Fun Times!

Trilby, Tasha, Kathy, and I traveled to Des Moines Saturday morning.  We spent some time shopping, had a nice leisurely lunch at....

Then we checked into the Drury Inn where we met Bud's two sisters, nieces, cousin, and friends from Pomeroy.  We dressed to go out then met for drinks and snacks before heading out.  Here is the "senior" table with the birthday girl.

We then headed to the Blue Moon.  I for one, had never seen these fish bowls.

I would never drink out of one that they pass around! Ick!

We had about 20 people in our party.

The dueling pianos were fantastic!  They could play about anything, and we had a great time!

After escorting several girls back to the motel we had pizza and visited for a while(really we were entertained by several girls who will remain nameless).  We got to bet about 2:00 a.m.  Waaaaay too late for me!  After a breakfast together this morning everyone went their separate ways.  Our carload stopped at Tanger Outlet Mall in Williamsburg where I was picked up.  

Next up was the Hawkeye Wrestling Meet.  We used Travis' tickets since he was at work.  It was Clara's first Hawkeye Wrestling Meet!

I am EXHAUSTED!!  I had a good time, now I just need to recover!

A Blue Baby Blanket

Travis had several blankets as a baby.  He wasn't particularly attached to any, but this blue one was well used.  You can see that the satin sashing is coming off.

Chance got Travis' other blanket, so it is only fair that Colby gets one too.  I took off all the satin, washed the blanket again, and put on new satin.  I wrapped Colby in it on Sunday, and it soooo reminded me of Travis.  (Colby really looks like his daddy!)  Gee, I thought I was 21 again!

Colby has really filled out and shared some great smiles with us on Sunday!

Baptism

Colby was baptized on Sunday.  

Trilby and Clint were his sponsors.

He wore his daddy's baptismal outfit. (With some white tights and long sleeves to keep him warm!)

It was a cold icy day.  Took us quite a while to get to church.  We ran into black ice on the interstate, where we saw several vehicles in the ditch!

But we wouldn't have missed it for the world!!

A Late Christmas Gift

I got quite pressed for time and didn't get all of my gifts done before Christmas, so I'm still finishing one or two. Here is a table runner I made for my friend and colleague.






The photos aren't great because I used my iPad to take them, and I'm not a good photographer! Anyway, Liv is an associate in my classroom. While I had my boot on and was supposed to be resting my foot she kept me supplied in coffee which was way down the hall!





I practiced making swirls in the bulbs. So this was a combination Christmas gift and thank you gift.





This was a cheater top, so I just had to sandwich it together and quilt it. I got it at a quilt store in Des Moines several years ago, but I can't remember who it's by.





I used a fancy stitch on my machine for the border. I hope Liv will enjoy it in her own home someday.
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What Is It? X 2

As it happens, Tasha and Trina both had their ultrasounds scheduled for today--one at 3:00 and one at 4:00. Both were finding out what they were having, so we planned to meet for supper for the announcements.

Let's start with Trina since she is due first. Our informal poll was 7 for a boy and 6 for a girl.
She gave us each an envelope with a card inside. The front of the card looked like this:



The second page was this:



And the last page was this:


Yes, Grayson is getting a little brother!

The informal poll for Tasha was 9 for a girl and 4 for a boy. She gave me a card to read out loud and small gift bag.



This is what the card said:


This is what was in the bag:


Do you know what she's having?????



Yes, Clara will have to share her princess status with a little sister!!!

We couldn't be happier for them both! Congratulations Trina and Tanner and Tasha and Kyle!
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A Little Sunday Sewing

Today I was lucky enough to spend the day sewing. I finished a gift which I had been working on for a while. I'll share that another day. I gave my machine a thorough cleaning. And then instead of moving on to finish Trina's quilt I sewed something quick for myself.


When I put out my snowman decorations I knew I needed a couple more snowish runners. So I looked at a few snowman runners on the Internet to get some ideas. I ended up with this:


I used fabric from my stash. In fact the blue plaid homespun was once my skirt!


Put together a couple of snowmen faces.


A little polka dot fabric and free motion quilting and I have a new runner!


Now to get Trina's quilt done!
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Quilt Labels

I have been thinking a lot about labeling the quilts I make.  A label on your quilt serves not only as a record of who and when, but as an identification of the item if it is ever stolen or lost. A label can also contain care instructions for cleaning.  I hope that my quilts are loved and handed down to the next generation, so they will become pieces of my quilting history.  But I couldn't decide how to label them.

I have read a lot about labels and knew I wanted to personalize mine.  I do like some of the preprinted ones, and I may order some of those to put on taggie blankets, purses, etc.  I enjoyed the blogpost about labeling quilts on Chasing Cottons.

I have labeled all of the t-shirt quilts that I did for Christmas like this:

My machine has several styles of the alphabet, so I used that.

I also used it for Colby's quilt and several others.

I am a symmetrical person, so the fact that the lines of writing aren't all centered and lined up nicely drives me nuts!  It is hard to just how much room the letters will use.  I am working on it.

How do you label your quilts?

Sweet Baby Boy

There's nothing like a sweet cuddly baby sound asleep!

We were lucky enough to spend some time getting acquainted with Colby this past weekend.

I think he liked it so much he's coming back this weekend!

T-Shirt Quilt #3

Well, Trilby had already graduated before I decided I would make t-shirt quilts for them, so we hadn't saved all of her t-shirts. 

Since she was in 7th grade when we moved, she went to Pomeroy for half of her schooling and had some of those shirts, so I decided to incorporate those.

I free motion quilted the sashing around the outside.

 I straight line quilted around each square, and I used a creative stitch along each edge of the inside sashing.

I had to give this to Trilby for Christmas unquilted. :(  When I could see that I wasn't going to get it all done I decided to let go of a couple of things and this was one of them.  

While I finished the quilt top in 2011, I didn't complete the whole thing, so should it be a 2011 finish or the first 2012 finish?

Now, just one more t-shirt quilt yet to quilt!

A House for the Princess!

Clara's dad, Kyle, has mentioned several times the little cloth house his grandmother made that went over a card table.  He talked of all the fun times he and his siblings had with that little house.  It was even at the visitation for his grandmother who was a quilter and sewer.  This had me thinking about my kids playing with blankets over the table and all the fun they had too.  So I made Clara a little house for Christmas.

It was a big hit Christmas Day!  Here you can see Chance sticking out of it!

I used a pattern, but I did adapt it some.  

The playhouse really does fit better than it appears in the photo, but there were little ones inside pulling on the fabric and having a great time!  In researching these I found an etsy that gave me lots of ideas.  You can check it out here.  Now, if I could find enough customers to pay me that much for the playhouses I might be able to consider retiring in a few years!!  I have a lot of ideas for some of the other grandkids, so stay tuned.

And I'm counting this as #12 in '11!!!

#11 in 11 DONE!!

This quilt was a gift for Travis for Christmas, so I couldn't show it earlier either.   

It is HUGE!!  I didn't really pay attention to size, I just used shirts that I knew he would like.

Since he graduated in 1997 I guess it is long overdue!

On this one I made all of the squares the same size except the middle ones.  This was much easier than Tasha's which I made the size of the print on each t-shirt.

Travis had a lot of t-shirts and jerseys to choose from, so I put a few on the back.

I started quilting this myself with clear thread.  My machine began to give me problems, and I was stressed, so I got someone to finish it for me.  She, however, used gray thread.  You really can't tell the difference unless I point it out.

And that is 11 in '11, but I do have one more completed project to post tomorrow.  It was made in '11, so it should count!