Busy & making new habits

Life is busy. I think that “busy” has different definitions for each person & for what stage that you are in life. For me “busy” means trying to figure out how many different things or engagements that I can have going at one time. About a year ago my husband started his own business from home. It has been a great thing but it has changed how life goes now. I’m now the secretary & parts runner for the business. He works on repair & maintenance of big trucks (dump trucks, semis etc,) tractors & any kind of welding. I go & get the parts so that he can stay busy working. The positive part ( I try to find the positive in things) is that I’m learning Kansas City a whole lot better than ever before. The down side is that most of the places that I need to go to are at least an hour away. I keep thinking that I need to have a car from the “Jettsons” cartoon that could drive itself, that way I could atlesast do some stitching. 

I have had a busy fall with going to many different quilt guilds & giving my presentation on “ The beauty of scrap quilting”. I have been very neglectful in telling them publicly thank you for having me & letting me share my passion with them. So I’d like to say “thank you” to the following guilds:

Muskogee Area Quilters Guild (Muskogee Oklahoma)

Pioneer Area Quilters Guils (Ponca City Oklahoma)

Quilt Guild of NW Arkansas ( Springdale Arkansas)

Nimble Thimbles (Lee’s Summit Missouri)

Smithville Town & Country Quilt Guils (Smithville Missouri)

Country Patchwork Quilters Guilds ( Marshall Missouri)

While doing parts runs for my husband & presentations for quilt guilds I finished a HUGE project. I’m working on creating a new program focused on hand work  & I finished my “Embroidery Sampler Quilt #2”. This quilt is a queen/king sized quilt (becuase it seems that I can’t go small). It has 24 embroidery blocks featuring 12 different embroidery stitches.

Sorry that you can’t see all of the blocks clearly. Its so large (about 100” square) that it didn’t all fit on my living room floor. It is currently at my LAQ. 

All of these blocks/stitches & the blocks /stitches from the first “Embroidery Sampler Quilt” will be available as workshops. My focus now is finishing the stitching on the black background version of  the first embroidery sampler quilt. Here’s one of the blocks from that quilt. (This is all hand stitched)

I’m about half way through block 10 & then I can start working on piecing everything together!

I think it was the trip to Springdale Arkansas that mom & I stopped at the store in Lamar Missouri. Mom wanted to pick up some more fabric for a project that she was wanting to finish & I found a particular piece of yardage that just sang to me. I saw it & nothing else immediately I knew how I could use it! I’ve been working on a “Thousand Pyramid quilt” & new that the yardage would make a fantastic border. Here’s the quilt,

Here’s the quilt with the yardage that I found for the border

There’s going to be a small black border between the body of the quilt & the border. I think that it’ll turn out great! 

I’d better close this. It’s getting pretty long with pictures & I’ve got to go & help husband load up a cow so that we can take her to the vet. I hope that ya’ll are doing well & that you can find time in your busy worlds for a bit of time for you. I’m going to stitch while on the drive because I don’t have to drive!!! More later on,

Vicky

It's amazing what you find when you put things away

A week or so ago I decided that I had to clean/pick up my sewing room. It had gone to complete shambles in the last few months. I had been focusing on presentations & stitching on my "Embroidery Quilt Sampler #2". If I went in there I'd just find a spot & lay whatever it was down. This is what I was looking at when I decided that I needed to do something about it. 

I started in, putting things away & then it happened I found , no I mean I remembered, this fabric & panel I had bought who knows how long ago. 

I'm a HUGE Paris fan & if I see yardage that had Paris or The Eiffel Tower on it then some of it will be coming home with me. I had put it away thinking I'd figure out what I was going to do with it later. Well a week or so ago I found it & decided that I was going to make something from it! There's no use in buying fabric if you're not going to use it. I bought some coordinating fabric from my LQ store, I needed some more fabric for the idea I had. 

I came home & made a much larger version of my block "Prairie Stones" 

& knew that that's what I wanted. (This is fabric I made my sample block from).

I finished putting on the borders this am & will be taking it to my LAQ!!!

This way I can show off the panel & the gorgeous fabrics😊. 

I'm running a bit behind this am so I'd better keep this short. Don't forget,make something with that beautiful fabric!!! More later on,

Vicky

I go big in all things, it's in my DNA

When I do something I'm all in & usually it's big. I can't help it, it's in my DNA. Quilts,food you got it BIG! On our way home from a presentation in Springdale AR ( thank you Q.U.I.L.T. Guild of Northwest AR. I had a great time sharing my scrappy quilts with you!) mom wanted to get some peaches on the way home. We found some at Vanzant farms. Did either of us come home with just a bag? Nope we both bought a half a bushel. Holy moley that's a lot of peaches. My husband & son both said "what are you going to do with all of those peaches?" Silly men fix yummy things with them. 

So today has been the day of the peach. So far I've made 4 containers of peach freezer jam & 1 large cobbler 

I still have this many peaches left. 

I'll probably make up another batch of jam so that I can use up the most ripe ones. With the leftovers I thought of making another cobbler that I can put in the freezer. 

Since January or so my car has been very loud while driving. I thought it was just because we put new tires on in December. Well nope that wasn't it. Husband drove the car this past weekend & found that my left rear wheel bearing/hub assembly had gone bad. He fixed ( he's very handy to have around😊). He said that because of my quilts both quantity & size/weight of them played a factor in the part going bad. I'm going to have to come up with a plan so that I can still take them all. 👍😊

I'd better cut this off. There's more peaches to peal & I want to do some sewing later too. Hope y'all are having a good day,

Vicky

Excited!

When I get excited or something that I have created turns out well I want to share it with everyone. I'm currently working on Embroidery Sampler Quilt 2. I'm having a ball stitching up these blocks & I just want to share what I've been stitching. 

There will be 24 stitched blocks in this quilt.  It is amazing to me how many different embroidery stitches there are. 

I'd better keep this short.  I've got more stitching to do. We had another rain day today so I tried my best to stitch every second I could. I hope y'all are having a great day,

More later on,

Vicky

Playing with the pink scraps

Happy Independence Day!!!! Thank you to all of the service men & women who keep this country free & safe. 

 I slept in & woke to rain. Rainy weather in the summer means a sew day for me. I've been sewing, laundry, ironing & cooking.  Sometimes I can multi task & today I seem to be doing good at it. I've been playing with my pink scraps. Ever since my trip to Mountain Home I've had some pattern variations floating around in my head. So I dug into my pink scraps &I pulled out everything that I thought was wide enough. I'm working with my Nostalgia pattern & decided I'd double the size of the pieces that I was working with. Here's the block

The block is probably the largest I've ever worked with. It measures out at 20" square. 

The gray solid fabric I did purchase. It just isn't a color that I have large amounts of scraps. 

I'm going to keep this short. Off to check on my guys & see what their schedule is looking like for supper. I need to keep sewing & working on my embroidery. I'm thankful for being able to be busy! 

I hope that y'all have a great day. God bless America. More later on,

Vicky

Mountain Home Arkansas

I had typed up this long post all about my trip to Mountain Home Arkansas & I guess I overloaded the post with too many pictures becasue the app on my IPad blinked & I lost everything that I had written. I threw my hands in the air & am now deciding to try again. Me & technology sometimes just don't get along.

Mom & I had a great drive down until we reached the highway from hell ( I know that's a pretty strong statement but by the time I reached the end I thought I wanted to die). Had a case of car/motion sickness (TMI I know but its what happened). I was so very thankful for my mom being there. When you're sick there's nothing like having mom there to take care of you.

We had 2.5 days of workshops & a lecture on scrap quilts. I'm in the process of making 2 quilts from each pattern in completly different color ways. Its amazing how different a quilt looks when you change the colors from the original.

Workshop #1: was "My Kansas" quilt. It is a medallion quilt with a checkerboard center followed with a log cabin & string (foundation) pieced borders.

This is Joan with 2 of her string border blocks

 

This is Sondra,she is a new quilter & she did a fantastic job. She is now liberated from using pins & being matchy matchy. She came to class with all of her strings in nice neat rows & I think color coordinated. I asked her first if I could help free her from being matchy matchy. She said yes, so I took all of her strings & floofed them in air. She made a loud gasp! I said now just put your hand in the pile grab a string & sew it to the next one on your foundation. Let random happen! She did & said that she had much more fun with the string piecing & her blocks turned out beautifully!

 

Workshop#2: "Nostalgia". This is a fun pattern using half square triangles, 2.5" strips & the EZ angle ruler.

 

 

Workshop #3: Praire Stones. This is a fun pattern to work with your scraps or with precuts & to learn partial seams.

 

Thank you Hill N" Hollow quilt guild I had a great time!

I hope that y'all are having a great day, more later on,

Vicky

Oklahoma City & Mountain Home Arkansas

Just a heads up this is probably going to be a long post with lots of pictures :)

Mom & I had 2 big trips back to back with in a 2 week time span. First up was OKC. I was very excited about OKC. I hadn't been there since the summer of '95 when 3 of my best friends & I  took a road trip through OKC on our way to Texas. I had 2 things that I wanted to do while we were there: first I wanted to go to the memorial site & I know this sounds silly but I wanted to go to The Melting Pot for supper one night with my mom. We made good time on out way down, which is very easy to do when you can go 80 +mph! We checked in to our hotel, made reservations for supper & took a nap.

The first time I had ever been to The Melting Pot was here in KC. I had wanted to go there to celebrate my first Mothers Day. Lets just say it was a disaster. That is not the place to take my husband or my dad. They couldn't believe that you had to pay that much to cook your own food. It was complete blasphemy to them.  I remember telling mom at the time that she & I would come back someday without them. Well it took 14 years but we finally made it! Here we are, ready for some cheese & chocolate fondue!

 

 First up was the cheese fondue. I thought this was the bomb!!!! I hadn't had the chocolate yet, LOL!

Next up was the chocolate, HOLY GRAVY, it was Devine!!!

  

After our indulgences in cheese & chocolate we had time to head over to the memorial site. The last time I had seen this place was just 4 months after the bombing. I was completely in awe & very much impressed with the memorial. It was incredible. 

This is the first thing that we saw. We came from the west side.

 

 

Each victim has their own chair with their name inscribed on it. It was a powerful place. At dusk each chair glows.

  

The next day we had 2 presentations to the Central Oklahoma Quilt Guild. What a fun group of quilters! They were very interactive & they asked lots of questions, which I LOVE! 

I am sorry I have but 1 pic of the morning guild ladies.  I try to remind myself to take more pics, I get caught up in talking with everyone, it slips my mind & then I kick myself later when I remember.

 

We were not going to be going home the next day. My kiddo was going to be performing his tenor sax solo at the state competition in Salina KS on Saturday. We were able to go through Henessey OK & visit Oklahomas largest quilt store,  that was a lot of fun, then up to Enid OK where my mom still has 2 aunts living. I hadn't seen them in 25+ years. They were the same though. These 2 sisters are definitely something to shoot for. They are both living on their own, 1 is still driving. Aunt Fern is on the left of mom & Aunt Goldie is on the right. I had a blast showing them some of my quilts. They kept saying "OH my" & "You've got how many with you?". Aunt Goldie said "I'm glad its you making all of these quilts & not me!" They were not quilters but their older sisters & mom were. I come from a long line of quilters! 

This is the scrap bag that I got at "Prairie Quilts" in Hennessy OK, They had a large tub of scraps & while I was going through it they said "oh thats a small piece, just throw that one away." I must have had a shocked look on my face at that suggestion because when I said that I could use something that small they were shocked. They had never done any kind of string/foundation piecing. I brought in a couple of my string quilts to show them what I was talking about. They joked that I should just dump they whole tube into a trash bag. My ears perked up with that comment & I jumped on it! I asked them if they were serious about the offer & they were! To date this has got to be one of the largest scraps bags for $5 that I have EVER gotten. Just to give you some size comparison this is a 13 gallon trash bag that won't close. I'm planning on using them in a string quilt. It'll be fun to see how big of quilt I can make using just the scraps in this bag. I'll keep you posted.

 

We made it to Salina a bit after 9 that night & met up with my kiddo for a few minutes before we went to our hotel room & I crashed. Kiddo did great on his solo the next day. He got a II rating (1 is the best) which I was pretty proud of especially since he's just a freshman. He wanted to come home with us after he was done but there was no room, the scrap bag was overflowing where he would have sat.

I think I'd better close. I'll write tomorrow (hopefully) on our trip to Mountain Home Arkansas. I hope that y'all are doing well,

More later on,

Vicky

Just call me Grace

No one has ever called me delicate. Most of the time it's "quit being a brute" or when I was a kiddo " Vicky you're like a bull in a China shop". I think my parents should have given me the middle name of "Grace" because I don't have any. Case in point the following story of yesterday:

Yesterday we were finishing up sorting cows to see who was going to be artificially insemenated. Too much information, I know. Husband & I had done the hard part or so I thought & had everyone sorted & we were waiting for the AI man to arrive. I was so very hot (remember my spirit animal is a yak or a polar bear. I like it COLD!)

 

The AI man arrives & all we need to do is a little ring around the rosie ( move cows around in a circle from 1 pen to another) & we are ready to put them through the squeeze shoot & get this process started. Well some of the younger cows decided they wanted to be stubborn/obstinate & didn't want to go where I wanted & tried to get around me. I tried to cut them off, tripped over my own feet ( my name is Grace) & fell. It was not graceful. I tried to correct & I went down. I'm sporting a skinned up palm (haven't had one of those since I learned how to ride my bike) & a fantastic bruise on my shin

 

My husband went over a block wall (such a gentleman) to make sure I was ok. I brushed myself off & helped my husband get the silly creatures where they needed to be. 

It went fairly well after that. One of our barn cats Adso 

 

Felt that it was his duty to sit in front of the AI mans open truck door.  Husband moved him a few times, we finished & the AI man was on his way. No one knew that Adso had hitched a ride inside the AI mans truck. He was driving home & Adso popped up on the passenger seat purring & meowing wanting to be petted. The AI man about pooped his pants. It just cracks me up thinking about it. He did bring Adso back. I think he might be closing his doors when he's here from now on. 

Here's another fun pic of Adso 

 

My husband (the softie that he is) has made them a cat box in his shop. He said that Adso slept like this for at least an hour. Crazy cat. Husband also made the comment that "this is your cat. No one else could sleep like that but you". 

I'm hoping to get into my sewing room or have some machine time. It's been way too long. Gotta get a few things done first. Today is my kiddos birthday & there needs to be some house cleaning done, yuck. 

 

Love this kid!!

Hope y'all are doing well. Next post will be all about the workshops last week in Mountain Home Arkansas!

More later on,

Vicky 

(Backup) Just keep stitching!

This funny little fish & her song "Just keep swimming" has been in my head for a while now. I've just changed "swimming to stitching". I've got lots of projects, about half or maybe a little more are all hand work projects in the works. I'm doing my best to stay on task & not get distracted (because I might have to do a parts run for my dear husband & that cuts into my stitching time) from what I need & want to be doing.  I'm working on getting projects finished for my new program on hand work.

First up is my very first wool project. This is the project that showed me that I could do appliqué. When I started it the pattern was designed as a wall hanging. Well that wasn't going to work & I asked the designer if she could make it bigger. She told me that most of the time wool appliqué projects are all small, I'm guessing because of the cost of the wool. I'm working on the center medallion part & have just about got all of the pink stitched down.

 

Next up is my "Twirly Whirly" project. I just finished the stitching on this this morning. This stitched piece will be the center medallion surrounded by scrappy green winding ways blocks.

 

I've finished the white background version of my Embroidery quilt sampler. Now I'm working on the black background version. This block is the "Hungarian Braided Chain" stitch. I think that it looks like a shoelace.

 

My White background group is getting closer to finishing all 12 of the blocks & they want to continue. After some discussion we decided that we wanted more than 12 blocks but not more than 12 stitches. So we're going to be stitching 24 blocks doing each stitch twice in 2 different designs. I've been looking at quilting stencils & trying to decided which to use so that I can order them & get stitching on those blocks. This next year I'm only doing 1 colorway.

On the machine stitching I'm working on making a secondary colorway of each of my patterns. Currently I'm working on my pattern "Independence". The first time that I made it I used red, white & blue scraps.

 

This time I'm using purple, teal & silver scraps. Note: I didn't have any silver scraps so I am using yardage there. The purple & teal are scraps though. Oh my goodness I'm loving it!

 

Its amazing how different a pattern looks when you change the colors that are used. I'm planing on making at least 2 different color ways on all of my patterns. 

I started writing this post a while back & tonight realized that I need to finish it & send it off to y'all. There will be more blogs coming your way!

More later on,

Vicky

The Long absence & my battle with technology

It appears that I've been absent from blogging for about 6 months. Wow, sorry about that. Our lives here have undergone a major change (husband started his own business from home). It's been a wonderful blessing having him home but also a huge adjustment. I'm his secretary, accountant & _________fill in the blank with whatever other tittle that I need at the time. I also went on blogging hiatus because of my issues with technology. The app that I used to write my blogs was not working & for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to get my pictures into the blog going through the website. So I just let it go until I found this new app. I'm hoping that it will work beautifully & that I will get into the ritual of blogging again.

With husbands new business it has been hard finding the time to get some sewing time in. It has been easier to do hand work. Last September I started a hand embroidery club at my local quilt shop. I wasn't to sure on how well it would go over but it has been a blast. Each month is a different stitch in a different pattern. I like to use plastic quilting templates if I can but I also show how to transfer a pattern from paper to fabric. That isn't generally a difficult thing to do unless your background fabric is black (or any other dark color). This first Embroidery quilt sampler I'm doing in 2 color ways, a white back ground with 30's fabrics for the sashing & a black background with bright batikcs for the sashing. Here's a pic of the completed white with 30's quilt.

 

(Please excuse the vacuum cord & my husbands boots.)

As soon as I get the black version done I will post pics of that as well. Scratch that I probably end up posting pics of it as I go & then with the finished project.

I've also tried my hand at big stitch quilting. I wasn't too sure about working on a project this large. I started it last December. I was concerned about it in the beginning because I wasn't sure how long it was going to take, but as I worked on it more I enjoyed the process more & relaxed about how long it was going to take.

 

The pattern is my own design "My Kansas Quilt". The first time that I made this quilt I used Civil War Repro scrap fabrics. I wanted to see what the pattern looked like using a different colorway. I used a silk batting & Aurifil 12 perle cotton for the thread (4 1/2 rolls). It's not perfect & I'm good with that.  It has a special meaning for me because it was made from start to finish by my hands.

While doing all of this hand work it got me thinking that I should create a new program (offered to guilds) centered around all of the different types of hand work, embroidery, big stitch quilting, hexagons (English Paper Piecing) etc. So now I'm busily making projects (quilts) with those different techniques. Knowing me I can't go/do small. I want my quilts big or at least big enough to use. I've never been much of a wall hanging person. I do have 2 wall hangings that are up year round. My very first big stitch project.

 

And the 30's butterfly's embroidery quilt that hangs behind my treadle. 

 

(Yup that's a fishing rod in the pic) Kiddo placed it there & I think forgot about it.)

So the majority of the projects I'm working on (yup there's more than 1 project going on. Shush, husband doesn't know that. When I started quilting he said that he didn't want me to be working on more that 1 project at a time.) are all big. I'll share them (the hand work projects )as I'm working on them &  I can't forget my sewing machine though & I'll share what scrappy projects I'm working on.

I hope that y'all are having a great Friday. Its raining here (a great time to be sewing!). Kiddo didn't have school today (Good Friday) so he's out enjoying time with his dad in the shop. Off I go to stitch something, by hand or machine! More later on,

Vicky