What a fun afternoon I had! I wrote about going to Italy a while back on my blog, so if you read it you’ll understand this……. Jill was here in Kansas this weekend and Pam brought her to Leavenworth today. They were going to come by my house but they’d been hitting quilt shops and were getting hungry and so I just met them in town and had lunch with them. We talked about our trip to Italy and got so excited. Jill was telling us about people and places and things we could do…….I can hardly wait!! Then we went to the LQS in Leavenworth and I’ve quilted several of the quilts there so Jill loved seeing them. She even had to buy one of my quilt patterns, then laughed and said that “now she knows a designer too”. We all laughed about that!!!!!!  It was fun getting to know Jill better. I had only met her in person once, and then it was when Pam brought Jill and both of their husbands to pick up some quilts. We only got to talk a little bit.  I enjoyed today and getting to know Jill better. She’s sooooo nice!!!!!! I’m so looking forward to going to Italy  this fall.  I hope everything works out for it.

I hope your day was as nice as mine!!

Theresa

Well, I didn’t plan on going anywhere today except the Post office. I needed to mail a few things out that required more than a regular stamp. Anyway, my mom called and wanted to know what I had planned for the day. (We usually go to town on Saturday’s.) I told her I just needed to go to the PO. She said “oh, good I need to take a few things and mail them” I said ok that I’d pick her up in about an hour……well, when I get there she comes out with nothing in her hands……I asked her if she forgot her stuff to mail……she says “no, I didn’t get it ready, I’ll go to the PO one day this week.”……….OK, whatever……….

Anyway, we still went to the PO and then we were just going to get some lunch and head back home. But I decided to run on up to the LQS and say “HI” to the girls because I hadn’t been in there this week. Well……… we got to the LQS and guess what my mom spotted? The new Wizard of Oz fabrics!

Now if you paid attention to the tittle of this, you’ll see that my mom’s name is Dorothy……..and she was born and raised in …….yep……. good old Kansas!!!!! She always tells people that she meets, that she’s Dorothy from Kansas!!!! (They seem to remember that!!!LOL!!!) Anyway, to get on with the story. She tells me that she needs a quilt made out of that fabric. (Mom’s not a quilter, but sometimes she’ll buy FQ’s if she thinks they’re pretty) …..By now if you’re a good guesser, you’ve probably figured out that —Yes, I bought the kit to make her the quilt. Like I really have time to do this. Anyway, my plan is to have it finished for Mothers Day. I HOPE anyway!!!

Here’s a shot of the fabric.

I like another print that wasn’t in the kit, so I bought some of it, I’m going to make some of the blocks out of these squares. I bought the backing for it too.

That ended up being one expensive trip just to say “Hi” to the girls! Oh, Mom did buy some fabric. A fat quarter of the ruby slippers fabric! LOL!!!!!!!!

Theresa

I’ve come to the conclusion that my life is either too busy or too boring to keep up with a blog! I never know what to write. When I do get on the computer, I feel guilty about being on it and not getting my customers quilts finished. I have one on the machine now that I need to get done. They come in faster than they go out. I’m not complaining!! I just feel like I need more hours in everyday!!

As far as getting my own stuff done. I never have time for that!!! But, I’ve decided that this year will be different!! So far, I’ve finished the MoKan challenge quilt and I’m sewing the binding on another of my UFO’s. I finally sewed the borders on the quilt and quilted it last week. I’m determined to get some of my unquilted tops finished!! I have 40 of them! I also want to use up my stash fabric. Here’s the quilt I’m putting the binding on.

I bought the newspaper quilt fabric several years ago and started making the quilt. I had the first border sewn on and then quit for some reason……anyway, I finally put the rest of the borders on and used the leftover fabric for the back. I didn’t quite have enough fabric left to do the whole back , so I added some black on the sides to make it big enough. I did use up all the newspaper fabric!!! One

piece of stash fabric gone, a whole lot more to go!!!!

I guess that’s it for now.

Theresa

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything. I quilted my mystery quilt, got the binding on it and put a label on too. It’s completely finished and we’re using it on our bed. I decided to put a panto on it just to get it finished and to practice doing a panto. The quilt is queen size and I felt like I was never going to get it quilted. Anyway, here it is.  I think I was supposed to have  the 4  star points in each block be the same color. Oh well….  After all these years of having it sitting in the box, it feels good to have it done.

My DD was home for 10 days over Christmas. She made her first quilt!! She has some physical disabilities so for her to sew a straight line was quite an accomplishment. I did all the cutting and pinning and she sat at the sewing machine and sewed. She’s already talking about making her next quilt! Here she is with her quilt. It has cats quilted on it so we call it Here kitty kitty.

I guess that’s it for now.

Theresa

http://community.webshots.com/user/alwaysquilts

I had a great Christmas. Sunday my Dad and his wife came up and we gathered at my sisters house. Had great food!! Monday, (Christmas eve) we all went over to Mom’s and had a houseful. Almost 40 people in her house. Had great food!! We were only missing one nephew and his wife. (he’s a fireman and had to work) and then I have one stepsister that lives out of state. Otherwise everyone was there. Today was Christmas so I fixed Christmas dinner and Mom and Stepdad came over to eat with us. Food was great!! I think I’ve gained a few pounds this week with all the get togethers. But it’s been nice. We also had a white Christmas. What could be better? Hope you had a wonderful Christmas.

Theresa

Yesterday my DH and I headed from KC to south of St Louis. We left at 5:30 am and knew that they were forecasting heavy snow for KC.  We  had to get down there and back.  We were making good time  until we got back to Oak Grove and from then on what should have taken us and hour to get home turned into  about a 2 1/2 hour drive. Cars were going about 30-35 miles and hour on I-70. We heard that I-70 was closed west of Topeka and I-29 was closed north of St Joe. Both because of 30 car pile ups.  We didn’t have any problems until we got in our driveway, the snow had drifted so deep in front of the garage that we had to make about 5 runs at it before we made it into the garage.  But we made it!!

I took my mystery quilt with me and hand sewed the binding down in the car. It is now finished except for the label.  Yeah!!!  I put it on the bed when we got home and we slept under it. I used a wool batting.  I like it.

Anyway, that’s it for my exciting travel day. I’m glad we made it home and I’m glad my mystery quilt is done.

Have a great day and drive safely if you’re traveling for the holidays.

Theresa

http://community.webshots.com/user/alwaysquilts

I finished assembling the rows last night. I still need to get the borders put on but here’s how it looks. The scrappy stars are the blocks and then the pieced sashing strips make the other blocks with the pinkish square in the middle. I’m not sure if I was supposed to keep the star points the same color or not. One of my friends that made it kept hers the same. So……anyway, it’s together!!! Now to get the borders put on. That will have to wait for now as I need to go start my Christmas shopping!!!!! I haven’t done any yet!!

Have a great day!!

Theresa

http://community.webshots.com/user/alwaysquilts

I now have all the rows to my mystery sewn. The sashing strips are also sewn together. Now I’m ready to start putting them together. The blocks are large so there is only 5 blocks to each row and then 6 rows for the queen size quilt.

I would’ve been farther along on it except that I had to quilt a customer quilt yesterday. It was supposed to be my last one except that when one of my customers picked up her quilt last week she asked if I could do a baby quilt for her by Christmas and I said sure, so now I have 1 more Christmas quilt to do. Anyway, today it was church, out to eat with bro and SIL, home for about an hour (long enough to change clothes and sew the last 2 rows together)  then over to Mom’s for a birthday party. Now I’m home and ready to sew.

I went back and looked through the blog here and I found out that on Sept 18th I put pics of the bags of pieces that I had, then on Oct 10th I had 3 blocks completed. I’m not going to post pics now of the rows because it might cause me to not continue. Keeping you in suspense is what is motivating me to keep working now. I can hardly wait to show you how it comes out. I think I’ll go work on it!!

Theresa

http://community.webshots.com/user/alwaysquilts

I’ve been sewing on my 8 year old mystery this morning and I now have 1 row sewn together!!!!! Yeah!!!!! I should be quilting instead of sewing but I’m in the mood to sew. I have a lady coming to pick up a quilt so I came upstairs and thought I’d share my news. LOL!!! After 8 years of it sitting in the box now I’m thinking I might get it done before the end of the year. That’s my goal!! Oh well, I gotta go. I’ll let you know how much I get done.

Theresa

Update…. I now have 3 rows and 3 sashing strips. I had to stop sewing and move to the LA.  Maybe I can sew more later.

We didn’t get the ice as bad as they thought we would but we did get enough to cause them to cancel school again today. Yippee!!!! Another day off!! I love when they call snow days. Yesterday my DH decided to take a day of vacation and stay home too. Even though he was home, I did manage to get the quilt finished that I had on the machine. Start to finish in 1 day. I worked most of the day on it and it’s mostly feathers.

I’m home alone today and so far I’ve emptied the dishwasher, have the 2nd load of laundry in the machine, put up the Christmas tree and loaded the next quilt. I guess I’m doing good. I’ve been up for 2 1/2 hours. I have to hit the shower pretty soon as I have an appointment at the chiropractor this morning. I might run by my LQS while I’m out. That sounds good, don’t ya think?????

Here’s what the backyard looks like.

This is out the front window.

I see I better get going or I’ll be late for my appt. Have a great day and I hope you’re somewhere warm!!!

Theresa

http://community.webshots.com/user/alwaysquilts