First day at quilt store.

I went to my new job today. Oh what fun. I just loved being in the shop and starting to learn the basics. I even saw a great new pattern for my bags/purses. But want to see how things go before I spend my earnings on something that won't sell.

That job is great. Now for the not so nice parts of the day. I am trying hard to not use curse words but my day had tons of bad parts. I pull into the town I work in 18 miles from home and hear from the engine compartment KNOCK, KNOCK. I speed up the noise gets louder I slow down the noise gets quiter. NOT good at all. I ask my new boss if I can make a personal phone call with in minutes of getting to work. Of course my husband is in class and I had to leave a voice message, oops forgot to see if it is ok to take personal phone calls on the job. Great I'm going to get fired before I ever start. Skipping ahead. Hubby shows up at 12:30 listens to the car, does something and then comes back into the store and says he's going to try to drive it home. My boss asks if this is a good idea,then she says I can leave so I can follow him home. So it was 30 minutes early I left work. As it turns out the car made it five blocks, we parked it. Went home and got the truck to tow it the 18 miles home, in attempts to save what is left of the motor.

Some where in all this confusion I did manage to learn how to run the cash register, the credit card machine and minor other things in the 2 1/2 hours I was at work. Then was asked if I could work Saturday by myself for 5 hours. Yeah I did not get fired, but I still haven't cut any fabric, or learned whats what really. Cheryl is so easy going that is the main reason I decided to help her out when she gets into tight jams. I help her and get to play with all the new fabrics and see the patterns. So I am not sure who is getting the better deal. I get paid to enjoy my passion.

Now the car is sitting in the shop and hubby is really wishing our weather would warm up so that he can see what is wrong with it. I just hope and pray it is an easy fix and that maybe by April/May I can drive my car again. I just cannot at this moment really afford to replace the whole engine, and maybe it just needs some internal parts replaced. But the sounds it was making led me to believe it is done for.

If this was not bad enough, today was parent-teacher day. Of course the 3rd grader is not doing to bad, still needs to work on learning her spelling words. But the teen son is not doing good at all. I had one teacher tell me that she was really upset with him because he lied to her today. Of course we were not shocked at all. So we came up with a game plan to get his grades up. On to the next teacher; where I had to tell her that my son lied to her on Tuesday and that he was there early, and then about the other lie he told her. Boy this kid is just not learning. The sad thing was having to A.) be told he was lying, B.) tell someone he was lying C.) then try to figure out how to get his grades above failing. Then we had to come home and talk with him and see what we can agree to not agree on. We have been working on the lying issues for years and it seems we are fighting a losing battle. And since he found out that his bio-dad wants to never-ever see him again it has been almost unbearable to live with him, deal with homework, and such.

So needless to say this has been a day of ups, downs and all arounds. I have run the emotional guantlet and now I have to try to concentrate on homework. I usually try to keep my blog upbeat, sorry if I bummed everyone out.

What I've been up too

I have taken everybody's advice and have made two charm bags, not for myself but to sale. I do have one already listed on Ebay. I am so scared that it will not sale. I hope to have the second bag finished yet tonight to get it posted quickly.

I finally got the new ironing board cover made. I am so happy to have a new cover that is not scorched, ripped and burnt. I will miss my kitties but do like the flowers on the new cover.


Now for the really big news. I just was hired at the local quilt store called the Picket Fence to work part-part-time. The owner is very understanding that my first job has set days I work and that I am only available to work the other days at the store. She just needs some one to help out because one workers husband is seriously sick, and shop hop starts soon. So she figures if I am trained to help out at least there is someone to call.

Update: If my bags sell then my next bags will be more of a springtime nature, followed of course by RED White and Bold which of course is Sandy Gervais fabric lines. I just love having a bag/purse for the different holidays/seasons. These bags easily hold the current book I am reading along with the rest of my essentials. At this moment though it is looking like my current adventure has hit a dead end. Who knows though I did land a job in a quilt store, maybe she will let me sell the bags there.

Lakeside

Oh I am in pattern Heaven and fabric Heaven. I just picked up my first qurater of Lynette Jensens Lakeside. I hope to get to cut the fabric yet tonight. I just love the pattern and the fabric is just cool great. The biggest problem I had was which way Lakeside or Lodge if that wasn't enough then the big quilt, little small quilts, or both. Wow, such choices and I had to decided, this decision has taken me over a month to figure out. Well I decided to do the big quilt, this way I will have another full size quilt

Sent a quilt out

Well I have broken down and sent another quilt out to be quilted. This quilt is a Thimbelberries pattern created by Lynette Jensen called "Campfire." I decided to also use flannel on the back too. I'm not scarred of quilting flannel, but this throw is just a little more than I want to tackle right now. So I just decided to let someone else have the pleasure of quilting it; and this way it will get quilted and I can finally use it, instead of just hanging on a wall. You can see a glimpse of the quilt behind the cats in this post. Or from this site.

Death in the family

Today was a very sad day. I had to remove Yellow Head from the pond. I'm not exactly sure of the COD (Cause of Death). I do how ever have two strong suspicions. First off we got to -12 degrees last night and there was 4 inches of ice on top of the pond. And somehow the water pump spit gallons of water out onto the ground leaving only about 3 inches of water at the bottom of the pond. There was a very big gap of air between the layer of ice and water which is really good.

So some how Yellow Head was up on a plant shelf out of water. If he was not already a fishcicle than the fact that the floating de-icer short circuited and barbecued him finished the job off. There was so much smoke billowing out of the pond and the smell of burning plastic oh my. But the de-icer got hung up on the plant shelf in the air part between the ice and water or it could have been worse like boiling water worse.

OK. the true horrors of the matter are in the bottom of the pond should have been 7 fish and so far I have only found Yellow Head. So I am literally breaking the ice off the top of the pond with my garden hoe so I can check on the other fish. Because truth be told if they were pondbefore the day got above zero. I think at this point there are six still alive so I lugged 8 gallons of water to tied everything over for a few hours.

Now the fun begins the de-icer manged to melt a hole in the pond liner so I could not completely fill it with water until that is patched and we are going to have another cold night. Luckily honey is home now and can deal with everything patching the liner, trying somehow removing the now permanently melted de-icer from its new home attached to the liner, and buying a new de-icer. I am just glad that my Koi did not die with Yellow Head. Yes, I saw their tails moving when I poked at them with the hoe.

Done and Started

I just got the last stitch put into my 4th of July small wall hanging. I cannot believe it has taken me this long to finish something so small. It is only 18"x 20" but years have passed since I created the design and pieced the top. This heart flag came about because I wanted something patriotic to hang on the wall. Now this year it will hang with pride being completely finished.

Now the new project is a BOM from a LQS and we call it Saturday Sampler. We pay for the first block and we have a month to get it done. Then we take the finished block back on the second saturday the next month and show that the block is done and we get the new block FREE. Now if we cannot go ourselves or our block did not get done we have to pay $ for the months block. This years colorways were flannel or black Amish. I had taken a couple years off to catch up on my saturday samplers. But decided this was the year to go back so guess which color way I choose.

With the temps at 19 degrees farenheit and the winds blowing 90 miles per hour (honestly, ok maybe 15 MPH) and right through the house the cats sure had the right idea. Loung right by the heat vent. Talk about lazy and loving it. The lowest perch is right above the vent. Of course there's not enough room here so the 3rd Maine coon found a sunnier spot. As you can tell I got quite the look when I disturbed Sadie for a picture. Its like "how dare you wake me, I was sleeping."

Post 92

I just did a recap of my posts and this one makes #92. Another thing I have been reviewing is whether I will be continuing on with blogging. If I do continuing blogging, I have come up with an ingenious idea for my 100 posting. But at this moment am unsure what I am doing. It seems that life has zapped me of thoughts and fun and thus I wonder if I have words to continue writing about boring me.

Questions and Decisions to be made and answered.

On another Note I found a neat stitchery I think on it was through Bren's site. The first block is called Quilter's Blessings designed by Bea. I decided to do mine on tan muslin using pink, yellow, purple and blue floss to do the embroidery work.


Here is a picture of the quilt I am starting at the LQS. We were going to get our first pattern on Friday but the fabric has not shown up yet. Not like I have anything else to do, that I will just be sitting here twiddling my thumbs from boredom.

I finished a quilt

I took May Britt’s challenge and here is the finished small wall hanging or pillow star quilt. This is probably the third quilted item I made and there is a second one somewhere. I made the first one for my grandma and never got around to finishing the match for myself. When my grandma passed away I gave the pillow to one of my aunts who spent a lot of time taking care of my grandma and really understood what the pillow meant to my grandma.

I decided to keep the quilting simple and just decided to stitch in the ditch around the stars. Until this challenge I had never tried to machine stitch in the ditch. I do not saw I have mastered it, nor will it be my favorite stitch, but it was interesting trying it.

I finished the first two blocks that Pat has given us for the Good Book Cafe.

Recent Project

Back in December Pat posted the quilt layout for Farmers Market. I decided to go ahead and put the whole top together that way when the blocks come out I just have to applique them onto thier respective locations. Hopefully this works out alright seeing as I don't know what is coming up and unsure if the background colors work.

What I've been up too

Not as much as I wanted. I did get my block created for the Round Robin. I think the new block fits the required autumn subject that Kathleen had picked for her quilt.


Yesterday I did manage to get the next block (strawberry's) done for Farmer's Market. I still do not know if I should have used the yellow butterfly fabric, but just thought it would fit nicely. I did also start to play with the setting that Pat gave us in December. I still am undecided on a few color choices so may wait to see what the other blocks will be before I sew everything together. I have been working to at getting everything organized so that I can take breaks from school work to do some sewing. Because I can not study all the time without some sort of escape/vacation from brain drain.

The year to finish up

Between Kim and May Britt it seems that this is the year to finish up all WIP (works in Progress) or WISP (works in SLOW progress). Which ever name you choose it still is getting the quilts done. I have started a list in my side bar of quilts I'd like to finish this year and there will be a list of completed WIP's. The fabric stash badge is from Hanne such great creative way to show our support for stash busting in '08.

Now for the before pictures for the January challenge at May Britt's. The first picture has a scrappy star pillow top that needs quilted and finished (I think I started it in 2001); along with the small 4th of July wall hanging I designed in 2002. The next picture was a kit for Tenderberry Stitches called "Christmas at Our House." The books publishing date is 2002 so it was either that year or 2003 that I started this quilt. Somewhere I have tea towels that I was making to go along with the quilt. I figure these three small projects are a great start for January. Everything is ready to quilt and finish.

I enjoy making the tops or blocks but the machine quilting takes a toll on my arm because of the bulging disc in my neck so I have tons of quilts in this stage. But if I slowly make progress it will not be so overwhelming the number of tops on the bookshelf that need quilted.
I hope this year is the year for finishing lots of quilts and getting all my quilting organized.

Happy New Year

I have been so busy taking care of things that I have had little time to even read my emails. So here is what I have been up to this holiday season. Christmas day was spent at home with the four of us. Sam loved her quilt but I was so stunned when she asked if it "was a store bought quilt" I guess she forgot about helping me with the block setting we did a year ago. Maybe I should work faster at finishing quilts.

I managed to get tickets to Mannheim Steamrollers Christmas concert in Omaha for the 26th. While we were there the record company and other ranking member's presented the group with their platinum records. Mannheim's new album went platinum within 9 days of release, so it was a memorable moment for hubby and I. Then on Friday the 28th I got the letter stating the judge granted me full legal and physical custody of my Son. So one more hurdle jumped over. So that brings me to the weekend. Hum grocery shopping on Saturday boy that teenager eats a lot ;-)

Sunday Sam had a gymnastics clinic. Then my husband surprised me and had the Son babysit so we could go out for our 12 year anniversary. It still seems unbelievable that it was 12 years ago yet some how it seems like forever. It was a really nice time to talk and make future plans for the family.

Yesterday what a busy day laying down what is expected like rules and responsibilities for the teenager, on top of that I cleaned 2 bathroom cupboards. Of course we decided that it was time to take down all the holiday decorations. The kids were rewarded with all nighters, son was allowed according to our rules to spend the night with a friend. Sam had been signed up for a sleepover at the gymnastics complex. What a extremely quit way to bring in the New year.

I did manage to sneak in some sewing. The snowman pillow I started in November and finished right before Christmas and had started the Santa pillow in hopes to have it done before Christmas. Both pillow patterns are from Bloomin Minds. I realized on Sunday when I was leaving for our anniversary dinner that my holiday bag needed replaced. So started a new charm bag and finished it today. I decided to use the last charm pack I had from the Victorian Decadent quilt. I revamped the design from the holiday bag to be a bit smaller with the pocket on front sewn down the middle so a cell phone would fit in either side snugly.