Creative Juice

I'm sorry to say that my creative juices just haven't been flowing the last week or so........probably due to being sick, a trip to the ER a week ago, and in general just feeling lousy.  However, the juices are not coming back too quickly..........probably due to the good meds I've been on.  It was discovered last Monday at the dentist office that I have a really bad sinus infection in my right cheek.  This discovery was made after the trip to the ER Saturday night because of the intense pain in the right side of my face, jaw, and teeth.  The ER doc didn't really listen to me because he was sure it was in infected tooth and told me to see the dentist.  The dentist did one of those wonderful panoramic x-rays (yes, I saw myself as a Halloween skull!), and it was quite obvious where the infection was.  Of course, you could also see it in my cheek just by looking at me (which I'm quite sure the ER doc never did).  Anyway, I only worked a couple of mornings last week, cancelled all my piano students, and spent a lot of time on the couch.  I did read one book, and watched way too much television.  But that's all I really felt like doing.  Whenever I did feel like it, I went to the sewing room to do a little work on whatever was laying around.

This little Christmas tree wall hanging got sewn together.  It's made from 15 of the Bonnie Hunter leader/ender blocks I had done.  I'm going to send it to my mom to hand quilt.  

And the baby chick block from the Farm Girl Vintage quilt got finished.  

I finished putting the borders on my Friday Night Lights project during the Rams football game on Friday night (more on the football games later).  The binding is even ready.

And I finished sewing some blocks for a potential mystery quilt next year (mystery means no photos!)

So, in just picking up little projects that were here and there on the cutting table and sewing machines and feeling like doing little more than dropping fabrics back into fabric tubs, my sewing room now looks like this.

 Nothing started on the cutting table............

Note the box of tissues at the ready by the sewing machine.........

No spark of something interesting to come!  It's really kind of scary looking!

Leia and Nemo came in to keep me company one day.  They took the recliner, so I slept on the couch.

Apparently Nemo snores, so Leia moved to the window seat.

Cici has made herself at home on DD's bed upstairs.  I told DD that this is what happens when you stay away from home for over a month!

And this is Judith the newest addition to the Bentley cat brigade.  She is very sweet and loving to us, but doesn't care for other cats.  She stays outside and has made herself at home with us.  

Saturday I made supper for my in-laws.  Brisket, potato casserole, green beans, jello, deviled eggs, homemade crescent rolls, and cake.  They are celebrating their birthdays (Sept 30 and Oct. 1).  This was the mum we bought them and delivered.

I tried a new cake recipe.........caramel pumpkin cream cheese poke cake.  It was pretty good!

So here's hoping to a better week.  I'm really hoping to feel better.  I miss my piano students and would like to be doing something interesting in the sewing room

Christi

Iowa Travels

I'm finally finding time to share some of our adventures in Iowa last weekend.  We drove the pickup (more on why later) and were heading to Jefferson via a stop in Winterset to see the John Wayne Museum.  Unfortunately, I-35 was closed (I mean totally closed, all 4 lanes, both directions, with detours) before we wanted to turn off.  The detour seemed to be taking us in the opposite direction we wanted to go, so we struck out on our own.  I used my phone to find a new route, and we hit another detour.  After some gravel roads (in which I jokingly referenced Sarah's trip home from college for last Thanksgiving, saying I wasn't opening any gates, and there were some gates, but we didn't go through them), we finally arrived in Winterset.  We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant then headed to the museum.

These pictures are of Freedom Rock outside the museum.

There is supposed to be a Freedom Rock in every county in Iowa.  We also enjoyed the museum and John Wayne's boyhood home.

Then we headed on to Jefferson...............in the pickup because we were delivering this.

The hubs had made another fire pit.  It weighed about 250 lbs., so getting it out of the truck and into their back yard required part of the football team (they were hanging out there before the game, so we were happy to provide them with some entertainment).

So now Deb and Chad have a new fire pit in their back yard.  Notice the heart engraved on the tree trunk.

Then, we went to the awesome football game..........which was mentioned in a previous post!  However, I now know we were witnessing history at that football game.  When Carter returned 2 punts for touchdowns, he became the Rams single-season and career record holder.  He also leads the entire state of Iowa, across all classes in return TDs, punt return yards (279) and yards per return (39.9).  This is his first year as the punt return guy too.  So, history was made!

On Saturday morning, we went for a drive (I made them take me to Fairway to sign up for the gift cards that are given on the radio whenever the Rams score), checking out the new school that is being built, Deal's Orchard where I picked up some of the best cider, and we visited a wood shop where everything is done with hand tools.  I was allowed to photograph the shop, but not the furniture they had made...........which is too bad, because it was lovely.

Here are some of my photos..........

Here he is using a hand crank planer............it's blurry because he moved it so fast!

And there is a theatre in the back of the shop that does Broadway-style musicals.  It's called the Hickory Boy Theater Co.  They had just finalized what their next musical would be, but he couldn't reveal it yet.

There was the lingering scent of popcorn from the popcorn machine in the back and wood shavings from the shop in the front.

Wouldn't this be a fun thing to do????

And so, that pretty much tells the tale of our adventure in Iowa.  We made it back home without any detours, so that was good.

Christi

All Things Quilty!

My neighbor, Karen and I, recently took a trip to Hamilton to take our pastor fabric shopping.  No, she doesn't quilt, but we volunteered to make 3 t-shirt quilts for her from her husband's t-shirts.  He passed away from cancer in the spring and she is doing the quilts, one for herself and one for each of the kids for Christmas.  We did pretty well helping her pick out fabrics, the t-shirts are prepared, and I have cut the sashing strips and have even been sewing one of the quilts together.  We were there on a Friday, her normal day to write her sermon, and on Sunday, the sermon had some quilting examples in it ...............it was all about gifts and sharing your creativity.

I did see this cute table runner on their make and take table.  I'm going to have to try it.

Our guild met a week ago Tuesday and after a lengthy discussion about our upcoming quilt show (in which yours truly was more vocal than usual.........yes, they're probably rethinking asking me to be president next year!), we had our main UFO show and tell.  Everyone listed one project in January that had been laying around, taking up space, that they were going to have finished by the September meeting.  Here are some of them.........

 I don't remember who showed this (and they are hiding behind it), but it's one of the Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilts.

 This is Pam's Seeing Stars.......she chose different colors and set things a little differently.  We're hoping to have several Seeing Stars quilts at our show!

 This is Beth's Mickey Mouse quilt for her granddaughter..........

And here is the back.............

This is Mary's quilt called Snapshots.  It's supposed to be snapshots of the things you have great memories of.........and on the back............

The camera!

And Mary also showed this one........Owl Always Love You!  The best part was the way her granddaughters helped with the fusing and eyeball placement.  I'm very lucky to have them both as piano students!

Christi

Football Updates!

Fall is definitely upon us!  Football is underway and hopefully, we'll be seeing the leaves turn soon and harvest will be starting..............my farmer is ready!  All this time waiting just means more trips to John Deere to buy a new something or other to put on the combine, corn head, bean head, grain cart, semi-truck, etc.  It's time to start making money rather than spending it.

The second Friday Night Football game saw another win for the Greene County Iowa Rams.......barely!  42-41!  In what had to be the longest game ever...........lots of injury timeouts for cramping, and then late in the 4th quarter (and the Rams were behind), the lights went out on the field.  Finally, after a long delay, they got to finish the game in a nail-biter!  Unfortunately, I missed the very end because I had been listening so long on my phone it died.  

Of course, all that extra sewing time means that my Friday Night Lights project will soon be complete!  I actually have all of the blocks done and will work on sewing them together and adding the 2 borders this coming Friday night.  We're gonna need another project!

That was 2 weeks ago, but last Friday night, I saw the Rams play LIVE and IN PERSON!  The Hubs and I traveled to Jefferson, Iowa to watch the game.  (more on the Iowa trip in a later post)  

Carter (senior) made 3 touchdowns, 2 were punt returns for lots of yardage!  Apparently one of his teammates asked him to stop returning all the punts for TD's so they could play a little offense!  He was able to get that second punt return for touchdown thanks to a major block from younger (not littler) brother Jackson.  Jackson had a great game as well, playing only defense, he got an interception, and had lots of tackles, including one that took down their quarterback.  It's really funny when you know how mild-mannered and laid back he is that he is such a good tackler.  Neither of them got to play in the second half as the JV team took over since the score at the end of the first half was 48-0.  They ended up winning 48-7.

And, I got to meet the girlfriends!

Carter and Lydia.............she is a senior at another school and is very into track.  She is really nice and I can see that they are very compatible.  

And this is Jackson and Carmyn.  She's really cute.  They are both sophomores.  

And here is the family.  Chad is an assistant coach and my sister, Deb is the athletic trainer.

And they even took pics with Uncle David and Aunt Christi!

And now on the the pros!  We watched the first Chiefs game at my friend Shanon's house in Blackburn.  We have Dish Network and couldn't get CBS, so he invited us over.  It was fun, but loud.  The food was amazing though!

Fortunately Dish Network and CBS settled their dispute, and we stayed home yesterday afternoon to watch the Chiefs win again.  It was nice to stay home and Cici really enjoyed the game...........

And she's still watching...........

Sometimes you just gotta get closer!  While it was nice to stay home, the food was definitely lacking after the first week at Shanon's.  I did get the binding on my guild challenge project (will show it later after the October meeting) during the game.

Saturday evening after we got home from Iowa, I felt the need to sew a little, so I finally added the glasses to this bear block.  I had just put these blocks away because I didn't want to tackle the glasses, but it was so easy!  Only one of the 12 bears needed glasses, so now I'm ready to sew them together.

Christi

Family & Sewing

Well, for those wondering, Friday night football got off to a great start.........53-0 win!  Carter had 2 touchdowns, and Jackson (in his first varsity start, playing both sides the whole game) had an interception.  

This was completed in the first quarter!  The eye buttons are just laying on it in this photo.  I'll attach those after it's quilted.  There was some learning with this, since I drew the pattern myself (imagine graph paper and colored pencils and you are right on track).  I would definitely choose darker stems for the 1st and 3rd jack-o-lanterns.

Saturday was the annual family gathering at my parents' house in Bethany.  We were just going for the day, so wanted to make the most of our time...........left at 6:45 am, and got home at 11:30 pm.  DD's roommate, Paige, came home with her, so tagged along for the fun.  It was a day of produce swapping, card playing, quilt showing and telling (and gifting!), and lots of food!  I made 2 large potato casseroles, a pan of ranch mac & cheese, fresh smoked salsa, fresh guacamole, a pan of scotcheroos, and the hubs smoked and grilled 32 pork burgers!

I gifted some of the things I had completed and quilted myself.

Sister-in-law Karen got this wall hanging which matches the placemats she got last year.

Cousin Melinda snagged this lap quilt up.  

Aunt Judy got the Kitchen Sink, and my mom's cousins Sharon and Mary Ann got the Oklahoma Backroads and Secret Santa throw quilts.  My sister put her name on my Friday Night Lights quilt (made during her boy's football games last fall), but I told her I was putting it in our quilt show in October and she could have it after that.

Sunday morning we slept in a little.  Our neighbors were out of town, so we had to take care of their rabbits - about 100.  Well, one of the little red mini rex bunnies had escaped his cage and was running around the barn.  The hubs and I made some attempts to catch him with the net, but finally gave up and went back to watering and feeding.  I put some food and water on the floor for him in hopes of tempting him, and finally, I did manage to snag him in the net on one of his romps around the barn.  His name is now Stewy!

I made DD's favorite, pot roast with carrots, mashed potatoes, and noodles for lunch Sunday.  Since I was making noodles, I did a batch of flavored fettuccine for my nephew Jackson.  It smelled really good.

I'll deliver it when we go up for a football game.  Maybe I'll throw in some homemade pasta sauce from the freezer.

After a nap, some Sunday afternoon sewing happened..........or tried to.  I decided to dig out the Farm Girl Vintage blocks I had cut earlier in the summer and sew some together.  I was working on the first one, called Apron Strings, and discovered that I hadn't cut the right varieties of fabrics.  I thought I could make it work, then when trying to sew the quadrants together realized that I had sewn them incorrectly.  Since things were already trimmed, there was no saving this one.

The squares on the right are the incorrect results of my attempt at this block.  Maybe my Aunt Judy would like to have these.............I know she loves LITTLE pieces!  Kidding!  It's back to the cutting table for this block.  My third block was the baby chick block.  Unfortunately, I forgot to cut the wing piece.  I did what I could without the wing, and the stack of pieces is on the left............more cutting table time.

I did get the second block (I'm doing them as the come in the book, alphabetically) finished.

It was called Autumn Star, I think.  It's only a 6 inch block, so is really cute.  I also completed a couple of my green leader/ender blocks while doing these blocks.  So, I went 1 for 3 on the Farm Girl Vintage blocks.  Oh well, it's a marathon, not a sprint and I am definitely pacing myself.

The girls - all 3 of them - (Dory came home for the weekend as well), will be heading back to school today.  I wasn't sure how Dory would adjust to being an inside cat, but she seems to be taking it in stride.

She enjoyed time in the window seat on her pillow.  It's a tough life!  

Christi