Shotgun Wedding...

Finally I have a picture to post of the wedding!  This is Jeff, the groom and Connie, the bride and my Dad holding the shotgun.  Connie looks a bit like she's the one being forced to wed.  We got a kick out of the photo.  She did plan her wedding in two weeks - so it was sort of a shotgun wedding. 

We had a wee bit of rain.....

We live in a place that doesn't get much rain. So right before Christmas, when we received more rain in one day than we usually get in a year - this is what happened. Our house didn't flood, although we did have to sandbag it to keep our backyard from flooding into our kitchen.  Our pool was ready to overflow into our all ready over full patio and so we had to pump the water out of the pool and away from the house.   This is a picture from our front yard.  Those houses you see at the end of the street did flood. Those poor folks had so much damage to their homes. Many of the roads in town were closed including this one.   We couldn't get our car out of the driveway and many people had their cars towed out. 

The kids had a great time, of course!  The had a party in front of our house and bought out canoes, kayaks and floaties.

The water was cold, did that stop them?  Oh no! They all came in later for hot chocolate and fresh baked cookies. I had already taken the day off and had plans to bake cookies.  It took several days for the city to get the water pumped out - and all the roads re-opened.  Everything is back to normal now.

Linda

Scarlett's Quilt - Finished in time for Christmas

I finished this a couple days before Christmas. Whew! I was getting a bit worried about it. I did a combo of quilting and tying.  Here I quilted Scarlett's name.

For the back I used a pretty pink fabric with cats (one of Scarlett's favorite animals) and it's printed with the words "love".

 For this quilt I turned the backing over to the front to make the binding.  I wanted the binding to be the same as the backing.  Once when I was in a quilt shop I heard to "experienced" quilters talking about how horrible it was to use this method.  I really like it on this quilt.  The front needs that pink edge to pull it together and it's a quick and easy way to get a quilt bound.

What do you all think? 

At any rate, on Christmas Day Scarlett loved it!  Both girls (Scarlett and Violet) were so happy with a quilt and when they found out it was a game quilt too....Wow, Life couldn't be any better!  That is until there was another present that needed to be opened!

Patchwork Times UFO Challenge

Judy is having a UFO Challenge.  I thought this will be fun.  AND I might just finish a couple UFO over the year.  So what you do is list your UFO's.  That's the scary part for me.  I went out to the garage (remember my sewing room is now in the garage so that we could set up a guest room) and listed all my UFO.  I have 12.  Each month Judy will pick a number and that is the UFO you work on.  So now that it's time to post my UFO's I can't find my list.  Bummer!  Now I have to go do it again.  So to get in on the fun go to Judy's blog, Patchwork Times and sign up.

I'm off to go find or redo that list.  Wish me luck.

Update:  I found my list


To be quilted:
1. 30's quilt
2. Lisbeth's garden
3. Green - Bunny Hill Quilt
4. Maywood Studio's quilt
5. Batik Jewels
6. Watercolor
7. Strawberry-Patches BOM


To be finished piecing"


8. Fat Qtr (brown and Purple)
9. Angela's Quilt
10. Christmas Wall hanging
11. Homey Prints BOM
12. White BOM

I plan to work on the quilt as assigned by Judy.  I'll try to finish it but if not, no worries.  If I don't finish it at least it will be that much closer to being finished.  I view this as something just for fun. 
Linda

What's Been Happening

This has been a quite a week.  First I had my hubby's birthday.  Poor thing the cake was a DISASTER!  I think you may be doubting me - well check it out this picture and you tell me.   Oh wait WYATT still have my SD card with the pictures on it - sorry no picture available.  Just use your imagination. Imagine a two layer chocolate 8 inch round cake with the top layer broken into 7 or 8 pieces. The pieces are trying (and sometimes succeeding) in falling off.
We have nicknamed this cake the earthquake cake.  But my sweet little granddaughter when she saw it said. Yummy!  That cake looks good!  (Just for the record I'm keeping that girl!!!)  It did taste good.  Hopefully that was good enough for hubby.  I felt bad serving such a mess.

Next Dad hopped a plane and flew out from Arkansas.   He came out to walk my sister down the aisle. Yep, that aisle.  Other people (relatives - not just some strangers!) started showing up from out of town to attend the wedding.  Most stayed with me.  (That's a good thing.)  So I did a lot of cleaning, cooking and making pot after pot of coffee.  Did you see my little 4 cup coffee pot in my previous post?  I was beginning to wonder if it would burn up on me.  But it lasted through.  I don't usually need to make so much coffee.  I enjoyed every minute of having everyone over.

My grandson Troy aka Babyzilla

And then the big day came - and Connie and Jeff got married.  She was a beautiful bride, and he was a dashing groom.  And once again no pictures.  I sure hope Wyatt and the rest of the film crew get an A on that French Cooking Film.  

Linda

Another December Finish!

Oh my gosh!  I thought I would never finish this quilt!!!  I did the piecing early this year. Waited until May for a quilting class to become available in order to learn how to quilt.  Waited for my walking foot to arrive from my local quilt store from June until Sept.  When that didn't happen, I ordered one off the Internet.  I finally quilted it about three weeks ago.  Then it took two weeks just to find time to do the binding.   But it's done and I'm happy with it.  And it will make the best Christmas present for a three year old girl.

I decide to do the binding in the purple that the sashing is in. I applied the binding from the back. Turned it to the front and then used a decorative stitch. Well, I used a different one for each side of the quilt. Turned out very nice even if I say so myself.

Linda

While the crew filmed the French Film, We sewed on the new Machine!!

I need to start this post with a warning. The following post may will contain blurry pictures! The French filming crew still has my camera.

My other daughter just bought a new sewing machine.  She selected a basic Singer to start with.  She came down from Salinas to have me teach her to use it.  Isn't that the coolest thing??? My daughter wants to learn to sew so much she bought a machine?? And now begins the fun!!!



She purchased fabric and a pattern for an apron.  We started after dinner and finished up about 11:30 pm.  Way past my bedtime but it was too much fun to stop!  I'm so proud of her!  Look what she did!  Her first project on her own machine!  Apron being modeled by her:

Check out that scalloped edging.  And the waistband goes to a bit of a point - adding interest to the waist line.  Did you see the large pockets? They will come in so handy.  And check out the little dog - she knows it's way past bed time!  She doesn't care about aprons!!

Next the apron being modeled by me - see we don't care that we are using a camera phone in low light. 

No one should allow their picture to be taken at 11:30 at night!  Yikes!!

Check out this super cute bow in back! 

We think we should start our own apron company.  Here's our best Model! 

Well, maybe not.  (Her hubby is always so much fun and such a good sport!)

I think I will enter this into Paula's Challenge for her. 

Happy Sewing!

Linda

French Film being filmed at My House

Last night I walked in to find a French film being filmed in my kitchen. It's a film about a cooking show.

                                  

My daughter is the one with the curly mustache. 

Note the easy bake oven.  I wonder what Julia Child would have to say about that?

Sorry for the blurry pictures but they were using my camera to film.  The Director of this film, Wyatt, seen below in a slightly ( I mean very) blurry picture is wearing my daughter's 80's sweater! 

Did I ask why?  No. Some things should not be known to moms. 

The whole crew - discussing and planing out the  next part of the film. Which will probably be filmed tonight.

I may not speak French but I could see that I'm not eating their pizza!! That's a snail on top and a twig from the yard.  YUCK!

My new love...

As soon as my daughter told me about this  -- I raced out and bought it.  We made coffee for everyone and everyone agreed it's GOOD.

And even though I do not have pictures (sorry it was just too dark to take them last night) I worked on quilting Violet's quilt.  I quilted her name into the border.  I think she'll like that when she's old enough to read it.  I really enjoy doing the Free Motion Quilting. (I think I've said that a few times before. hehehe)  So tonight my plan is to cut the extra off backing and batting off and do the binding.  I'm thinking about bringing the back over to make the binding.  (Don't arrest  me Quilt Police!)  I had to move my sewing stuff to the garage to turn my sewing room into a guest room and I don't know if I can find the material for the binding.  I did this this to a baby quilt before and it turned out very nice.  So....we'll see what happens.

Happy Hanukkah!

I was thinking about this yesterday - I'm so excited to decorate for Christmas - yet there are others that don't celebrate Christmas. 

For those of you that celebrate Hanukkah, I'm wishing you all a wonderful and happy Hanukkah!!

Remember how I said I had to hit the books?  Well, that didn't happen last night.  Of course not! I started quilting Violet's quilt instead.  That's a lot more fun!  I quilted from 5:30 pm to 11:00 pm.  I'm a very slow quilter.  LOL!!

All I did was stitch in the ditch last night.  I'll do free motion quilting on the border maybe tonight.  I thought it was kind of funny because you can't really see the stitch in the ditch so Hubby couldn't see where I had been quilting until I turned it over and showed him the back.  I personally like other types of quilting better - but I haven't quilted a bigger quilt yet and wanted to do something simple.  I wanted to practice moving all that bulk of the quilt under the needle and in the space of my sewing machine and not having puckers in the back.

Linda

WhooHoo! It's Dec 1st!!!

I have to interrupt my studying to say I' so excited! It's the 1st of December and it's officially the Christmas Season! I can start decorating now. Although I really won't decorate until this weekend when I have more time. But still I'm so excited!

Here's some pictures of the little girls in their new dress. 

Can you see Scarlett taking a peek at the TV set.  Yep, well cartoons are more interesting to her than Grandma holding a camera.  LOL!!

But once we got started the little girls started posing...

...jumping....

and doing what girls do best...twirling!

Now back to my books.....

Linda

PS. I decided to enter these into Paula's Sewing Challenge - Come join the fun here.

Time to get crack open those school books

This will be me for the next couple days.  I have some reading and assignments to do.  I did finish sewing up the two little Christmas dresses.  Violet told me over and over again, "I love it, Grandma, I love it."  Scarlet on the other hand liked it but liked playing more.  I'll post some pictures of the girls in their dresses soon.


Linda

Friday Sew-in results

I admit this doesn't look like much, but I'm so happy with what I accomplished. 

For your viewing pleasure - picture #1

Oh, you don't know what this is?  It's the top to Scarlett's Christmas dress.  I just love this fabric.  Can you see the shinny?  It's the sparkles in the dress.

And picture #2 is the top to Violet's Christmas dress.  I still have to do the top-stitching and sleeves.  But it's getting there!  This fabric is all sparkly too.  Just what little girls love.  (And grandmas too!)

And then here's the skirt portion for Violet's dress. (inside out still)

And here's mistake #1 .  After I finished sewing the front and back panels together I noticed a big whopping difference!!  See how the front and the back of the skirt are different lenghts?  Well, I cut the front a size 3 and the back a size 5.  Now how did I think that was going to work?  Being the smart gal I am,  I decided to wait until morning to do any more cutting. 

I also spent time last night taking my daughter and her friend to a concert (one hour) and then picking them both back up  (another hour) and then Hubby wanted to buy some cereal.  Well, that sounded like a nice break so we went to the store and bought all the groceries we need for Thanksgiving. (another hour). 

You can see why I'm pleased with the what I accomplished since I lost 3 hours doing other stuff.

I hope everyone had a good Friday sewing.  I'm off to see what others did.

Linda

Paula's Sewing Challenge

Have you heard of Paula's Sewing Challenge?  Challenge # 1 is anything Christmas.  How fun is that?  Find your Christmas sewing and join the fun.

I have a few Christmas items I'm working on right now.  Some place mats, hot plates and a Christmas wall hanging  and Christmas dresses for my grand daughters but I'll have to complete them before entering them don't you think?  So for now I have my Snowman ICU baby quilt entered.

Here's what I have to work with for the wall hanging.  I just threw all the pieces on the fabric and took the picture.  I need to figure out how I want them placed.  I like that fabric with the sparklely snowflakes.  Isn't it pretty? 

It's almost time for FRIDAY NIGHT SEW-IN!

I've always wanted to do this but stuff always comes up.  Mostly it's stuff...no wait a minute...it's always stuff that my Hubby dreams up that keeps me from doing this.  Since I have NOTHING planned for this Friday and I have a Gazillion things I need to finish before Christmas I'm in!!  Come join the fun with me.  Go here to Heidi's blog to sign up.

Christmas ICU Baby Quilt - SewGalCal's Christmas Show

SewGalCal  is having a Christmas Quilt Show and since I just finished this Christmas Quilt over the weekend I thought I might as well share it.

Violet, Scarlett and baby Troy (blurry because he's crawling through the quilt).

It seems I can either post a blurry picture - Oh my gosh try to get two little kids to hold up a quilt before the baby pulls it down or crawls through it and have the kids show their faces!  It was hilarious!  But that's why the picture is blurry. Or I can take picture after picture and it ends up being sideways!  LOL!!

It seems this is more of a "how not to post" than a "Christmas Quilt" post.  All that aside, I got this panel at the Sewful Sister's meeting.  We try to provide quilts for the babies in ICU at our local hospital. I'm really happy with the way this one turned out.  And it gave me some good quilting experience.  (I need that you know!)

Thanks for hosting the show SewGalCal!  I always love looking at the quilts. Oh and they have some nice prizes too.

Just for fun I'm going to throw in my first quilt - which is also a Christmas quilt.  This quilt is so well loved that the binding is worn and starting to fray.  And check out the bottom left corner - yep one of the puppies used it for a teething toy.  Nothing like a well loved quilt to warm you up in the winter.

A Great Day with a bit of Sewing thrown in

I did get Veteran's Day off yesterday.  I had the idea that I would spend the whole day sewing.  And of course that is NOT what happened.  I spent some of it sewing. Every chance I could I was at the sewing machine -but I had a lot of interrupts, like lunch out with my daughter and then her coming back to my house with the grand kids, and going shopping at Goodwill with them and my youngest daughter.

Why can't I figure out it takes me twice the time I think it will to sew something up?  I always think I'm going to get a lot more done than I actually do - what's up with that? I know how long it take to do housework, how long it takes to cook - why can't I figure out how long it takes to sew? 

One reason is because I don't watch the clock at all when I'm sewing.  It's me time and relax time. 

I will say that I had a great time yesterday.  My youngest daughter insisted that she wanted some 80's style sweaters to wear to school.  She tried one on, oh my gosh it was so 80's!!  She may look cute - but it's so 80's!!!  I thought I had a good idea, instead of saying no - I made her show her dad.  She went out of the dressing room and showed him and he yelled "You look so cute!!!"  Oh dear - that's not what I thought would happen - but doesn't she realize that if he dad thinks it cute she shouldn't wear it??  We came home with 3 of those sweaters.  LOL!!  The yokes on me!!! 

Linda

Llamas and a Ring

First let me tell you about our trip to Tehachapi.  We were driving out in the middle no where to a customer's house, down winding dirt roads, we went around another bend and there all of sudden were these Llamas!  It was so strange!  It was a beautiful day as you can see from the picture. Notice how those llamas texture goes with the grasses of the countryside?

 

The next day we went to breakfast with my sister and her boyfriend.  My hubby immediately noticed something different about her.  Check out her new rock!  YIKES!  We had a feeling he was a keeper. I better set another plate at Christmas time!  I'm really happy for them.

Nov and Dec Goals for Charming Girls

I know what I need to get done.  Quilt those I-Spy quilts for my granddaughters for Christmas.  These will be so much fun to quilt.  

And sew up that needle case I talked about last month.  Last night I already started working on it.  See? 

I used felt for the inside, 4 pages.  And a snap to close it. So far so good!  I plan to embroider the type of needle for each page - Sharps, Embroidery, Ribbon etc.  Won't it be nice and functional?

And I'm thinking about getting this quilt - quilted.  Doesn't it look like will be fun?

Oh and let's not forget Val's BOM.  Will I ever finish this block?