Babies got new shoes!

Took the girls out tonight for new sneakers! All three girls have extra wide feet! Madison and Haley got New Balance's and Emma got a pair of Nike's that just arrived today - she was the first one to try them on! Haley had her choice of purple or pink shoes, of course, she chose pink - just like her Auntie O-la-la! They were all over the store, showing everyone their new shoes! The minute we left the store, Haley jumped in a puddle - go figure!

MY MOJO IS BACK!

The ceiling fan is installed thanks to my BIL, Tim! I love the filigree work on it and the lights are great! It is so nice to have a ceiling fan again, especially since it's been so hot lately. Well, since I rearranged my Quilt Room, I have been sewing up a storm! THE MOJO IS BACK!

I am almost finished with the sets of 6 1/2 inch scrappy 9-patches for another yahoo block_swappers swap.


I've been cutting up a lot of my scraps into various sizes since the bin I store them in is overflowing.

I've finished Steps 2 + 3 and am now working on Step 4 of the Orange Crush Mystery too!

I'm struggling with the 30's Tulip block for another yahoo block_swappers swap though. I cannot get the size of the block right. I am going to try it one more time . . . third times the charm, eh?

Digging Out

Well, I got a little bit of sewing done yesterday on the Orange Crush Quilt. I'm not counting on getting any done today as I have the 3 grand-girls home with me! I forgot to take and post a picture of the other wall in my Quilt Room yesterday - - I guess that's because that wall hasn't changed, but here it is anyways. I call them the IKEA Towers.
I was thinking, if I stacked the white behemoth fixtures as Candace suggested, I will have to purchase a taller ladder . . . I will have to check with my husband, as I am afraid that they will interfere with the ceiling fan that is sitting in the foyer in a box. As it stands now, I am going to have to remove a good deal of the stuff on top of the towers as the fan will definitely strike them when it's on . . . don't you just love, love, love, my ceiling light fixture?

Reorganizing the Quilt Room . . .

Well, in case you have wondering where I have been since last week - I've been reorganizing my Quilt Room. Remember my post from May 31st? Well, I had to get those behemoth fixtures out of my living room and into the Quilt Room before my family caused me bodily harm. This necessitated my unloading the odds 'n ends of furniture I had in there and trying to find some sort of organizational plan to place them in the new fixtures. It did not go well. I loaded up one of the fixtures with books and all of the other paraphernalia we quilters have and proceeded to roll it from the living room into the Quilt Room - - CRASH!! It was not pretty, the pegs that held up one of the shelves fell out, of course, this was the shelf with a lot of my books on it. By the end of the second day, I was just stuffing shit crap stuff onto the shelves. Of course, I am telling myself the entire time that as soon as everything is in there, I will go through all of it - yeah, right, when pigs fly! Oh, and one more thing, I am going to have to go on a diet if I continue to work in this room as you can see by the pictures below, there is not much room to move around. There is about 18 inches between my cutting table and the 2 behemoth fixtures. I think that there was a method to my husbands madness when he purchased these things. I even have a little refrigerator to put in the room now to hold my liquid lunch Slimfast, wine coolers, Pepsi, but now there is no room for it! I wonder what I have done to deserve this?

I can barely use my table in the middle of the room as it is piled high with stuff I don't know where to put . . .

Nine Patches are multiplying!

I been working furiously on those nine patches!

My friend Carolyn is taking me to lunch tomorrow to the Tea Room! I can hardly wait.

I had wanted to attend the NQA Show in Columbus but with the price of gas, I decided against it.

I think I would like to go to the movie theatre this weekend, I want to see the movie "Get Smart". I love, love, love, Steve Carell! He was an absolute riot in the 40 year old virgin. I still laugh my buns off when I think of him getting his chest waxed!

What I've been working on

I received swap blocks this past weekend while I was gone, and it's inspired me to make more some blocks for swaps that are coming due the end of June + July. So last night, in between snapping pictures of storage containers, I was working on my 30's repro 9 inch nine patches! I love 30's prints. I have found though, that either you love 'em or hate 'em. Of all of my quilting friends, I have never had one who was "on the fence" about 30's repro's! Well, I just went to take a picture of the blocks and the battery is dead, so I will have to update this post later with a picture, sorry! I've got all 3 girls home with me today as it's their day off from daycare. It's rather hectic, so I may not update until later this evening! Chow

Quilt room storage container contest

I have entered myself in a quilt room storage container contest on Sweet P's blog coffeetimequiltstudio I am posting some of the containers I use in my quilt room and have been visiting Sweet P's blog frequently to see what other quilters are using for storage! Here we go! This first picture is of my pizza boxes that I store BOM's and current small projects in

This is an over the door rack of some sort that I purchased at IKEA. Since I do not have a door in my room, I hung it over the curtain rod and I store my strips and the ironing spray bottles.

This is a heavy plastic envelope that I found at The Container Store. I love to use it for transporting my BOM block to class as it stays flat and doesn't "pool" at the bottom of the container. I can even use it as a writing surface to take notes in the BOM class.

This is one of two sizes, this is the one for sweaters (pictured), and the other one (not pictured) is narrower (to store shoes). The sweater container I use for larger pieces of fabric that I may be auditioning for a future project or stuff in the works. The shoe size container I use to store my fat quarters. I got these at IKEA too! The wire racks in the background are also from IKEA and they're cheap compared to the closet systems that I've seen at Home Depot and Lowe's . . .

The slacker is back!

Well, things have been busy here on the home front! We all traveled to Dublin Ohio this past weekend. It was a gorgeous weekend, even though it was very hot and humid. We stayed at Embassy Suites Saturday evening and visited the Columbus Zoo on Sunday. Emma, pictured here in pink is posing with a penguin that she kept calling "Happy"

Going to the zoo of course was NOT my decision - - I wanted to go back to a really nice quilt shop I found while looking for a hotel . . . www.quiltbeginnings.com

I wish I had had my camera on me as the shop samples were really nice and inspiring.
This week, the NQA is in Columbus - - I am hoping to go . . . http://www.nqaquilts.org/2007show/welcome.html
more later!

Step 3 completed

Step 3 is completed! I'm still working on Step 2 though. I really am glad that I am behind on this project as I am picking up some pointers from other participants in the mystery about mistakes they've made - so now that I am aware of them, I can pay close attention so as not to make the same mistakes.

It's really hot here, it's in the 90's and very humid, so we have been outside with the girls enjoying the water features and of course the swingset!

After a hard day of play in the heat, we came in to watch Shrek!

Started Step 2 + 4

I'm almost half way on Step 2, but then I got antsy and jumped ahead to Step 4! I only made a couple blocks to "test" my color choices. I had seen some pictures that were posted, and on some, the star was lost as there wasn't enough contrast. I didn't want to make the same mistake, which is so easy to do! I'm happy with my choice, so I will get back to work on Step 2.

On another note, all 3 girls were home with me today, and as usual, they got into something - - the leftover birthday cake! I was only upstairs for a minute or 2 throwing in a load of wash, and came back down to find Haley had pushed a chair from the living room into the kitchen so she could reach the cake. Apparently she did not have enough cake for breakfast this past Sunday!

Step 1 OC completed!

Finally, I finished Step 1 of the Orange Crush Mystery and I've begun Step 2! That's it for now as I have to get back to work on Step 2

Birthday cake for breakfast . . . .

Yesterday we celebrated the twins birthdays and this morning they found the cake on the dining room table where they apparently thought that it was left there for breakfast . . . Regarding yesterdays post about the fixtures for my sewing room - - well, we were unable to get one of them in there, so it will probably go in the living room and we'll store the girls toys in it. The other fixture is a bit smaller and as soon as I get the stuff unloaded from my sewing room and placed on it, I can wheel it in! We are going back today for 2 more of the same fixtures. When my son-in-law was loading one of the fixtures into the truck, he realized that there was something on top . . . guess what it was . . . it was a brand new Olfa Mat - a big one, 24 x 36. One of the ends was chewed up, but he thought that I'd be able to use it, so he threw it in the truck and brought it home!