A Month (or two) of Sundays . . . .

Have gone by since my last post.  How have you all been?
Our kitchen remodel project finally got off the ground two weeks ago.  All I can say is, what a mess!  I have never seen so much dust . . . And I live in the desert!  Ha!
Before they came to demolition my kitchen, I spent a lovely couple of days feverishly putting together a couple of quilt tops to send to my sister for quilting.
Alas, they still are sitting in my sewing room, waiting to be put in the mail!  I keep thinking I will finish this next one and add it to the box.
Speaking of the next one. . . .  Grand baby #14 was born yesterday morning!  She is absolutely beautiful!  Addison Rae Rayes joined us just before 10am yesterday morning weighing in just shy of 8# and measuring 19.5 inches long.    The quilt unfinished is for her!

A sneak peak at starting Addison's quilt:

Of course every good quilter needs sustenance to get her through the project!  :)

Here is Ethan's top.  I call it "Thinking outside the Square"

Not a great photo but I embroidered all the cars and moving vehicles, then appliqued them onto the fabric.  I just had to add the crayon borders!

And here is the quilt I put together in a day!

It is a jelly roll quilt made from Riley Blake's Beaujolais line.  This photo does not do it justice! The fabrics are absolutely gorgeous!


Well, I am off to work in Idaho tomorrow.  No quilting for a while.  Hopefully when I come home Friday evening, my new kitchen counters will be in!
Til next time!

Hello Again!

Wow! I cannot believe it has been a whole year since I wrote.  An awful lot has happened in the last year.

• Megan and Calvin were married in June. (Daughter, child #4)
• Twin granddaughters - Abby and Bethy were born August 23rd in Denver. (Nick and Kathryn's children - this makes 6 for them).
• Nathan and Casie were married in September. (Son, child #6)
• I changed positions with my company in September.
• My father in law passed away at the age of 93 on November 9th.
• Most of my children came home for the funeral of their Grandfather on November 20th. 
• We celebrated the birth of grandson Hudson on November 28th. (Grandchild #12)
• Then Hudson passed away and went to be with our Lord on November 28th  (he was with us for 8 1/2 hours). (Hannah and Luke's son).
• Funeral for Hudson on Saturday, December 5th. (Columbus, Ohio)
• Burial of my Father in law on December 12th (Globe, Arizona)
• The Holidays descended upon us but we didn't feel much like celebrating.  THEN, on Christmas night, Nathan and Casie came to our house and told us they were expecting in July!
• Grandson Ethan Rayes was born on January 27th in Phoenix.  All I can say is I have the most AMAZING daughter in law as she understood the uncontrollable tears I shed as I held Ethan and rejoiced in his perfectness while grieving the loss of Hudson at the same time!  Victoria, you are truly a gem and a blessing not only to me, but to my son and my grandchildren!
• Hannah came out for a brief visit in February and looked absolutely amazing!
• Hannah and Luke informed us in March they are expecting a baby girl in November!
• My wonderful friend, Kim, and her husband made their way to Arizona in March and we were able to spend two afternoons together  What an absolute blessing!!

Those are the highlights!  That has a lot to do with why I have not written.  It isn't due to not thinking about it, there were many times I wanted to write but chose not to because I was emotionally or physically drained.

On the work front, I left the Compliance team for the company I work for (The Ensign Group), and accepted a position as the Director of Clinical Services for the Assisted Living part of our Company (Bridgestone Living).  Basically, I lived in Wisconsin for 6 months!  (many, many flights back and forth with a couple of random others to Nevada, Idaho, and Kansas).  We had rented out the same hotel suite for 6 solid months!  It was home away from home for three of us!  We would leave our heavy winter clothing there on the weekends, sometimes not even bothering to bring a suitcase home!  Then there were many weekends we spent in Wisconsin as there was much work to do and the trip back home would take too long  :(!
We gave up room 219 at the Comfort Inn and Suites in Milwaukee on February 19th!  And then my team celebrated with a short cruise to Ensenada, Mexico!

Ahhh, but on the sewing front . . .
Through all of the joy and sorrows, I was able to continue to work on quilts.  I made one for Hudson, I made one for a co-worker who became a grandmother for the first time, and I have almost completed the top of a quilt for my grandson Ethan!

My sister Diane and I met up in Salt Lake City just two weeks ago for the Spring Quilt Market and purchased some yummy fabrics for CaDi Corners!  I am back to planning projects that will most likely not get done   :)  but this is my therapy and I absolutely love it!

I had a particularly grueling week up in Idaho for work a week ago and while I was gone, my daughters and daughter in law moved ALL of my sewing "stuff" into a spare bedroom.  What a ton of work that was!  You see, we are getting ready to have our kitchen remodeled and the started out cleaning out my cabinets - then moved on to the sewing area.

I have been so excited to have my "Mom Cave" that I actually whipped up a small project Monday.  I have been meaning to do this for a couple of years.  Very simple really!   A clothespin bag!
Yup!  You can't live in Arizona and NOT hang out laundry.  Good grief, things dry in just a couple of minutes!

Here is a photo:

I will attempt to write more frequently.  No promises - but I would like to make this a regular habit for Sunday afternoons!

See you later. . .

Yay! A Finish!

I like to blog when I have photos to show off!

I took a short vacation (spur of the minute) a week ago to go home to Vermont to check on my Mom.  Of course that also meant spending some wonderful time with my two sisters and my youngest brother!  The thing with times like these are they are never long enough!

I suffer with a psychological condition called "Delusional Thought Process"!   I always think I can cram WAY more into my time at home than what is humanly possible -  hahaha!

When packing my suitcase, I threw in about 11 yards of fabric I had earmarked for a quilt for Mom.  For Mother's Day this year, I  searched on line for some pretty embroidery designs Mom could stitch up on her sweet little Elna.  I found some, sent them to my sister to download onto Mom's machine.  The rest of the instructions were for Diane (sister) to cut squares of fabric with stabilizer for Mom so she wouldn't have an excuse for NOT stitching out the designs.  Then, the squares would come to me to sew into a quilt top.  Diane would long-arm it, and other sister - Debbie -  would bind it.  This would truly be a joint effort.
Because I was planning a trip (and not telling them - I wanted to surprise them), I thought I would bring along the fabric and put the top together while at home.  [Enter Delusion Thought Process].
Vermont is such a beautiful state, some time MUST be spent driving the countryside and drinking in all the beauty God created!  [Cuts into sewing time].
Then, there's the thinking involved in taking the sweet embroidered squares and creating a whole quilt around them.  Once I decided what would look good (with Mom's input), I needed Diane to use her cool quilt program to plan it out and come up with directions.

This is what we came up with:

Pretty sweet, huh?  Well, let me tell you what a PAIN this is!!!

The pretty blue and white floral fabric stretches like crazy and has made this little product our BEST friend:

By the time Mom's quilt is done, we figure it will take about a gallon of this stuff!

It really is awesome!  We have had to spray and iron each piece to get the stretch to decrease.

Mom's quilt will need a total of 24 - 16" squares.  Some of those squares will be cut and used in half and some in quarters because the squares are on point.

When I left Vermont, we had a total of 11 blocks completed.  I pulled the little sister card - 

1.  I am on the road for work almost every week

2.  My daughter is getting married in a month

3.  My son is getting married in 3 months

4.  There is NO WAY I am bringing this fabric back home to work on

Diane was very gracious and said she would finish it.  Whew!

Being a middle child, I DID feel just a little bit guilty.  Sooo, I want my sister to know that I have been energized by our sewing time together and have taken a little quilt top out that I finished last year and actually QUILTED and completed it for my little grand daughter Alana.

I bought this as a kit a couple of years ago and hand embroidered the squares.  This is a Brenda Riddle pattern and the fabrics were by Lecien.

I did a stitch in the ditch around the rows with small squares and put an "X" in each square.

Then, I did a small meander around the dresses.  This ended up making the dresses "pop out".

The nice thing about the meander stitch, is you can turn your quilt upside down and it won't matter!

Sooo, when I grow up, I want to be a long arm quilter and do wonderful quilting like Judy Madsen of Green Fairy Quilts, and Jenny Pedigo of Sew Kind of Wonderful.

I took a Craftsy class on free motion quilting and this is my stab at a flower using echo type of stitching.

The finished quilt.

I wanted to sew the binding on by machine.  While it does not look bad, I think it is worth hand sewing the binding on!  It just looks so much nicer!

Well, the next project is a few quilted baby bibs and a self-binding receiving blanket for a baby shower I will be going to on Saturday.

Happy Sewing!  Hope to be back soon. . .

2015

The last two months have been quite busy for me!  I managed to make 14 Christmas Stockings with #15 almost complete (I know, it's January 18th).  #15 was something I wanted to try and then will send to my sister for our business, CaDi Corners.

Once those were done, I put together a baby quilt for a young couple in our church who had their baby a bit prematurely earlier in the year.  Here's a photo  (made with Lily and Will the green and browns):

Not the greatest photo.  The quilting was all cross hatching and I used a pretty green thread.  It looks awesome in person!

 I finished up a quilt my friend Kim, and I had started a couple of years ago.  I saw a photo of hers completed and hanging on her wall in a Christmas picture she had sent - I think two years ago.  I have had the top done, but needed to get it quilted, bound, and hung up!  When we decided to do this quilt, we had seen the photo in a magazine and thought it would be neat to do double blocks and share.  So, here are some photos of the finished project:

I love to look at the quilting from the back.  Every other block has a snowflake pattern my sister digitized for me.  Those blocks were all done on my embroidery machine.  The rest were done free motion.

This is the quilt hanging on my wall.  Guess I need to work on spacing the clips better to have the "hang" look right   :)

 

 

I had done some mending and brought my "baby" in for a tune up and cleaning.  I dropped my machine off on a Saturday knowing I was traveling for work the whole next week.  They said it would be done in a week.  Well, on MONDAY, I received a call saying my machine was ready.  Boy, was I shocked. So of course, as soon as I landed in Phoenix on Friday, I got my car and went to the sewing machine shop to get my girl!!!! 

My goal for this year is to FINISH PROJECTS and LEARN HOW TO FREE MOTION QUILT BETTER WITH MY DIAMOND DELUXE!!!  As much as I would love to have a long arm quilting machine, it just isn't in the plan for quite a while.  Why not figure out how to do all those marvelous things with the machine that I have???!!!!

 

On the family news side of things, I have another daughter (Megan) getting married this year!  YAY!  Looks like a June wedding (It will be hot here).  Kimera graduated with her AA in English Literature.  YIPPEE!!!!  Louie had his gallbladder out before Christmas and was sanding down our picnic table the next day (ugh!  He just would not listen to me to take it easy!  Besides that, with all the surgeries I have had, he made me look like a total wuss with his overactive-ness after his!)

 

I hope to be a little more organized and blog regularly this year ALL YEAR!

 

My current project is a quick little baby quilt.  I saw one made up like this in a local quilt store a while ago and thought - No reason why I can't do one!  I will post photos later in the week when I am done.  I will also try to get some photos of the Christmas stockings posted too!

 

Projects to do by the end of the month:

1.  Finish making masks for the grandkids for Valentines day

2.  Put together a bag with some of the fabric CaDi Corners purchased

3.  The little quilt mentioned above

 

Projects for February:

1.  Husband's friend at work is having a little girl and he asked me to make some of my cute little quilted infant bibs for them  -  I will most likely do 4.

2.  Daughter has been asking me to make Gabe a backpack (he is 2)

 

 

BIG PROJECT TO COMPLETE THIS YEAR  -  NICK AND KATHRYN'S QUILT!!!

 

Now for those of you who read somewhat regularly, I am asking you to keep on me so that I can get it done.  I have decided this will be the last quilt that I will pay someone to longarm.  I want a custom quilting job done on this.  I also would like to have it all completed before Megan's wedding as Nick and Kathryn will be coming out for that!

 

Well, enough for now!  I hope you all have a wonderful week!  Please feel free to leave comments AND be sure to visit CadiCorners.com!

CaDi Corners BLACK FRIDAY SALE!!

Hi Everyone!
Visit CadiCorners.com to check out our Black Friday deals!  Select fabrics are 20% off through Sunday.  Then be sure to visit again starting Monday for another special!
Happy Thanksgiving!

...Baby, it's COLD outside. . .

I had to work up in Denver this week.  On Monday, I was running the air conditioner in the car on my way to the airport in Phoenix.  When I landed in Denver, it was 28 degrees out!
Wednesday morning I left my hotel to make the 15 minute trek to the facility and arrived 2 HOURS LATER!!!  Unbelievable!
Today I left and it was 5 degrees out, and landed in Phoenix 65 degrees!  Needless to say, I was very happy to come home!

Christmas is coming and CaDi Corners is getting in on the Black Friday Hoopla!  Stay tuned!  I will be posting again soon to tell you what the specials will be    :)
Until then, stay warm!

Shop Hopping

One of the fun things I get to do when I travel for my REAL job, is check out the quilt shops in the towns I visit for work.  This past summer, I started pulling up Facebook on my phone and doing a check in for which ever shop I was in.
My Husband, being the intelligent, good-looking, fun, fine, upstanding man that he is, suggested I blog about some of those shops I visit.
Soooo, here is my first post about a FUN little shop I visited just last week.

Well, first I should tell you I was NOT on a trip for work last week but travelled home to Vermont to check on my mother who had fallen and broken her arm pretty badly.  But even though I went back to see her and spend some time with her, I still managed to go to a shop.

Enter - Sunny Laurel Sisters - Colchester, Vermont

I told my sister I had seen this shop listed on the  www.RowbyRowExperience.com  site.
She hadn't heard of it, so we went to check it out  (sorry Kim, they were out of their license plates). What a wonderful little quilt shop!  We got there just a couple of minutes after 5:00pm (they opened from 5-9pm) and there were people waiting to go in!  We loved looking at the lovely array of fabrics and some adorable Patchabilities wall hangings that were made up. We met Nicole and April (two of the sisters) and felt right at home.  Of course we saw some items we just could not do without!  Our most fun find was a very small hexie template!  We each purchased one (along with other items), went home, cut out hexie's, and created little ornaments.  Being quite pleased with our ingenuity, we felt the need to return the next day and do a little show and tell.  We also brought her some to keep (both the small shown below and the larger ones).  We like to share ideas!
Nicole and her sisters are expanding their store into a larger space in the same shopping plaza BUT their new space overlooks Lake Champlain!  We are so very excited for them!
If any of you are ever in Vermont, be sure to look them up.  You can check out their website at:
www.sunnylaurelsisters.com

When I was packing for my trip to Vermont, I grabbed a couple of patterns I had purchased and wanted to show my sister.  One pattern was for a tuffet.  You know, "Little Miss Muffet sat on her Tuffet, eating her curds and whey . . ."   The pattern was not written very well but I slogged through it anyway because I thought it would be so very cute!  Diane and I worked together as a team and this is what we came up with:

It is very cute BUT, needs to be puffed out on the sides!  My sister said she would never make another one.  I am thinking there is room for improvement so the challenge is on   :)

Well, it is getting late and I am still battling jet lag! Guess I will say goodbye for now!

Summer's End - Finally!

A frequently asked question - Where does the time go? - seems to be my motto lately! Several months have flown by since I last posted.  I like to have photos to post and that has been one of the reasons why I haven't posted.  I have been slow at completing projects and even slower at taking photos.
My last post showed the beginnings of Layla's quilt.  Here are photos of the finished product:

The finished quilt.  Hanging on my quilt holder in the hallway

A closer look:

 



 

 

The quilt label.  In the background you can see the pattern quilted in the plain squares.

 

Another look

 



I was pretty happy with the way it came out.  Layla (and her parents) are moving to Ohio today  :(
I will be saving my Southwest Airlines Frequent Flyer miles so I can go visit them!!

As soon as Layla's quilt was done, I needed to start on another for a sweet baby girl (now 9 months old)

Here are some photos of what I have so far:

The mom likes baby blue and asked for a little bit of yellow.  Here are the fabrics I chose:

Then I cut them out:

The small squares were to be ironed into prairie points.  The half square triangles were to be made into pinwheel blocks.

 



 

 

I chain pieced the half square triangles.

Believe it or not, there are 120 prairie points there!  It was 109 degrees outside when I ironed those little buggers - What on Earth is Wrong with me!!!!

 



 

 

No way was I going to PIN those prairie points on!  Gotta love fabric glue sticks!!

 

 

The quilt top:

 



I need to layer and quilt it.  I have had many things keeping me busy - mainly work (my paying job :))   BUT, I managed to take a little side trip:

This is my wonderful friend Kim  (I have a daughter named after her!)  We toodled around central Illinois visiting Quilt stores in her little Smart Car.  I had heard there is lots of sitting room in there and there is!!

 

 

The reason I was able to visit with  Kim is because my son Nathan, was getting ready to graduate from his Army Officer Course in Missouri.  I planned to leave a few days before his graduation so that I could fit in some fun with Kim.

 

Here is my son - Nathan!  He is child #6, son #3 - A 2nd Lt in the Army and attached to the Arizona National Guard:

 

 

 

I told him he needed to look like he loved his Mother in this photo.  I think he did a pretty good job!

 

After Nathan's graduation, I took him and his friend out for lunch.  Then Nathan and Tanner jumped into Nathan's truck and headed west, I headed east.  Back to St. Louis to catch a plane to San Antonio for a team meeting out at a Presbyterian camp grounds.  We had two days of meetings, a game of kick ball, two turns at canoeing, then home after 8 days of being gone.  Whew!

 

Two days before my trip, we said goodby to our dog of 14 years. 

Penny

 

 

Now maybe you all can understand why I have not had the time to write.  But of course, I will end this post with a promise (which is more like a hope) to not let so much time go by before posting again!



Summertime Sewing

I have a friend who lost her husband this morning.  I am sad for her and her children and what they are experiencing right now. BUT I can also be happy that her husband Rick is now with the Lord in Heaven and THAT is truly a blessing. It doesn't lessen the pain those left behind feel, but knowing they will see him again one day is the silver lining around their cloud.  I find as the years go by, we are seeing more of our friends and acquaintances  leave this world.  A normal part of life, but one that affects us immensely!  Sooo, therapy for me is cranking up the Southern Gospel music and sitting at my sewing machine.

In my last post, I mentioned I had a two week trip for work to Denver and was planning on getting some sewing done. Well, I DID!  A wonderful lady named Darcy lent me her sewing machine and I was able to put a small dent in this quilt that I started almost 10 years ago.  Here are some photos:

This is Darcy's Sewing machine.  She said it was the first purchase she ever made on credit! A sweet  little machine that ran like a charm.

 

I managed to sew together 128 melon pieces for this quilt:

 

 

So, while 128 pieces may sound impressive, I have a total of 508 melon pieces to sew up!!

 

 

Not a great photo, I know, but this is a small representation of all the pieces I have sewn together.  If I don't hurry up and finish this, I will come up with some missing   :(

 

 

These are the three types of pieces I have sewn together so far:  Arc A, Arc B, and Melon .

 

I am convinced it will be beautiful when it is done - just want to get there!

 

Meanwhile, I need to finish this one up first:

 

 

Again, not a great photo BUT - aren't you impressed with how organized I am??

 

 

 

This is a photo of the made up pattern. From the book - P.S. I Love You Two

If you are a reader of my blog, you will recognize the pattern. My sister and I made a full size one out of the Christmas fabric we bought last year.  This will be the Fourth time I make this pattern up!!

 

All ready to start my therapy!

 

Notice the Starbuck's cup to the right?  Yep - gotta have the 'ole caffeine!

Oh, and the vacuum cleaner in the background is to remind me once in a while I need to clean.

Til next time. . .



Finished Baby Quilt

I finished the Baby quilt my sister and I put together when in Vermont.  I quilted it on my sewing machine on Monday (Memorial Day) and logged 1 hour and 20 minutes of actual sewing time but it took me between 3 and 4 hours (that's because I had to roll, move, roll, move, THINK, roll, move . . .  you get the picture!)
Not really my best work - I was frustrated with the little issues from the piecing.  BUT, it sure is cute!  We used the applique patterns from Designs by JuJu.  This is actually an alphabet set with a picture attached but we chose not to use the letters. 

I REALLY need a better camera with some experience on taking good photos but here are some shots of the quilt:

I love looking at the back of quilts to see the stitching!

 

 



I am off to Denver for work for the next two weeks.  I dread being gone from Hubby and home for that long BUT, I managed to secure a sewing machine to use while I am up there and am planning on spending my evenings in the hotel room SEWING!!!  Yay!
I mentioned a while ago on one of my postings that I was getting ready to get back to a quilt I started a Very Long Time Ago. . .
I am bringing it with me and hope to make some progress.  Finishing up that quilt will make me feel like I have truly accomplished something and then can move on to other projects I have had lined up for a while.
I will post photos as I go along.  Who knows, maybe I will be organized enough to post while I am away!
Now, to ensure I organize my work days up there to not be too long and exhausting  (When I travel for work, I usually work 12 to 16 hour days in hopes of  being able to relax a little when I am home.  Needless to say, that RARELY happens   :))
Until next time . . .