A Finish and Closing in on 500!

I finally finished Alye's quilt! And just in time, too! She's reaching so many milestones all at once! Turning 18, going to the prom, and then graduation. Remember all that fun? Anyway, here's the quilt.

It's approximately 62x71 after washing and drying. It is based on the double slice quilt from Missouri Star Quilt Co., but I added sashing. I did straight line quilting close to this design.

And here's a view with a bit of the back showing.

The back is all the floral fabric. My daughter said it was cool because the front looked more modern but the back looked a little old fashioned.
Stay tuned cause I'll be participating in a blog hop soon and will have goodies to show. Also, this is post 498! Two more til 500! I am going to just rope it into the Giveaway Day through Sew Mama Sew so stayed tuned for that as well!

   

Making a Difference and I Didn't Even Know It!

My quilt guild (which I haven't been able to go to in a while because baseball and dance are both on that night!) used one of the donated quilt tops to create a quilt to donate to Relay for Life as a raffle quilt. A little article went into the local newspaper with a picture of it being presented to one of the walkers. After looking at it and thinking it looked kind of familiar, I realized it was one of mine!

My friend, Jo, who is presenting the quilt in the picture, was so apologetic that the piecing of it didn't get credited to me, but I really didn't care. I was just so delighted that they chose it to use as part of the fundraiser. The article indicated that another quilt was also donated so I'm really praying they got a lot of donations through the raffling of both these items. Since hubby works for the hospital, he was part of their team for the relay Friday night.
The kids and I totally enjoyed Xanadu Friday night. We went by a pizza place for a quick bite beforehand, then spent the show up on the front row. My 11 year old daughter was in a fit of giggles through most of it and my 7 year old boy kept dancing. I just kept singing to myself. I remember going to see it at the movies when I was my daughter's age. We had such a blast! And we're off in an hour or so to go see Footloose at one of the local high schools with some friends so it is 80's crazy weekend!
I am almost finished sewing the binding on Alye's quilt so hopefully I will post it tomorrow!

Now That I'm Here...Now That You're Near...

I can name that tune in three notes...Xanadu! Wow, I'm really showing my age. Anyway, hubby is doing Relay for Life tonight for work so I made an executive decision to expose my children to cheesy music of the  80's and drag them to the theater to see Xanadu the Musical! And if that's not enough, a friend has invited us to go see one of the local high schools perform their production of Footloose on Sunday. It's like retro craziness around here! In a few weeks another high school will be doing Hairspray. I don't know if I can take it!

           

I also found out that my little theater buddy next door auditioned for Alice in Wonderland and she got the part of little Alice. I suppose that means they will have another girl who will play Alice when she finds the "Eat Me" cake and gets bigger.
I am sewing as well! I just about have the binding sewn down the first time around on Alye's quilt. Then I have to hand sew the other side and I'm done. Well, except for washing it. I try to be the first one to wash it just in case.
What are you doing this weekend?

WIP and Getting Ready for Giveaway Day!

So what are you working on? I've been squeezing in all the time I can on getting Alye's quilt done. I just finished the quilting about 10 minutes ago. Now on to binding!

I did straight line quilting with a bit of design to it, but I did add one FMQ...her name.

I could have put it on the black to stand out more but decided instead to blend it into the quilt.

Don't forget Sew Mama Sew is holding their 10th Giveaway Day on May 6th! I am getting some things together for a giveaway here on my blog so don't forget to come back and check it out! I also have another little surprise I will announce later about something else I will be doing.

Life With a Dog

Oh no! Pepper got up the stairs before I did. However will I find her...

Um, yeah...

Home Again, Home Again...Jiggety Jig!

I'm back home from my North Georgia girl's weekend! It was me, my sister, my mom and my grandmother. They stayed til today (I'm so jealous) but I came home yesterday. We went up to a cabin in Blue Ridge, Ga which turned out to be great. It was just as nice as the one where we stayed last year.
Here we are while out shopping in downtown Blue Ridge.

I am the eldest (by only 2 1/2 years) but she is the tallest (by no less than 6 inches!). We had a nice lunch at The Blue Ridge Brewery...

And a little dessert later after doing some walking. I was excited because this was my second shop that had competed on Cupcake Wars.

We all got cupcakes except my grandmother who decided on a caramel apple. Mine was very yummy.

We then returned to the cabin...

where my grandmother patiently taught us how to play canasta...

and my sister and I later chose to hang out in the hot tub to enjoy the view.

(This was actually a view from earlier in the day but I forgot to take one at night!) All in all a wonderful, albeit short, weekend. Next year I'm going to figure out some way for someone else to take the kids to school so I can stay one more night. Hope you all had a nice weekend!

WiP and an Appliance Question

I'm still trucking along on the quilting on Alye's quilt. I'm done with 1/4 of it.                

I decided that, since I don't like total symmetry but I didn't want to do FMQ on it, I would do straight line quilting but mix it up a bit. Here is my idea for the design.

So far so good!
And now for opinions!
My dryer is starting to die, and we have had on again/off again issues with the washer so we are now looking. I was tempted to go with a front loader for the washer but have not been impressed with all the negative comments I hear about them (moldy smell, slimy seal if not allowed to dry between loads). My sister has one and she has had those very issues. So I am asking for opinions. What kind of washer/dryer combo do you have? Is it fairly new? Top or front loader, and what is your opinion?

Feeling the Love, Feeling the Love!

Look at my lovely new goodie that came in the mail yesterday from Canada!

This was made by the lovely Carla  and I won it for Giveaway Day! I must not have paid much attention to the written info on it because in my head it was much smaller. This is large and lovely! I figured it was about 14 inches wide, but NO! It's about 24 x 28. I love her quilting on it too. She used straight line stitching around the outside and some pebbling on parts of the inside.

It has a lovely floral print on the back as well.

And she included the sweetest card! I have no idea where she got it but it's so cute.

Thank you so much Carla! I love it!

And We'll Have Fun, Fun, Fun....!!!

Had a great day Saturday! My parents came up to see my son play baseball and their team won. Then we just spent a lazy day hanging out until my mom and I made a quick trip to the dollar store and to the grocery store. Pita and hummus, then baby back ribs, salad, and grilled yellow squash for dinner...yummy! Then apple pie a la mode to top off the day. Can't beat that!
And if this past weekend wasn't good enough, this coming weekend is our new annual "Girl's Weekend!" Last year my sister rented a cabin in the mountains for us (me, my sister, my mom, and my grandmother) to hang out for the weekend. It was a wonderful weekend away from responsibility and this coming weekend will be yet another.

This is a look up at the cabin we'll be staying at this time. And in the mornings we'll wake up to this.

I can't wait! It's so nice to be able to spend time with my mom, sis and grandmother. Just the gals! 

Memory Loss, a Quilting Start, and a Goofy Dog!

Okay, so I've been cleaning....and cleaning...and cleaning. And finding that my house never stays clean. May I just say that having a new dog is a lot like having a baby/toddler? The constant need for attention, the frequency with which pottying is done, and the unbelievable way that the house just STAYS filthy no matter what I do? Sigh...Okay, so I vented a little.
I started quilting Alye's quilt today and I found out a little something. I had bought a second machine about a year ago and was sort of unhappy with it because, though it had a few more bells and whistles than my Kenmore, it was more finicky and I never liked the tension. I, therefore, continued to use my Kenmore for most projects. Well, for Alye's quilt I was experimenting with Aurifil thread so I thought I would dust off the 'new' machine and give it a whirl for this. It's still not perfect but I think a lot of the issue was that it liked better thread. It's working SOOO much better with the better thread!

Oh, and the goofy dog? My sewing room is in my basement so I usually let her roam a bit in the back yard while I am sewing. I looked out to check on her and found her doing some checking out of her own.

I wish I had seen her getting in it!

Another Finish on WiP Day!

Hallelujah, I finally finished something quilty! My mojo took a hike a while back and I have struggled getting it back, so it's nice to finally have something to call done. I am getting ready to do the quilting on my niece's quilt but I couldn't until I finished my Mystery Round Robin from last year because it was still on the sewing machine with all my pins in it! I haven't used my binding tool in so long I had to double check the youtube video on how to use it again.
Anyway, here is the front of my lovely new wall hanging.

And some closeups of some straight line quilting...

and some FMQ.

Sorry the FMQ doesn't show up as well because of the busy fabric. Could my FMQ use a lot more practice? Yes, yes it could. There, that said let's move on!

The back was a cute fabric I picked up at the "yard sale" they had at a LQS. No, I had never done a round robin so I didn't realize that it would be cool to have everyone sign it. Instead I just made up individual strips with everyone's info on it.

A wonderful bunch of ladies participated on this quilt and I appreciate each and every one of you!!!

  

Family Fun Day!

We spent yesterday at Stone Mountain Park with the kids. My son started off the day getting his face painted, then we headed over to the SkyHike. My daughter was being an 11 year old girl at the time and sort of threw a fit about having to be there so she and my hubby ended up wandering around, but Little Man and I got on our harnesses to check it out!

What's really funny is that they were running a deal where it was cheaper to get two kid's memberships and we went in as free friends, so he had to get his membership card picture taken like this! I ended up getting kicked off on the second level for pulling out my cell phone. The chick told me I needed to go down and do something with it. Really? It's been in my pocket the whole time with no problem and just because YOU saw it, I have to go down? And I had no idea where hubby was so I basically ended up getting kicked off. Nice, huh? He stayed on for a while but we finally ended up heading over to ride the cars to the top of the mountain.

As long as I've lived here I've never actually gone to the top of the mountain so this was pretty cool. It sort of makes me think that's what the moon looks like.

And here is the fam at the top of the mountain. If you look closely in my daughter's hand, you'll notice that she found a stuffed version of Pepper to purchase while we were there. A pretty cool day overall if I do say so myself!

A Finish, Finally!!!

Okay, so I finished the dog bed. Why is it the projects you just started are much easier to finish than the ones that have been piled in your sewing room for a year? Anyway, here is a top view.

As I said before, the top and bottom were some dark taupe duck cloth I picked up at Goodwill a while back. The sides are just 6" blocks of various leftover quilting fabric I had; mostly some Amy Butler.

I know it looks a bit wonky but the fluff will all work out when she starts pouncing on it. I had a bag and a half, but that still wasn't enough. I didn't want to have to go to the store so I tore open an old bed pillow that was up in my son's closet and used the filler from that.

And yes, she really did sit on it (please excuse the demon dog eyes) but ended up jumping on the couch. So I decided it might take some getting used to so we're starting small and take baby steps.

Pepper appears to be totally okay with that plan.

Wassup!!!

Stay tuned cause I'm crocheting up a bunch of washcloths/dishcloths and scrubbies to give away!

So I was almost finished pinning Alye's quilt when I figured out that several of my pins were missing and I didn't have enough to finish. Where were my missing pins? Still in my Mystery Round Robin wall hanging that I hadn't finished quilting. So I had to get to work and I finished it! Well, I finished the quilting. I still have to bind it but it is otherwise done.

I also started on a pet bed for Pepper based on this very cute design from Design Sponge. Mine is bit different in color (I had some blue and white ticking I undoubtedly finally donated somewhere because "I was never going to do anything with it"; argh!) because I'm using some quilting scraps, and some dark taupe duck cloth I picked up at Goodwill a while back. To give it a little cuteness on the dark part I decided to put her name in orange.

I traced from the computer screen and then outlined in Sharpie (you could just print it but currently my laptop  does not recognize my printer and it has way more cute fonts on it then our family computer). Then I poked holes through the  letters at short intervals to give me a basic outline of the letters. I've started it and should hopefully finish it up tomorrow.
We spent some quality time at my parents house for Easter and, though we couldn't always convince the kiddos to leave their technology, hubby and I opted for some outside stuff. My uncle lives right next door and there is a field next to his home. They used to grow peanuts there but the last couple of years it has been...

Yup, cotton. That lovely stuff your quilting fabric is made from. I'm a girl from the south but I know a lot of people don't know what cotton looks like right off the plant. These were a few stragglers that weren't picked at the end of the season. The field currently looks like this.

We also did some kite flying. It was definitely a beautiful day. Hope your Easter was as well.