Step 7 Carolina (Iowa) Christmas Mystery - Bonnie Hunter

I'm still waiting on my sashing fabric, but I have finished my blocks for the borders. Mine is different from Bonnie's, as I jumped the gun (was I the only one) and cut my fabric into 2 1/2 inch strips. I had lots of green strips left, and I had 2 red fabrics that I thought would be pretty larger, so I swapped the red and the green. I also think that I'm going to skip the blocks in the corners and use a 4 1/2 inch piece of fabric instead. I have another Christmas fabric that I think would be prettier bigger. It didn't really fit into the red, green or neutral, but has all three and I think is very pretty.

I just heard on the news that it will be New Year's in an hour in Australia. We still have 13 hours to go, but HAPPY NEW YEAR to the Australian's and all other's who are already into the New Year. On second thought, it's probably not too early to wish everyone HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Step 6 Carolina (Iowa) Christmas Mystery - Bonnie Hunter

I'm as far as I can go on step 6 until my sashing fabric arrives from Thousands of Bolts. My 25 blocks are ready to go, the sashing fabric is pictured below. While I'm waiting I'll work on step 7, the border.

Step 5 Carolina (Iowa) Christmas Mystery - Bonnie Hunter

I didn't finish all the blocks, but I have enough of the fox and geese blocks to get the idea. I think in my case there is a fourth reason for sashing, my fabrics are very busy, and I think it will calm things down.

P.S. I hope this hasn't spoiled anything for anyone who is doing the mystery and hasn't gotten this far, but hopefully if there is anyone, they stopped looking back on step 1.

Step 5-A Carolina (Iowa) Christmas Mystery - Bonnie Hunter

I thought that Step 3 was the biggie, but I think that all of the steps are biggies in this mystery. I have finished the first blocks, the pointsetta stars, and this is 30 of the 48 that I made. The others are laying on the ironing board below. Now, on to the fox and geese blocks. When I get to the next step, step 6, I think that I will use Bonnie's layout, but around each big 4 block combination block, I will add sashing. Three reasons; I like sashing, it makes the sewing together easier as far as matching, and I want a bigger quilt for my queen sized bed. My DH is always partial to black, so I may try to find some black with gold for the sashing. I have some that would be perfect, black with gold mini dots, but alas, I only have about a yard, and need about 3 if my figures are correct.

My brothers visit was very nice, short but nice. Even though we all live within about 4 1/2 hours of each other, we don't get together that often, and it was wonderful to spend time with them. I think that I will go to Jacksonville in the next couple of months and maybe visit. I'd like a little road trip. Hopefully, DH will be up to it.

My brother from Jacksonville, brought an old machine in a cabinet for my granddaughter-in-law, and after we oiled it it zoomed along. The only thing is, it is missing the bobbin case and it's not a well known brand. That's my next project is to try to find one that will work. She, Marcy the new mom, said she'd like the machine if I'll show her how to use it. She made a real cute quilt when she was younger, so I think that it will come back to her when we get her up and running. There's no hurry, as she has plenty to do for now. See what I mean.

Yeah!

Yeah, I have my Google Reader down to 999 unread posts. My brothers will be here to visit any minute, and will leave tomorrow afternoon, so it will be back up over 1000, but at least for a short while I am below 1000.

Gratuitous baby picture:

First Great Grandbaby and Step 4 Carolina (Iowa) Christmas Mystery - Bonnie Hunter

Here is my first great grandbaby ever, now I really feel old, lol. She is a little cutie, born December 16th, 7 pounds 3 ounces, 19 1/2 inches long. this picture was taken on someones cell phone, and she looks much bigger and older in the picture for some reason. Mom and dad and baby are all doing well













Step 4, finally finished. Now it is time to start putting things together in step 5, and that is pretty exciting. I just hope everything goes together well, all is not perfect, there may be a few chopped points, but hopefully since it is such a busy quilt, they'll be hard to spot.

Step 3 Carolina (Iowa) Christmas Mystery - Bonnie Hunter

Many have already finished step 5, but I of course am a lagger. For me, being finished with step 3 is great (I also have step 4 cut out and ready to be sewn), but I have a couple of other things that are pulling me. One, a lady who is ill and lives alone, and I feel like quilting one of my tops for her (it's not one of the 9 that are assigned to various kids and are still waiting to be basted and quilted). The other is my basket of leftover half square triangles. I have bought dolls for our 2 smallest granddaughters and I thought that Christmas doll quilts would be really cute made from them.
I guess that I can decide while I take a break from quilting and clean the house and decorate a little for Christmas. I still have my Thanksgiving things out.

Step 2 Carolina (Iowa) Christmas Mystery - Bonnie Hunter

I can't believe it, I'm sort of keeping up and not lagging behind in the steps (yet). I am ready now for step 3, and it's a biggey.

Bonnie had miscalculated the neutrals a bit and so I made a trip to the LQS and got some Christmas lights on sale. There is still not much contrast between my lights and my gold, but I hope that the fact that the gold is not scrappy will still give it some contrast. Time will tell, that's the fun of a mystery.

Step One Bonnie Hunter Carolina Christmas Mystery

I should be cleaning the house, or decorating for Christmas, maybe even finishing the 9 quilt tops with backs and bindings prepared and ready to go. I should be, but instead I have started the latest Bonnie Hunter mystery. I am not too crazy about my gold or my neutrals, but hopefully when it is all finished it will look good. I love some of my reds and greens and am excited to add them to the mix. It is mostly the same fabrics as in the Strip Unroad Christmas quilt that is a recently finished flimsy, but I think both will be mine, one is a lap size, and the other a bed size. My mystery quilt will be Iowa Christmas, in honor of my mother who thought that Iowa was the best place on earth.

Second Nine Patch

This is the second of my Crazy Mom Quilts nine patch tops. Here is my first one. Just one more to go, a bigger one with the original plan of white sashing. That one I think will stay at my house.

A Little More Progress......

A little progress for me, I have the back finished for my Christmas Strip Road, it looks more Christmasy in person.









(Sorry, I've tried and tried and I can't get rid of the gap, I guess Blogger is acting up.)















Quite a bit of progress for Tabitha. she has a couple of minor repairs to make, and then her final border, and she has her first quilt top. Not sure when she'll be back, but she is excited to see it finished so I think that she'll be trying to get back soon. She also wants to make bread, so that is on the agenda, too.

Quilting Lesson Number Two for Tabitha

Today I'm sure that I was the envy of many a "quilting lady". I got to give my granddaughter her second quilting lesson and spend the day with her. She came over early and since it had been between one year and two since her first lesson, we discovered that although we had figured that all her blocks were done, we were actually about 7 blocks short. To explain the gap I'll mention that she has had 2 or 3 jobs at a time since, or has been going to school and working a job in between. She most recently was juggling 3 jobs, working at two different Wendy's and a Cracker Barrel, and now is the "lazy" worker of only two, as she gave up one of the Wendy's jobs. This week, she is on vacation from her remaining two jobs, and is hoping by the end of the year to be down to only one job and back in college. She turned eighteen this
past June.
She started her labors by trimming her blocks and then cutting out the new blocks.










Then she assembly line sewed for an hour or two, and her grandpa came home from some errands and we decided that we needed a field trip. We went and had lunch out and visited with each other (in the South that means that we chatted), and then we went to BJ's and did a little shopping. I got two new towels, DGD got new red house slippers and DH got laundry detergent, lol.
When we returned home, it was back to the sewing machine, and then after awhile DH went to the chiropractor and we decided that after she had sewn the blocks into pairs and ironed the seams and had them ready for the next step that we would have an imprompto not very elegant tea party. Just as we sat down, guess who came in the door, so I got him a cup too.










Below, are five of the seven rows, I think she did a great job. Tomorrow, she will be back and hopefully we will get the top finished. I told her she had 3 choices for finishing, send it out to the LA'er, quilt it herself on my Juki, or tie it. She is leaning toward a poofy bat, and tying it.

By the way, the pattern is Yellow Brick Road.

Tea Things Tuesday IV

I'm writing this on Monday to be sure that I'm ready for tomorrow, and it started out being dreary and drab here, so I thought what would be a good day brightener. Red is what I came up with, so today (tomorrow) I am sharing some more of my Royal Albert Old Country Roses. I have had it for forever, as I had mentioned before, I'm lucky enough to live near outlets where deals are to be found. The scale of my display is pretty improper, but I like my miniatures and like to include them. The chicken is my only red one, and it is very dark, but I enjoy my little jewels, which is how I think of my chicken collection.













The Fenton cranberry glass vase is a new to me recent addition that I got off ebay. It was a very good buy, and I have been wanting some cranberry glass for years.














For more Tea Things Tuesday posts please visit Kim at Shabby, Pink and Pretty, she is our gracious hostess.

Christmas Strip Road

I took part in a Cyberquilters 4-C-Bees special project week-end before last, and miracle of miracles, I have finished the top. It is supposed to look very different, but due to my fabric choices, it is what it is. It is from a pattern generously shared by Benita Skinner, called Strip Road. Mine is more like a Strip Unroad though. The only purchase that I made was for 2/3 yard of the red cranberry fabric, and I'm going to use some Christmas fat quarters that I got from Connecting Threads for the back, so it is almost all from my small stash. I have wanted a Christmas quilt, and I'm not hating it even if it was supposed to look different than it does. It will be another miracle if I get it finished for this Christmas, but miracles do happen.

Tea Things Tuesday III

I guess that you could call this indecisive day for me. I started out wanting to share my favorite and oldest teapot. I got it mail order about 40 years ago, and I'm almost sure that it was from the Vermont Country store. I couldn't afford it, but it was one of the few things that I splurged on anyway, and I have carried it through many a move since. It is marked "made in Staffordshire England", and has pretty gold and robin's egg blue trim. Then I decided to add a few autumn things, so added the pumpkin that I just found at the Dollar Store, and some of my favorite miniature things, you'll probably see lots of miniature things as I really like them. My mother and two of my aunts enabled me with my love of small glass chickens and bunnies and I have them all over the house. To me they are like little jewels and are some of my favorite things because I love them, and because of where I got them. My mother and one of my aunts have since passed away. The little terra cotta rooster is Avon, and held wax beads. Opposite to my love of miniatures is my love of great big bowls. You can see some of those in the background.

In Rhode Island there is a pottery called Peter Pots. I have a set of dinnerware and also quite a few of what I call "little cute things". The blue sugar and creamer are some of those, they are called the chipmunk set.

From there my mind went to Thanksgiving, I don't know what happened to Halloween, and I added Woman in Prayer, I call her the praying lady. She's a copy of a bronze statue in Nauvoo, Illinois, and I think that she is beautiful.

I hope that you have enjoyed my indecisive offering for today, and to see more Tea Things Tuesday, you can go to Kim's blog, Shabby, Pink and Pretty for links.

Tea Things Tuesday II

It's time again for Tea Things Tuesday.

Kim from Shabby, Pink and Pretty
is the sponsor of this weekly event, and to see some beautiful tea related posts by some really talented ladies, visit her blog for links.

In Orlando, Florida where we live, there are many outlets and I used to regularly haunt them. Now I hardly go anymore, as I have run out of room in my home for more treasures. I have acquired a set of Royal Doulton's Old Country Roses pattern with settings for ten, and also many cute little accessory pieces and serving pieces. The pattern will probably show up again, but for this week I wanted to share a few pieces. Admittedly, the little creamer would be useless in an actual tea serving, but it is so charming, and looks nice with the little usable sugar bowl that my daughter got me for my birthday this year.

Last Thanksgiving, we had the whole family over, about a total of thirty people give or take, and I used my embroidery machine to add designs to a napkin for each person. It's almost time to use them again. Hard to believe that it is almost that time, and there is planning to do. I thought that I would borrow one to cover my Old Country Roses plastic tray.

DH was in the hospital and is going very well, my DD's fiance was in the hospital and is also doing much better, and now my grandson is in the hospital. I was there most of the night day before last and spent most of the day yesterday there. I got home about 7:00 pm yesterday and then slept for about 5 hours. Now it's almost 2 am and I'm not at my best, so please excuse anything that isn't making too much sense. The doctor said that perhaps he will be out today, and I hope that that is right. When he was about to turn 2 years old he fell on a knife, and then had to have surgery when he was 7 for adhesions caused by the knife accident. He has problems off and on and will eventually have to have more surgeries, but hopefully this is not the time. He is doing better, and if it wasn't for the stomach, intestine problems, he would be 100%, he is still strong as an ox and solid as can be. He's 24 years old now.

They say things come in three's, so hopefully this is the end of it. If we need something for good measure, DH's sister was also in the hospital briefly for irregular heartbeat and my pregnant DGD spent a few hours in the ER checking out chest pains. They are both fine.
Have a happy Tea Things Tuesday.

Getting back to normal

DH has been out of the hospital now for a week, and getting a bit stronger each day. Thank you for the prayers and good wishes, I know that it helped me, and I'm sure that it helped him also. It will be a slow process for him to get completely back to normal, as he has several ongoing health issues, but things are going in a generally upward path. I was hoping to make it to Quiltfest in Jacksonville this weekend, but maybe next year.My daughter's fiance is also an Ernie, as is DH, and he is going through his own health issues right now. He is having more tests today, and I would ask for prayers on his behalf also. Thank you very much.









The strange picture above is what it is like to wake up in Florida for much of the year. Many mornings due to the air-conditioning inside, and the humidity outside, it is a few hours before we can see out of the windows due to the condensation. The other morning there was an odd looking little path, I took a closer look to see what had made the marks on the window, and I could see the path of a little (probably) tree frog as he made his way around my sliding glass door. Now I'm worried to go out that he may fall on my head. Thank goodness DH is improving, as he has volunteered to go out first, just in case, and I'm going to take him up on it. I'm not afraid of small frogs, but I don't want any on my head. If you look closely, I think you'll see some little frog bodies in the trail.
As you can see below, I have managed to do a little sewing. This is the first of three, of my nine patch tops. Now the other small one, and a larger one to do. My basting and quilting of my other six children's quilts is on hold as I have to get a table to set up on the porch to spray baste. Now that DH is recuperating from pneumonia, it won't work to do it on the dining room table and then clean up the sticky, it will need to be done outside.