Learning to count

So, tonight I learned to count.  I realized that I was apparently doing it wrong, which was sad because I thought I was busting a move on a quilt I started.  I'm making a quilt for my Grandma A from the Warm and Cool QAL by Jeni at In Color Order.  It's not currently running, but I love the design and I have wanted to make one for a long time.  I came home from helping with my Gma on Friday afternoon and set to work.  I stopped at Creative Quilt Kits on my way home and salivated for an hour or so.  She has recovered very well from her stroke considering she is almost 91 and is going to be moved to a live in rehabilitation center.  She loves her house toasty and in those places she is always super cold so I am hoping that this will keep her warm and her spirits up.  It is kind of like an emergency love quilt :)   Here's what I picked up:

My Grandma's favorite color is red so I'm going to do a red/pink diamond pattern since Pam's QAL taught me how to make those fantastic HST's.  Well, I couldn't find any precuts in the colors that I wanted so I just bought yardage.  I started cutting away and after thinking I had enough I devoted myself to my sewing machine.  Well, as it turns out, I only accounted for half.  I have no idea how I counted so wrong since I even drew it out and counted them up on my handy-dandy graph paper.  I'm pretty sure I'll have to grab some more fabric so I may have to swing through a quilt store in AA to pick some up.  I really, really want to get this done so I can give it to her.  I'm going to quilt it myself to save a bundle of time.

I also stopped at a quilt store in Haslett on my way home from the hospital.  It was a little store, but I managed to grab some fabrics while I was there.

I really like the blue one and the baby print was only $3/yd!  I bought the rest of the bolt :)

I also bought this:

And this:

I got the elephants at Creative Quilt Kits and the rest at Joann.  I thought the elephants would go well with the embroidered blocks I found in my Grandma H's belongings.  It was only a remnant so I hope that the little amount I have can fit in somewhere.  I haven't even began thinking about it!

I hope you have all had a lovely weekend!  Here is a (pretty bad) picture of my lovely kitty creeping on me to help envision what my weekend has entailed!

Family is a wonderful thing

I've had quite a busy weekend over in my world.  I was able to nearly finish sewing my rows together for the Sliced Apples QAL and it is a littler harder than I initially anticipated.  I have a couple of points that are not matching perfectly and I just don't have the heart or patience to rip them out and re sew the row, so that is how they will stay.  I've wondered many times if I will ever need a 100% perfect quilt.  Probably not :)  I also started on those coasters for my friend- they are fantastic!  I can't even hardly wait to send them!  All I have to do now if quilt them real quick and put them in an envelope.

Saturday one of my DH's cousins was married.  It was a very pretty wedding- and kind of eventful.  At the ceremony we were greeted by an unexpected guest:  a mouse started climbing the brick wall behind the happy couple!  It got the whole church stirring and they had no idea.  Too funny! 

Yesterday I was working on the Sliced Apples top and I got a call that my {other} grandma had a stroke and was in the ER in Lansing {where my side is from}.  Learning from a couple of months ago with this kind of thing I packed for a week, brought a book, and left.  My Grandma is going to be 91 in September and she is doing surprisingly well right now.  It has been pretty difficult because we just went through so much with my other Grandma and now we are going through these things again.  I am pretty close with this Grandma so the call itself was enough to send me into a panic.  When I got here she was in and out, but she lit up when I walked in.  It was so nice compared to what we just went through with my other side where we didn't even know if she knew us for so long.  Today she is doing even better than yesterday.  I walked in and she smiled so big and asked me when I had come into town- like I just happened to stop by on my way home :)  She is having a hard time saying things and she has been going in and out of recognition, but any recognition is fine by me. 

My family back home is wonderful and I am so thankful that I have them.  I am staying at my Aunt's house this week and will probably be going back to work and coming back to Lansing to visit my Gma and sleep.  Yesterday night we were told that my Gma needed rest so we were kicked out of the ICU and sent on our way.  We went back to my Aunt's house and played badminton and wild rummy.  It was so nice to laugh and have a support system during all of this.  I just don't think I could handle another rough patch without them.  Tonight {I think} I'm going home to drop off my DH so he can return to work and then coming back tomorrow morning.  I am going to bring my sliced apples top with me and see if I can get any more finished- but that assumes my aunt will calm down on the badminton front {she's kind of a maniac}.

Until next time!

Holy Cats!

O My Gosh, you guys!  Look what I found at Joann in the remnants bin:

Words can't even describe this

 I laughed out loud when I saw it and had to have it.  I have a friend in NC who loves cats and may potentially become a crazy cat lady in the future.  Instantly, I thought of her.  And the fantastic kitten coasters I will be making her.  I can't even hardly stand it- I want to see her face when she opens them. 

This will be the binding

I have an intense desire to make them right now, but I have other things I need to accomplish.  OK Stacey, deep breath, you can make them next weekend.

Last time I went to quilting with Pam she taught me the art of laying out a quilt.  I didn't know this existed... at all... because you're suppose to follow a pattern, right?  No.  There are quilts with no finite patterns and you have to actually be creative.  Apparently the Sliced Apples QAL is like this and I was SO intensely happy that she taught me this and some tricks to help out along the way.  Like taking a picture of it when you lay it out to see color groupings!  What a smart lady :)

I layed all of my HST's for the QAL out this week each night after work and I started sewing them together today.  I'm about half done with my rows and now I'm sweating.  I know I need to power through since my goal was to have them all sewn up this weekend.  I have a wedding starting at 1pm tomorrow to go to so today is my best window.  I also have to make a valance for the in-laws for their basement.  I'm avoiding that one, though I need to have it done by Sunday.

.... But those kittens are calling ....

My Second Finish!

YAY!

I am so happy that I am finally done with my Christmas Tree Quilt!  We were vacationing in "up north" Michigan from Wednesday to Sunday and I actually got some tasks done!  The first few days were just too hot to move so we spent plenty of time in the water and on the jet skiis, but Friday morning and Saturday I was on the move!  Well, on the move so to speak :)  Richard was playing volleyball with all of our cove neighbors while I sat back, watched, and kept binding!

This is a pretty terrible picture, but I could barely get Richard to stand still for it

I can't get this one right in blogger so you'll just have to turn your head :)

  

Pretty snowflakes from the long arm!

When we got back Sunday evening I went outside to check the bird feeders and water my flowers and this guy decided to hitch a ride on my leg.  Just about gave me a heart attack!  I was about to go inside and I felt a prickle.  Naturally assuming it was a mosquito I went to bash it's head in and holy cow!  Green Monster! 

It's like it can see my soul

There was a lot of screaming as I attempted to knock it off without killing it.  Those things have a grip, I tell you what.  I also have no idea how I used to catch them as a child since they creep me out so badly now!  Consequently, I dreamed about spiders last night :-/

I got all my HST for Sliced Apples all trimmed up and ready to be layed out.  I really, really wanted to do it last night but I just didn't have the time.  I dread the night back from vacation because it is just so exhausting for me with all the cleaning and unpacking.  I need a day after the vacation to recoup!  Good news is that I actually won something for participating in the QAL!  I couldn't even believe it because I never win anything!  Mr. Random must have known that I haven't gotten any fabric in a while :)  Thanks Pam and Cori-  I can't wait for the next one!

I hope you had a lovely holiday!

Sliced Apples has begun!

For me anyway :)

I have seriously missed the boat on this QAL due to recent events and I am very happy to be getting on with it!  I've never done this kind of block before and I really enjoy learning new things, so although it is simple I am getting a lot of pleasure from it.  They also come together super quick, which is amazing!  I started this weekend making the blocks and I'm already trimming them up.  I'd like to lay them out next weekend to sew together, but that may be ambitious since we are going on vacation tomorrow and Sunday evening will be spent doing all the laundry and unpacking.   We will see.

Super cute!

This past weekend I went home to Lansing to visit my family.  I spent some time with my Grandma Anne and showed her my XMas quilt (which I am binding- I can't wait to show you!).  She was so excited by it!  It made me so happy to see how proud she was of me.  I really want to make her a quilt now.  She is 90 so I think she will be my top priority.  I may or may not give this Sliced Apples quilt to her, though I would love to make a quilt using these blocks forming a diamond which extends.  I don't know if that makes sense or not, but I love the look of the radiating diamond!  I'm guessing it would come together just as quickly.  I'm going to draw it out this week and see if I should buy some fabric :)  You can never have too much you know!  If I end up making that design, I think I found a place that I'm happy with to donate to, but that is for a later time!

DH and I also played in a golf scramble with my Mom and Dad.  We came in last!  I played varsity all 4 years of HS but I have lost so much of it in the last 7 years.  I tend to only get out 2-3 times a year now so I tend to have just as many bad shots as good ones!  It was fun anyways and it made my Dad super happy to be able to spend some times with us :)

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

My quilt is back!

I went to quilting for the first time Wednesday in what has to be nearly two months.  I'm so out of the swing of things, but Mama Spark brought my Christmas tree quilt for me back from the quilter!  It's so cute I can hardly stand it.  It needs to be washed badly since it is nearly all white and has picked up dirt along the way so I'd really like to start binding it this weekend!

I had snowflakes put on it!  There are 5 or 6 different kinds.  So cute!  Mama spark cut my binding strips on the bias for me on Wednesday and I have those all sewed together and pressed, ready to be put on :)


Last weekend we went up north to DH's Grandpa's cabin and spent the weekend all by ourselves.  It was fantastic and just what we needed.  We hauled our jet ski's up with us and along the drive Richard says "That jet ski doesn't look like it's riding right."  Well he's not the boat person really in our relationship so I nearly climbed on top of him to look through the side mirror.  No, it was not riding correctly.  "You can pull over and we can look at it, or at least slow down so it's not bouncing so much."  "No, lets just keep going."  OK- my stomach is not so sure about this but whatever, they are his toys anyways.  We get there two hours after we have this conversation and what do we find?  One of the boards holding up the oddly writing jet ski completely snapped in half.  Crap.

The next morning we went to the hardware store in town and bought supplies to replace the broken one and by my insistence, his friend.  Luckily it was a fast fix since we really just had to carpet 2x4's and re-bolt them to the trailer AND we did it without any hostility.  Though I might have thrown in a "I told you not to drive so fast" when we got to the cabin the night before.. No biggie..

We are off to have a date night this evening!  I hope you all had a lovely week!

I've been gone for so long!

{Warning: this is photo intense!}

Life is finally calming down for me again.  It was a super busy, crazy, stressful time and I am happy that it has finally come to a close for me {or at least the end is in sight}.  The last few weeks I have been organizing and attending memorial/funeral services for my Grandma and helping my family go through her belongings and sell them.  There was a memorial where she was living and then the following week we had the funeral in Lansing with her family and where she requested to be buried.  We made food for a luncheon afterwards and when I went to use the ladies room, this was in the first stall:

No joke ya'll

It was very interesting and humorous in light of the situation.  I went to the next stall and it was a normal toilet. Thank goodness. 

Afterwards we began the long process of sorting and cleaning and sorting and moving and sorting and selling.  There was a LOT of sorting.  We found quite a few neat things and I never knew that she liked to sew so much.  This is the first thing I found and fell head over heels in love with:

My precious.

I couldn't even get over this darling sugar and creamer set.  I still want to squeeze it because it is so cute.  Ugh, it is just a cuteness overload.  Next we sorted through a box of my Grandma's crystal.  This decanter was in it and surprisingly I got it.  I think it's because our house still has relatively nothing in it since we have moved in so there is lots of room for it.

There was very little furniture but this came along with us.  It was apparently her WIP chest.  I found a few embroidery blocks that I am going to turn into baby quilts for my sister and I when the time comes.  My favorite it the hippo :)  First I need to finish a couple of the blocks, so I will need to learn how to do it better.



 I picked up last night where my Grandma left off on the clown patterns and I found that it was strangely relaxing.  I have been really enjoying it though I am awful at it.

Richard also had his exam last month so I finally have a husband again.  It has been marvelous this past weekend {this is the first weekend that I have been home since my Grandma was in the hospital}. The garden bed in our front yard had paver bricks lining it which was super annoying.  Any time you got remotely close to the stack, the bricks would fall over into the grass because they knew it would make me angry.  I conned DH into buying 2/3 of a pallet of landscaping bricks and we did this yesterday morning!

Finished front yard

WIP back garden bed

 Replacing the bricks in the front took about 3 hours with both of us working on it.  We stopped at noon because it was getting really hot outside.  This morning I started working on the garden bed in the back yard.  No joke, this took me an hour.  I had to pull out one of those black edging things, cut away grass, and then refill and level each hole.  I only got 6 done until I retreated inside.  Later on we are going to go out on Lake St Clair and ride the jet skiis.  Richard has been waiting for it for a while now :)

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend.  Stay cool!

Sturgeon!!

This also has nothing to do with quilting, or fabric, or sewing, but it is the highlight of my week!

SO I'm working on this huge project that is super important for helping sturgeon rebound in the area between Lake Huron and Lake Erie in the Great Lakes.  {Here is some information about it, and a pretty AWESOME video of sturgeon on the reef still in progress!}.  We were out yesterday and today doing the St Clair River Egg mat survey (where we go look for spawning activity) and found these little beauties on the reef that is being built!

Sturgeon eggs!

Difficult to see, but a sturgeon is hatching!!

So fantastic that I just had to share.  It totally makes me feel like I am making a difference in my job by improving one of our most important resources!

One more sad post and then I'm done. Probably.

My grandma passed away early Saturday morning.  I got the phone call at 2am and we weren't really expecting it so fast.  We are in the process of setting arrangements and collecting her things which has been horrible.  She has a boyfriend she was living with and paying $600 a month to him for rent and now he is stealing her jewelry and any valuables she had.  Yesterday his daughter in law had enough in her to stand right in front of me wearing my grandma's necklace that she wore everyday of my life.  I am just so upset about it.  The happier side is that I was able to go through my parents pictures and found some really neat ones.


My grandma and my {real/biological} grandpa {passed away before I was born} on their wedding day

Grandma and Grandpa

 

Grandma and her son (my dad) before I was born/when I was very young

My mom back in the day at the Natural Resource Conservation Service as a waterways engineer {This is my absolute favorite photo of her and I'm planning on stealing it shortly to hang in my house}

My dad in his tackle shop he used to have

My mom feeding their racing pigeons way back when


I never got to meet my dad's dad and was pretty excited to see those photos.  It brought back some good memories for my dad that he talked about with me and I was happy that it brought a little light to the situation.  I attempted to bring out my sewing yesterday morning (since it lives with me in my car right now) but I was foiled in my attempts by ever present tasks to do!  I get to go home tonight to my DH and can hardly wait!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!

28 Hours

You know how people claim they get "second winds" after being awake for a long time?  Well I've been up for 28 hours now and it took 4 cups of coffee to get one!  Plus the whole sun rising thing kind of helped out too.  I worked a night shift last night looking for larval {baby} sturgeon and am headed back up to Grand Rapids.  We are not expecting my Grandma to make it too much longer and I just wanted to say thank you for all of your kind words, I appreciate them even if I have not had a chance to respond.  Yesterday when I was packing I would head to a room, forget what I was doing, and then go look for something else.  I'm sure none of my clothes match and I'm probably missing something important like underpants.  But those are overrated anyways.  Just kidding...  Hopefully there will be something fascinating soon! 

{PS, Sara at Sew Sweetness made this fantastic bag out of her NY Beauty blocks.  What a fantastic idea!!}

The universe knows.

Get a load of this:

I think that the universe knows Sliced Apples begins this week.  What it should say is "A good time to start something new and fall terribly behind on it."  Perhaps it has bigger expectations of my free time than laundry and cleaning!

I traveled across the state again this weekend to visit my grandma (where I got the above fortune at dinner).  She is still in ICU and had to abruptly undergo a third surgery last night to attempt to clean out an abscess in her throat.  She went in at 10pm and came out at 11:15pm but we didn't have an opportunity to see her wake up since we were all dragging and still had to drive back to Lansing.  We are hoping this is the last time she will have to have this kind of surgery but you never know.  The infectious disease team said that the blood infection is under control but that there are still effects in her organs.  The newest deveopments are an infection in her heart valve and the chance that she may have had a stroke.  It's really hard to see my dad (her son) in this.  He is stubborn and tough so it kills my sister and I to see him go through this- it's like watching a rock crack.  I can only hope it gets better quickly!

Saturday was also my birthday!  I headed east to home Sauurday afternoon and made plans for myself to stop at Creative Quilt Kits in Brighton!  I've wanted to go for a while but every time I pass through ends up being after (or before) hours.  I even managed to sneak my stash in without DH seeing :)

He also got the hint and got me the ice cream cake I've been asking for.  I forgot to take one before I began to devour it, but you get the picture!

It's so good I nearly cried

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Life just won't stop!

I can never seem to find enough time to sew these days!  This weekend I had big plans to visit my family back in Lansing {and visit a few quilt shops} on Saturday but just as we got there we got a call that my grandma was in the ER at a hospital in Reed City and was going to be transferred to Grand Rapids.  We took off Saturday from Lansing and found our way to GR to visit.  She was unresponsive but we stayed late and eventually ventured off to find a hotel.  We called 6 hotels and managed to find the ONLY room left in 20 miles!  I was so thankful when we checked in at 11 that I was beside myself.  Richard had said why we were in town and in the morning we found a card with free breakfast for us slid under the door with our bill.  I was just so astonished and thankful to those ladies at the front desk.  When we left they weren't there but I fully plan on writing them a thank you.

Sunday we went back to the hospital to get the update on her condition.  We were there for a couple of hours before I ever found out that she had woken up a few times and was responding!  She was shortly taken in for surgery to clear an abyss on her throat and to relieve pressure on her spinal column both due to infection that has spread to her blood.  The surgeons said that she made it through wonderfully so we are crossing our fingers for recovery and we are all expecting the best.  I will more than likely be back in Grand Rapids this weekend so there may not be any progress on my projects.  Hopefully sliced apples doesn't start this week- I would hate to be behind in the first week!

Sliced Apples Fabric!!!

I went to my quilting group last night and brought home my Little Apples fabric {the charm packs at least} for the Sliced Apples QAL!  I'm already excited to start a new project, and of course my wonderful friend Pam is putting it on with her friend Cori, so what more incentive do I need?  I'm so happy that I could be one of the first into join in and support them!

I was really going back and fourth over what to do with the fabric choice because I really hate the green color.  Don't get me wrong- it has some GREAT prints in it, but the color of the green itself irks me.  I love me some nice rich green, not silly olive!  Anyways!  I thought about just buying yardage of the prints I really love in the line (like the little turtles I simply adore), but in the end I went with the original design.  I saw the quilt top in person and it really looks fantastic the way it is, with olive and all!

Don't you just love them?

I may just buy myself some of these little guys to have all to myself :)

 I have no real need for this quilt since I have a couple others in progress and have no little ones in the family yet to give it to so I think I may donate it if nothing else comes up {ie no one I know gets pregnant!}.  I'm going to have to do some research into it but I think there are some hospitals that will accept quilts and distribute them...?  If you have a charity you like, let me know!  I don't mind shipping.

I took today off to spend some time with the hubby since Monday was our 1st anniversary and I haven't had much of a chance to see him this week.  We went out to dinner after work and he brought me these lovelies :)

Unfortunately he got a big project at work and then spent Tuesday and Wednesday living there.  Literally.  He didn't come home until 1AM last night and he left for work at 6AM that morning.  So now that I am enjoying his presence today I decided that we needed to make progress on the yard!  I went out to measure our garden beds for new landscaping bricks and just about melted into a puddle.  I've retreated and am rethinking loading those 160 landscaping bricks into our truck at Lowe's and hauling them back.  Definitely an another day kind of project so instead I think I may sew some more MSU quilt for a little while!

I hope you all are having a lovely week!

The "S" is done!

Well, I had a couple of goals this weekend and one of them was to complete the "S" on the MSU quilt!  And I did it!  I'm SO happy that I actually spent time on it! 

I did a huge stack all at once so it went pretty quickly {kind of} rather than doing it in 10's like I had been and this is what I got to at the end of the weekend :)

I also puttered around the yard a bit and decided to start my rain barrel.  I got a big barrel from work and have been waiting for a Lowe's coupon to get all of the attachments.  I painted it this weekend and hopefully I can construct it next weekend and start getting some water!

Before

After

I wish I would have gotten to it sooner sine the weather this week here is going to be pretty dreary.  It's storming right now as a matter of fact!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I've made two more NY Beauty blocks and I may have finally decided on 4 to put together to give to my sister for Christmas as a wall hanging.  Hopefully I will get them sewed together this weekend but have actually picked up my MSU quilt this weekend and am chugging away on that instead!

Another block 8

Block 7

I like the all white but...

I just can't decide if I like this combo better!

Last weekend my mom came down and helped me prime my upstairs bathroom.  It's a room that I had previously ripped off the wallpaper and left for dead but with the nice weather I thought I should revive it.  Plus, Sherwin Williams had a fantastic sale this weekend with 40% off!  Incentive enough!  It doesn't look like much yet but you better believe that when I have time to actually paint, it will be stunning!

No more sea creatures!

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend!