Catching Up

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time flies! It has been almost 10 days since I last wrote! I have spent the last week and a half trying to get over a cold that turned into a sinus infection (Yuck). I work from home when I am not traveling so have put in some long days recently. And to top it all off, my husband and I have paid to have our pool refinished!  On Saturday, they brought over a pump to drain the pool. Said it would take about 8 hours and 14 hours later it was still being drained. Here are photos of the pool being drained:

They said we would be called before they came to do the demolition - taking off the tile and the plaster. Well, Monday morning I was getting ready to jump on a conference call when the doorbell rang, the dog started barking, and the young man at the door said they were here to demo the pool! 5 young men went into the back yard with a jackhammer, a bunch of buckets, shovels, brooms, and MASKS and got to work. It was a bit challenging to hear what was being said on my conference call due to the jackhammering!
Sooo, about 5 hours later, this is what the pool looked like:

I think it's pretty scary looking!!  BUT, I am so proud of myself for thinking how cool my little grandsons in Wyoming would think it was to see a VIDEO of someone jackhammering Nana's pool! I used my handy little iphone, took a video, and sent it to my daughter in law! She wrote back the boys thought it was cool!

I finished stitching the 9 blocks to Betsy's closet. I took photos but not impressed with  the photo quality. Here is one more block. Hopefully I will get this small quilt top put together tomorrow and post a photo of the finished project:

Well, until next time . . . Happy sewing to all!

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

OK, I have to admit it! I have become a HUGE Downton Abby Fan. Did not even know what it was until about 6 weeks ago. My daughter bought me a subscription to Hulu Plus for Christmas and it is amazing how you can get TV episodes the day after they have aired!
With all the hoopla about Downton Abby, I decided I needed to check it out. I was hooked after the second episode! I was able to watch all the episodes starting at the beginning and was all caught up a couple of weeks ago.
Last night was the season 3 finale. Oh dear! I think I need to get in touch with the writer of this series and have a serious discussion with where he is going!!
Can't wait until the next season begins! Until then, I guess I will be sewing, sewing, sewing  :)

Hand Work

Last fall I bought a kit from Shabby Fabrics. It's called Betsy's Closet and is adorable. My friend got one too!  I haven't done hand embroidery for YEARS and it's kind of fun to get back into it - even though my fingers hurt!!!
As I was tracing out the last 5 blocks (I had previously traced 4), I got an idea for using this pattern a bit differently (if I decide to do it again).  Oh, if only I had a little girl to sew for (ahem, like a granddaughter).

hehehe  :)


                                                  Here are photos of the first three blocks.

Well, the other blocks are calling my name! Time to get a cup of coffee and start stitching!  Until next time  . . .

almost DONE!!!

It's a great day here at my house! I was able to put the final borders on this quilt top, hang it up, and take photos of it! Phew!!!! Notice I added a white inner border to break up the busyness of the original pattern!   Now to decide on how to quilt it. . .
I would like to tackle this myself BUT don't want to do anything boring. I need some ideas. Can you help me out?
My goal will be to get it totally complete by the end of February. See, I figure if I put it out there, then I will not only be disappointing myself if I don't complete it but might be disappointing you also.
Let me know your thoughts, the clock is ticking!

Cathy

Back to the Projects . . .

THANK YOU  THANK YOU  THANK YOU  To all who came to visit and left sweet comments during the Dare to Dresden Blog Hop. It was lots of fun and I look forward to doing another one in the future. The next three hops are all full, so we'll see when I am fast enough to join  :)

This has been a crazy month for me! Some of you who follow, know I am a nurse who travels as part of a compliance team for a long term care company. The month of January saw me traveling to Texas, twice to Orange County, and last week to Idaho. Boy, was it COLD there! I get a little reprieve this week and get to work from home (Yay!). It is nice to be able to enjoy the warmer climate of Phoenix! After all, this is the time of year to be here. Our days are seeing temps in the low 70's - great hiking weather.

In celebration of being home, I pulled out a project I started after Christmas and worked on it a bit more.  Here are some photos:

I laid out the half square triangles of the Blitzen quilt, then marked and stacked them

Ready to begin stitching the rows together. There are 6 squares per row, 6 rows per section.

 



Here are some shots of them all put together

 

 

The pattern calls for only 2 borders but I will be adding 3.  The fabrics for this are from Basic Grey for MODA fabrics. They are absolutely beautiful! Now the biggest decision will be what pattern to  quilt over the top!  Any suggestions? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

 

Until next time . . .