Hey, it's meeeeee!

~*~ I started typing this on Tuesday, March 2. (not sure what date is listed above)  I had a problem with the computer and lost everything that I had written.  Or so I thought!  I was telling my daughter about it earlier today (it's now Thursday) and she told me that blogger always saved to a draft.  ((really??!  Yippeeeee!!!))  I was worried about trying to re-construct this post, but now I didn't have to!!  Thanks so much, Nicole!!! ~*~

Not much going on in my neck of the woods, still cold way down here in central Florida and oh my gosh, it was so windy today! I know that March is the month for flying kites, but for today, I don't think that would have been a very good idea, not at all.  We're not used to having such cold weather here and for so long either.  It's STILL cold and it's March, geez.  But, I'm trying not to complain, it's better than it being hot year round.  I would love to have 4 seasons in every year.

I have entered another give away!  Over at Little Scraps of Happiness blog.  I have no idea how to make that so ya'll can click on it and get there.  But here's the URL   http://littliescrapsofhappiness.blogspot.com/   She's giving away a "Snippets" charm pack and a piece of coordinating fabric from the same line!  She'll have her drawing next Monday morning.  Snippets are some really cute fabrics, they even have a few pieces that look like the old paper dolls!  My mom would've gotten a kick out of that!  She used to tell me how they would cut out the paper dolls and outfits out of the newspaper and keep them in a cigar box!  Oh how I'd love to have that cigar box, I wonder what ever happened to it.  Did another little girl from long ago end up with it?  What a find that would be, in an antique store somewhere!

I can't believe that it's already been almost 8 months since my mom passed away, she died on my husband's birthday - July 9. She was also a quilter!  We had so much fun sewing and quilting together!  I surprised her with a lap quilt that I made for her, on Mother's day, 2006. That was right after I started quilting and had taken a few classes here in Orlando. (and of course, I can't find any of the photo's that were taken that day - I'll have to speak to my husband about that and show them to ya'll another time)  My mom started a quilting group at their church 2 & 1/2 years ago.  They make prayer quilts!  They make the lap quilts and fix them with DMC ties, but leave them un-tied.  They will take them to church on Wednesday and Sunday nights, with a card for each quilt saying who it's for.  People go up and sign the card and tie a knot, while saying a prayer for the person the quilt will be going to!  How awesome is that?!  The group is still going strong, I go whenever I'm in town.  They are always trying to recruit new members to get involved, there are only about 5 very faithful women who go each week. They would love to have some women (of any age) to join them, so they can learn about quilting and to someday carry on what my mom and these women have started.  I'm going to start making a few tops, to donate, along with some fabric for the backings, so I feel like I'm doing my share!  When my mom passed away last summer, I cleaned out her sewing room and donated 7 boxes of fabric and quilting supplies to this group.  This is a picture of me and my mom...

In October/November 2008, my mom was having some problems with her health, and just not feeling all that great.  She kind of quit going to a lot of the 'things' that she was involved in.  She was in 2 Red Hat groups, the prayer quilt group and another quilting group.  The women of the prayer quilt group kind of snuck around and made my mom a prayer quilt of her own!  Just before Thansgiving that year, they called my mom to tell her that they were all going to go and visit with her one afternoon.  They took the prayer quilt and had a very nice visit!  She loved the quilt and was so surprised (& touched) that they had made one for her!  Each of the women worked on a different quilt block, using the same fabrics.  All around the inner border, are prairie points ~ my mom had always loved those!!  After she received the prayer quilt, she started feeling better!!  Just knowing that all those women cared so much for her and knowing the work that went into making the quilt and keeping it a secret, along with the power of prayer, she felt better and started going to her groups again!  This is a photo of my mom's prayer quilt!

Isn't it pretty?!  And yes, those are my feet peeking out at the bottom.  The quilt is now on the back of the couch at my dad's house.  We believe that this time in my mom's life, was when the cancer started, but we'll never know for sure.  She had a long, good life, and thoroughly enjoyed herself while she was here.

Don't forget about the give away over at 'Little Scraps of Happiness' blog!  If you go over there to leave a comment, tell her that I sent you!

Ya'll take care!

     

It's about time!

I didn't mean to stay away so long, really I didn't.  I think I've finally gotten it across to my hubby that we needed to have a better program to download our pictures into.  So yesterday, I found the CD that came with my mom's camera and got it downloaded.  So now, we'll be going back through all the pictures we've taken since last July and resizing them!  YAY!!!  It shouldn't take too long, but we've got to keep working at it and get them done!  So, I have a few pictures to share today! 

This is a picture of the dog bandana's that I made for my husband's Dr., her assistant and the receptionist - for their dogs, not for them!!  LOL!

I actually won my very first 'Give Away', I left a comment on a quilting blog, saying that I was working on these, using 'heart' fabrics!!  I won a 6 piece fat quarter set of 'shirtings' fabrics!!  She also included 3 free quilting patterns!! (the kind you get from the fabric companies - but that's okay, I didn't have them and I always welcome new patterns, of any kind!)

I also made some Gator wallets (Wonder Wallets by Lazy Girl).  These are so much fun to make, but when using fabrics that I want to 'fussy cut', I end up wasting fabric and the Gator fabrics are so expensive, even buying them at Joann's. (at least I can use coupons when shopping there!)  So to keep from wasting the fabric, after cutting the pieces for making the wallets, I've started a small tub for the scraps.  I'm going to use those scraps to make another shopping bag holder, like the one I made for Sami! 

It helps that I have a 5 inch wide ruler, to cut the fabrics with - that's how wide the pieces are for the wallets!  I don't know if I could make these without that ruler, it makes it so easy to center the fabric for cutting!

So now that we're starting to get our pictures more usable, I'm hoping that I'll get more and more into posting!  I'm planning on starting a little spiral notebook, to list topics for posts, so I can remember what all I want to talk about, as we're taking new pictures!

Until next time!

Ready or not.......

Ready or not!  I'm FINally here to type up a NEW post!! (yeah, I know, it's about time!)  I've just talked to my friend Sandy on the phone, to make sure that I remembered where to click, to be able to add a picture!  Yes, it's been that long, that I had forgotten how I did it on that very first post!   Then, I had to make sure that my hubby had cropped the picture down small enough that ya'll couldn't count the hairs on my ugly, old skinny arm. (in the picture!) Okay, I'm rambling, so I'll just get on with it!

I was busy for a few days last week, making a bag holder for Sandy's daughter, Sami.  She moved out on her own over the weekend and I wanted to be sure that I had it ready when we got to Starke, so I could give it to her!  I didn't have a pattern, but I did have an idea in my head and was hoping that it would turn out fairly decent.  I've made these holders before, but not in this way.  It was my own, strippy project!  See...

It's not the best picture in the world, but I think that you get the idea!  Sami likes the Gator football team out of Gainesville, Florida!  So I bought a bunch of different Gator fabrics, cut them up and sewed them back together, in a scrappy, strippy way and this is what I ended up with!!  I'm very pleased with how it turned out!  So much, that I'm thinking about making another one!  When I get around to it anyway.  I've got a couple of other projects that I've got to get done first.  But soon!  I'm hoping that ths blog will help me to keep on sewing and staying more busy with my sewing machine.

As for other Gator themed items that I've made for Sami, here's a picture of a pillow that I made for her birthday a couple of years ago...

This is my own design, I think that I've made 5 of these so far!  I'm hoping to get 2 more done in the next week or so.  I cut my own fringe with my rotary cutter & by doing that, I use up a lot of scraps from making the pillow itself.  Three years ago, I wanted to make some pillows for my 3 nieces as their Christmas gifts. (all teenagers at the time).  But the problem was, I didn't know where to begin. It didn't help that it was the night of Christmas Eve either!  So my mom helped me to get started and showed me how to decide on how big to cut the fleece for the pillows.  I went back to my in law's house that night and stayed up basting the pieces together.  I gave them to my nieces the next morning, and quickly told them not to squeeze their pillows, that we still needed to add the fringe!  So that afternoon, the 4 of us sat down and we all cut the little holes in the edges and tied the fringed pieces all around the pillows!  I had purchased quite a few bags of ready made fringe and they chose what colors they wanted for their pillow.  It was a lot of fun and they still love their pillows and will take them on trips or just to Meemaw's house for their Sunday afternoon naps! (my nieces are 20 year old twins and their older sister is 22 years old!)  I'll have pictures of my nieces to show, with stuff that I've made for them, but that's for another post!  A year or so later, after that Christmas with the fleece pillows, one of my nieces friends from Texas, spent the summer with them.  She asked me 'just how do I get my OWN pillow?'  I told her that all she had to do was ask!  So the next time she came back, I had her pillow made, just for her!

Okay, I guess that's enough for now.  I could go on and on, but it's late and I need to get to bed!

Till next time, take care!!  (and I promise, it won't be as long in-between my posts!)

I'm Still Here...

Yup, I'm still here, I just don't have anything worthy to really blog about right now.  We did go back to Starke last week, my husband's grandfather died on Tuesday morning, January 5.  The visitation was on Thursday, with the funeral on Friday.  Steve said that this was the very first time that all of the grandkids were together, along with all of the great grandkids too.  It was good to see everyone, I just wish that it could've been for a happier reason.

It sure is cold down here in central Florida!  Steve said that it took him a few minutes to get the frost off of the windsheild this morning.  In looking outside, some of my plants that didn't get covered up, they are now all wilting and yucky looking.  But that's okay, I have a green thumb and more than likely it won't be all that hard to get them to come back next spring.

So like I said, I really don't have that much to 'talk' about, but decided to go ahead and post, just so I don't forget how to do it!!  I'll have to get my sewing machine out, to give me that little push to get busy and get some stuff done!

Going home tomorrow...

We were supposed to be going back to Orlando this afternoon, but it didn't happen.  So we're planning on leaving here early in the morning.  But that's subject to change also.  My husband Steve, his grandfather is in the local hospital after having a major stroke on Tuesday afternoon. (he had Pneumonia last week and was in the hospital for that)  He hasn't been very responsive, partly because of the morphine they've got him on, and that's to help keep his agitation down.  We're planning on going home anyway, mainly to bring in plants and cover up the ones we can't bring in.  Along with paying some bills and whatever else we find that needs to be done.  We could be called to come back to Starke at any time. 

Steve's grandfather (Pops) has lived a long & good life, he's 97 years old.  He would be quick to tell you that he was born in 1912, the same year that the Titanic went down.  He was married to Steve's granny for almost 72 years when she died on Mother's day in 2003.  He was so lonely without her.  So much, that within a couple of years, he started 'looking' for a nice, Christian woman to hook up with!  He got re-married in (I think) 2005 to a widow (Virginia) here in Starke.  He was only 92, and she was around 86 when they got married!  Her youngest daughter Lisa was 3 years younger than me and Steve.  When I called her "Aunt Lisa", she called me "Obnoxious!!"  What ya'll don't know, is that I used to live right next door to Sandy from "The Olde Country Cupoard" blog, and Virginia's house is on the other side!  Sandy lost both of her very good neighbors to the same family!

I wasn't planning on posting any more until we got back to Orlando, but decided to go ahead anyway.  I wanted to wait until I had access to my pictures on our computer at home.  But don't ya'll worry, I've got tons of pictures that I can't wait to share with all of you!  And I'm almost never at a loss of something to talk about!!  I'm used to typing a nightly email to a group of people all over the country, we all share our love for the older movies and I send them the next day's TCM schedule!  So typing on a blog should be a piece of cake for me!!

And oh yeah, if something hasn't come out right, it's coz I'm typing this post all by myself, with no prompting or help from anyone!

Happy New Year everyone!!

My First Post.....

Hey ya'll, I'm finally getting a blog!! (with a LOT of help from my friend Sandy!!)~(and a LOT of encouragement from my daughter!!!) So I guess I'll start out with showing some of the quilts that I've made. But don't ya'll worry, I'll be talking a lot about other things too, like my cute little grandson Wyatt, old movies that are being shown on my favorite TV channel, which is Turner Classic Movies (a.k.a. TCM), our two little dogs and just plain old stuff. My mom always called my nightly email, my blog and I'm finally getting around to it. Sadly tho, she passed away last summer, on my husband's birthday. Like she always told me, I write just like I'm talking on the phone, so beware!

This quilt, I made for my daughter's baby shower in July 2008. It's kinda busy, with all of the different farm animals in each fabric, but it was fun to make. Nicole decorated the nursery in a barnyard theme and when I found these fabrics, I wanted to use them and this pattern had a lot of big pieces.  My favorite fabric out of all of these, are the cows, there is one bull surrounded by lots of cows!  It was so cute, I also made a bib and a burp cloth from the same fabric!  I believe that the name of this pattern is "Just Can't Cut It", but don't hold me to it, I might be wrong!

This is one is a "Prairie Queen" pattern, I surprised my step son with, before he left for his first semester at a college in the panhandle of Florida - way out in the boonies. He was really pleased with it and tickled that I made it just for him.














This next quilt, it's an Eleanor Burn's pattern, "Trip Around the World". I made this for my husband's grandfather's 95th birthday! He's fairly tall, so I made 4 lap size quilt tops, then put them together as one whole quilt - but it's just a large lap size.  The fabrics are tractors, bandana, tools and fishing lures, mixed in with some nice blender fabrics.  He really seemed to like the fact that he could use the quilt to take naps with.



















I guess that's enough for now, don't want to scare ya off, not yet anyway.

So, what do ya'll think?!  I think I've got a lot to learn, especially on all the spacing and stuff, but here's where hubby comes in handy and his knowledge of HTML at work!!