Happy New Year!

My plan for the last several weeks was to get in gear and make more postings on my blog this year.  Here it is, the third day of the new year and I am finally getting to it.  Oh well, better late than never.  I hope everyone enjoyed the beautiful holiday season.  We sure did.  We were able to spend time with family and also have a little r & r time.  Steve had some vacation time and we enjoyed spending time together.

This is a picture of one corner of my new sewing room.  I absolutely love my new sewing room.  My long arm has not arrived yet but we are ready and anxiously awaiting the phone call.  I spent many hours in my sewing room on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and had a great time.  I put binding on a couple of wall hangings, made a very small table toppper from a kit and did some machine applique on my Block of the Month from last year.  I had to do a fabric search so I went through several boxes of my fabric stash.  By the time I found what I was looking for my head was whirling with ideas for my stash.  Hopefully this winter I can spend lots of time enjoying my new sewing room and playing with my fabric.  I do have an election on February 26 so that will keep me busy but not near as busy as the elections in August and November.  Off now to do a little bit of sewing before I head to our Guild business meeting.  Enjoy your day and I hope you get to do some sewing too.

Doe Sew Day

Next week starts the 2 week white tail rifle deer hunt here in Michigan.  Living in the northern part of the state it is a big deal to many people including my husband and our two sons.  Many people have a hunting camp where they go to relax, hunt, eat, drink adult beverages, play cards and shoot the bull.  We don't have a camp but my guys like to get together at my brother-in-laws to chat, share stories of their day in the woods and eat a few meals together.

For several years now our Quilt Guild has held a Doe Sew, a quilter's version of a deer camp.  We gather in the morning with our sewing machines and a specific project or we can work on our own projects.  As with any "deer" camp we always have lots of food (pot-luck) and lots of chatter and laughter.  This years project was a really cute snowman wall hanging.  I decided not to start another project right now so I worked on my log cabin blocks.  It is very scrappy and I am using 1 1/2 inch wide strips.  I am not in any hurry to finish this quilt so it is a perfect project to travel with.

Speaking of traveling, I am packed to head to a 3 day retreat tomorrow.  I am not taking the log cabin project but I did pack 2 UFO's, both mystery quilts that I started while working at Thunder Bay Resort.  I am hoping to have both of the tops done before I come home.  I also threw in a few smaller projects just in case.  I am always afraid that I will run out of projects so I always over pack when going to quilting retreats. 

A Little Bit of Organization and A Little Bit of Time in My Sewing Room

It was a busy weekend here but we were able to move some furniture into our "new" living room.  I am not real fussy about how things look.  I feel that it is our home and if it works for us that is good enough for me.  We still need to make some changes as we are moving rooms around and we have a process in mind.  We decided not to move things out of my "old" sewing  room and into my "new" sewing room until we can get another metal storage system.  We have one know and are hoping we can match it as there is the perfect spot in my sewing room.  We think we bought it at Lowes and the nearest Lowes in in Gaylord, about an hour drive.  We are going to Gaylord this weekend so with the price of gas and our busy schedule we decided to wait.  It is nice to have a chair, a TV and some hand work in the evenings.

I did climb over boxes yesterday to spend some time in my sewing room.  I spent quite a bit of time cutting strips for a log cabin quilt.  The strips are 1 1/2 inches wide and I like to cut them to the proper length.  Our Quilt Guild is having our annual Doe Sew on Thursday and I have decide to work on the Log Cabin blocks instead of starting a new project by making the really cute snow man wall hanging project that is being offered.

We also enjoyed a visit with our son Greg and his two very lively and very busy two year old twin sons Gavin and Grady.  They are at such a cute stage, singing and dancing and just having fun.  I made home made pizza for dinner and was surprised at how much those little guys ate.

Off to work now.  I am the election administrator for my community of 1700 + voters so as you can guess I have been pretty busy with all of that.  Like so many others I am looking forward to all of the campaigning coming to an end bit for a slightly different reason.  I am on the ballot but I don't have any opposition.  I have been the clerk here in my township since 1988.

A Finished Project -------Finally!

I was able to get the binding finished on this Honey Bee Quilt last week and I really like the way it turned out.  When we started our remodeling project we moved as many things as possible out of the two rooms involved.  Every room in the house ended up as a storage rooms except the bathroom.  And since my sewing room doesn't get a lot of traffic it seemed to be used the most.  As of right now I couldn't get to my Viking if I wanted too as it is in a cabinet.  But my Janome and Featherweight are accessible and I have used both of them for three retreats in the last few weeks.  I hand quilted this quilt, added the binding by machine during the early stages of the remodeling, so I just had to hand stitch the binding.  I have done both methods of binding, totally by machine and by machine and hand stitching and I still prefer the hand stitching.  I just like the way it looks.  Last night I finished the binding on another quilt and will have to get a picture of that one.  I have not even started settingup my new sewing room yet.  We are going to wait till we can get to town to buy new storage shelves.  I am anxious to get things rolling.

A Big Decision and a Lot of Chaos

We made a decision.  I orderd the long arm quilting machine a few weeks ago.  And I am so excited.  As I posted earlier Steve came up with 4 options for remodeling our house to make room for the long arm.  After a lot of thought and measuring we decided on a 5th plan.  The 5th plan involves a lot more work but we both decided it would be the best plan.  Steve removed a closet, 2 half walls, carpet, a split stone fire place and the chimney that was in the garage.  He replaced dry wall, built a closet where the chimney was and had to do some other repairs.  We picked out new carpet for two rooms and then it was time to choose paint.  I have never been good at picking colors, I have always felt safe with an off white color.  My sister Carol and I spent quite a bit of time with paint chips and decided on a soft green color and I love it.  My sister loves to paint so she did all of the walls.  Steve and I had painted the ceiling in one room and did the primer paint on the new dry wall and the walls where we had removed wall paper.  It has been a lot of work but we are now on the down hill slide.  Actually I am waiting today for the carpet guys but I have a feeling it is not going to happen today.  I am very tired of dealing with the chaos but I am excited about the final outcome.  My sewing room has more than doubled in size.  Oh, I think the carpet guys are here, yea!!  Yes, they are here and figure they can get both floors done today.  Then the fun of putting everything back together will begin.

A Very Fun Day

Last Friday our Guild hosted a 25th Anniversary/Friendship Day.  Two of my sisters, my Mom and I were on the committee.  We had 124 ladies and 1 man (my husband) attend the festivities.  The morning started with a 2 large tables full of muffins, cookies, donuts and other goodies brought in by our Guild members.  Attendees were asked to bring in a fat quarter and we filled two baskets that were given away.  We had three vendors, Backstreet Quilt Shoppe from Elkton, Hollyhock Quilt Shoppe from harrisville and Sandy Dee's Sewing Shop from Hillman.  The vendors each donated a door prize and we also gave away the 18 centerpieces.  Our guest speaker was Tresa Keyes from Petoskey who gave a beautiful trunk show sharing her quilts made with 1930's original and reproduction fabrics.  We served a delicious lunch of sandwiches and salad.  Dessert was this cake made by my sister Carol.  She always does a beautiful job with her cakes and they always taste yummy too.

I Have Missed My Blogging

I have really missed blogging.  I think about adding a post but for some reason it just doesn't happen. I guess I am just like everyone else, sometimes there just aren't enough hours in a day.

My family - It is back to school time and 3 of our grandchildren went back to school on Tuesday.  Cameryn is in 6th grade this year (hard to believe) and he is also playing pee wee football.  His first game is on Saturday and we will be there to cheer him on.  London is now in second grade and this is his first year in public school.  He was so excited to ride the bus and he said it was really fun.  Allie started kindergarten and told me that she cried when the teacher asked each one of the student to tell the class what they did during the summer.  My sister Connie has been doctoring at Mayo Clinic for two benign brain tumors.  She had 3 appointments yesterday and will have surgery in November to remove one of the tumors.  Her oldest grandson Jacob (14 years old) has been diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma and is receiving chemo treatments in Ann Arbor, a 4 hour drive from home.  He is doing very well and the doctors are very optimistic that it was caught in time and that he will do well.

My quilt world - Most of my spare time has been put into making favors for our Guild's 25th Anniversary/Friendship Day to be held next week.  My hand quilting was put aside when the weather was so hot as I quilt on my lap and it was just too darned hot.  The evenings have been cooling down some so I have picked up my hand quilting project again.  My husband Steve and I went to the AQS show in Grand Rapids last month and we had a great time.  We saw some absolutely beautiful quilts and also did a little damage with the vendors.  I bought a couple of patterns and a couple of small kits.  We also spent quite a bit of time with a long arm salesman/manufacturer.  He and his wife make the machines and the frames in their shop in Tennessee.  I really liked the way the machine felt and worked.  It got us thinking about making a purchase again.  We came home and did some measuring as it would take up quite a bit of space.  My husband came up with 4 options.  I nixed two of them right off the bat and told him that one of them really appealed to me.  The problem is that it would require some remodeling and I have been through enough of that with our old house to know that we always have to be prepared to expect the unexpected.  So right now everything is on hold as we "think" about it.  I have no interest in going into business quilting for other people.  I would just want to do my own quilts and perhaps some for my mom and my sisters. 

Our garden - Steve has taken over most of the gardening as I have trouble bending over after my brain surgery.  He has a beautiful garden this year.  We have eaten lots of green beans and I have canned and frozen some although we still have lots left from last year.  The zuchinni, summer squash and tomatoes have been going crazy.  I have made 42 pints and 7 quarts of zalsa and canned some tomatoes.  I also have lots of zuchinni bread and muffins in the freezer.  I found a recipe online to make oven roasted cherry tomatoes.  I tried them and they are ok.  I won't turn the oven on for 3 hours to make them again.

Today is Guild business meeting and we always have a fantastic show and tell.  I finished hand quilting a Guild Block of the Month that we did when Donna was Project Chair.  I am anxious to ask Donna what year that was as I am sure it was at least 5 years ago.