Boxes packed .. truck is loading / gone ..

A fter yesterday's 'scheduled' posting fiasco that I just caught in time - I've decided to try another blog service. I'm not sure if I'll stay there or come back here .. There are things about blogger that I just love - ability to use my own layout and change the fonts etc, widgets galore that work (for the most part), the beta blogger which is a lot of fun - but there are things I HATE - i'm still considered a spam blog, I've requested a review since day 1 and I've had several requests expire - no clue if I keep my spot in the queue or get bumped to the bottom, so I keep requesting reviews. I even joined google groups to find some answers on this .. and nope - no answers .. just more frustrated ppl like myself ..

pfft .. you ready for this .. I have to do that stupid word verification for each and every single post / edit that I do .. okay fine .. rather got into the habit of it .. but do you think that these ones are easily seeable .. oh HELL NO!!! bah .. blogger has this scheduled post feature which I used from time to time .. well this is the first time I used it since I got 'locked' .. well here we go with that blasted word verification .. i finally get it to go up .. hours later I check to see my most recent post .. I'm like WT???? where is it .. so i check my post listings .. the buggers have moved it into draft (!) so .. in order to get it out of draft and published .. are you ready for this??? i had to do that damn word verification again .. (*&#(*&^(#^$*#&&()@#$(#*& THAT'S IT! So i went hunting for a different service until blogger figures out what their bloody robots are doing ..

So in the meantime, I'm relocating for the time being .. I started a blog at wordpress.com and was able to import my whole blog over there, comments included .. but i have to use their templates or pay for the upgrade .. it's not a lot, but it's not the point .. at blogger i get free expression of my layout - and more widgets that suit me ..

Now I do love their dashboard interface .. but am frustrated by some widgets not working as expected - prolly b/c i'm not sure what the restrictions are for them .. but i'll figure it out eventually

I do like that wordpress enables you to create stand alone pages - so I could in reality move my kitty quilt, quilt gallery and other misc pics over there ..

at any rate, I'll leave a light on here with an arrow pointing to my new blog .. if you are on my rss feed here, I've set up the new blog for that as well .. just click on subscribe on the left when you get there .. gquilts.wordpress.com

Last 4 days in a quick blurb

I 'm sitting here trying to organize my thoughts and set things in the proper order. It's been a bit since I posted, and while I don't always manage to post on the weekend, it's been a rather insane type of week beginning for me and my family.

Most of you know that my father was admitted to the hospital on Monday afternoon with a high fever, chills, extreme joint pain, inability to make a fist or turn his head. The rest of our adventure is long and I won't post it all here - but I can give you a shortened version of it.

Drive up to hospital .. There are like 2 empty spots in the ER parking lot .. I go "dad .. This doesn’t look good" .. Well get him out the car (refuses a wheel chair) go in and see that triage is PACKED and the waiting room is like standing room only .. Oh HELL NO!!

So off we go to the clinic and gets seen by a dr in the clinic and when she sees that I have to help my dad stand, she decides he’s going to ER .. We are like ??? :O .. She goes I’ll give you a note so you don’t have to wait and call over .. Oh yeah .. You don’t wait all right, but then you would be waiting in a room for the dr for HOURS .. One guy was saying there’s a 6 hr wait .. Not sure if it’s true . But I would put it at 4 or 5 easily without even trying ..

So my dad works at DMC (Detroit Medical Center) that is a sweet option as it’s right in downtown Detroit and he’s got awesome employee coverage. I stop at home to tell reg and kyle what’s up and over the border we go.

He was admitted to Detroit receiving hospital Monday evening due to high fever, dizziness, chills, nausea and a zoning out episode that he suffered while in ER – he spent the night in their observation unit having tests done and being monitored. He was also dehydrated and his sodium level was high. They put him on fluids with a pain killer (this is the really really really short form)

I left him at 2am to come home and get ‘sleep’ (which never happened) But I went there the following morning and he was bright alert and not feverish .. So I got to bring him home yesterday and he was quite his normal self again .. Altho there are days that I can do without that :)

so dad's home and is doing well now .. has tonite off and will return to work on Thursday nite. I managed to get some good sleep - i guess that getting 14hrs sleep over a 4 day period just isn't enough :\ .. I slept 14 hrs last nite and feel a bit groggy from it, but do not feel over taxed or tired out.

I'll be putting up some of what I've done quilty wise over the next few hours .. I have to take pictures and put some of this into the proper order :)

Death by borders ...

I have bordered myself to DEATH! No more .. i just canNOT stand it anymore ..

Today & tonight, I've put 12 border strips on the 1800 quilt, and then 8 more on Carmen's mystery ... her quilt calls for 1 more outer border .. and I just do NOT think that I can do it :\ heh .. to take a break from it, I squared up 40 HST units .. so you know it was bad at that point.

But I did get the border strips on my 1800 quilt .. in the picture above that's 2 of the top 3 sections .. the far right and the middle. This is going to be awesome when together. I had a nice scare earlier .. I really wanted to use the black paisley for the border and binding .. good thing I did the math first (altho in the long run, it didn't mean anything ... ) and i realized I would not be able to do both .. so I fussed and fidged and did my darnedest to get that paisley in .. i could have done, but really didn't want a 1" border unfinished .. that would have been a skinny little thing that would be useless on this size quilt .. so I started to dig .. (I do that a lot don't I??) Found some light material - but naw .. I knew I didn't want that, I really didn't want to use the brown with the darker brown vines in it .. it's nice .. but not what I wanted .. it's not dark enough .. then I remembered my yard sale find :) .. it's a nice dark green with red (colours that are in the quilt already) and with only ¼" showing, it wouldn't be a HUGE stand out .. so that made me happy there that I had a solution that I was happy with :)

I finally got a chance to get back to my '97 swap quilt that I want to repair .. I've opted to have that as my hand work while watching TV and with football season starting yesterday, I get to work on it .. it took me an hour to pick out that one ooboo'd spot and then some more places, and cut out the old batting etc, etc, etc .. I was still finding bits n pieces of that cheap 36" muslin and it was just shredding like crazy as I was picking at it .. I've decided since I'm doing handwork, to just quilt it in as I fix it ... one fell swoop .. all the patches that need to be replaced are white and I am old school and press to dark so they would be flat under the seams anyways .. so I'm just slipping them in, pinning the buggers down and stitching away .. I'll likely get this done before footballs season ends, but i'm sure I'll have a TON of things to hand sew soon enough. I did have a spot (where the pin is - see the blue dot??) where I didn't get all the cheapy muslin out and I let it goof me when I putting in the patches .. so i'll be prolly tucking that under or smucking it down .. not sure .. I really don't feel like picking that whole patch apart, but if I have to, I have to ..

I'll be starting to quilt my 1800 quilt today I hope .. I've picked out my motifs, adjusted them for my block size, all I have to do is print them out and then layer up the sections .. I'll prolly pin these or use basting spray as they are a whole quilt just 33½" sections.

Sections - Onward ...

E arlier tonite I was standing at my ironing board with a rather stunned look on my face .. and my mind was blank .. I'm thinking to myself .. that's it??? They're done?? ... oh my ... i had actually gotten all the sections of the 1800 quilt together - you could have heard a feather hit the carpeting! Then a HUGE grin spreads across my face .. borders .. all I needs to do is BORDERS!!!!!!!

Then I started to think .. (you so know that is NEVER a good thing with me) maybe I should do more dramatic type quilting for this .. I remember seeing all the beautiful handwork on the quilts I viewed online and in books ..

Sometime later ...

Hours pass and nothing hits me a "right", then it rather dawns on me .. those were on whole cloth quilts, applique, on-point or sashed quilts .. pfft .. bah .. So I head off to the quilt index to see what I can see .. What I saw was allover quilting, echo quilting and you ready for this - outline / ditch quilting .. so here I was searching for hours for the perfect motif and I already had it .. bah

BUT - I did find a site with some wonderful free motifs - Forest Quilting and she has 2 there that have definitely given me ideas for the larger blank spaces .. the points on my larger center Ohio Star, and the Double X Star in each corner .. I'm thinking of using the Cornice Motif or the Dreamy Motif in those larger blank spots (page 6) .. the Cornice motif appeals to me because it's middle is a circle and that will surround the sisters block and not interfer with it .. I'm not going to do allover quilting as this is quilt as you go and how much do you want to bet, the blasted lines will NOT line up .. I am sooo not gonna go there .. not in a million years .. so .. basic ditch / outline quilting it is .. no muss no fuss .. but for the corners and the middle :D :D :D

I want to do leaves or vines in the borders so I rather need them to be wide enough so the design doesn't get totally lost .. i'm thinking maybe 3" border .. I've not measured the fabric again so I'm not sure what there is .. worse case senario; 2" with meander / loopy quilting ..

So tomorrow, borders cut, do my first sandwich and quilting foot away :D

Sections 1 & 2 reporting for duty ..

W ell this is a nice change .. it's 2:48am and I'm actually tired .. so here's a quick entry then I'm off ..

Here's my list of things that I would "LIKE" to get accomplished this week .. nothing on here is super critical to get done (cept email of course and I'm still working on that). I figure that repairing the swap quilt can be done while I am watching football :) starts on Thursday - WOO HOOO ..

1. last 2 Ohio Star blocks


2. piece 1800 sections - 4 sections done


3. September abstract challenge


4. catch up on mail / ppls blogs


5. gran's quilt


6. put rhododendrum wc together - have some great ideas for the quilt part


7. fix my 97 swap quilt - hand work for tv time

Here's a quick overview of the sections that still need to be pieced - the center section was done months ago, I've finished the double x sections tonite. The blocks are laid out in stitching order for the next 4 sections .. then it's a matter of finding what I did with the backing material (kyle's too while I'm at it) and then quilt as you go :)

I've rather made a decision that I hope I can keep .. I can see where I'll be not following thru wtih this, but oh well .. i'm going to finish up the various projects that are on the go, and TRY not to add anymore until I've quilted them ..they dont have to have the binding on - that's great for tv time, but i do want to get these quilted .. I've a ton of projects in various stages from PIGs to basted .. so time to stop adding and get these quilted .. I do know I'll be doing Carmen's mystery in a few weeks and there are of course the abstract challenges .. so we'll see how I do with trying to follow this ..

Time vanished? It's a Mystery

I t's been a super crazy busy weekend - and I didn't go anywhere (!)

First of all I woke up late on Friday - I had an extra large tim Hortons (potent coffee) on thursday nite and was ZIIIIIIIIING BOINGGGGGGGG WIRED and didn't get to sleep until like 9am Friday AM .. woke up to Reg home from work at 3:30 - and it was one thing after another until later that nite.

After Kyle left with his dad, we went out to supper at Vang's for Thai food .. **slurp**, and then a stop at Fabricland :D :D :D They were having a pretty nice sale going on .. 50% discontinued fabrics, 33% off others, some notions were 50% - so I reconnoitered my battlefield and plotted my strategy .. I wanted to get some purples for the "All in the Family Colour Mystery that I and 4 other ladies were test driving for Carmen .. well that didn't work out to well there, but I did get some colours that I've not really used before .. This up coming year I really want to "force" myself to use colours other than my favourites .. each of these cuts is a metre and the bottom three on the left could actually be used for a quilt with the yellow as sashings or what not .. i honestly didn't even look for that! The solid red and black will be used for my discharge dyeing (when I can revisit that!)

After that it was back home and to the cutting table .. I found clue 1 in my inbox when I got home, so the race was on :) Since I didn't have full yardage for all 4 colours, I was using small cuts and scraps .. and as you all know, cutting the smaller pieces into 3" squares takes TIME! I think it was like 4 or 5am when I got done cutting and wasn't even about to start on the mystery.

I gets up Saturday (late due to stupid bed time) and got kidnapped for a '2 hour shopping trip" .. we booked out the house around 3 and didn't get back til 8 - i should soooo know better LOL .. but that's okay, we always manage to have fun together :) Get back and like a good detective, I start at clue 1. I worked all the clues until clue 7 when my brain just went pfft It just didn't want to think anymore - so I gave in .. off to bed I went and of course, it's like 5am or later again.

Before I started Carmen's mystery, I finished up the last cut Ohio Star block - knowing me I would have lost the pieces and would NOT have been a happy camper at all! I just have to cut two more blocks and then I start to piece the sections!!!!

Between the clues for Carmen's mystery I did the leaders n enders to get all the way to clue 4 for gran's quilt (QT summer mystery) I'm maybe 1/3 of the way thru that clue .. so this quilt will be done in no time with using this method .. the next project to get done with this will be my lady bug court wallhangings that I designed a million years ago ..

I did get the rest of the mystery tested and we had an absolute blast .. I just have to put borders on it - sorry no pictures until after we start the mystery on the group and only then it will be the current clue solutions - but I can show you my fabric choices as she's already uploaded that part to the group. I'm going to do the next one in blues .. I forgot my aunt had given me some fabric and there's blues in there - so blues the next one will be :)

Poor puppy has fleas again and gave them to the cats, so part of Sunday was spent giving her another bath, giving the cats flea 'shots' defleaing our house, sweeping, vacuuming, washing everything NOT nailed down .. now wasn't THAT fun pfft! and of course we'll be doing this at least twice a week (the house defleaing part - not medicating the animals)

I have a list of things that I want to get done this week

1. last 2 Ohio Star blocks


2. piece 1800 sections


3. September abstract challenge


4. catch up on mail / ppls blogs


5. gran's quilt


6. put this wc together - have some great ideas for the quilt part


7. fix my 97 swap quilt


8. quit n baste projects that are missing me

I'm sure that there are more, but these are the ones that I screamng to me right now .. I'm sure with just plodding along and doing what I do, it'll be done in no time :)

I hope you all had a great long weekend ..