Wedding Anniversary

Today is our 41st Wedding Anniversary ........... I hope we have 41 more. We eloped to Greensboro, NC and married by a woman Justice of the Peace. What a wild ride that was back in 1966.

A block for Mary

One blog I read everyday is Mary ..... she is so creative and productive. Recently Mary posted that she wanted to make her very own string quilt ..... I contributed this block.

I wanted my block to tell a story. Mary did request that the center string be a medium blue. The lower half of the block is all about Mary and the top half is all about me.

Center blue: Mississippi River that separates our States (MN and WV).

Butterflies: Minnesota State Insect - Monarch Butterfly
White: Minnesota State Beverage - Milk
Ducks: Minnesota State Animal - Common Loon
Yellow: Mary's cute dog, Chesty

Leaves: West Virginia has some of the most fabulous fall leaves
Blue: West Virginia State Slogan - Almost Heaven, West Virginia
Yellow - West Virginia State Insect - Honey Bee
Black - My own 2 cats, Sweetie and Mister

I hope you visit Mary's photos and free instructional site and one of her passions.

Fabric Stashbusting .......

We all know that after Christmas we have trash, lots of trash. For the last 5years or so I've been busting part of my stash by making gift bags. Started out making the bags for Christmas ... now I make bags for every gift needed (birthday, friends, mother's and father's day and etc.). I wanted to compare my 'trash' to DD#1 'trash'.

Mine (ready for next year) ..................... hers











They love the sound of paper ripping. What can I say......

Happy CHRISTMAS Faces .........

Christmas this year was GREAT even with our water problems. We had to move the gifts upstairs due to the broken water line.
A couple of happy faces on Christmas morning.
The girls each got their own laptops. GS got a 'faux' 4 wheeler.


Oh and this photo reflects their "favorite" gift they each received from mom and dad.


Yep, it's UNDERWEAR (what everyone wants to get for Christmas).

My 3 Greatest Loves

Our friends know we are crazy about our 3 GC. In fact, our properties connect so we see or talk to them everyday. We love it. Yes, I know people think we nuts but we were both had extremely close relationships with our grandparents so this is just natural to us. I babysit them after school, help them get ready in the morning and we drop them off at school.

GD#1 (15) ................................... GD#2 (10)

AND GS (7) ..................... and their ....................GDog (9mo)

Stashbusting ........ a new way

Well most of us who quilt have fabric stashes that rival a quilt store. I do .... even if I live to be 300 I won't use up my stash (truely, I kid you not).

We also have bits and pieces of batting and bobbins left over from our quilting especially we who quilt on a long arm machine. I, personally, have 2 bags that are 10 feet stuffed full of batting bits. See my batt pile ....

So Friday night I decided to bust my batting stash. How you ask? I layed out the pieces ... trying to match up similar lengths.

Then using my Janome 6500P I zig-zagged the pieces together making new batting. This also gave me an opportunity to use up bobbins that had small amounts of thread .... I also busted 13 bobbins. yipppeeeee

And look what I made ........ most will be used in other craft type sewing .... purses, toys, placemats, book covers and etc. I'm so proud.

A Extremely Important Item .... (why?)

Yes, water is important to our health and well being. BUT have you considered how important it is when your water is turned OFF due to a broken water line causing a leak into your house.

We are in day 4 without water. On Christmas Eve we discovered wet carpet in our family room. Checked the drain thingies outside ... they're fine ... no rain ... we thought it was a fluke. Christmas morning the carpet is wet about 6 feet into the room. So we move all the gifts upstair to open. In the afternoon DH gets out the shop vac and starts ... that will take care of it he says also pulled the carpet back . WRONG!!!!!!! He continues sucking the next day. I insisted he call someone ... anyone. DH has a light blub moment and says we must have a broken water line. He goes outside to check the meter and YEP that sucker is going around like crazy. Plummer shows up in the late afternoon on Thursday. As you know this is a holiday week with a holiday weekend coming up. That's right ..... they might be able to come on Monday ... if not maybe on Wednesday.

So those little jugs are very important. Luckily for us our DD#1 lives behind us so we can shower and full up all our jugs with that precious clear stuff WATER.

MERRY CHRISTMAS Everyone

The big day is here .......... I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas

Our Tree and GC's Tree

See you next year .....

Birthday Gifts ..... yippee (I'm so blessed)

Well, I received wonderful, neat presents from my family. I'm now a member of Mr. B fabric swatch club, needle thread, silicone hot pads, makeup, new moisturizer (just came on the market), Singer hand stitch which I plan to use with my long arm, wireless headphone for the TV, and money. WOW what a great birthday. Oh we had wonderful steaks for dinner. SIL and GS made me a terrific chocolate cake ... sorry no photo as we ate it all. LOL

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

Today is my birthday ........... I'm a baby bommer .......... time is flying.....

to me ............ and many more !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fleece Quilting AND Gift Bags... How I did it

Fleece Quilting: OK you wanted to know "how did you quilt on fleece" .... this is how .... I did it on Prince Charming.

Jen asked me about the threads so thought I'd write here what I told her that works for "me". I almost always use SoFine (top) and BottomLine (bobbin). Now on some of my fleece quilts I used Aurifil thread. I never use cotton threads due to lint. Of course, fleece puts out the fuzzy stuff which I try to keep it cleaned off. My Nolting doesn't like cotton thread.

Pink one with hearts/loops aurifil top and bottom.
Maroon/off white aurifil and bottomline.
Ballerina/pink SoFine with super bobs.
Blue/brown SoFine with BottomLine.
Butterfly/pink SoFine (top and bottom).
Blue/White SoFine with BottomLine.
Frogs/Green Aurifil with super bobs.

I really think using poly on fleece is the best ..... fleece is poly too. I think with heavy use the cotton thread would breakdown on fleece. I never used bottomline on top and bottom ....... I've read where others have. I just don't have the experience of fooling with the tension to try bottomline top/bottom.

I also forgot that I love Isacord thread ....... almost as much as SoFine. I also love the price of Isacord . Jamie Wallen recommends Isacord. He was an instructor at the long arm retreat I attended in October 2007 in Mansfield, Ohio.

Gift Bags: I have about .... 200 Gift Bags now .... (great stashbuster) .... made on my Singer serger (very old) and my Janome 6500P (love Janome).


So tell me ..... what do you think?????

Teachers, Principal and Secretary Gifts

Three days (3) of hard quilting on Prince and I'm done with fleece quilts for GC schools. They are so pleased and proud with the outcome (me too). The quilts are 2 1/2 yds each (approx. 60x90). All were quilted with pantographs (I love pantograph quilting).

These 2 got away before double photos could be taken. Ballerina has soft pink on the other side; hot pink has cats on the other side.

Also made gift bags for each quilt .... I stopped using wrapping paper years ago (great stashbuster).

Now I have a large pile of fleece scraps .... nothing large enough really to do anything with .... so if you have any ideas for the scraps please let me know (I'd hate to throw them away). LOL

I'm very tired. Any ideas for next year gifts?

Header .... YIKES what happened??????

Hey my header is all squished ...... what happened??? BUMMER

When my GC had spring break we made 16 animal cage quilts for the local Humane Society. It was fun, they learned something and can't wait to do it again. My header is suppose to look like this ...... boo hoo

Seat Cushions Renewed

Finally had time to help DD#1 with her dining chairs. Six years ago they lived in a tiny 2 bedroom house (3 kids) now 5 bedrooms and a large eat in kitchen. At that time SIL surprised DD#1 with a very pretty dining set but oh my the chair cushions were butte ugly. We recoved them but after about 7000 meals the cushions were beginning to resemble #2 butte ugly seating. Last week Joann's upholstery fabric was 50% off ...... so off we went. DD#1 picked out a beautiful green velvet like fabric (photo doesn't do the fabric justice). So last night squeezing every inch out of the 2 yards DH and I recovered the chair. Man they look super new (again). AND DH got to use the nailer that was a bonus when he purchased the air compressor for Prince Charming (long arm).

Fleece Quilts

I'm on several Yahoo quilting email groups ... some I own .... some I'm a moderator .... some I'm just one of the masses. On MQSG and HomeQuiltingSystems a lady posted her doubled sided fleece whole quilts ..... she has been one popular lady. Her fleece quilts are terrific, she uses stencils, rulers and more and they do look like whole quilts. It got me to thinking about my doubled sided fleece quilts which I've given out for several years (they're very popular). I only stitched around the outside and then cut a 4 inch fringe. Below you might have read about my fleece buying at Joann's recently. After seeing hackergranny2003 fleece quilt I thought ... hmmmm ..... I bet I could quilt mine even though mine are prints matched to solids (2 1/2yds each). So I loaded up my 2 fleece fabrics, semi-float on my Nolting 18" long arm, size 20 needle and went to town. Now I'm not a freehander so my quilting was done with pantographs. I have 3 finished and 6 more to go. they do go fast. I really like them .... now they have so much character .... never will I just sew around and fringe again. Thanks hackergranny2003.




Kitty Cat/Hot Pink
Timeless Hearts pantograph
Aurifil top and bottom (4 bobbins)






Maroon/Off White
Flowing Feathers pantograph
Aurifil thread top and bottom (4 bobbins)

Ballerina/Soft Pink
SoFine top, Super Bob (prewound bobbins 1+1/3)

Well I gotta get back to Prince Charming ...... 6 more to go.

Tree is Decorated (at last)

Our 3 little reindeer came over on Sunday afternoon and decorated our tree. The poor thing had been naked since Friday. They did a super duper job and even brought us homemade fudge. yummmmy