Hannah's high school graduation quilt

For this one, I chose a pattern from Mystery Quilts-A Quilt Detective's Handbook by Billie Lauder called "The Case of the Patchy Churn".  It's backed with a lemon yellow Batik. Congrats, Hannah!

Britta's high school graduation quilt

We made this for Britta using the "Stained Glass" pattern from the book Strip Clubbing: Fast and Easy Quilts with 2 1/2" Strips. It's backed with light blue flannel. Fun pattern!

boB's Quilt

I bought the pattern, fabric, and X-Block Ruler for this quilt at Quilting By the Bay in Panama City, FL this past October. They had this quilt hanging up in the store and I had to make one too. It was fun to make but I didn't have anyone in mind to give it to. Then I brought it to congregation to show off and boB saw it and really liked it, so now it's his.

Another hospital donation

Here's another snuggly baby quilt for Scottish Rite's NICU. It's backed with navy flannel. The pattern is called "Coming Home to Nutmeg Creek" by Michele Crawford and can be found in the December 2003 issue of Quilter's World. I think we're going to have to make more quilts with this pattern. So many possibilities!

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

I'm so glad this book was waiting for me at the library last week. It has been a great comfort while Vann has had pneumonia. Why are Alexander McCall Smith's books so short?? Waiting a year in between each one is hard enough, but with only 212 pages... sigh. So good though. And what a shocker to finally find out what "the younger apprentice"'s name is... ha! I won't give it away. You can find out on page 6.

Thank you, Mr. Smith. I love this book.

Unfortunately Laura

Following my sister's lead , I googled Unfortunately Laura and these are the first 6:

1. Unfortunately Laura has passed... let's be real. [Yes, real is best]
2. Unfortunately Laura has sold all of the cds she had brought in a great run at the end of the first night's concert, so no merch was immediately available. [Sorry to disappoint my fans]
3. Unfortunately Laura lost the battle with cancer a few years ago and left us way too soon. [I didn't even get to say good-bye *sniff*]
4. Unfortunately Laura hurt her thumb in the bars finals due to an awkward catch on her Geinger. [I hate when I awkwardly do that!!]
5. Unfortunately Laura's answer came out the wrong way. [It usually does...]
6. Unfortunately Laura's audio dropped out during her talk. [Probably a good thing, or else my answer would have come out wrong yet again.]
   

Finished "Midnight Elements"

We finished this one and are planning to give it as a gift tonight. Love the way it turned out! It looks so much better with Ginger's beautiful quilting than it did in my August post, where it was on my design wall, flat...

It's funny, when I quilted my own projects, I liked them better as finished tops. I dreaded "ruining" them with my quilting. Now I can't wait to take them upstairs, get them pin basted and let Ginger create something fabulous!

Ginger fell yesterday

I should have posted this last night. Yesterday, while Mister N and I were gone, Mother fell on her way to the kitchen. Vann was here, thankfully. My dear Labrador alerted him that something was wrong. She thinks she tripped on her footstool, but isn't really sure. Nothing is broken, but she is very sore. She landed on her face; she can't remember if her glasses were around her neck or resting on her nose, but they cut her a little on her forehead. They landed a few feet away. When Vann got to her, there was a 8-10 inch pool of blood on the floor and her forehead was dripping at a goodly rate. So was her nose.

He eventually got her seated back in her favorite rocking chair and the bleeding finally stopped. She didn't need stitches, just lots of aspirin.

Today she hasn't moved from her rocker much. It hurts to blink, let alone do anything else. Any and all prayers would be greatly appreciated. We are so thankful nothing is broken...

Fun little quilts

We just finished these 2 little quilts for Children's Healthcare at Scottish Rite's NICU. (We have a third that's not quite finished.) They all have flannel on the back. I tried to get a pic of the pretty quilting on the larger one.

Vann's quilt

We finished this cozy flannel quilt for Vann last week. He loves it! Mother quilted each square/rectangle differently. (Couple of surprises in there he hasn't noticed yet...) The back is flannel as well, brown with gold leaves. Even the binding is flannel. This is one warm, cozy, snuggly quilt. Big enough for 2! 

Just saw Hancock

If you haven't seen this yet and plan to, stop reading this and check back after you have.

Now, for my big suggestion: I think this movie would have been so much better if they had started out showing Mary and Hancock happily together 80 years ago, then shown the attack and hospital stay, then Hancock forgetting Mary, then Mary leaving.... fast forward to the present. Now Mary is happily married to Ray, and the story unfolds. Show her hiding her incredible strength throughout, other flashbacks of her life with Hancock, etc. I thought it was silly to reveal her as a super chick so late in the story. No wonder it didn't do so well.

I still liked it, but it could have been so much better.

That'll be $5,000,000.00, please.

It was a Happy 19th Anniversary!

Last night we got to go out on our yearly date! Yay! We went to Atlantic Station (never been there before) and had dinner at the Fox Sports Grill. Vann had an awesome steak and I had Chicken Piccata, also very good. Then we walked down the street to the movie theatre and saw Twilight. Loved it! I was happy with Hollywood's version. I actually liked the way they tied a few things together better than the book... Wow. (I just read the book a couple weeks ago. Can't wait to read New Moon.) You could really tell which people in the audience had read the book by the way they laughed in anticipation at the funny parts to come. And we had a group of giggly girls behind us obviously impressed with Robert Pattinson. We had an awesome time!

Mad Men

We started watching Season 1 of Mad Men last week. We've only seen 3 episodes but it's great so far. It's about advertising executives in Manhattan in the mid 50's. Being PC hadn't been invented yet... hilarious! Everybody smokes and drinks all day, being divorced is quite scandalous, seeing a psychiatrist is only for "crazy" people... anyway, we like it.

The Brave One

We watched The Brave One last night. Powerful, sad, painful and very well done. Jodie Foster's performance was excellent. I recommend it, but make sure you've got a box of Kleenex handy. And a comforting quilt. And maybe some chocolate... black labs help, too.

Miracle

This morning after V & N left, I put Sullie's leash on him and opened the front door to take him out. Silly me, I didn't look out the window first to make sure no one (especially another dog) was around. Well, one of his furry friends across the street was out and saw us  and headed to our yard. Sullie started pulling me, of course, so I shortened the leash and made him wait for his friend to leave. His owner called him away, and Sullie made a hard jerk and took off down the steps, with me in tow. It had been raining so the steps were slick and I tumbled down the bottom 3 steps and sprawled on the sidewalk. My right big toe hurt the most since I landed on the side of it. My neighbor checked on me and then I got Sullie back inside and into his crate. I layed down and elevated my foot. My toe wasn't bleeding but it was scuffed and it hurt so much I thought for sure I'd broken it. (I've broken a toe before and know what it feels like!) I started praying and panicking... my mind jumped to having to get a cast and worrying over how I was going to take care of everyone, get up and down our stairs, do the laundry, cook and grocery shop... I was about to call V and have him come take me to the emergency room when the pain just stopped. I figured it was going numb and the pain would return in a few minutes but it didn't. It's like the Lord just reached down and touched me and said "There, I fixed it, it's all better now." Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Since I was awake from 3:30 - 4:30...

When you're playing online on the Playstation 3, and you want to take a break without signing off, you can let your friends know this in the "status" area and leave a short message. This is helpful when playing Call of Duty 4 and your friends are looking to you to defuse bombs and knife terrorists. People put stuff like "b back in 10 min". Since I was laying awake for an hour this morning I was able to come up with some other helpful messages:

Organizing sock drawer

Separating Oreos

Erasing my carbon footprints

Bathing my parakeet

Busting piggy bank for Call of Duty 5 $

Translating "Good work, comrades!" into Japanese

Downloading Russian national anthem to my ipod

Saying "Shrapnel sure stings" 10 x's fast

Googling myself

Studying the Elliott wave

So glad I had that "special" time to think things over.

We DID finish this by Friday...

but I felt lousy last week and didn't feel like taking a pic or posting. This is one for Scottish Rite's NICU. The black polka dot and yellow border/binding/backing fabrics are flannels. This one was fun, poking around my scraps to find colors to go with the black focus fabric. I showed it around at congregation and a 6 month old little guy was very interested in it! He was so cute, craning his little neck to see it better. Then he did a little "Whoo!" and waved his hands. Guess we did a good job.

Baby gift

We just finished this cutie for some friends expecting baby #2. It's a small version of the one we're making for my graduating niece. The back is cozy red flannel.

Go Garbage Guy!

Wow, our garbage collection guy just took a 6'x6' window and our nasty family room couch. Of course, the glass shattered all over (no one hurt) and he and dh shoveled up pieces out of the street. But the couch part was great! They hoisted it up and the truck bit off the first third of the couch like it was chowing a brownie! KEWL!! Then it munched the rest all at once. Big Bite. Too bad none of the neighbors got to come watch. Okay, so I'm easily entertained... that's good though, right? Now I get to wait for the new couch to be delivered later today.

Word verification: xgrlqvt - the opposite of "new car" smell  

Online gaming

Mister N bought a headset so he can interact with other people playing Call of Duty 4 on the PS3. This is a big deal in our house because we've denied such requests in the past until he got "older". So here we are... older... and he's had this a week. One of our rules is that Dad or I have to be within earshot for him to be allowed to play online with the headset. We are constantly monitoring all he's saying... and it's going quite well so far. He quickly made "friends" with a clan of experienced players and he's very happy. So far, they have been remarkably patient with his relative inexperience and tendency to run out in the middle of the screen and be blown to smithereens. We try to give tactical advice but it's rarely taken. That's okay, we're more concerned about how he conducts himself in the anonymity of online gaming. We must be the only parents paying any attention to what goes on online; I find myself nearly snatching the headset and asking people "Do you kiss your mama with that mouth?" I guess it's the same as traffic etiquette; people often gesture and yell things while driving that they'd never do while passing people on the sidewalk. DH and I often discuss what's going on and have decided that he's been accepted into this clan because a) he doesn't talk constantly but does say what he's defending or where he's heading, b) he doesn't make stupid noises or make irritating sounds close to the headset, c) he doesn't cuss people out or make them feel horrible for messing up and d) he apologizes when he's the last guy standing and gets killed, thus losing the round. Sounds simple, but that is considered friend-worthy. It's been a learning experience for him since we're constantly covering the microphone to explain new vocabulary words... and mostly we're having fun.

Out of touch

Our modem died Sunday but we didn't know it had officially kicked the bucket since some of the lights were still blinking at us. I just love technical support from wayyyyyyy overseas - the echoing, the background fuzz, the struggling to be heard while the person on the other end could care less... We were all shocked at how many times we go online during the day, not realizing it until we couldn't.  And I don't even sit here all day. Anyway, we have changed internet providers and have done what we thought we'd never do: bundle our cable tv with internet access. Now if the cable ever goes out we'll... we'll... (gasp, pant, pant) I can't be held responsible for what we might do! 

I'm so glad it's back.

They Like It!

Who knew?! My folks love the quilt! The color on their bedroom walls is the same color of brown as the sashing strips. Almost like they knew what they were doing or something. Yay!

It's Done!

Mama's quilt is actually finished! I don't know how often my folks check my blog, but it's okay with me if they see this before tomorrow afternoon when I can give it to them in person. Mother did such a lovely job quilting this one with circles in the blocks and pretty scrolls in the sashing. Mama's favorite color is chocolate brown and she loves 9-patch blocks so I think she'll like this. We didn't have enough of the Big rose fabric to cover the whole back so we pieced it with solid black; you can really see the pretty quilting on the black. We also made a pieced binding, I don't know if you can tell by the pics. We think it's fun to piece bindings; it adds one more area of interest. I can't wait to see it on their bed; they even painted their bedroom walls chocolate brown. As Mama would say, "Yummy!"

Under the Sea

Oh my, have you seen this pattern in the September/October issue of Fon's and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine? Gorgeously done in green and teal batiks. Yum! I love the method of surrounding 4-patch blocks with triangles to make Snail Trail blocks - just by careful fabric placement! Neato! It just so happens we have green and teal and purple batiks just waiting for a special purpose, so I started cutting this one out this afternoon. I can't wait to see it come together! Sandi Irish, you have sure designed a beautiful quilt!

A Feast for Crows

I'm going to the library later today to get the 4th book in the Song of Ice and Fire "trilogy". Book 3 did not disappoint! How does George R.R. Martin come up with this stuff? Amazing. Feels weird to be happy when a couple people died in the third one, but hey, they were cruel and creepy! Winter is coming.

Fun with Geometric prints

This one has been fun to play around with. I cut out a collection of geometric prints and then had a couple teen friends help choose block combinations. It's been fun to see what they came up with.

Midnight Elements

This one is coming along... all the blocks are made, but they have been a challenge to sew together. They keep shifting juuuust enough to drive me nuts. Maybe I'll try my even-feed foot. See? Just talking it out helps. This one will be a knock-out. The pattern is from the January 2008 issue of The Quilter.

Hankies

This one is supposed to remind you of little hankies freshly pressed; the pattern is called Hanky Panky. I'm using the Victory Garden collection from Eleanor Burns. These prints are so much fun! (The blocks need to be pressed.)

Those tantalizing Jelly Rolls

I love Jelly Rolls (collections of fabric pre-cut into 2 1/2" strips), and this one came in a tin, from Moda. Wish I had stock in Moda. This is the State of Grace pattern. Still hard to really tell what's going on with as little as I have made so far. Pretty little hourglasses and pinwheels emerge as the blocks come together. I had begun cutting this one out last winter and then saw it completed in a quilt shop and got all excited. These colors are more muted than I usually pick and I love the effect.

Not sure about this one...

I love the fabrics, but I think it needs more contrast, or maybe it just needs more calming fabrics. The pattern is called Scrappy Diamonds from the March/April 2008 issue of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting. Fun, easy pattern. What do you think?