually looks. Yes, it's a mess because I seem to have something going on all the time. :)

First stop is the pantry. I don't have too much room in here for food, just mostly our cooking dishes. And believe it or not, this is our downsized version, I donated several boxes of kitchen stuff during our move a couple months ago.

We do have a bit of a "redneck" setup in the pantry. The shelves that the toaster sits on is set up by cement blocks, because the only plug socket in the pantry is near the ceiling, where the light is. If I'm organized enough, I can squeeze the trash can in there too, but that day I was making bread and need to access my wheat buckets.

Our kitchen is 8x11, and half of that is eaten up by counter space. There's only one plug socket on the right wall (to my utmost PAIN!) and I had to jerry-rig it a bit so we could hook up the stove, fridge and microwave all at the same time. Haven't blow a fuse, yet! ;) I've been storing the food dehydrator on top of the microwave. Next to that is the custom recipe box that my mother-in-law and her 2 youngest children made for me.

You can see the end of a loaf of bread I made the other week, a pot soaking, fresh picked basil from my garden - for the pizza we had last night, another pot used for the night before's dinner (chicken potato chowder), and on the far right is some chocolate cookies I made on Friday. What you can't see is our magnetic knife rack on the right wall.

After doing some dishes that morning, I started making whole wheat bread. First I had to set up the grinder for the flour, then the Bosch mixer my mom generously gave me for kneading the bread. I used the mixer again later that day to knead the pizza dough. You can see a bit of the bread in it's first rising.

I'm out of room to safely stack more dishes on the drying rack, so I just let them pile up in the sink while the others air dry. I read that it's better for them to air dry instead of towel drying, due to bacteria. Plus, it's my husband's chore to empty the drying rack. :D Oh yeah, the strainer next to the rack is full of just-washed blueberries that I snacked on throughout the day.

You can also see how I've made use of the space above the cabinets. Great spot for cereal, munchies, crackers; and as you can see, honey and oil. Then there's the spice rack (one of my best investments!!!) that holds most of the stuff I need for all my cooking. It's off centered because we wouldn't be able to open the freezer door otherwise.

This was sitting in my living room, simply because I don't have room. Onions get diced up and frozen in the chest freezer. Same for the carrots. They didn't have celery at Costco the last time I was there, but I like to make soup and stew "starters" by freezing pre-sliced carrots, onions and celery in a baggie.

The potatoes will be left out (because I've heard over and over that it's not good for them to be in the fridge) and used over the next few weeks. Soups, diced, cheesy potatoes... there's just so many ways they can be gobbled up.

I've also been venturing into learn how to make my own food items from scratch. I've got chicken broth down pat, next up was making yogurt in the crockpot. It's in the dish on the left. I love knowing that I can have a yogurt without any of the "extras" that tend to get slipped in. I blended some blueberries, yogurt and honey the other day, and ate it with pride. ;)

I also read how you can make your own cream cheese from plain yogurt, so I had to try! That was a success too, and I saved the whey because I can use it for soaking grains like recommended in Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. All this from a half gallon of milk at 77 cents. :)

Since we've gone this far, let's take a peek in my fridge too. Lotsa milk. Toldja it was on sale. ;) I saw goat milk at Costco, and had to try it. Ohhh, it's so creamy. Mmm. There's also some goat cheese in the bottom drawer... I'm really liking that stuff.

A lot of cheese is in there too, because I hadn't taken the time to portion them up and freeze it. I do have a weakness for dairy. :P The red bowl holds my yeast. There's an onion, yellow squash and some mushrooms behind the bell peppers on the water pitcher. And way in the back in some sun tea in a pitcher. My husband really likes that stuff, but it's so hard to find decaffienated green tea. :(

By the way, something that some of you know, but most of you probably don't... my husband's name is Chris. I've always referred him as "my husband" on my blog, but now that he's put his name out on his blog, I'm not worried about privacy anymore. :)

Leah

Ann's Summer 2009 Quilt

2009-08-17T17:15:00.002-07:00

The top is all done! And on the mystery day to boot. ;)

My fabric choices don't photograph that well, but looks fantastic in person. It'll make a terrific baby boy blanket at 48x48 inches. No hearts, flowers or girly princesses in this one.

I don't know of any baby boys right now, but my sister-in-law is expecting a baby early 2010. She's the bride at the end of this post.

I better have a make a girl quilt, just in case! :)

Leah

Fabric love

2009-08-11T20:45:00.004-07:00

I picked up a copy of the lastest Quiltmaker magazine issue today. I was really drawn to the Winding Road pattern on page 20.

Upon closer inspection, I realized they were using an assortment of Connecting Thread's Country fabric lines - which have been my favorites. :) I'm working on another Pineapple Blossom quilt, just like the one I made for my 25th birthday. It'll be much bigger - queen sized. And it most certainly won't be done in 5 days like my other one!! :P

Perhaps I'll "rediscover" this pattern in a couple of months and make it after all.

Leah

A little hiccup in life

2009-08-03T22:49:00.002-07:00

Two weeks ago on Monday, we were enjoying a hike in Juneau, Alaska. We saw lots of green, eagles and even snow.

This Monday my energy is sapped with nursing a case of bronchitis. A visit to the urgent care place on Sunday morning loaded me up with antibiotics and other drugs. Thankfully I'm improving, or else one of us would have to start getting real friendly with the couch my parents gave us so my husband can get enough sleep. School has started!

I have found that I cough less when I'm warm, so there's been a lot of baking and ironing going on. :)

Leah

Location Revealed

2009-07-28T00:27:00.004-07:00

Still not home yet, but completed most of my trip at this point. Where did I go? On an Alaskan Cruise with 11 other family members (4 end up missing the boat). My grandfather very generously paid for the entire family to explore Alaskan highlights by boat.

My green loving heart was so happy to see endless greenery! And actually needing my jacket on a daily basis was pretty sweet too. :)

Good thing most quilters can understand a bit of non-quilty content during the summer. There's things to do, places to see, family and friends to visit!

Leah

Vay-cay-shun!

2009-07-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

I'm off for a bunch of fun and craziness with my side of the family!

It involves 16 people, lots of tiny spaces and a need for plenty of humor. ;) But it's great seeing folks that I haven't seen in 5 years - since my wedding.

Leah

Old mystery top

2009-07-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

I finally got all the rows sewn together! I mystery-tested this pattern three years ago for Cathy-O, and didn't touch it since. Yes, the previous post is a bit deceiving. :P

It measures 60" square, and I'm pretty sure I can dig up enough of the green to make a binding.

Hopefully it won't take another 3 years for me to quilt it! :D

Leah

Patriotic Show

2009-07-05T23:31:00.003-07:00

My last quilt guild meeting had a red-white-blue show of quilts. I grabbed my camera with me and figured I'd get some eye-candy. I'm sure you'll be able to tell that I really favor stars! :)

I'm not sure why, perhaps because stars can give a nice "pow" to a quilt.

I was sorta hoping that I would feel inspiration to make my own patriotic quilt. How sad is it that I don't have any RWB quilts or tops of my own?

The biggest thing that holds me back is my intense dislike of red! I tried to force myself to use it more by buying red fabric. Still sits nicely on my shelf. :P

I can tolerate some darker shades of red, like the one in the last quilt. But bright vibrant red? I advert my eyes and hold back any shudders.

I can quickly forget about red just by spending some time with my beloved green. ;)

Leah

Ann's Summer 2009 Mystery

2009-06-29T16:45:00.000-07:00

Ann's at it again! She just posted the cutting instructions for her Summer 2009 Mystery. The actual clue-giving day will be some time in August. She's not sure yet. You can always join in through one of her Yahoo Groups - this one is pretty quiet except around mystery time.

I accidentally saw the finished mystery top... so I know what it's going to look like, but I'm still excited to play! It's a clever design and it'll work well for a boy's quilt. My background is going to be the circles, the blue fabric is going to be the "focus" and the green will be the binding.

I bought the circle fabric from Cowgirl Quilter who's trying to raise money for her son's school-related trip. She's got $500 of the $2100 they need by October. She's been offline for the past few weeks, so she hasn't been able to entice me with buying more fabric from her yet. ;)

Leah

Saying "Thank You"

2009-06-28T13:30:00.002-07:00

My parents gave my husband and I a very generous housewarming check when we moved. We used it to buy chairs to go with our dining table, a DVD stand, a computer desk for my husband (his old one became my new cutting table) and several kitchen items. I wanted to say "thank you" to my parents in a special way, so I made this card.

It's just ends and strings of dyed pieces sewn onto heavy card stock paper. I did take care to change my needle after sewing through the paper! :) Wrote a nice message (but forgot to say "Happy Father's Day"... d'oh!) and sent it off to them.

I'm sure that card won't be trashed like a standard store greeting card might eventually be. And a great way to use up bits of fabric. :)

Leah

A long time ago...

2009-06-20T22:57:00.002-07:00

...in a galaxy rather near here, I used to have a small assortment of quilting items. :)

These pictures were taken in October 2003. I had 5 quilting books.

The top right one is still in my mom's possession. She did buy it after all, and watercolor quilts just aren't my thing.

I had about 30-40 yards of fabric total. I look at that pile and can only think "not enough background fabrics!!"

My tastes have certainly evolved over the years. I fell out of love with bigger prints and now enjoy tone-on-tone fabrics.

Funny how I can dye over a hundred yards of fabric in a week with my mom and still lament over not having the right shade I need! :P

Leah

Reviving a ghost

2009-06-13T12:07:00.003-07:00

I finally got one of my oldest quilt projects into a top! I want to say that I started it in 2002? Yeah, my first year of quilting. It's Eleanor Burn's Log Cabin in a Day. Yes... you may laugh. :)

I got the first row sewn together and half of the blocks made. Since then, it was untouched. I got married, I moved to apartment #1 and still didn't do a thing. Moved to apartment #2, placed the blocks and strips near the door so I would see it every time I walked in or out of my sewing room, and still didn't do a thing! Moved to apartment #3 (this one)... hey, let's get it finished. :)

It took me a little creative thinking of the pattern I was trying to create. All I remembered was that there was a "star" in the middle and the greens made a "diamond" cross. I lost the paper I drew up the design and didn't think to look back at my old pictures.

Yeah, you can't really tell there's a star, the green dominates. Two things that surprised me about this quilt - one, I still like it. Two, my quarter-inch seam allowance was pretty good and I didn't have to do much fudging to get the blocks to nestle together. I'll thank Mom for that, she taught me the 5/8ths seam allowance for clothes sewing very well. :)

But quilt in a day? Ha! Not from this gal. Now I gotta decide... green border, blue binding; or do I do blue border, green binding? My husband was no help. :P

Leah

Presto! A quilt top

2009-06-10T23:22:00.002-07:00

From cutting the blocks...

...to sewing them together...

(I love the view from my sewing table!)

...to a completed quilt top.

That easy! ;) Not pictured: the time it takes to do all that stuff.

And I'm so happy that I have ROOM to take a picture of big quilt like this. I love my new place. :)

Leah

Rainbow Fun

2009-06-03T19:22:00.002-07:00

I'm jumping in Dana's giveaway:

I've had my eye on the Janome 6600 for some time, but I'm afraid I wouldn't love it as much as I love my Bernina. I just mostly lust after the 9" throat space for free-motioning. But if I get it for free? I'm sure I can fall in love with it. ;)

My fabric choice was the most mottled hand dyes I could find.

This includes my most favorite dyed piece.

It has other pieces like the one below.

I had a lot of fun looking over the many hues as I cut my strips.

The fabric looks pretty boring from the side though! :P

I was also able to get my sewing chair back... so now I can go back to quilting full time!

And here's to hoping that I'll be the lucky quilter to win the machine! ;)

Leah

Settling In

2009-05-27T23:39:00.002-07:00

In quiet moments when I'm too cold at the computer (I can't believe I said that!) I get up and work in my sewing room to warm up. Just puttering, I have no goals until June comes.

I set up all my quilting books and magazines in a nightstand. Looks like I have room for a few more. ;) The plug strip that the iron is in has a switch, so that'll make it easy on and off for ironing. And thanks to the weight of all the books, it won't likely be as fearful if I accidentally bump into the nightstand. Whereas if I bump into the ironing board, it's sure to knock over the iron! :P

I've been going over "Create Your Perfect Quilting Space" by Lois Hallock. She really stresses on having a "work triangle" set up, to make quilting easier. It's a lopsided triangle, but it's there. ;)

The sewing chair was stolen by my husband so he could play the drums on Rock Band 2. That was pretty much the only thing he asked for his birthday this year, and he was gifted enough cash to cover it all. Except for a new chair. :)

I'm pretty wiped out right now. I've been spending a lot of evenings cleaning up the old place. I seriously boo-boo'ed and accidentally got Oven-Off on the vinyl flooring. It left horrible brown splotches that put me into panic. Rubbing didn't do a lick, nor pouring straight bleach. Finally I took a moment to read what in the world Oven-Off is made out of... lye! Oh, ok, vinegar should counteract it. Sure enough, vinegar took out 98% of the brown spots. If you look really closely, you'll still see a few spots... but let's call it "wear and tear", ok? ;)

Leah

Half way there

2009-05-20T08:54:00.002-07:00

Still moving! The weather hasn't been in our favor. It's either over 90 degrees or it's raining. :P I'm happy if we make two trips in one day.

The living room. No couch or computer yet. We'll be returning the TV this Sunday - it's just not working out for us (poor picture quality) and thankfully Costco has a great 90-day return policy. :)

Oh yeah, I "snuck" a sewing machine in the living room. Currently it's a plant holder, but I'd love to have it stacked high with quilts.

The sewing room. I ended up switching around the cutting table and (invisible) ironing board locations.

And one huge mound of batting! I'm promising myself that I'll get cotton next time, and I'll have 500 quilt tops waiting! Ok... maybe not. ;)

The bed(less) room. All three bookshelves fit on one wall, yay!

I spent some time unpacking books last night, and ran out of room. Rats. I think I'll use the top of the bookcases as another shelf.

My plants are doing well. Less than a month ago they were just little sprouts.

Hopefully next year I'll have all four Earth Boxes lined up at the railing, growing beautiful greenery. :)

Plenty of aches too. I have 10 bruises from my knee to thigh on my right leg. I have no idea how I got any of them, except the one on my knee - whacked it into the steering wheel. But my leg looks like an overripe banana. :P

Leah

It'll be this Friday

2009-05-13T21:44:00.002-07:00

Eeeps! The big day is coming up. :) We swung by the apartment for a looky-loo this afternoon.

The living room, with a bit of the porch.

There's two plugs outside, so we're considering putting the chest freezer outside. It's our biggest relocation item that we're having trouble with. The porch is much bigger and nicer than we expected. I can easily see us spending many hours outside, especially since we won't be getting a lot of direct sun.

Next is the kitchen.

Hopefully the adjustment to no dishwasher will be smooth. I think it'll be ok, because I never put my pots and pans in the dishwasher. It takes several days for enough cups, plates and bowls to fill it up now. I'm the dishwasher now! ;) On the bright side, I won't mind using the good China so much, since I'll have to hand wash anyhow.

My quilting room.

Playing out an arrangement I could do. I'm not sure if I want the ironing board on the right side... but there's a handy plug right there. Who knows, I may find a much different arrangement once I actually have my quilting items in the room.

Peek of the quilting closet and the guest bathroom.

Very small closet. I think I'll just have to set up a bunch of wire shelves and line up my fabric on the wall. But I still have one problem. My monster batting roll!!! Can't stuff it in the closet like I'm doing right now. :P Gonna have to crank up the swamp cooler and keep finishing tops.

The master bedroom.

I'm hoping to jam all three bookshelves into the master room. Currently two of them are in my quilting room, but I do all my reading in the bedroom. Maybe two bookshelves in the bedroom and one in the living room.

I'll have to get more pictures when we move in. The master bedroom closet/bathroom has a lot of storage (we almost thought about putting the freezer there), but when there's nothing in that spot, plain walls look really boring. Trust me. ;)

It'd be very nice if I could get all the moving done before my husband's 30th birthday, which is May 23rd. That'd be a GREAT gift in my book, and I'm not planning on getting him anything as it is. :D

Leah

Hair Today

2009-05-07T19:50:00.003-07:00

For an April's Fool joke on my husband, I got my hair cut. (Never mind that it took me a month to get the after photo!) Here's the before:

I have no memory of those curls and waves! One of the biggest reason for cutting my hair was to encourage more curls.

This is the shortest my hair has been, since I was four or five. And no, my hair's never been dyed, I am freshly out of the shower in the second picture.

I opted for a layered style, and it was important to me that I could be able to tuck my hair behind my ears if I wanted to. Took me about a month to adjust to it. I can squeeze it into a high pony tail for the gym, but buns and twists don't work out so well. I probably won't have it that short again, but good to know what it's like. :)

Our plans to tour our new apartment tomorrow got bumped... because they're installing new carpet and flooring. Yippee! So we'll swing by on Tuesday. And we're still moving in 8 days. Yikes!

Still haven't done that much packing yet. I did make another run to the thrift store to donate a small bookcase, a bag of clothes and a bag of fabric that didn't get taken by the quilt guild ladies. Crunch time now. :)

Leah

It's official!

2009-05-02T00:41:00.002-07:00

Every thing's been confirmed and signed... we're moving! It's a mixture of excitement and panic. I have officially 13 days left to pack!

No sewing for me in the next few weeks. See the gray bin? I've overflowed two of those with fabric that I'll be giving away at the quilt guild meeting next week. Then this morning I got my guild's newsletter and the next two meetings are about scrap management and scrap busting quilts. Then there's a workshop in the middle of the month that strongly encourages you to delve into your pile of scraps to make the quilt they will teach.

Me? I'm taking the easy way out and letting my unloved scraps and fabric become somebody else's problem!! :D It's worth it to me, especially if it means that I take away the guilt of feeling like I need to put the fabric to use somehow, someday.

Next Friday we'll get a chance to tour our future home, and I certainly intend to have the camera with me. ;)

Leah

Blessings

2009-04-23T22:07:00.002-07:00

We've been getting some good news this week! But first I want to show off my garden. ;)

The first box is the edibles - sunflowers, sweet pea and corn are all growing nicely. I'm using some EarthBoxes that my grandfather gave me last summer. My plants are doing much better!!

The second box is my herb box. I bought the rosemary and oregano late summer last year and they survived the winter. My basil in the right top corner didn't.

Then from seed this year, I have cilantro, chives (good luck seeing those!) and parsley. I hope to replace the basil sooner or later - I did make pesto several times.

Some other good news is that my husband received his contract for the next school year!! This is a huge deal to us because usually they make us wait until the middle or end of May. The other reason is because they HAD to let two people go. One was transferred to the science department, and the other is depending whether or not they pass some testing? I'm not too clear... all I know it's not my husband!!!! :)

Now we just need confirmation that the apartment is ours, and we're set. We'll be checking again tomorrow.

Leah

Slow Doings

2009-04-17T21:21:00.003-07:00

It's been a week of little results, but that's ok. I did manage to get the borders on my Ann's Mystery quilt.

I even managed to cut some backing fabric. Still need to sew the two pieces together.

I've been doing a ton of baking and cooking! Our checking account has been depleted (due to buying a planned-for TV) and we have $6 left in our food budget. If you want something, you gotta make it or do without. :)

My husband was craving sweets, so I made Peanut Butter Finger Cookies from The Roux We Do cookbook. They're supposed to be dipped in chocolate... but I don't have any! Chocolate's not the first "drug" of my choice. ;)

We also have a tentative apartment. There's still some legal paperwork to be taken care of by the previous tenant, but since she moved to Ohio, there's a pretty good chance she's not coming back. :) Hopefully we'll get an official confirmation next week. We won't actually move until May 15th. I wish I could start feeling some panic or something to have motivation to start packing... but it hasn't happened yet! And I'm going to be on my own for half of the move. The last school week is the worst for my husband and he's unable to help me much.

Somebody send me some decluttering magic, please! :P

Leah

Just one Honey Bun

2009-04-09T22:42:00.002-07:00

How far can you stretch one Honey Bun roll? Into a nice nap sized quilt, I say! ;)

It measures 50x74. I was able to get eight 5" bars from each strip. A total of 320 bars, split into five rows of 64 bars each.

I'm leaning for an orange thread for the quilting, but I'm just not sure. I think red would be too bright against the background fabric. Maybe it just needs to age a little first. ;)

It sure feels good to be sewing after my overwhelming week!

Leah

FQ winner

2009-04-02T21:14:00.001-07:00

The winner is Kimberly!

I'd take it, too. I'm too broke to afford any fabric.

Sounds like she really could use some more fabric. :)

Leah

Goodies and giveaway

2009-03-31T22:56:00.002-07:00

It's been very windy lately. I had my sewing room window open, and somehow my iron blew over and all the water fell out and was sewing my sewing table. Talk about a heart attack moment! Thankfully, I have proof below that my machine still works just fine. ;)

The butterfly block is for my quilt guild's blotto. Maybe I'll win! I'll find out tomorrow.

A couple weeks ago I won $100 from the Superior Threads blog. Yeah! That place with lots and lots of cool thread. :)

Admittedly... $100 doesn't go very far. The two big cones of thread were $25 each. Then the 5 King Tut spools on the left was another $25. Just a few clicks, I had already spent $75! I think the best investment is the black cone stand. It has great heft to it and will last me probably the rest of my life.

I also order several L size bobbins... uh oh.

The top is my normal Bernina bobbin, the bottom is one of their SuperBobs. I don't think it's gonna fit. Does this mean I have M style bobbins? I'm really confused now.

Last week I was asking for some help in finding some more Sweet by Urban Chicks fabric - with decent shipping to boot. Bingo Bonnie pointed me to an esty member, and it was pretty much what I had in mind! They even threw in an extra fat quarter for free and my whole total was less than $11.

The FQ is a Mary Engelbreit fabric by Moda... and frankly, I don't like it. :P It's too red for me. So! If you want it, just leave a comment and I'll draw a name on Thursday or so.

Good luck!
Leah

Fabric source?

2009-03-23T21:46:00.002-07:00

Wow, it's been an overwhelming week. Thankfully things are back on an upward swing and calming down.

Today was my quilting get together, and I figured I'd start cutting into this Honey Bun that I won from Shadywood Quilts several weeks ago. I'm going to do a Chinese Coin, with the off-white fabric for the plain rows.

I managed to cut up all the fabric while at my friend's house. On the way home I decided to swing by a quilt shop to pick up another yard of Moda's "Sweet" from Urban Chicks for the binding. I was in for a bit of surprise! The shop had seriously downsized, and largely carried Thimbleberries. Ok, off to the other quilt shop in my little town. Much bigger place, should have better luck, right? Nope! They didn't carry "Sweet" either.

And I'm really, really, really sure Walmart wouldn't have it either. ;) Now I'm out of quilt shops to check - the next closest one is about 80 miles away - it'd be $20 in gas for one yard! Which would make it like $30/yard. Yeouch!

So, can somebody direct me to an online shop with the cheapest shipping for 1 yard of fabric? Fat Quarter Shop wants $5 for shipping... is there anything cheaper out there? I would really think that one could ship a yard of fabric for less than $2 First Class.

Now I just have to find my sewing machine before I can start piecing. I did say something about the past week being overwhelming, right? :P

Leah

Ruthless

2009-03-16T22:17:00.002-07:00

Not much quilting going on recently. Instead, I've started the packing process.

All the fabric on the wire shelves are crammed into rubbermaid bins. I'm pretty sure I won't find time to use it all up before May. :) There's another bin waiting for the hand dyes to fill it up.

I'm also being pretty ruthless in my non-quilty packing, in small bites. I think I've gotten rid of as much stuff as I've packed. A towering pile of stuff to the thrift store, several bags trashed and gone.

And surprisingly, I've let go a lot of books recently. Enough to earn me over $90 in store credit at the local entertainment store. The rest went off to my library's bookstore.

Still have lots to go, but I've got a very happy husband cheering me on. :)

Leah

Slogging through

2009-03-09T21:10:00.002-07:00

I've seem to hit a bit of a hump in my quilting these days. Don't know why, usually the fix is quite simple. Like a new rotary blade or such. Oh yeah, there's some work being done on our internet and that's kept me offline quite a bit! Don't like it... but the kitchen is sure clean. ;)

Bear's Paw for Judy's Quilt Along. Yes, I'm being a tease and not showing the other paw colors.

I did have a last minute change on my pink pair. I felt that I selected too dark of a pink/red and found some replacements to help it blend better with the rest of the quilt.

In other news, my mom finally got my parents plumbing company set up!

It's a pretty big deal because they've registered the domain over 5 years ago, site address is plastered onto their trucks, but they never created anything until now.

Good job Mom! It's better than anything I churned up for my HTML class back in my college days. :)

Leah

Apartment hunting

2009-03-04T21:04:00.002-07:00

After feeling discouraged about my husband's school problems, I lost the desire to work on finding us a cheaper place for a few weeks. But this week I found a renewed kick, and stopped by 10 apartments asking for their rates and floor plans.

The 9th apartment I stopped by was the one that really caught my husband's eye. I completely missed it in my weary state, but all utilities are paid! And their 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom is 100 square feet bigger than our current apartment, but would save us around $150-$200/month.

So we set up an appointment for a tour, and I'm quite pleased with the interior. Like, there's a kitchen window - I never had a kitchen window in any of my apartments.

They also offer gas stove (and water heater), which put my husband into big grins. Cooking with electric is a pain, and we go all crazy at my parents house with their 5-burner gas stove. They don't mind, it's kinda like having a chef for a few weeks. ;)

Something worth doing back flips over: a pantry!

I absolutely need a pantry. Currently I've turned our second bathroom into a storage room. It's very inefficient, but yay, don't have to clean that toilet. :P

The living room is nice and large, connects to a patio/balcony. If we were to get a 1 bedroom unit, my quilting would go into the living room.

We'd also wedge in our dining table, right about where I was standing in that picture.

And here's the really big bedroom! Full size closet (we have half size for our clothes right now), plenty of room for a bed and my husband's computer set up.

There's also a full sized bathroom and a linen closet. I don't have a linen closet right now, it just get stuffed into the bottom of our closet.

But... we're seriously considering getting a 2 bedroom apartment. Even with the extra cost, we'd still save $40-90/month to what we're currently paying. Plus, a 2 bedroom unit is more likely to become available than a 1 bedroom. And we can set the AC to any temp we want. We HAVE to do 82 here, or else our electric bill will be over $200. Oh yeah, the 2 bedroom is 300 more square feet than what we have right now.

There was some concern about the neighborhood, but after asking around a bit and talking to a few people, it sounds just as safe as where I am now. Probably helps that it's less than a mile away from the town's police station. ;)

That's what I've been up to! The move won't happen until late May or so... but the packing begins NOW! :)

Leah

It's a HST!

2009-03-02T21:44:00.003-07:00

It's elementary, my dear Watson... it's a half-square triangle for Judy's Quilt Along project!

Uh yeah, it's also a single HST, and Judy called for 192 of them. But she said she wouldn't count them!! ;) Actually, I just can't stand the idea of slaving in front of the iron any more. It got to over 80 degrees here, and we had to throw out our filtered water pitcher because it got a crack in the bottom. So I'm hot and dehydrated, but trying to fix both by drinking icy water.

It hasn't been a great day. A couple of my husband's identity numbers have been compromised. We got introduced to the world of credit freeze and replacing driver's license. Gotta keep my husband's credit score in good shape so we can buy a house someday.

Top of it all, my husband's grandmother was found passed out and in convulsions yesterday. Given that it got to over 90 degrees in her town, I'm willing to bet she's severely dehydrated. You can't live on alcohol alone, no matter how hard she tries!!

Well, this week can only get better from here. :)

Leah

Don't try this at home!

2009-02-28T22:24:00.003-07:00

I had a moment of insanity. I figured, since I was already planning on the sewing machine going into the shop, I could at least satisfy one curiosity I've always had.

Here's what my sewing machine looks like when I take the bobbin case out.

Usually after every bobbin of thread used, I'll dab a q-tip around to pick up any obvious lint and fluff hanging around.

Every two bobbins, I try to open up the area and give it a real good cleaning. The little tab on the left of the wide silver "U" in the above picture opens up the hook removal.

Now you can see the spot of my deep curiosity. What's beyond that silver screw in the center? I envisioned gears and springs and a whole lot of lint. And hey, if I'm gonna be taking my machine into the shop anyhow, why not take a peek?

But before I actually unscrewed it, I decided I better take pictures of my needle positions, cuz this stuff isn't covered in the owner's manual! :D

Little do I know, this picture is what saved me a lot of trouble.

Undid the screw... and hey, I was right about the gears. But no springs or other loose stuff back there.

In fact, not even a lot of lint. No pools of oil either, so I haven't been over-oiling my machine.

Here's the back of the piece I unscrewed out. Just a simple gear to match the bar of teeth above.

Curiosity satisfied! Now to put my machine back together. That's when I had a second of panic - how do I know which gear teeth match up?! I tried to eyeball it, but I was one gear off. Referred to the picture of the needle all the way down, and was able to get it back in place. Phew. ;)

The crazy thing? My free-motion tension is ok now. I tested it long and hard. No more tear-inducing tension problems. I'm not sure if I need to take it to the shop now. Gonna have to sew for a few days to get a better idea. Cuz I'd rather not spend that kind of money if I can help it.

Just don't hold me responsible if you try this yourself! :)

Leah

Something in the air?

2009-02-26T21:24:00.002-07:00

I've seen a lot of irritation and sensitivity going around lately. Winter blahs? Nah, plenty of sun here. Cabin fever? Doubt it, it's been hitting high 70s. Sewing machine problems? Check!

It's probably my fault. I ran out of bobbin thread a couple nights ago and called it quits for the night. Tension was just fine. The next morning I load a new bobbin in, and the thread gets caught or jammed somehow. I strongly suspect that I pulled it the wrong way trying to unjam it, and made things even worse. I can not get a balanced tension for the life in me. It starts off ok... then wham! It's really skewed.

ARGH!!!

It's no fun. I don't know how to fix it. I know that I can't fix it, cuz it's a mirror image to the problem that I had last year. At least I've been down this road before, and I didn't let this problem drive me to tears and slamming doors trying to fix it this time.

The good news is that it seems to be able to piece just fine, and I had enough sense to buy a back up machine. Not gonna go bonkers this time. :)

Lastly, I'm so grateful that this didn't happen while I was dealing with my Christmas crunch and free-motioning my dad's and brother's quilt in the nick of time. I'll be sorry that I can't finish the charm quilt before the last cold spell... but I'm not dealing with any deadlines either.

Leah