All set to go!

Happy day after Easter! To those I did not get the chance to talk to yesterday, I hope yours was wonderful. Ours was quiet but sometimes quiet is nice. I made a lovely brunch for the 4 of us and after that Jerry and I were on our own as Jon and Carly headed back down to school.
I sat and bound my quilt. Then it was on to making my big list of errands to do for today before
leaving for Dallas tomorrow.
I am pretty near packed other than those last minute items that have to wait. And as you can see Cleo is camped out as usual on my suitcase! She looks a bit cranky, you mean I'm not going she said, humffff!

The ugly dolls are in my carry-on along with a "People" and stack of quilt magazines. I am off to visit my 3 year old twin Grandsons, Aiden & Brandon. I am soooo excited! I hear they are going to be keeping me busy LOL!
Have a wonderful week!

Snowmen In April!

Yipee, my quilt top is back lickety split! These snowmen are absolutely happy and adorable I must say. Well I know snow is something many of us are pretty tired of by now. However Christmas and Fall projects are exploding in my sewing room. This is the time of year to design and stitch up new projects for the up and coming Christmas season. By the time Fall rolls around I will be working on Spring and Summer!
I send all of my quilt tops to my friend Brenda in Oklahoma to be quilted. I met Brenda when she owned My Sisters Quilt Shop in Edmond. As you know quilting is the icing on the cake and
I am always excited to see how she quilted my top. Brenda is one very talented lady and a new author as well.

This is her new book "Fabulous Fractures". Her quilts are truly amazing, so look for her book in your local quilt shop and check them out.

Anyway, back to the snowmen, here's a little grouping of three. I just love this color palette. I used up my stash of Deb Strains "It's Snowing" fabric by Moda. Her colors are always so bright and fun, I look forward to her next line of Christmas fabric.

One cute little snowman! I have yet to bind my quilt. The strips are all cut and ready to sew in place. I've spent most of the week working on the pattern instructions, so were moving right along.

On to knitting! In my spare time (?) I am working on Christmas stockings for the twins. Isn't this pattern adorable? I have to tell you though, this is one humongous stocking, a good 30"s long! I started making these for my family many years ago, now I make them for each new family member so they all will have matching stockings to hang on their mantle. I usually do this on road trips, a nice little way to make the hours fly by. Also much easier for me to knit in the car than at home with Cleo who so loves to "help". LOL and that is not a pretty picture!
Speaking of the twins, only 4 more days until I head to Dallas for a visit. I just can't wait to see my munchkins!
I guess many of you are getting ready for Easter. We have no plans this year, just Jerry and I, possibly Jon, our plans are up in the air.
Wiahing you all a great weekend and a Happy Easter if I don't get to another post before!

Chocolate Bunnies!

Oh yum!! Look what arrived via UPS a few days ago, chocolate bunnies from my favorite candy store Sarris Chocolates, located just outside Pittsburgh Pa.
Each Easter I treat us to the wonderful chocolate novelties I grew up with from Pittsburgh or Buffalo. It may sound kind of silly to you but basically all we have here is Russel Stovers and there is just NO comparison! I grew especially spoiled when we lived in Buffalo. So many neighborhood family chocolate shops. 100s of molded novelties for Easter, it was always hard to choose for the children. And the taste, melt in your mouth chocolate, I am just dying to bite off a bunny ear LOL!

My poor Jerry is sick with that nasty nasty stuff that is making the rounds again. I am trying to be sympathetic but at a distance! I leave for Dallas right after Easter to visit with my daughter and my twin munchkins, I just can't get sick!
Back to working on the drawings for my next little quilt, what fun! Have a great week!

No room at the Inn

Or maybe this post should have been titled "Men At Work" because that that pretty much sums up the past 2 weeks here! Jerrys Dad arrived from Florida 10 days ago. Jerry and his Dad had been planning a re-model on the guest bathroom over the phone for quite some time now. Hubby took vacation time to spend the week with his Dad and their pet project. Gramps is 86 years old, and when he comes to visit he does not like to let any grass grow under his feet, he likes to keep busy, helping with projects!
Here lie just a few tools of trade, scattered all along the upstairs balcony I believe just about every tool from the basement work room has made its way upstairs. Lots of banging, sawing and pounding going on. They replaced the tile around the tub and layed new floor tile. It was a much bigger job than they anticipated and is slowly starting to come together once again. In the midst of this upheaval my daughter Erin and her little family drove up from OKC on Wednesday. It was a fun and truly much needed break for all of us. The boys got to see their Great Grampa, we played games, cooked out and enjoyed their time with us. They left at the crack of dawn Friday morning as blizzard warnings were posted for much of Kansas and parts of Oklahoma as well.

The weather held off here until Saturday. Then it was rain all morning turning into sleet. My beautiful tree that just started to show its pretty blooms is now encased in ice.

The sleet turned into big fat heavy wet snowflakes and we ended up with about 8 inches of spring snow! I do have to admit it was very beautiful to watch yesterday. Gramps has not seen snow in over 20 years and we enjoyed the moment.

This morning we blasted out the driveway and headed down to KU to take Jon and girlfriend Carly out to brunch. Only 40 minutes away, the sun was out and not a trace of snow in sight! Here's Gramps with the kids, doesn't he look absolutely amazing at 86!

I always try to end a KU visit with a stop at the Stitch On Needleworks Shop. I could have spent lots more time in there for sure but the boys were getting restless. I bought background fabric and some bright prints for an up and coming project.
Grandpa heads back to Florida tomorrow morning. It will be strangely quiet here.
I will be catching up on after the company leaves stuff, picking up, washing bedding and such. And hopefully find time to start my next sewing project!

Just a little painting break

Boy oh boy, I can't believe how long it has been since I last posted! I have been really neglectful at blogging while Jerry and I have been busy with some spare room re-dos. First we decided to tackle the guest room, it was red when we moved in 5 years ago. 3 coats of paint later it is now a pretty cream shade. What a difference new paint can make! The room appears to be much larger and brighter now.
After the hard work comes the fun part, a little decorating. My sewing angel found a spot right away, close to the window for nice bright light and a chair nearby to sit in and stitch awhile if you please.
Jerry's Dad is our 1st guest this year, he arrives from Florida in 8 days. Eeeeeks! I doubt he'll feel like sitting and stitching in here LOL, I'll have to find a stack of crossword puzzles.

Of course I had to buy new bedding. I liked the colors and design in this set.

Next I dug out my penny rug model "Midnight Garden" from the "Quick & Easy Pennyrugs" book. I am going to frame it as I thought the colors would go perfect with the bedding and wool just adds such a nice cozy touch.

While in the groove I decided to tackle Jonathan's room. I had not even ventured in his room since he moved out in January. Woaaaaa! SCARY!!!! Just kidding, actually it wasn't that bad. A little cleaning up then back out with the paint cans for a fresh coat of paint. I chose a nice safe shade of beige. I have a heavy denim comforter I am going to use which looks nice on his antique iron bed frame. I hung this quilt I made quite a few years ago.

Here is a close up of the blocks, I just love the way it is starting to pull together in here with the tans, navy and reds. Now I am on a fabric hunt for curtains. pillow shams and dust ruffle.

Next up on the list is a little spring decorating. I am so done with winter aren't you?!
It won't be long before this little bunny comes hopping on by and isn't he the cutest! One of Hallmarks Easter promotions, he is musical, his ears spin around and move up and down, the kids just love him! I had to get one for each set of Grandsons.

In between sniffing too many paint fumes I continue to work on several sewing projects. My latest quilt is finished and on its way to Oklahoma to be quilted by my quilting friend Brenda Esslinger. Brenda has a new book out called "Fractured Flowers" in conjunction with Darcy Ashton. The quilts in it are fabulous so check it out if you come across it in your local quilt shop.

Unfinished projects

Look what Jerry pulled out of my car trunk this weekend. A rug I started hooking 4 years ago!!! Not long after we moved to Kansas I was invited to join a rug hooking group that met locally. It was fun, a nice group of ladies and I had wanted to learn rug hooking. My 1st projects were much smaller, two pillows, and after completing those I felt I was ready to tackle a nice size rug. And as you can see, here lies my rug :( Sometimes we have such good intentions. We take on more than we can do. In the end I decided I really needed to focus all of my time on my own design projects. It is awfully cute though isn't it. Maybe I'll take it along on our next road trip.

The battle of the blankets...... Here is Cleo's sweet fleece blanket I made special for her last Christmas. I found this cute fleece print with a kitty who looked just like her. I was excited for her to have her own blanket. I was positive she would be crazy about it because she loved MINE so much.

Well here she is, as usual, on MY blanket LOL! She refuses to go near her blanket. So let this be a lesson to you, don't bother making your cat a blanket, she will always covet yours and you probably just made yourself a new blankie!

Another week as flown by. My quilt top is almost complete, one more border to add, a few embroidery touches and then its off to be quilted! Yea!
Have a super week!

Back In The Groove!

Yea, I'm back and feeling fine!
Tops on my mind today is my little Grandson Alexander who turned 5 . My very 1st munchkin, I can not believe how big you are getting. Happy Birthday Alex, XXXXs and OOOOOs, I love you way much! And sorry I don't know why your picture is so tiny, probably because I lifted it off your Mommys site and Nana just is not a blogging wizard when it comes to making adjustments on some of these jpegs.

I had an unexpected surprise in the mail this weekend. Karen from the Yellow Farmhouse blog sent me a gift as her part of the Pay It Forward program I joined with her last year. She sent this lovely braided runner and a nice pair of needlecraft scissors. Never ever enough scissors and these are a perfect size for working on my penny rugs.

I have noticed a few completed State Series Quarter books popping up on blogs. So now I know that I was not the only crazy person who collected these! I started the book 10 years ago when Jon was 13 years old. WOW! As the years went by Jon more or less lost interest and collecting the quarters became my own little obsession. The things we do for our kids! So Jon here it is, all filled and complete, your inheritance along with the 3 tubs of beanie babies in the basement LOL! He says that's not funny Mom!

Okay, moving right along here. I have been working away on my quilt using the fabrics I showed you several posts ago. Love this fabric! I however found I did not have enough of the border fabric. Oh woe is me! What to do! Couldn't find it anywhere locally. This is where Google comes in as an amazing search tool! I discovered 2 wonderful shops that had some of this group remaining in their inventory. I ordered both from The Glass Thimble in Columbus Ohio and The Thrifty Needle in Maryland. My orders were sent out lickety split so by the time I was done appliqueing the shapes in place my fabric had arrived! I'll be sewing sashings and borders on the rest of this week. Now who do you think those little stick arms belong too?

I have also spent a lot of nights hand sewing in front of the TV lately. So many of my favorite shows have started back up; The Amazing Race, Survivor, Idol, and The Bachelor! Oh my goodness did you watch The Bachelor last night? That Jason sure spent an awful lot of time hopping in and out of hot tubs LOL! I mean it was almost a joke. I did feel bad that he sent Jill home though.
On that note, I have been watching too much TV. Have a happy week!