A: It's like sitting in the Astrodome while a hurricane passes over

Q: What is "sitting next to Marshy during church"?

I swear, no matter how tired that child is, he is a non-stop tornado/hurricane/Holy Terror during church. Seriously.

He sits on the bench and "reads" the hymn book.

Then he hops down to the floor to play with the book holder.

Then he's back up on the bench, reaching over the back to steal the row behind us's hymn book.

Then he's back on the floor, crawling under the benches.

Then he's looking for his bottle and puppy.

Then he's sitting on Mike's lap with his bottle and puppy.

Then he's smacking Grandpa in the head.

Then he's trying to eat Fruit Loops.

Then he's back on the floor playing with the hymn books.

Then he's crawling under the benches.

Then he's back on Mike's lap.

Then the meeting is over. FINALLY!

And that is why, according to Granpa P, sitting next to Marshy is like sitting in the Astrodome while a hurricane passes over.

Computer update

So, the uprising of the computers has been squashed....at least for the time being. Oh how I was frustrated, though! I even got to the point that I cleaned out the storage closet in the spare room to find our old desktop for our jukebox, which is currently still in the developmental stages and doesn't have a working power supply, so that I could use that to access my accounts and the internet and pay bills.

Mike came home yesterday morning, after successfully re-driving his 7 deleted routes and began tackling the laptop/internet issue. Several hours....okay, like 9 hours later, he began backing up all of the data on the laptop. Then, this morning, he reformatted the hard drive. Now, this totally scared the crap out of me, because:

1) Our in-laptop DVD drive is broken, so we have a USB DVD burner that we use

2) For the longest time he couldn't get windows to boot up from the DVD drive

3) We didn't have a working computer, and can't be computer-less as we pay all of our bills online.

He finally got Windows to boot from the DVD, and got it installed. YAY! Also, the internet now works! YAY! Of course, I'm back to using stupid IE, instead of totally awesome Firefox, but that's okay for the time being.

Now, this didn't solve all of our computer problems. See, we have a Dell laptop. Apparently the Dell power cables are crap, because we are on our 3rd cable in 3 1/2 years. Yep. That's right. And, we need to buy a new one. I just bought a power cable in February. Can you believe it? I can't believe that they don't make them last longer! How dumb. Anyway.... the issue is that either the power cable is shorting out, which is a possibilty, or the computer jack that the cable goes into to charge the battery is no longer holding the cable in. Now, if it were just a cable issue, I would grudgingly shell out the $40+ to get a new one. But, since we don't know if it's the cable or the computer, I didn't really want to do that. Especially when they are non-returnable.

So I bet you are asking how we solved this problem? Well.....we decided to build us the coolest, most kick-A desktop computer ever! The way we see it is: we were going to build a home theater PC this year anyway, so since we need a computer now, why not? Besides...when you can buy the top of the line components for the same price as a basic-not-so-good laptop, which we don't really need the portability feature, why not build something that will last forever?

Mike built his parents a desktop about 10 years ago, and the only problem it has had is that the harddrive went out about 3 years ago. That means it lasted about 7 before kicking the bucket. That is the only problem. They have upgraded the video card and the ram since then, but no major problems with the beast.

So, we looked at the track record: 10 years and still going strong with a customized desktop or 3 1/2 years and pooping out with the Dell. Hmmmmm.......which should we do? which should we do? I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW! DESKTOP!

We actually just got back from EBC Computers in Orem where we bought all of the components. Oh it is sweet! Mike is putting it together right now as I type. I'm so excited! The cool thing about it is it has HDMI built in, so we can just hook it right up to our tv. SWEET! I'll post photos when he's done. Hopefully tonight. I'm so excited! (can you tell?)

The computers are revolting!

So, not only is our XBOX broken, but yesterday Mike's work computer decided to randomly delete 3 days worth of data. So now he is back up in Idaho re-driving all of that work. 3 days in 2 days. Sure do hope it gets done in time!

And then! Our computer decided that it's going to be STUPID and not connect to the internet. So, I am currently writing this post on my mother-in-law's computer. So, you can comment as much as you would like, but I won't get it until the weekend, when Mike comes home and hopefully fixes the computer. UGH! Why do computers hate me?!!!

Rules for working in a call center

Okay, so I don't care how smart you are, but if you do not speak English fluently and clearly without an accent, you should not be working in a technical help call center.

I went to mail my XBOX 360 back to the repair center today, and realized that it didn't make sense that I would need to send in all of my cables and my harddrive just for them to fix the "red ring of death" issue. So I called tech support again, just to verify.

The guy I talked to on Saturday had a really thick accent and I could barely understand a word he said. But the one thing that I did understand was that he said I needed to send in my harddrive and all cables.

This didn't sit right with me. I called back this afternoon. I got another tech rep that had a thick accent. At least she innunciated enough that I could understand her. She told me that if I sent in my harddrive and cables, that they would get lost, and I would not get them back. She also informed me that I needed to take the faceplate off of the XBOX.

What the heck? Seriously. Rule #1 for working in a call center: You can't have an accent.
Rule #2: you have to know what the heck you are talking about, and tell the client the correct information.
Rule #3: You have to be able to speak English fluently.

Is that too much to ask? 3 simple things! Seriously!

New Site

Well, okay, really it's a blog. But I'm treating it like it's my site! :D

Anyway, I've finally gotten most of my marketing materials manufactured, so I'm fnally able to get my quilting blog up and running. Go check it out! I am currently accepting quilts. Also, I'll be making updates to the blog over the next few days. I'm still challenged with the whole PDF file thing, so I've got to wait for Mike to get home so I can link to my PDF documents. He figured out how to do it for me, but didn't show me how to do it!

You Forget

You forget how tiny babies are. You forget how irresistible they are. You just forget as time goes on and your baby grows up into a giant (Marshy is huge, giant-like almost, compared to other kids his age). You forget, until you hold a brand new baby again.

This afternoon we went to visit Lynsey in the hospital. She had baby Jaxson Saturday afternoon, just after 12. Mom and baby are doing great, and Big Sis Gabby is so cute with baby Jax! "Jax wants me to hold him now" she would keep saying to everyone who was holding him.

Oh! He was so tiny and adorable and irresistible! It almost made me want to have another one. Almost. I am currently in no position to be having two kids, as we live on the third floor of a building in an apartment that presently seems too small for active Marshy. Also, there isn't really much of a yard here that is playable in. The downstairs neighbors on the other side of the building let their 2 massive dogs use the grass for their bathroom, instead of taking them 15 feet to the dog park.

Anyway, Baby Jax and his mommy come home from the hospital tomorrow morning, and will probably be headed home to Idaho, so we wish them well. And hope they stay down here a little longer so we can get lots of lovin' outta little baby!

{insert really sad face here}

It died. I have a lot of really good memories with our friend on it. When I say our friend, I mean Colton. When I say it, I mean our XBOX 360.

It has fallen victim to the dreaded "Red Ring of Death". It's still under warranty, so Microsoft will repair/replace it for us. But I have to send in my harddrive. I'm not sure if we'll get it back. It has a lot of memories on it of late night Halo 3 parties with Colton and the boys, asking Family Guy and Doug trivia to Troz while we played on XBOX Live. Playing Bioshock with Austin, Colton, and Kyle, and Kyle screaming like a little girl. Our New Years Eve "party" where Colton and Austin ditched their lady friends and other acquaintances to come play XBOX with us at our house until late into the night. The boys coming over to play games, and falling asleep on the love sac cuddling each other, but not Colton because he was smart enough to fall asleep upstairs on the couch. So many good memories are documented in that XBOX. I guess as long as I have the memories, I don't need the harddrive.....but it was a nice reminder.

All I wanted to do today was watch School for Scoundrels on HDDVD. All I did was turn the console on! I haven't even used it all week. In fact, the last time I used it was Sunday afternoon with Mike and Marshy watching Toy Story 2. It was working fine then. Now it is dead. It won't turn on. I can't play games or watch movies on it. I'm really glad now that Netflix screwed up and sent us School for Scoundrels on HDDVD and on regular DVD. How did they know? Man they are smart! Well, I guess I can watch it on HDDVD in 6-8 weeks, once I ship mine out and they get it. Stupid Red Ring of Death.



In happier news: Lynsey had her baby Saturday! YAY! Haven't been over to see her yet, but we're thinking we'll go Sunday after church.

PDF

Does anyone know how to link to a pdf file? I'm so challenged when it comes to these kinds of things.

Sewing Casualties

Have you ever been sewing, and maybe sewed your finger by accident? How about snagging your finger on a pin as you brushed your hand over the fabric to make sure it was flat? Or, my personal favorite, pushing so hard on your needle with the tip of your finger while applique-ing or binding something that your callous breaks open and you now have a gaping gash in your fingertip?

No?

Well, I have done all three. I know, how did I manage to sew my finger? Forgot to turn the Gammill off one day before fixing the bobbin, accidentally turned the machine on, sewed my finger. Not too fun.

Anyway, last night, while I was binding Lynsey's baby quilt for baby Jax (who is coming TOMORROW!!!!), my callous broke and now I have a gaping gash in my fingertip. It makes it quite difficult to bind the other quilt that needs binding, or to applique the two quilts that need appliques. I tried using a thimble. Problem is, it's my middle finger, so the thimble doesn't quite fit on well. Then I tried a band-aid, but the needle kept poking through the band-aid and hitting the gash, defeating the purpose. I eventually gave up. This is sad, because now I am going to get behind in my projects.

So! Anyone have any suggestions for me? I don't particularly want to wait for this to heal before I can get back to work. THANKS!

It's another one of those nights...

You know? Those nights where you have to lay on your baby's bedroom floor fake sleeping and then slowly inch your way out of the room while baby is preoccupied with "reading" One Fish, Two Fish, until you finally get out of the room and have the door most of the way closed before baby realizes you've left, and starts screaming hysterically? You know? Don't you? DON'T YOU?!

I've been playing the game for an hour. I made it out of the room 3 times. And then went back in. I know! What was I thinking? Well, after an hour, I had had enough. I kissed him goodnight, and shut the door. He is still crying because I'm not in there with him while he "reads" Goodnight Moon. He isn't even two yet, but he thinks he can read. And when he feels like he's read the whole book he says "All done!" It's actually quite cute....except when it's bedtime and he hasn't had a nap all day and he's been awake since 8:30 this morning and grumpy all day.

And now the anger has subsided and the only noise coming from his room is the faint sound of his bedtime music.

And now it's back again.

Anyone else wanna play "sneak out of baby's room" while I eat dinner? Anyone? ANYONE?

Bzzagent is awesome!

There is this thing called Bzzagent, and I am an agent for them. Basically, they give you what they call Bzzkits for the Bzzcampaigns for a particular product, and you are supposed to tell people about the product, and give out coupons, and get feedback to report back to Bzzagent HQ. Sometimes the kits contain samples of the product, and sometimes they just contain coupons. Mike and I have done several, and most of them have been really fun. We've done Listerine whitening strips, Grey Poupon gourmet mustard, Claritin Readi-tabs, Philips-Norelco's newest razor, and now Max Factor make up.

My Bzzkit came yesterday. I'm so excited! I got a blush brush, a tri-color blush, mascara, and some lip color. I've never used a multi colored blush, but I tried it today and it was pretty cool. The colors they sent me were not what I normally would have chosen for myself. The blush was way more natural than I usually go. I usually pick something with a touch of pink in it, and this was mostly browns.
The mascara is black. I've been using Almay's mascara for people with brown eyes, (which means it's purple mascara. explain that one to me) but it is really clumpy. This MaxFactor stuff was great! Even with two coats, it wasn't even half as clumpy as the Almay stuff.

When I put the lipcolor on, however, it was almost orange. I think it is supposed to be a copper color (go figure, because I didn't think I ordered the bronze/orange collection). It looked absolutely hideous on me! I immediately took it off. It came with this moisturizing top coat, and I totally love that, but I'm going to have to go buy a different color so I can see if it really lasts the 16 hours it claims it does.

Has anyone tried MaxFactor? or another brand that they really like? I'd be really interested to know. Not just because I'm doing this Bzzcampaign, but also because I am always looking for a better make up product to try.

Cute Quilt

So, Mike's cousin Melanie brought me a quilt a while back. It's one their ward got from the Humanitarian Services. They were going to tie it, until Melanie saw how cute it was all pieced and she insisted that it be quilted. It turned out so cute! It's not really colors that I would have ever used. It actually reminds me a lot of the furniture my parents had back in the early 80s...you know, all browns and oranges and stuff? I think it must've been furniture that they had when they got married in the 70's. But that doesn't mean the quilt isn't still cute. I LOVE IT!
This is the back of the quilt. I used a light tan thread, that ended up matching perfectly with the backing fabric. I pretty much did in-the-ditch quilting around the blocks and borders, and in a few borders I did rectangles to give it a little something extra.
In one border I did flowers with leaves. The border was a really busy floral print, so I knew I just HAD to do something with it besides the rectangles.
Now that I'm done with this quilt, I'm actually really glad I put it off as long as I did. Before, my stitch regulator wasn't working. But now that it's fixed, I honestly don't know how I would have done this quilt because the regulated stitch makes it SO much easier.

Quilt Shoppe

So, my favorite Quilt Shoppe ever, Gracie Lou's, has a new blog! Go check it out! They have all of their classes for the next few months posted, and some really cute pictures of their really cute store.

Summer Stash

Well, a few months ago I joined the Summer Stash Challenge. I honestly didn't think I would finish it. In fact, I did a quilt from my stash, and it is still waiting to be quilting. It is hanging patiently on its hanger in the shop by the machine waiting for me to get to it eventually.

It wasn't until tonight, when I pulled the two quilts I quilted today out of my bag, that I realized that I have now completed two quilts for the challenge.

The first one, I already had all the fabrics for, but I wasn't really sure if I wanted to cut into them and destroy the purity of the beautiful bundle of fabric I had. But, I decided that I needed to deplete my stash and get rid of some of the projects I had stacking up in my sewing/storage room. So, I cut into the beautiful bundle and created this quilt top.

Today I quilted it, and it turned out so dang cute! I'm going to sell it on Etsy, in my Etsy shop once I get it bound. Here are some picutres of the quilting. Also, the light was a little better today, so you can see the beautiful colors better than in my last post I did about this quilt.

In the big pink/brown striped squares I did daisies with small centers and long petals.

In the blocks with the nine patch and border, I did daisies with big centers and short, fat petals.

Every where else in the quilt I did a tight loop meander. It makes the daisies stand out a little better. And it looks really cool on the back.

This is my backing fabric. Is it not the cutest fabric ever?! I totally love it. I used a pink thread, and I totally guessed when I picked it, because the quilt was already on the machine and pinned and I couldn't really tell if it matched or not, but it ended up being almost the exact same pink as the pink in the fabric.

The second stash quilt that I did was for my niece, Lynsey, who is having a baby sometime this week. She is getting induced on Saturday, we hope, but she might have baby Jax before then. Who knows what will happen. Anyway, I made her this cute blanket for baby Jax, and it is completely out of my stash.

Funny story, actually: the pattern called for 42 blocks, but I only had enough fabric for 32. So, I ripped the seams out of my leftover fabrics from my strip pieces, ironed them out, pieced them together to matching fabrics, and miraculously managed to squeeze out 42 blocks. It actually turned out really cute, and it's hard to tell which blocks were pieced together because of the busy prints I chose.

Anyway, I also happened to have some random yellow fabric laying around (I can't remember why I have it, I just do) so I used that for the backing because it matched perfectly. I quilted it in a loop meander all over in a light yellow thread. It turned out really cute. Tonight, when I got it home, I realized I didn't have any fabric to bind it with. However, I happen to have some yellow binding fabric left over from the last baby quilt I bound, and I will have some yellow left over from the back of this (hopefully enough to bind the whole quilt with). So that means that this quilt will be entirely made from my stash! I didn't have to buy any fabric for this! YAY!

This is a picture of the backing fabric. Sorry for the super close-up, but the detail in the fabric is so small. It turned out really cute.

So, now that I have two finished before the end of August, I am hoping to finish my third one. Maybe I will get to it this week. That would be nice. But, at the same time, I have a lot of other stuff to quilt as well, so we'll see.

Marshy {hearts} showers

Mike went scuba diving over the weekend. He washed his equipment off in the bath tub yesterday. Of course, it still isn't dry. I needed to give Marshy his bedtime bath, so I went in to see if it was dry yet. Nope. Still sitting in the bath tub. So I hung everything up. Of course, it completely took over the bathtub, leaving no room for Marshy-marsh to have a bath. Whatever was I going to do?

Hmmm.....how about give him a shower in our bathroom? Sounds good to me!

We have one of those shower heads where part of the head is detachable. It's really nice for cleaning the shower, or giving your almost 2 year old his first shower. I turned the water on and got it to the perfect temperature. I turned the heat lamp on in the bathroom so it would be extra toasty. I gathered the necessary items: diaper, jammies, washy, towel....oh yeah, and baby. I stripped him down to his naked little self. He was so excited. He started shouting "BAFF!" (bath) and tried to run to his bathroom. When I picked him up and put him in the shower he completely lost it.

He backed into the corner and stood there bawling hysterically, with the "why are you being mean, mommy?" look on his face. And of course, yelling "DA-ADDY! DA-A-A-ADY!" Of course, Mike is out of town again, so daddy wasn't there to come rescue him. Poor kid. After about 2 minutes of hyesteria I turned off the water and wrapped him up in his towel.

I got him dressed and put him in his crib. Still crying hystericallly, he said "BA-BA!" (bottle). Since he is allowed to have bottles at bedtime, I went and got him one. I forgot to grab his puppy while I was in the kitchen. I gave him his bottle and of course, he cried "PU-UPPY!" I ran and got him his puppy. Once he had puppy and ba-ba, he burried his head in his blankets and cried himself to sleep. Poor kid. All because of a shower.

For those who are interested....

.....in what a car looks like when it starts after treating the engine with Miracle Mystery Oil, I was going to post a video, but I can't get it to upload. BOO! So I'll just tell you about it. It smelled vile, and was really smoky. Keep in mind that we started the car at 9 AM this morning, too, just as some of the neighbors were leaving for church. Oh so fun! I shot three minutes of footage (not even the whole thing, it took quite a while for all the smoke to come out of the car). Then we went for a quick drive to get the rest of it out. I think we freaked a couple of early morning drivers out when smoke started pouring out of the tailpipe. Oh well. We also had to get the oil changed to finish the cleaning out of the engine. Now it runs perfectly. I'm so happy!

Although, I did find out that two of my tires have essentially no tread, and the third is almost there. I just replaced a tire a few months ago. What the heck?! Seriously, can't my car stay fixed for more than two minutes?!

Cute Snowman Quilt

I quilted this really fun panel quilt for the Quilt Shoppe yesterday. It took me what seemed like forever, due to some thread issues, but I am really pleased with how it turned out. I wanted the snowmen to "pop" and be 3-dimensional, so I did a lot of heavy quilting around them to achieve that.
A close-up of the snowman from a block similar to the one above. I outlined the snowman in the circle, did a really tight looping meander in the center of the "frame" and then quilted swirls in the frame part. I used a dark purple thread for all of the quilting in the blocks.
This is the best picture I could get of the full quilt. Sorry! I forgot to take my camera with me, so I just had my camera phone. Again, sorry about the blurriness. In the border I did a fairly tight looping meander in a light purple thread. It turned out so cute.
Another closeup, but of a different block. There were really only 2 blocks, but they had different colors in them. It was a really cute quilt.
I had a lot of fun with this quilt, because my stitch regulator works now, and I was able to do a lot of things that I normally wouldn't have done. I've missed quilting this past week. It will be nice to actually get some work done this coming week. My goal is a quilt a day, and I really think I can achieve that now that everything on the machine is working properly.

Adventures in Car Care

This morning my "check engine" light came on. UGH! Can't my dumb car stay fixed for, oh, I don't know, long enough for me to pay off what I spent on the last fix?? I took it over to Checker to find out what the code was, and it turns out it was my "camshaft position sensor" which Checker doesn't even sell. "You'll have to call Saturn about that, I guess" was all the girl at Checker could tell me.

Now, I've had this code come up before. About a year ago, actually. And I called Saturn, and all they told me was "Oh, uh yeah they didn't start making that part until the 2000 LS-series, so I don't know why you're getting that code. Sorry." Yeah, a lot of help. Well, I figured I might as well call them again to see if maybe someone there knew what it meant. This is what I found out:

"Yeah, they didn't make that part for your car, so it really means it's your coil pack, and that runs about $387 or so." HAHAHAHA! Like I am going to pay $400 plus labor to the DEALER! Right....I about had a heartattack right then and there. Mike looked up some info about it on the internet and found a much cheaper solution. On one of the Saturn forums, they give several suggestions as to what the problem could be, and what solutions there are. We started with the cheapest one.

I ran over to Checker and purchased new spark plugs, the gapping tool, new spark plug wires, and this really cool stuff called Marvelous Mystery Oil. According to the forums, if you add 1/4 cup of the Mystery Oil stuff to the spark plug holes (sans spark plugs of course) it cleans out all the crap in there. You can also add it to your gas tank and it will help your motor and engine and fuel economy and stuff. So, we decided to try it out. We went outside, in the dark, and took the wires off of the spark plugs. We started with cylinder 4, and what did we find? That the core to the wire, you know, the part that connects to the spark plug, had totally come out and was stuck on top of the spark plug!
Above, the 4 old spark plugs, and the core to the spark plug wire thingy. Below, the spark plug wire thingy (new one, not old one).
The Mystery Oil stuff has to sit in the car for 8-12 hours, so we might not make it to 9 AM church tomorrow. We'll see. Also, supposedly when you turn the car on smoke will just billow out of the car. That will really make our neighbors happy in the morning! We're pretty sure that this will fix the problem. YAY! So there Mr. Saturn guy! You can't sucker us into shelling out $400! . . . . yet.

Another One Bites the Dust!

So I finished another one. Man, this working from home thing sure is making it so I get a lot done. Of course, it will only be this week. Saturday my machine is getting put back together so next week I will be focusing on quilting the quilts instead of piecing them together.
Isn't this one fun? The backing is a bright yellow, and it matches perfectly. This pattern is really quick an easy to make, too. It only took a couple of hours.

Now I'm working on another original design. It's mostly done, but I still have to add some applique elements to it, so I'll probably post it tomorrow.

Finished Quilt

So, even though I was gone for most of the day, I managed to finish piecing this quilt I started yesterday. I wish that the colors showed up better on the pictures, because it really is so bright and beautiful, and very busy. I love it! I usually don't like busy busy quilts, but this one I like. Anyway, here is the finished product:
Because you can't really see the blocks, I took close-ups of all of them.
This one was the hardest to piece, because the nine patch in the middle is 3x3 inches.
This is the block that I accidentally cut wrong. I cut it about an inch too small, so I had to make adjustments everywhere else when I pieced it together.
The quilt turned out a little bit smaller than it was supposed to, mostly due to the fact that I cut the above block wrong. Oh well, it still looks really cute! I can't wait to get it on the machine and quilt it. It's going to look so dang cute when it's done! The back is a really pretty pink and brown print, from the Chocolate Lollipop collection by Anna Maria, same as most of the other fabrics in the quilt top. The pattern called for 3 yards! I think I only used about 1.5 yards, MAYBE. I'm kind of glad I didn't end up using all of the backing fabric, because now I have lots of super cute fabric to use for another quilt later on down the line.

My next project is going to be my niece Lynsey's baby quilt. She's due on the 29th, but we all think she'll go about a week early, so that doesn't give me a whole lot of time. I'd better get on it, huh? Sorry Lyns, if I don't have it done in time! I'll hurry!

I got an award!

Helles Belles gave me an award! Thanks! I am so honored!! :)

Rules:

Award this to 5 of your blogger buds
Let ‘em know in your post or via email, twitter or blog comments that they’ve received an award
Share the love and link back to both the person who awarded you and back to http://www.mammadawg.com/2008/08/kick-ass-blogger-award.html
Hop on back to the Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky then pass it on (which you can also get to on the above link)

So, now who to give this award to..... Hmm.....

1 - Lola over at Lola . . . again! She is so crafty, and always has fun patterns and tutorials. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

2 - Scott because he always has cool videos and products and weird stuff on his blog.

3 - Jill because her stories always make me laugh. Especially the Max stories.

4 - Faith because she has such a cute family and she is so sweet to read my blog and comment.

5 - Bonnie because she makes me laugh too.

Celebrating!

It's fixed! It's fixed! Hooray hooray! It's fixed! I took my gammill to the shop today, and the technician worked on it and now it is fixed! YAY! Everything works now. The regulated stitch didn't work, partly because it was jammed with threads, but also because the cables were bad, so he replaced those. Then, every time I changed the needle I would have to re-time the machine. Well, turns out that the needle bar was too low, and the hopping foot was too high, thus making it so that every time I changed the needle it would screw up the timing. He said I should be fine to use a 3.0, 3.5 and even a 4.0 needle. YAY! No more retiming! :)

While I was there, Rick and Linda Taylor were there. Linda is an AWESOME quilter. She does amazing work. She asked me if I was happy to have my machine back, and I said I was just happy to have stitch regulator working for the first time in 1.5 years. She couldn't believe I had never used regulated stitch! But then she said that now that I have it, I will have more control, because I have had to do everything without the regulated stitch, and that a lot of people aren't that "lucky". WooHoo!!

Now the machine is back at Sweetbriar, but not put together on the table. Mike gets home on Friday night from his business trip, so he will be able to put it all back together for me on Saturday, because some of the parts we ordered (that need to be installed before it gets put back together) came this week. YAY! Then I can get back to work..... finally!

Project 2

So I have managed to partially finish my second project. WOW! I sure am making a lot of progress. In fact, my to-make pile is slowly but surely getting smaller and smaller each time I walk into my sewing/storage room. This is definitely nice, as I seem to be rapidly running out of room to store my works in progress and all of my random fabrics.

Anyway, this is a baby quilt in girlie prints. Most of the fabrics are from the Chocolate Lollipop line by Anna Maria. I totally love these fabrics. I bought them when I bought the fabric for my friend Joelann's quilt, and I haven't been able to cut into them until recently. Today I sewed most of the pieces together. I made a mistake though, and instead of cutting the center section of the largest nine patch block 3 1/2 inches, I cut it to 2 1/2 inches. Oops! I will have to make adjustments throughout the quilt when I piece it all together, but I don't think it will look too bad. It will be a little bit smaller than it should be, but it will still look really cute!
This is the pattern I'm using. It will hopefully look quite similar to this when it is finished. It's also the same pattern I used for Joelann's quilt, and I did a quilt for my cousin last December from this pattern. So, three out of one pattern. That is the most I have ever used a pattern! WOW! It's kind of a pain in the butt pattern, so I'm surprised I've even used it that much. There's just way too much cutting and piecing for such a small baby quilt. But, it ends up looking so dang cute when it's finished, that you just can't help loving this pattern!
Tomorrow I have to run down to Salem to pick up the Gammill, the run up to Salt Lake to have it serviced. I don't know how long it will take to have it serviced. I'm hoping only a few hours. Because, then I have to go back down to Salem, put the machine back on the table so I can get back to work, pick up Marshy from Nana V, and then go home. I'm really hoping to be able to finish this quilt tomorrow either in the morning or at night, so that I can get started on the next project. Lately I just can't seem to sit still. I think it's because I know we will be moving again in March, and the year is rapidly coming to a close, and I need to unload some of this stuff somewhere, so I might as well hurry and finish some of these projects and get them up on Etsy (only some of them though. I don't think I could part with all of them!). But, with such a busy day as tomorrow is looking, I don't know how much I will be able to get done. I guess we shall see what happens.

Project 1 for today

So far today I have only finished 1 project, but I hope to finish a few others as well. I had a late start, because Marshy was totally awake until 2 AM. UGH! I fell asleep on the couch waiting for him to tire himself out, watching the olympics, and then was RUDELY awakened by a flying bottle to the stomach. Yes, it was empty, and he wanted "MORE!". Luckily, he went to bed after that. And fortunately he didn't wake up until 10, so we got our full 8 hours of sleep. YAY!

Anyway, go over to Lola's blog and check out this awesome tute for a binder cover. I LOVE IT! I saw it yesterday and knew that I just HAD to make me one! I've got a binder full of graph paper and quilt designs and patterns and stuff that needs to look better than a boring old binder. Luckily, I had these really cute fabrics laying around, and it turned out quite nicely. Lola has a snap on her cover, but I didn't have a snap, so I just omitted those steps.

Today at the grocery store, I also bought me an awesome calculator (I'm tired of using my phone) and some new mechanical pencils. Now my binder cover will be full of goodies! YAY! Thanks Lola for making such an awesome tutorial!! :)

As I sit here watching the Olympics . . .

I hear cries coming from the room down the hall. Now, normally I wouldn't mind. Except that it's 11 PM, and he has only been asleep for a few hours. He didn't want to go to bed. He does this periodically. I dreaded going down the hall to find out what was wrong. But I went anyway.

I opened the door, and there he was lying in his crib. "What's wrong honey?" I asked. He sat up, bottle in hand:

MORE!

Who taught him this "more" word?! And why didn't they teach him "more please?" Rude! Oh well, I guess it is better than what Uncle "Bob" has been trying to teach him to say. I guess I should just be happy he is back asleep, huh? Maybe I should go to bed too. That would be smart. Except that it's still men's gymnastics. And our team has been awesome tonight (until pommel horse....I'm a little disappointed there). Good job, boys! Oh yeah, and good job to Michael Phelps, too. That was awesome! Good luck tomorrow!

GO TEAM USA!!!!

YAY! It's finally finished...well, sort of

So, I was able to get some work done while Marshy took his nap today. FINALLY! "Comfort" is finished.
This is the bottom row. I had all but the cat block done. I had pieced most of it together, so all I had to do was quickly finish it. It turned out rather nicely, I think.
The bottom row has the same center block as the top row, only reversed.
The far right block is a dog. I thought that the whole cat and dog thing seemed to fit with the "home and family" theme. After all, a lot of people think of their pets as part of their family. We do! :)
The middle row has the two nine patches on each end.
Then there is a heart in the center of the row. Because of course it's love that ties us all together.
And the other nine patch block.
I originally had planned to do this big border with corner blocks that had hearts in them, but I opted for a smaller border, and then put the pink squares in the corners.
I still have a little stitching that I need to do. I have to go around all of the applique pieces in the picture block, and then there are some phrases I am going to stitch into the borders. But, hopefully that shouldn't take too long. It will keep me busy during the Olympics for sure!

Well, that's all the time for blogging I have right now. Too many projects to finish, too little time. I'm off to finish the next one!

Olympics

Have you been watching the Olympics? We have. I think that swimming is my favorite. Not just any swimming though, mostly mens swimming. Holy cow are they fast! I like gymnastics, too, but it takes too long to get the scores. At least with swimming it is fast and you know right then who won. And, if they broke a record, they tell you right then and there.

So, I haven't gotten a lot done today, because obviously we've been "busy" watching the Olympics. It's hard to multitask while the Olympics are on, because if you look away for just a second you miss something. Especially in gymnastics. Mike looked away for a second, and missed one of the US girls falling off the uneven bars. Anyway, tomorrow I am hoping to get a lot more done. I did get some work finished (a diaper bag that has been in the works for several months) but that's about it.

Quilt Shoppe, and the addiction it feeds

Okay, so I am going to make a confession. I have a serious problem when it comes to fabrics. I can't get enough. I LOVE fabric. I don't know a whole lot about all the different designers, but I have bought enough of Sandy Gervais's fabrics to know that I LOVE her fabrics! The quilt that I just quilted for Lola for the Quilt Shoppe was made out of a jelly roll of Sandy's Pumpkins Gone Wild line for Moda. I loved the fabrics, and yesterday while up at the Quilt Shoppe, purchased a charm pack of them. I don't know what I'm going to do with only 1 charm pack, but I will figure something cute out. Trust me! I have several ideas, but most of them involve going back and buying more fabric. I KNOW! This is a serious problem.
I also bought this to die for wall hanging kit. We don't have a Christmas tree, due to a 2 year old and lack of room, so this year I thought we could maybe decorate with some wall decorations. Yes, it is only August, but before you know it it will be December! I better get started soon, or else it will never get done!
Then, today, I went up to visit with the Quilt Shoppe owner. While I was there, she was selling a whole bunch of kits at 70% off. This was one of them. SO CUTE! I fell in love with the fabrics instantly. I don't even care what the pattern is, I just love the fabrics! I think this quilt will maybe go to Grandma M for Christmas? We'll see.
I haven't even taken it out of the packaging yet, but look how cute the fabrics are! I told you, I have a problem. Anyway, part of the reason why I haven't taken it out of the packaging is because my table has a massive pile of fabric remnants and scraps and wonder-under for the quilt I am currently working on.
I can't wait to get started on these projects! Too much fun! Oh boy will I be busy for a while. I haven't really been quilting at home lately, so now that I've begun again, I realize I've forgotten how much fun it was. And, Marshy is so nice to play in his room or watch a movie or whatever while I do it. Since I'm not going to be able to use the Gammill until Mike gets back from Boise, it will be nice to have something to keep me busy at home.

New Quilt

In March, after my dear nephew Colton passed on, I had an idea for a quilt. The idea centered on families, and how they last forever. I call it "Comfort" because that is what it provided at that time. Well, now, months later, I am finally getting around to taking the drawing I made and turning it into an actual quilt. So far it is turning out quite nicely. It has 9 different blocks and then a border with the possibility of having setting squares with something in them. Not sure yet if I want to go that route. BUT! Here is my progress so far. I have finished 7 of the 9 blocks. I only had enough battery power left over from after the parade today to take these few pictures though, so the rest will come tomorrow hopefully.
These are all from the top row of the quilt, which I have sewn together. The first block is a house. Because where else do you see your family, but at your home?
There are 4 blocks that don't really have anything to do with families, they are just there because I couldn't think of how to piece 4 more blocks. So, I have two blocks that look like this, and then two blocks that are a nine patch (they are on the middle row of the quilt). I tried to use the same fabrics and colors from the other quilt blocks to tie it all together. Also, I didn't go out and buy any of these fabrics, I just used remnants from other projects.
This block took me the longest. I was originally going to just do a less detailed family, but I felt that it needed the details to make it look right. I think I might have spent around 3 hours working on this one today, trying to get the dimensions and pieces just right. I haven't gone around by hand or with my machine to secure them (I used wonder-under) because I don't think it would look right. I'm debating as to what I should do. Any suggestions? I kind of like the look of it the way it is. Anyway, I might add some details in when I go to quilt it, we'll see.

I finished two of the blocks for the bottom row today, too, but I still have two more to go, so hopefully I can get them done tomorrow. I think I will have to buy fabric for the borders. I thought I might have enough but it turns out I calculated wrong. The borders will take about a yard of fabric. I guess I could piece together something from the rest of the remnants, but I really wanted them to be a nice medium green to match the greens I use elsewhere in the quilt. But, like I said, we'll see. I might not even do a border! It depends on how I feel.

This quilt I am doing for my cousin, as a wedding present. I also bought 1/4 yards of different fabrics from the Quilt Shoppe to do this quilt with. I had every intention of doing her quilt out of those, but they match my style so well that I think I will use them for myself.

It's so fulfilling to have an idea, draw it out, and then see it turn into something that actually works out. I have a couple other quilt ideas that I want to do, so hopefully I can get them all going now that I've managed to do this one.

Salem Days, Pt 2

Today was the Salem Days parade. It was fun. Luckily, it was kind of overcast, so it made it quite nice to sit out under the trees of the church on Main and watch as the fun floats and cars and horses went by. Here are some pictures of the event:

Above, a cool old tractor. There were several that were in the parade that were either from 1950 or earlier. WOW! Below, Smokey the bear.

Above, the new grocery store. YAY! Below, the new pharmacy (finally!) in the new grocery store. YAY!

Above and Below, two more cool old tractors.

Above, SHHS cheerleaders. Below SHHS football team. GO SKYHAWKS!

Above, the rest of the SHHS football team. They're a brand new team this year, doncha know? I was surprised by how big the team was, since the school is brand new and all. Below, Marshy. He may look bored, but he had so much fun. He even clapped and cheered, but only when I wasn't trying to get a picture of him.

Above, some dance group from Japan. Below, Mini Miss and Little Miss pageant winners and runners up.

Above and Below, the SHHS marching band. How cool are those uniforms?! They looked really good, and they sounded great! It was their first performance ever, and they were fantastic.

Above, the SHHS cheer camp participants, including little miss Avery. She looked so cute! Below, more of the SHHS cheerleaders.

Above, the National Guard (I think?) and a really cool vehicle-tank thingy. Below, the police department.

Above, the Fire Department. Below, Miss Salem and her attendants. How cool is that float?

After the parade, we went to the quilt show. I would've taken pictures, because there were some awesome quilts, except my camera battery died during the parade! I forgot to charge it last night. Stupid me! Oh well, maybe next year I'll remember.