Trying to Catch-up on My Life

A dear friend of mine has been bugging me about writing in my blog. I didn't realize how long it's been. Well, let's get this started.

In May, my husband and I went to Hawaii. Don't get too excited, we had to work. We had a trade show to work for 4 days, so we only were able to take 2 extra days for vacation. If it wasn't for the company paying for our travel, lodging and food for 4 days, we probably wouldn't have gone for about another 10 years. It's so expensive for us. What we did see was beautiful. One of our favorite parts of the trip was taking a sea plane tour of the island. It was amazing to look to one side of the plane and see mountains and then ocean on the other side. It's just a gorgeous place. We were on the island of Oahu in Honolulu. If we had more time, we would have loved to explore more and other islands. We also did a luau but it was not on the beach (which it seems as everyone else has done one on the beach) but on a roof top. It was neat. The food however, was not quite right. LOL! We're not seafood folk so many of the items weren't on our plates. Along with some pork, we did take some rice that had some veggies however after a couple bites, I noticed tentacles. YUCK! I was done eating after that. As a souvenir, we bought a pineapple. It was one of the best pineapples I had ever eaten. We did a search online and found a site that showed how to grow a pineapple plant from the top of the pineapple. We don't plan on growing pineapples but just to have the plant as a memory is nice. We have a nice green planted pineapple top sitting in our dining room now.

In July, Hubby had another conference, this time in Boston. We decided to make it a family trip and brought our daughter along too. This was a short weekend excursion for us. The highlight of this trip was whale watching. It was the most moving experience to be that close to such a magnificent animal. We were on a New England Aquarium Whale Watch, here's a link to our actual outing... http://www.neaq.org/visit_planning/whale_watch/log/2009/07/july-16th-am.php

In the fall we decided to change our daughter's preschool. It was a hard decision to make but well worth it in the end. She has grown so much since we switch schools. She started writing her name at the new school, which really shocked me. She was a little over 3 1/2 and she was already writing her name. She is spelling out many words that she sees and even trying to sound words out. The school is much smaller than her previous school so there is more focused attention. I think this is fantastic! Now, don't get me wrong, I am not pushing her by any means to do any of this, she wants to learn all by herself. I just go along with the flow. Her little mind keeps me in awe. Yesterday she turned 4. I can't believe my baby is 4 already! She will be in Kindergarten before we know it. Wow.

Thanksgiving was very nice. My grandparents came along with my parents and brother. It was nice to have all of that family around. My grandmother cracks me up. She is a very dramatic person and I love everything about it! LOL! We had them playing the Wii and laughed the whole time. I hope I'm that active when I'm in my 80's.

About a week after Thanksgiving, I found out I was pregnant. Yeah! I started taking my Lovenox shots faithfully every night. The OB had my blood levels checked to make sure everything was progressing as it should. At the end of December, we went in for my ultrasound. We actually saw everything that we were supposed to this time, the only thing we didn't see was a heartbeat. :( The doctor decided to wait one more week and do another ultrasound. When we went back, the fetus didn't grow and there still wasn't a heartbeat. The doctor took another blood sample just to make sure and saw that my levels were high enough that there should have been a heartbeat. Two days later I had a D & C. I go back in a week for a follow-up. I'm not sure what to do now. Do we keep trying for another baby? I told my husband that I think I can do this one more time but after that, I'm done. It just hurts too much. We'll just sit back and see what happens.

Looking forward to this year. I will be going on the quilt retreat again this year with one of my guilds. A week later, we will be taking my parents to Niagara Falls for a mini vacation. Other than that, nothing else is planned.

My goals for the year:

1. Organize my sewing room / office
2. Organize my family room utilizing the new cabinets my parents built and the shelves that I built
3. Finish 3 quilts
4. Work on a having a healthier life style by eating right and working out
   
5. (this one's a wish) To have another baby just as wonderful as our daughter

I don't believe these are too difficult. Let's see where this year leads us.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you have many wonderful experiences.

Robin

Memory Makers Retreat, 2009

At the beginning of April, one of my quilt groups went on a retreat to Amish country. We met for lunch at The Amish Door restaurant in Wilmot, OH. Later, we traveled to Gramma Fannie's Quilt Barn in Berlin, as well as Helping Hands.

I've been wanting to do a 30's quilt for a while and found a really cute bundle at Helping Hands Quilt Shop. Originally I didn't know what I wanted to make with the bundle. I picked up a Turning Twenty booklet and thought about making my 30's quilt with that. Then I really started thinking. The last quilt my great grandmother was working on before she died was a Dresden Plate. Since in May I will be going on a long trip, that would be a perfect hand quilting project. Now I have a plan! Back to shopping!

We also went to Miller's Dry Goods in Charm. Finally, we made it to our retreat location, the Charm Country View Inn. What a beautiful location. Set in the rolling hills of Amish country. We all unloaded our vehicles and set up shop. I think we had the max of people (about 23) that could go because we were packed in like sardines, but we all had enough space to get our projects completed. Since this was my first retreat, I made the newbie mistake of being hopeful about how many projects to bring. I brought a large tub of about 5 projects, with some smaller knick knack type projects too. Way too advanturous. I did get one top completed.


The only thing that I didn't like about the whole trip was that I didn't have cell phone reception. I had to borrow someone else's phone. On my way back home, about 1/2 hour into the ride, I finally got into cell phone range. I could tell because my voicemail and texts were coming in like crazy. LOL! I wish I could keep a couple of the voicemails that my daughter left me, so sweet! All in all, for my first retreat, it was great! I hope that I will be able to make future retreats.

Trapunto Workshop

Today my friend Zegi and I took a machine quilting trapunto workshop with Nelly Vileikis. This was really fun and pretty easy (to understand that is). My biggest challenge is that I really haven't worked much with free motion quilting, so following the lines for me was a bit rough. Back in March I took a beginning machine quilting class and have only practiced about 2 times since. I'm hoping that this class has brought enough encouragement to my quilting desire to push myself to complete my sewing room organization. All in all, I don't think I did that bad. What do you think?



I think I need a little more practice time on following a line but otherwise, not bad.

You start off with tracing your design onto your fabric with water soluable pen. Pin traced fabric to poly batting (about a 12 oz or 16 oz). Use water soluable thread in your top thread and trace, with a basting length stitch, the areas that you want to puff up. Trim away any areas of batting that you do not want puffy along the stitching edge, being careful not to snip your fabric. Now make your quilt sandwich with a backing, cotton batting, and trapuntoed top piece. Quilt in the recessed areas as you see fit.

Nelly suggests to use water soluable thread that is removed with cold or cool water. If you use the warm water removeable, you run the risk of your fabrics bleeding. Also, keep the thread stored in a ziplock bag to keep it away from humidity so it won't become sticky.

Vacation days

Well, the plan to take 10 minutes a day hasn't worked. I've taken a vacation today and tomorrow to work on my room. So far, I've taken pictures of a couple projects and it's about 2:30 p.m. "What has she been doing?!" you say? I left the house about 8:30 a.m., got breakfast, and then drove to the Habitat for Humanity's Restore to see if I can find used cabinets for my room. They didn't have what I was looking for but it was fun to look around. They had a couple old (60's) sewing machines with tables.

After that, I walked around the mall. It was so nice to walk around without the stroller and not have to say "Let go please... Let go please..." I bought Little Girl a couple new PJ's and some cute jeans from Children's Place. Then I went to the book store and bought Diane Gaudynski's "Quilt Savvy." I've read good things about her book and I had some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, so now I own it. :)

Okay, now on to the pictures. The first picture is of a few of the blocks that I made at a mystery quilt class with one of the guilds back in March. It was the first class I've taken and it was really fun. The directions were to pick a light, dark, and medium (suggestions were given) and do some pre-cuts. The pattern is called a Split 9 Patch. I love how the colors turned out. Once the room is together, the quilt will come together.


The next project is an Attic Window class being taught by Peg Bingham. Here are my fabric choices. Next is the EQ6 version of what it might to look like...

It might be a bit too much orange? What do you think? We'll see what Peg suggests.

Well, it's time to get working on the room... I'll share pics of the transformation... whenever it gets completed. :-p

Quilt Expo - Part 2

This past Saturday, Quilt Bug and I went to the Original Sewing and Quilt Expo. We had a good time. We took a free-motion quilting class with Sheila Finklestein, which was very helpful. I had many questions that she was able to answer. I felt bad for Quilt Bug because she kept having trouble with her machine (not her fault). Finally she was able to get the ball rolling. I would have to say we both did pretty well for first-timers. Speed seems to be the key.

We also took a binding class with Connie Spurlock. I have to say, I think I got more out of her batting lecture then her binding lecture. The binding finish didn't look "finished" to me. It was just overlapped and then you had to whip-stitch it closed. I don't know about you but I prefer to make mine look like you don't know where the beginning is. I prefer the Liz's Lumpless Finish method myself.

At the end of the Expo, they had a big drawing for 4 new machines and other miscellaneous prizes, so of course we had to stay and see if either of us would win (you needed to be present to win). Well, neither of us won a sewing machine. :( However, I did win something!! It was funny because when they were calling names, you could hear groups of people cheer because they all seem to come in big groups. Quilt Bug and I came together so when the called my name it was very quite except for me screaming "That's me!" and they didn't hear me! I was really afraid that they would pull another name before I got there to get my prize. Finally I made it up to the stage and picked up my prize... a magnifying lamp (like it), a CD for creating a blazer (like it), a booklet for measuring accurately for garment creation (handy to have), and this pattern....

I'm really sorry but I'm sure I'm going to offend someone in saying this.... This thing is beyond words. Who would make this? I'm offended in the fact that someone would use a sweatshirt and put velvet on it thinking it would work well. You pay half as much for the sweatshirt than you do for the 1 yard of velvet. I am skipping over the fact that this is just not pretty. I would say that someone was trying to do a "Renaissance" feel with this but went a little bit in the wrong direction. Okay, I'm going to stop before I say something even worse...it's just bad. It almost reminds me of a blog I read a while ago about the 1977 JCPenney's catalog.

Quilty excitement!

Monday night was one of the monthly quilt groups I attend. While at the meeting, they passed out brochures of the Sewing and Quilting Expo that is coming to Cleveland the end of next month. I had looked in the past at some classes but decided it just wasn't the right time. This year I saw that they had a beginner machine quilting class. That is something I really need. I'm very comfortable with my piecing abilities to get the tops made but to quilt them has normally been "stitch-in-the-ditch". I've been wanting to take a class like this for soooooo long. The time has finally come! On Tuesday morning I was so excited that I just signed up for the class, along with a binding class. Later I emailed Quilt Bug to let her know I just went ahead and signed up, come to find out she was going to sign up for the same classes! Yeah!

I've been watching my email for conformation, afraid of the email going into the junk/spam folder. Nothing. Quilt Bug asked me if I had heard anything. Nope, nada, nothing. Being of paranoid mind, I call the 800 number. We made it into the classes! Whoohoo!! The lady was so nice to let me check to see if Quilt Bug made it too. We were concerned that because this event is so big and the spaces were limited, we might not get in to the classes. I'm soooo excited!

Happy Day After New Year!!

Well, I guess I'm a bit behind as usual, didn't quite post on the 1st like I was planning. Maybe I should make that one of my "resolutions", being on time? I told hubby the other day that I don't make resolutions, I make life goals, that way I have longer to work out the kinks. :)

Here is a list of my "goals"

1. cook more at home - we eat out almost every day of the week, no joke. Hate is a pretty strong word, but I do HATE eating out. Plus, we recently found out that our daughter has multiple food allergies. We knew she was allergic to squash from a test we had taken when she was an infant. Now we know that she is severely allergic to peanuts, moderately to eggs, and mildly to milk and green peas. Next Monday I have an appointment with a dietitian to help me with food suggestions.
   
2. workout - I love to do yoga. The rec center near my house offers a yoga class but it's off-site and doesn't offer childcare at the off-site location. I would need childcare when Hubby is out of town. What's the point of having a membership that includes childcare if I would still have to pay for a sitter?! I have found that our cable offers "on demand" exercise shows which include yoga. I have done pretty good and worked out the past 3 mornings. Let's hope I can keep it up.
   
3. sewing/quilting - this would entail me getting my sewing room up in order. Once I get the room together, it will give me the opportunity to sit and relax with my sewing machine and be creative. My first project will be to start on my daughter's quilt.
   
4. baby - hope that trying for child #2 doesn't take as long as #1 did... I don't need to advance on the rest of the steps, you get the idea.

I want to wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year! My fingers are crossed for everyone this year that they are able to scratch off at least one completed resolution this year.