STUD mini

well, i joined a flickr group swap til you drop for a monthly mini quilt swap. i'm so excited! july's theme is 'summer lovin' and i already have ideas for what to make. june's theme was 'texture.' i'm so anxious about starting july's mini that even though i didn't participate in the month of june i just had to make myself a texture mini (plus i had all these wonderful textured fabrics in my box of work things that i dug through today). they are all commercial grade upholstery fabric so the nickname for my texture mini is Lumpy.

reunions

well, this weekend was full of reunions. friday night when i was packing i realized that i only had 2 pairs of shorts, both fairly athletic. so i went on a search for shorts and could only find stupid long shorts so i cut them off and hemmed them up to make regular shorts. i also made pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting to take to my college reunion.

saturday i finished up my needle-back-zebra-cat pin cushion and also hemmed a shirt that was really long. we went to the college reunion for the rest of the day and evening.

sunday we went to the family reunion. the weather was beautiful and when we came home we opened up the house and let all the fresh air back in.

makeover

well, i have finally given my blog a makeover. i think it needed it. it was seeming quite dark and gloomy. and since i have, in a sense, had a makeover it's about time my virtual self did too.

it seems summery and colorful to me now :)

well, i can't believe it's friday already and i can't really remember what i did all week. but i do know it went by relatively quickly and not too boringly. i spent some time working on a project. i spent a little time reading and a little time sunbathing. i've probably spent too much time at the computer. i cleaned all the baseboards and miniblinds, even washed some curtains. i did a lot of gardening it seems- repotted some peppers, herbs, and cucumber that were either too dry or being taken over by the zuchini plant. took care of dental things. and i went to the gym a couple times went on a few walks with penny and even lived through the heat. today it is really nice outside, a mild 90 degrees with a gentle breeze (very nice given what the rest of the week has been like). but looking forward to next week when i might get to open the house up again, yay! highs in the 70's.

looking forward to the weekend filled with reunions. a college friend get-together saturday and a family reunion on sunday.

for the rest of the day i think i'll sew some more of my quilt and if it cools down enough i might even take a trip to menards to get a couple more tiny pots for the few flowers i have left fighting to survive in thier plastic packages. i'll be on my own for supper so maybe i'll even force my very sleepy dog to go on another walk this evening.

enjoy the new colors! oh, and some tulips from earlier this spring.

hum of the ac

well, we held out as long as we could but when the inside of the house reached 87 degrees on saturday we gave in and turned on the air conditioner.

my first week at home was fairly productive and didn't move too slow.

monday i started to take care of all the "unemployed" tasks like scheduling dentist appointments and such. i went to the gym for almost an hour and then ran some errands: radio shack to redeem a coupon, menards for knobs, khol's for white undershirts $10 free, and the fabric store. i put away the dishes and did the laundry, took penny on a walk, and read for an hour. for supper i made some kind of turkey terryaki with snow peas on rice.

tuesday i did more laundry, went to yoga at the gym, put the new knobs on the old dresser, sorted all my clothes in the closet, folded and packed the work clothes into the empty dresser, vacuumed the closet, investigated flex, took brett's old glasses to lenscrafters for new lensese, stopped at the bank, and read for an hour.

wednesday i read in the morning then i sewed up the holes in penny's bed, did more laundry, did more dishes, went to get the veggie/fruit groceries, read some more and then went to the eye doc.

thursday i continued to do laundry, read a little, cleaned out the pantry, painted the shelf supports in the pantry, went to lenscrafters for my new glasses, read a little more, and reorganized the pantry.

friday i got to visit my niece. she's getting so big!

saturday we were lazy but we did go pick out new sunglasses for brett and ordered the Rx lenses (which will take 3 weeks to arrive). we rented a movie that i had seen in high school, frequency, because i thought of it because of brett's new obsession with ham radio. i totally forgot what had happened in the movie and completely recommend it to anyone who can't find something in the new releases. we also got ice cream and root beer at the grocery store for root beer floats.

sunday morning we went on a bike ride and brett has been working on the computer while i've been reading all day. pretty much a lazy weekend but it's been nice. and we have baby rabbits in our backyard.

happy flag day

i remember when i was about 10 years old and i planned a flag day picnic with my neighborhood friends.... funny holiday, but i'll never forget it because of the picnic we planned.

i am going to participate in my library's summer reading program. i even got a book on orchids; so i don't kill the plants that lived perfectly on my desk and are now home and not sitting in a south-facing window.

no laundry to do today because i'm saving it for during the week. so far it's been a relaxing weekend, except for all the stress. beautiful weather today.

i sewed and pressed 12 9-patch blocks for my quilt. still deciding if i want to cut and sew a few more to make it a little bigger.....

the ranks

i have joined the ranks of unemployment. which kind of sucks but i guess i can do some things around the house for a little while and it seems that the government is trying to make being unemployed easier right now. :-/

i need a list of things to do so that i don't end up bored to tears every day:

quilts - i have fabric for 2-3 quilts that i have not started yet. i have 1 quilt in the works that i'm very excited about.

dolls - i have enough fabric for about 4 fleece dolls that will be fun to make

dresses - i got some patterns for little girls dresses awhile back but never made them. the unfortunate thing is i only have fabric for 1 of the patterns so far

garden - well, i wish i had a bigger garden that needs tending to but i have my pretty pots to look at and they should keep up well with my nearly undivided attention

books - i have been keeping a list of book ideas for the last few years and never done anything about them... although i should start out by doing a sketch each day

library - there is a short list of books that i have been wanting to read like the pile of books we found at the lake house we visited last summer (snapped a photo of the bindings) and some more theoretical?philosophical? books on what and how we eat

penny - we've been working on this new 'bang' trick that she's picking up quickly but hasn't got a lot of practice with yet. it will also be nice getting her back into field shape

house - lots of cleaning that needs to be done that has been avoided for the last 2 years... all the little things that you put off because nobody will ever see them

gym - continue going to the gym and being able to stay for more than 30min will be nice

camera - i'll finally have some time to learn features of my camera and start practicing taking really good photos

well, that's a pretty good list and i think i'll start off tomorrow by sleeping in....

summer

well, even though summer is not officially here yet, today was the first day that it was warm and humid. we had a long, stressful work week and then had a long stressful family visit friday and saturday (not because of family, but because of circumstances). sunday was a much needed lazy day. i slept in until 9:30 and then got up for breakfast. i gave brett a haircut that was about 5 weeks overdue, showered, ate lunch, tested out some mattresses, grocery shopped, and had a snack. for the rest of the afternoon i cut out my quilt squares so that i can start sewing my 9 patch blocks. i'm looking forward to feeling like i accomplished something when putting together the blocks. doing 1 each night seems like it will feel substaintial and less time consuming like the rows in my past quilts. we ate hotdogs and corn on the cob for supper. now it's time to relax before going to bed early. oh yeah, i finally got my dahlias in the ground. only 2 of the 4 i ordered this year germinated but i'm really happy with my pots this year so i think that will be ok. and a bowl of summer cherries from the grocery store.

new quilt

well, i'm still trying to get a collection of fabrics that i love and here is the first quilt that i will make out of fabrics that were not bought together (well, sort of).

some of the fabrics i got together: flannel floral backing, red dots, colorful trees, green/blue stripe, orange and white, and multi-color swirly.

and some i got at a quilt show: blue floral, multi-color floral.

i got some for baby bibs i made: brown stripe, brown polka dot, blue polka dot, green/multi stripe and green/blue polka dot.

and some i got at unique fabric stores.

i am going to embellish it with ribbons and ric-rac (the orange polka dot ribbon is from my sister's wedding cake, the green striped ribbon is from my '08 derby hat and the red ric-rac is from my sewing room curtains).

i'm very excited about this quilt and i'm going to try a new pattern, one that my mom made. funny enough, we both picked some of the same fabrics. it will be a tossed 9 patch. i'm going to make 12 types of squares (2 from each combo) and cut them opposite with the blue center square. so, again it will look similar to my moms quilt. but i'm not about to attempt swirly quilting so it will look different finished. plus i have a combo of flannel and cotton and a flannel back.

i haven't started cutting yet, right now i'm going to just enjoy the fabrics layed out on the guest bed.

lazy days

well, the weekend was pretty much as lazy as it could get.
saturday we sat around the house and did nothing. really, nothing. we did go to sears and order a digital antenea, hoping that we can cancel our cable package. we had pizza bread for lunch. we had toasted bagels with cream cheese for supper. in the evening we went to carson's to look for a swimsuit. i found the first one i picked up and tried it on, it fit and i love it! i also got a pair of earings and brett got his glasses adjusted.
sunday we went on a bike ride in the morning. it was perfect weather with almost no wind. i lazed around until lunch and brett cooked some hotdogs on the grill and we had left over baked beans and sweet potato fries. i vacuumed and did some laundry and cleaned the kitchen in the afternoon. we also went to the grocery store. we made bbq chicken (for me) and portabello mushroom (for brett) on the grill with cheesey rice and corn on the cob for supper. after supper i baked some dark chocolate cupcakes with strawberry frosting and blueberries on top.
monday, although not part of the weekend, was a productive evening. i made turkey tacos for supper. i cleaned the master bathroom, folded and put away 3 loads of laundry, hung all the clothes drapped on the shelves in the closet, and switched out the winter-summer wardrobes. i even sorted out some summer weight sweaters that need to go to the dry cleaners.
tonight i hope to do a little dusting, not sure what i'm going to make for supper yet, and maybe cut some squares for a quilt.... back to work for now.