A Colorful Day

This is what my sewing area looks like now, with DS's dining table serving as my sewing table. I have room to spread a quilt out as I sew now. I finished the quilting on the second floral quilt this evening. Wednesday I plan on put on the binding on both quilts, time willing.

DH and I went out to eat at Luby's tonight, very good dinner. Then he took me to see "Underdog" which was lots of fun. It was a good job of translating the 60's and 70's cartoon into a live action film. I give it 4 stars.

These are some coasters I made yesterday. Our quilt group did these as a project last fall, and I'm just now getting around to finishing them! They also work as covers for the foot of a wine glass. I don't drink wine, though--so coasters they be!

I got this fabric postcard in the mail today. It's a pretty little fairy for a swap called Myth and Magic. Thanks, Sandra!


I bought these 6" squares on eBay Thursday and received them today. There are 9 squares of each of the 8 colors. Can you tell that I love bright colors? I have ordered some other sets of squares from eBay and will post them as I get them.

Today was a pretty good day. Tomorrow: oncologist appointment, grocery shopping, Eastern Star meeting with supper afterwards at Ihop; keep your fingers crossed that it is just as good a day!

New starts and improvements

I had lots of fun playing with the long-arm quilting machine today, as you can see. I tried every kind of design I could think of. The instructor, Becky, was pleased that I seemed to catch on so quickly. The lesson took two hours, and half of that was threading the machine and pining the quilt layers to the leaders. The second hour was actually using the machine.

Half the battle is knowing what design you want to make before you get to the point of doing it. The seagull design started out to be a duck but he evolved as I drew him. I was able to write my name (not shown) fairly legibly as well. Becky was very patient with me and let me try anything I wanted to try. Mainly I just doodled.

The hearts and the fishes were fairly easy to do. The fork-like shape--I don't know what that was supposed to be! I decided that I can do this as long as I have a drawing in front of me of what my finished design is supposed to be. The lesson was well worth the $40 it cost me. I'm nowhere near perfect, but it's good enough for my purposes.

DH bought this coleus for me and planted it in the front flower-bed. I wanted some instant color, and this plant jumped out and grabbed me at the nursery. He is replanting the bed to use as a demonstration bed for his iris. The air conditioner condensate drips into this area, so it's always moist--perfect for his bog iris and flags.

I had been wishing for months that I had a dining table, but we couldn't really afford to buy one. I suddenly remembered that my DS and DDIL, who live with us, had a dining table they were storing in our backyard shed. They were fine with letting me use it until they need it. So now I have a dining table that I can spread a quilt out on, or work on other crafts and be able to spread out. We won't eat on it unless we have company (we can't see the TV from the dining room!) I'll be spending the next few days getting all my sewing stuff rearranged to fit around the table.

Quilting Progress

I gave up on trying to use my sewing machine for free-motion quilting. I just can't get the hang of it. So I've put the feed-dogs back up and I've quilted one of my flower applique quilts that way. I echo quilted around the flower and around the block. It looks okay, and is close enough together for W&N batting. I've got four blocks of the second quilt done as well--I hope to finish it by this weekend. I need to find a fabric that will work as binding for both quilts. I'm thinking maybe fuschia or purple. I used quilter's flannel for the backings, a lavender check on one and a lime green check on the other.

I'll take my first lesson in long-arm quilting tomorrow. I have two pieces of white muslin, 44" square, and a larger piece of W&N batting for the sandwich. I hope to use colored thread for practicing so I can easily see what I'm doing wrong. I expect to have a lot of fun with it!

DH did not get his injection yet--they want to wait until his test results come in. He goes back for the results on the 7th. He is back to work now, and seems to be feeling better anyway.

Back to class!

I'm so excited! A couple of friends from my quilt group told me there was a quilt shop in town that I didn't know about, so today I went to find it. It's a nice little shop that specializes in heirloom sewing (the owner is a Martha Pullen Certified instructor) as well as quilting. They have a long-arm quilting machine, and they do quilts at a very reasonable rate; so I put my name on the list to have them do the red and green quilt. What's even better is that they give one-on-one classes on using the long-arm machine! I signed up for my first class next week. After a couple of classes they'll rent me the machine for short periods to do the quilting myself. This is exactly what I was hoping for! Now if I can just become proficient enough to do a decent job on the small quilts I have ready, I'll be so happy!

I am still trying to get started machine quilting one of the baby quilts. I am really nervous about it--I tried, had to pick out the first try, and haven't yet tried it again. I can't seem to coordinate the movement of the quilt with the speed of the machine.

DH saw the oncologist yesterday, and is having some tests run. On Monday he will finish the tests and can get his first dose of Sandostatin, a somatostatin analogue. It will help get rid of the serotonin buildup that is causing him to feel so ill. It won't help the carcinoid any--the oncologist agrees that chemo is not effective and radiation is contraindicated for carcinoid tumors. He does think there is a chance that radiofrequency ablation therapy may help shrink the liver tumors. We will not know that until DH has had his scans in September to judge the spread of the tumors. We like the oncologist; he seems quite knowledgeable about carcinoids so we trust him already. DH does not want to use any extreme means to treat it, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Ty, where are you??

I have the two small quilt tops done and will be layering them with the backing and batting tomorrow. I will do my best to learn machine quilting to get them finished, and I will post pictures when I get one finished.

I have given up on the professional quilter I was hoping to use for the red and green quilt and am looking for another. I love the work this lady has done for me before, but I have not been able to get hold of her to deliver the quilt tops, and I am afraid I might not be able to get them back if she ever did get them. So if anyone knows a good longarm quilter in the Corpus Christi area, let me know!

I will try to do the oriental wall hanging myself, if I can do the floral applique quilts adequately. I also located a quilt top that I made about five years ago, Mr. McGregor's Garden, a series quilt from Quiltmaker magazine. I love the top, and will try to quilt it as well.

On Friday I had to rush my DH to the doctor, as he was very sick and weak. The doctor says it is his Carcinoid syndrome again, and has nothing to give him for it. He is arranging for DH to see an oncologist, who may be able to help with monthly injections of a somatostatin (I think that's what he said.)

I get complacent about my husband's disease, then something like this happens to throw a scare into me. I try to forget that he's so sick, and most of the time he goes about his life as though he were perfectly well. It would be horrible for both of us to live as though each day might be his last; it is unfair, however, for me to treat him as well when he feels sick much of the time.

My younger son helped him finish re-roofing the patio last weekend (which probably didn't help.) It really looks much better now, and should last for many years. I am hoping that we can gradually get some indoor repairs done now, although I will have to hire people to do anything strenuous. The bathroom and kitchen are the main problem areas. It would be so great to have one of the TV home-improvement shows come to do the work! But if I can be patient and do just a little bit at a time, it will eventually get done.

The bathroom work is almost all cosmetic--paint, removing wallpaper, repairing a ceiling that isn't as stable as it should be; and then I'll have professionals in to refinish the tub, tile, sink, and countertop. A new shower door is probably beyond our capabilities as DIYers, too. Maybe Home Depot would install it for us.

The kitchen needs a re-design, new fridge, a dishwasher where there is none now, additional cabinets, and new flooring. Plus new paint, repair of a small hole in the ceiling, and installation of a new range hood. The main problem is that the electrical wiring in the house is more than 35 years old, and really needs to be completely re-wired. No way can we afford that, so I'm not sure we could add a dishwasher to the circuit which is a little dicey already. Oh, well-where is Ty Pennington when I need him??

Happy Fourth!

We have had a quiet and soggy Fourth. Nearly 10 inches of rain has fallen over the past three days, and it is thundering now as I type. I don't know whether the fireworks will go off as scheduled or not, but we seldom go to watch them anyway.

The OES meeting for last night was cancelled, but the potato salad turned out really good. We had that with hot dogs last night and tonight for supper. DH and I made a junk food run and are replete with candy, nuts, chips, ice cream, etc. for the next week or so.

I thought about hitting some of the holiday sales, but did laundry and other inside jobs instead. I also watched a couple of baseball games--the Astros lost, the Rangers are ahead in the 6th inning.
We are big Astros fans, the Rangers are second best. We were watching the game on TV when Craig Biggio got his 3000th hit. We started watching the Astros when Nolan Ryan was still pitching, and now his son owns the local AA farm team, the Hooks.

Hot dogs and baseball--not a bad Fourth of July after all!

Falling behind!

Okay, so it's been awhile since I posted. I need to try harder to keep up. I have been busy, so at least I have something to say!

I am working on two small quilts based on a pattern by Piece O' Cake Designs that appeared in an issue of American Patchwork and Quilting in Feb. of last year. There were 3 blocks in the design, each repeated three times. I wanted a larger quilt, with 16 blocks, so I designed an additional block, and repeated them each 4 times. With two identical quilts, that makes 32 blocks. Today I fused the flowers to the blocks and I just finished machine appliquing them with a small zigzag stitch. The block in the upper right is my own design. I think it goes with the others pretty well.
They were supposed to be placed on a white background with multicolor polka dots all over it, but I couldn't find any fabric that was even similar, so I used this blue with white stars. I want to try doing these as a quilt-as-you-go project; we'll see how that works out.

DH and I went to the movies Saturday night; we saw Ratatouille, which we loved. We try to see all the Pixar movies, and have many of them on DVD. After we got home, the Disney Channel showed Monsters, Inc. so we watched that as well. Lots of fun!

I am supposed to bring some potato salad to an Eastern Star picnic before tomorrow nights' meeting. I just boiled a couple of eggs; I will pick up a large container of mustard potato salad at the store tomorrow. I will add the chopped eggs and some dill dip to jazz it up. It should turn out great. One never knows--some things I make very well, others don't turn out as I had hoped.

I made 13 Christmas cards this past week from pieces of old cards that I have collected over the years. They turned out pretty nice, a little amateurish, but for my first attempt not too bad. I will try to make some a little nicer next time and maybe I can show some of them. I don't want to show any that might have copyrighted artwork on them, but I believe it is okay to recycle them for my own use as long as I don't try to sell any. I will add labels on the back that state that they are recycled (as if you couldn't tell by looking at them!)

I started using Picasa for my photos; so far I really like it. It is much easier to crop and resize photos on it, and I hope to learn how to do more advanced work with it. I was using PhotoSuite 4 and liked it, but Picasa is a free download and I have heard so much glowing praise for it that I decided to try it out.