Spring Swap

I have just about finished my Spring Swap quilt. Here is just a peek of it. I won't show the whole thing until it has arrived safely at it's new home. I hope to get the binding on today. I should be able to pack it up and ship it by Friday. That is my goal anyway. Brights are kind of out of my comfort zone but, I had fun making it. I used my own design and fabrics from the Strawberry Lemonade collection.

I haven't been able to spend as much time in my sewing room as I would like. My illness has really kicked my butt! :) It has left my soooooo tired. Other than the tiredness, I am feeling much better though.
I am not sure what my next project will be yet. Maybe a purse, or another scrub top for my RN daughter, or catch up on my BOM, hmmmmmmmmm, decisions, decisions best synthetic urine. A new dress for church might be nice too.

Hugs & Stitches, Julia

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to everyone!!!!!!! I have been blessed with the best "Pappy" any girl could ask for. He is my hero!!! 12 years ago Mom and Dad sold their home with plans of going full time in their RV. But they discovered after a couple of years that it was not for them. My DH's parents had both passed away by then and we inherited their small home, which is right next door to our home. It was empty at the time and needed lots of TLC. Mom and Dad moved into it and have given it the TLC that it needed. They have been right next to me ever since. I am so grateful to have them right next door to me.

My Dad is a great handyman. A week or so ago, I was just walking out of the bathroom and suddenly I heard water running onto the floor. I turned and there was water shooting out from under the cabinet, I had no idea what to do. I am not a good emergency type person, I tend to panic. DH works 12 hour days, so I ran to Dad's for help, screaming, "Pappy I have hot water spewing all over my floor!!!!" He came to my rescue and shut the water off. The little hose under the sink that connects the water, had burst. When hubby got home that night, he said, "Why didn't you just shut the valve off right under the sink?" Well DUH, that takes a calm person to think of that.

Yesterday hubby and youngest son went to an air-show. They had a great time. Our children have been blessed with a Dad as fantastic as mine!!!!!

While they were gone, I spent the day doing laundry. Which is actually one of my favorite household chores. I love to hang it out on the clothesline to dry. The smell of laundry dried outside is one of the best fragrances in the world.

When they got home, I gave DH and Dad their Father's Day present. Since we live right next to each other, we share tools and such, so I got them a power washer. I had ulterior motives though, now DH can clean the outside of the house. LOL
We had a great time trying it out on various things. DS decided to turn the box it came in, into an airplane and was making the flying noises that little boys seem to be born with.

Tote

After making the cute little totes for my granddaughters, I decided to make me a big one for hauling various stuff in. I had a Chez Moi charm pack and one yard of fabric from the line, so from the stash it came and a fun tote was born. I didn't have a pattern, I just started stitching and this is what I came up with. It has a large pocket on the inside for carrying little things, like rotary cutters, pins, scissors, rulers, etc. It would make a pretty good shopping tote too!

Here it is all loaded and ready to go to a class at my guild yesterday. We worked with 2 1/2" strips or Jelly Rolls. There were some really fun ideas, but of course, my camera was languishing here on my desk, instead of in the cute tote. :~) I didn't get a whole lot done, mostly just talking, laughing and playing with my 2 1/2" scraps. I made up a couple of blocks from some of the ideas, finally settling on what I wanted to do. I will show you what I am making when I get a little further along on it.

I am hoping to get the final border on "Blackberry Twilight" (aka, purple stars), today. Maybe even get the back made and loaded onto SuzyQ!

Have a great day, filled with things and people that you love!

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

Menopause, BLECH!!

Menopause or something, is kicking my rear-end the past couple of days. I can't seem to focus on anything and tears are so close to the surface all of the time. I hate it! I am not a happy girl right now! All I want to do is eat, especially sweets! ARGH!!!! Oh, the wonderful stages of womanhood. *sigh*

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions about my fabric bleed. I ordered some Synthropol and I found an extra large capacity washers at one of the local laundry mats. If I can quit crying and eating long enough to get there, I will give it a try. Wish me luck! I will let you all know how it turns out.

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

Quilt Retreat

I had a wonderful time at my quilt retreat. The house was wonderful! Filled with lots of quilts and all of the comforts of home. It was very secluded and so quiet. Just what I needed to recharge my batteries. Such a cute and cozy home.

This is the view from the front porch. The view was just this gorgeous in every direction. The house sits on top of a little hill, you can see for miles in every direction, when the clouds aren't sitting on top of you anyway. :~) It is the perfect place for a retreat. We are already planning for next year. We laughed, sewed, ate lots of delicious food and laughed some more. It was the best!

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

St. Patrick's Day Wall Quilt

Thanks so very much to all of you for your encouragement and kind words regarding the menopause thing. I am feeling much better this week. I think part of my problem is, that I am stressing way to much over things that I can't do anything about!

Ethan's illness came back with a vengeance. I had to take him to the Dr. yesterday, turns out he had an inner ear infection. He has stayed home from school the past two days. He is doing better this afternoon. He should be able to go back to school tomorrow. Poor little thing was sure miserable yesterday. I don't take him to the Dr. very often, but I am sure grateful for antibiotics. He needed them this time.

I spent the morning cleaning house. Yuck! Don't like to do it, but sure do love the results. :~)

I made this little wall quilt last week.

Finished quilting it last night. I think that I might be a convert to hand stitching the binding. I love how it looks! Just a little tricky with my aging eyes. You know another one of those problems of time marching on, the arms just don't seem to be long enough anymore. :~)

I decided it was time to let all of my snowmen have a rest and be put away. It is looking more like early spring here now. Rain instead of snow. It might be the official beginning of mud season! :~)

I found the pattern here. Thanks for sharing this, Kim!! I changed it up a bit. The little nine patches finish at 1 1/2 inches. Aren't they just the cutest, little things! I used this panto.

It was fun, but certainly the most challenging panto that I have used to date. A little tricky to keep track of where you are.

Now that my house is sparkly clean, I think that I will spend some time in the sewing room to finish off my day. I want to make a new ironing board cover. Cindy shared a great idea for making them. I have a couple of aprons that I want to make and a couple more scrub tops for Kristy too.

Hugs&Stitches, Jul♥a

Fall Quilt

I hope that you all had a safe and Happy Halloween. I am glad that it is over. Not really a favorite holiday of mine. Seems kind of weird to teach our children to not talk to strangers and then go out, in the dark, door to door, begging for candy. lol The kids enjoy it though.

I finished this quilt Saturday.

I really wanted to get it done to enjoy for the rest of fall, so I pushed myself last week and finished it in one week. I love this line of fabric, it is "Fall Back in Time" by Sandy Gervais. Her stuff is so fun! I adapted a pattern from Bonnie. I don't think that I ever make a quilt exactly like the pattern, I always have to change it just a little to add my own flair. :~) I used "Just Leaves" panto from Willow Leaf Studio. This was a fun panto to use. It quilted up quite fast.

I don't have a label on this quilt yet, because I don't have a name for it. I really struggle with naming my quilts. Do any of you have any suggestions for me? :~)

Walking report for last week -- 10.3 miles.

Hugs&Stitches, Julia

I Try to be Good!!

I decided that I needed a new wall hanging in my dining room, the one I have in their has been hanging for about 3 months. Spent the day looking at patterns and adapting them in EQ6. Finally had something I liked, went to the stash, found what I wanted. Wouldn't you know it, I didn't have enough. This is what I chose, most of it is from the Thimbleberries Fancy Free line. Then I had to spend lots of time on the Internet searching for more of it. I finally found what I needed and of course, some more fabric that I didn't really need, but it was such a good price. I'll bet you have used that line before too!! *G* Well needless to say, I probably bought more for the stash than what I will be using. I really did try to be good and use what was in my stash first. Oh well, such is the life of a fabricaholic. I don't plan on reforming to much, any time soon. *VBS*

I did make me 4 summer dresses this past week though. All from my stash of dressmaker fabrics, that have been properly aging for the past decade and half. *VBS* I made 2 dressier ones for church and 2 everyday ones. I love dresses when it is hot!!! Nice loose, lightweight ones.

Have a good night my quilting buddies!!!

Cystic Firbrosis Quilt

Stop in at Perry's blog and check out the quilt that she is raffling away. It is a beautiful quilt made by Cindy. She is raising money for CF. Hurry over there and donate, the drawing will be on May 9 so you still have plenty of time. Let's all join together and help out a dear friend and fellow quilter.

Hugs&Stitches, Julia

Drum Roll, Please---------

Here is my exciting news that I was telling you about! My sweet hubby bought me an HQ 16! Of course, he did tell me that this counted for all of my gifts from him, now until I die! roflol :~)


I have the stitch regulator and I love it!!! I didn't want to start on a "real" quilt. So I went to my stash and picked out a piece of homespun, that I didn't really like (you know, one of those what was I thinking pieces of fabric. I am not really a bright colors person), and put a piece of flannel on the back. I will make it for the Humanitarian Center. My dealer did set it up with some fabric, to show me how to load it and play around a little. After a couple of days of practicing, I put this on. I am getting a little smoother with the laser light, following a panto. But, still have lots of room for improvement. It is not as easy as I thought it would be.It is sooooooo much fun though!!!!!! I haven't tried a whole lot of free-motion stuff yet. Wrote my name, did a little meandering, some stars and hearts, just simple stuff.

I bought the new studio frame and it is fantastic. The poles are strong and quite heavy. Very well made. I have it set up to it's full length of 12 feet. Good thing that there weren't any doors on that closet or I wouldn't have been able to get through the door.

I have it in our oldest son's old bedroom. He has been married for four years now. I haven't done anything with the room since he left. The decorating leaves a little to be desired. But, I have plans for filling the walls with all things quilty! You can see some of my fabric stash. This is all leftover from my years of sewing clothing. I don't do that much anymore, so I should go through it and donate a lot of it to charity. Some of it I could use on the back of quilts. All of my quilt fabric stash is upstairs in my sewing room.

I need to start piecing quilt tops like mad, I love using it!!! So much better than struggling with stuffing quilts into my domestic machine. So much easier on my neck and shoulders.

Thank you for getting this for me Lovebug!!!

Hugs&Stitches, Julia

I'm Still Here!!!

My goodness, I can't believe that it has been so long since I have made a post. Summer has been just a little crazy. It has been soooo HOT and DRY!!! I HATE it!!!! My hubby and I are just opposites when it comes to which season of the year that we like, (well we are opposites in a lot of ways, but I digress) he loves summer and I love fall and winter. To me there is just nothing good about summer, heat, yuck, bugs, yuckier, double the work load (house and yard), yuck.

OOOOOOO some scary thunder just snapped, I had better turn this off and finish later. Yeah maybe we will actually get some rain. It has not rained here in about 6 weeks. The mighty Snake River is so low and all of the lakes are at about 30% capacity. Scary for the farmers with their million dollar potato crops in the ground.

I have been able to do some sewing, I made a quilt for my DIL's birhtday. I will post pics on my next post. My sewing room is one of the hottest rooms in the house, so I don't get much done when it is so hot. I am trying to get some new clothes made for myself. Hoping to finish a new dress today that I cut out last night.

Have a great day all of my friends!!!!