Summer's Over!

Yes, summer is over.  Today is the first day of DD's senior year of college at Missouri S&T!  We are also hosting the teacher meetings at the community center where I work today.  So, summer is OVER!  And, I'm ready.  It hasn't been the greatest of summers.  

It started with the root canal I had in the middle of May that created constant pain in my right jaw and side of my face.  I can honestly say that I have not been without Tylenol, Ibuprofen, or Aleve for the entire summer.  It took multiple trips to the dentist to get the crown on (due to some mistakes in the molding process.............yes, they broke the mold on me!).  I just want to spend a long period of time without anyone putting their hands in my mouth to let my jaw heal.  I even postponed my regular teeth cleaning appointment until November.  I'm just happy that I have finally weened myself down to just one Aleve in the morning and a couple of Tylenol at bedtime.  Sometimes, you just don't realize how much not feeling good affects you.

Then, remember that wonderful Longarm Avante quilting machine I purchased (used)?  Well, I just wasn't having much success with it keeping the tension the same.  Some real frustration with quilting set in, and I was going to just totally quit altogether.  It didn't help that no one I contacted seemed to really want to help solve my issues.  I made an appointment with one quilt shop that seemed like they might help, but had one of the worst experiences of my life there.  So I cleaned up the longarm, and Bitsy, my featherweight, and Lizzy, my 201, (somehow, purging was going to make things better) took great photos of them, and listed them for sale on Craig's List.  Believe it or not, I sold Bitsy (for more than what I had paid for her), and I sold the longarm (for what I had paid for it).  So, I decided to keep Lizzy.  She's still in the basement and I did some more sewing on her last night.

The worst thing of all this summer was that last Wednesday morning, DD had to have Jason 2.0, her best buddy cat friend, put to sleep - the day before she was heading back to school.  He had some bladder blockage issues which might have been solved (only a 50% chance) by some expensive surgery, but in the end, she decided not to put him through that.  Believe it or not, we all really miss the obnoxious beast.

The Hubs and I had just gotten used to both DD and Jason being around and now they are both gone again.  I think even Cici misses them.

Here he is helping to hold down my main UFO project for this year.  With his help, I was able to get the binding on and it's ready to go for the September guild meeting.  

 My friend Mary kindly quilted it for me.  We are donating it to the Tiny Homes for Veterans project in Kansas City.  This is one of my guild's charity projects for the year.

And this is the last photo I took of Jason 2.0.  He was hanging out on DD's bed the week she was gone to Utah.  

So, with school starting and summer ending, I hope to feel better and be more positive about everything.  I am also going to try to do more regular blogging.  I know I've said that before, probably as part of some New Year's resolution, but now I'm doing it as part of the New School Year's resolutions!  And, we are coming up to fall, my favorite season of the year.............leaves turning, air crisp and cool, combines running, football games.........life is looking better!

Christi

KC Regional Quilt Show

Last Friday, I attended the KC Regional Quilt Show with some other members of my guild.  I took lots of photos and will share a bunch.  I'm going to try to group them into some sort of organized categories.............

Since it was Flag Day, we'll start with this one.

I thought this would make an excellent Quilt of Valor.  And for those interested, the half square triangle blocks in the center finish at 6".  Yes, I did pull out my tape measure.  This one is definitely on my To Do list.

Quilting and Sewing!

I mentioned that the previous post had been planned for last week, but didn't happen because Wednesday morning I received the sad news that my cousin had passed away.  It was quite a shock as he was so young.  I was able to travel with an aunt and 2 cousins to Iowa City on Saturday for the Celebration of Life service.  It was a long trip but allowed for time to visit and see all the flooding along the Mississippi.  I also got to see another cousin I hadn't seen since the funeral of an uncle about 17 years ago.  Isn't it sad that we don't see each other until there is a funeral?

While I wasn't in the mood to post last week, I did spend some time in the sewing room.  

I put some practice fabric on my longarm to practice some quilting.  I have become so efficient in using up scrap batting by sewing it together to create Frankenbatts that I didn't have any scrap batting to practice on, so ended slicing a hunk off the end of a brand new king-sized bat.  But, a girl's got to practice!

I also finished sewing my jewel box stars leader/enders together into blocks.

Here are all 30 blocks laid out together.  It is very scrappy as I was trying to utilize some of the scraps I have.  I don't know how successful I was as the bins still seem pretty full.  

This is my friend Gina's jewel box stars (thanks Gina for sharing your photo)................she started with smaller pieces and then set them together with sashing and cornerstones.  I really like the way she did it, and was thinking about sashing mine, but then decided to just sew the blocks together because I liked the subtle patterns it creates.  I am contemplating borders, including a pieced border because I have a bunch of pieces already cut that would work..............time will reveal all!

I also started cutting a new project.  I just needed some uplifting, fun fabrics to play with, so dug out my tub of 30's-style fabrics and my Farm Girl Vintage book and proceeded to start cutting.  I did have to find a background piece of fabric to use that needed to be about 2.25 yards.  Luckily, I had just the thing in my stash that I had picked up in Paducah!  I took what was left on the bolt in Paducah, and it was just a little more than 2.25 yards.  I have about 12 blocks kitted up to take to our guild work day next Saturday.  

There were some FINISHED PROJECTS in May and I don't think I ever showed them.  

This was the Secret Santa mystery quilt I did in December.  I just love the look of those little red/neutral 9-patches.  Those squares started out at 1 inch!  I quilted it myself too.

I also quilted this quilt finally.  It's called Kitchen Sink and is made from 2.5" strips.  I did my first "custom" quilting on this.  The center is done in an allover loopy meander, but the brown triangles have a certain design and the red border is done with straight line quilting.

I also finished this wall hanging.  I did diagonal line quilting in the green border, traced the leaves and picture, and then did stippling in the background of the picture.

After those May finishes, I started working on what may become a mystery quilt for my guild next year.  I can't reveal anything, so here are the black and white photos of the fabrics I selected from my stash!

I have also been sewing on this, but can't show photos since I might be using it as a mystery quilt.

I had to do some figuring for my mom's quilting projects.  We both have teaching degrees.  She is certified to teach English, French, and Spanish.  I am certified to teach English, Business, and Economics.  I guess that's why I do the figuring and playing with the graph paper to come up with quilt designs for her.

I had previously gotten her the easy angle and companion angle rulers because I really liked them.  I think she likes them too, but I still have to do the figuring.  So, I pulled out some scrap fabric to figure out what sizes she needed for some star points...................stars seem to be a favorite of hers..............mine too!

 You can tell it's scrap fabric by the lovely flaw!

I texted her some directions and I'll be anxious to see how her quilt comes out.

Of course, no post would be complete without critter pictures!  DD found 3 baby raccoons under her car when she started packing it up for her trip to Rolla yesterday.  They were so cute, but hissed when we use the hoe to move them out from under her car.

Just last week she found a momma possum with a pouch full of babies eating cat food when she went out to feed her kittens.  When she was little, she wanted to be a zoo keeper.  That may still be a possibility!

Christi

Family Time

No, we're not burning the house down...........That's just the fire pit the Hubs made me for Christmas.  And, yes, since he made a cutout of our house in it, it always looks like we're burning the house down when we light it.  We enjoyed some time on the new patio one evening while burning the collection of sticks from the yard.

With the rain keeping him out of the field, the Hubs planned an impromptu trip to Branson the first weekend in June.  We were gone for one night, and that's probably going to be our summer vacation.

We saw Smoke on the Mountain, and wonderfully entertaining musical set in the 1940's about the Sanders family presenting a revival at the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church..........great old time hymns and really funny!

We ate at an Italian restaurant before the show...........

It had the neatest decor, which doesn't really show in this picture.  And of course, the world's largest fork and meatball.............

And we had some interesting people staying at the same hotel..........there was a professional fisher there judging by his truck and boat in the parking lot with all the sponsors painted on it............I didn't take a pic, because every time we saw it, he was sitting in the boat - yes, in the parking lot of the hotel - studying some sort of computer.

I did snap a pic of this car parked next to ours............

I guess there were bull riders staying there too.

On Sunday morning, we visited the Titanic museum.  It was really interesting.  We each received a card of someone aboard the ship and at the end of the tour, we got so see who survived.  DD and I survived, sadly, the hubs didn't make it.

The original plan was to stop at Lambert's on the way home, but (allow me to say here that neither David Bentley nor Sarah Bentley likes to wait for food) when they saw the line, we just cruised right out of the parking lot.  With no Plan B, a billboard caught my eye and I googled (where would we be without google!) it, and routed us to Black Sheep Hamburgers and Shakes in downtown Springfield.  It was a quaint little bar tucked in to the downtown buildings.  We sat at the bar, where we received constant service and conversation.  The hubs and I each ordered the "Don't Go Bacon My Heart Burger" which was excellent.  We also tried the onion rings and SMOKED fries!

Delicious!!!!!
DD was inquiring about the chocolate chip cookie dough shake and the bar tender told her she could also order the cookie dough just in a cup - cookie dough only!

And, he scooped it out and brought it to her before her sandwich!  Could life get any better!

And, not to forget the 4-legged members of the family.............Cici has been spending most of her time avoiding Jason, so hasn't been photographed.  Jason has been spending most of his time being obnoxious. 

 I don't know whether to turn on the water..............
                     or whether to turn on the burner.....................

He's not nearly as impressed with Nemo and Dory as they are with him.

Sewing has been happening and I'll be doing a sewing post in a day or so.  I had planned to post this blog last week, but things happened that didn't really leave me in the mood to post so I'm playing a little catch up!

Christi

May Showers..........will they ever end???

Almost a month has flown by since my last post............which was also about rain.  Will it ever end?  I have to say The Hubs is handling it pretty well.  I think it helps that he can see his corn is up.  No beans have been planted yet.  I'm wondering about mentioning switching to rice instead this year.  Doesn't that take lots of water?

Some sewing has happened.  I finished these 12 blocks for my Bjorn Bear quilt.  Each block has 50 pieces!

One bear still needs a pair of glasses appliqued on.  And apparently Cici really wanted to play with the bears............

I don't think the bears were much fun, so she tried to get Muffin to play...........watch the series of photos.......

Muffin was very annoyed since her main 2 activities are eating and sleeping.

DD moved home for most of the summer (minus 3 weeks in Rolla to manage the lab for summer camps, and a week of small Sat conference in Logan, Utah at the beginning of August.
She did move 2 kittens back to our house.............meet Nemo and Dory!  

I realize she has given the cats "fish" names.  She also considered Minnie and Mickey, but I didn't think they would like to be named after mice.  Bonnie and Clyde were on the table for awhile as well, which I considered the most appropriate, but Dory and Nemo won out.

Since The Hubs hasn't been in the field, he had time to work on making some furniture for the patio..............

We bought the cushions and he made the furniture to fit them.  Yes, we do things a little backwards here.  He also repainted the table from our old set and we added new chairs.

And of course, a box to keep the cushions in.

We also took care of the neighbor's rabbits for a week.........  They are so cute!

And some dressed in tuxedos for us!

We had some fabulous show and tell at quilt guild this month.  This was a favorite of mine.  It was made by my friend Carrie.  I'm really hoping Carrie is safe as she lives in the Glasgow bottoms and the flooding is getting pretty bad.

And Gina shared her rainbow scrap challenge quilt from last year all completed!

And Karen shared her most recent work of art. 

As soon as I post this I'm heading back to the kitchen.  With DD home for most of the summer, we are working on some cooking skills.  We covered how to get a pot roast into the oven this morning, mixed up Grandma Bentley's bran rolls, and have homemade noodles drying.  It's almost time to make out the rolls.  I plan on having her give me some lessons on using the Instagram account she set up for me awhile back.  

May you enjoy some sunshine soon!

Christi