Got 'R Done!

I've been procrasting on finishing my niece Courtney's quilt. It's a beautiful quilt and I have no grudges against it.... I think I let the size of it intimidate me. King sized quilts will do that to ya! So this weekend I took it in baby steps. Friday I cut out all the strips for the binding, pressed them & prepared them to be joined at a miter. Saturday morning I sewed the strips together. Then without thinking, planning or making excuses, I just decided to dive in & tackle it. I sewing the entire binding on - all by machine - on Saturday afternoon. Now I'm very happy to say It's Done! What a nice statement...it's done.

*insert big happy sigh*




We took pictures of it this afternoon. Can you guess which side Blake is holding up & which side Cole is holding???? I 'stitched in the ditch' (via freemotion quilting)all over the quilt. Everywhere 2 fabrics met, I quilted. As you can see from the back - it's nothing real fancy, but it's a lot of quilting. I used a king sized sheet for the backing, and some bright green fabric for the binding.

I hope you like it, Courtney! I'll get it mailed out to you this week....definitely in time for you to snuggle under it during Fla's so-called winter. =D

Yet another first day of school

*Look VERY carefully at the number of fingers Ian is holding up.*



August 6th - the First Day of School...the boys were not impressed, thrilled or otherwise joyful. Summer went by WAY too fast. I think they still had plans...plans to sit around all day & do nothing, plans to watch more movies, plans to play more X-Box, plans to munch more junk food, plans to make plans. But the schools had other plans...So off we go ~ during the hottest part of the year. No more plans - because now is the time for action! Ian's life will be busy with early morning First Priority, after school band practices, and Friday night football games. And Cole's life will start a new chapter - middle school, and all the ups & downs in that wonderful pit of hormonal despair. But Cole is really excited about one thing - he's started band now, too. So soon we'll have the sound of a beginning saxophone player wailing, squeaking & hooting around the house.

Sounds like we need to make some plans to buy earplugs. =)

Just 'cause I love this picture....

Sometimes the magic works, and the button gets pushed at exactly the right moment.
Thank you, Rachel, for helping me freeze such a cool 'EPIC' moment in time.

Yuck Night at FBCLS

The most fun filled photo-shoot I've EVER done was last night at our church youth YUCK Night. I knew it would be wet, wild & yucky, but nothing could have prepared me for this...



We who are about to be YUCKED salute you!







First you get good and wet in the 'HURRICANE GAME'.


NExt we add a little slime, thanks to the Egg Drop. You have to crack the egg & drop it into the little cup.






Now we 'made some biscuits' with our messy, slimey, wet faces. They have to find the M&M candies hidden in the plate of flour.

Jacie's method was to BLOW the flour out of the plate!


Cole's method of cleaning up between games.


The spaghetti relay race rapidly deteriorated into a food fight! YUCK! (This is when I got slimed, and I was just an innocent bystanding taking pictures!)









"Harvesting the spaghetti"


Next is 'Redneck Paintball'. A large marchmallow is dipped in goo...nacho cheese, chocolate pudding, mustard, etc, and then your fling it via a plastic spoon at your designated team-member target.
This too turned into a massive food fight.








John looks like a man on a mission - determined and focused on revenge!



Now we move on to the "Zit game."
One team member is given a peanut butter 'facial'. Then the team tosses mini-marshmallows at them. The one with the most 'zits' wins!


Dusty was a marshmallow magnet!









Rachel taken a clean-up dip & toss.

Now the icky-ist, gaggy-ist game of all! "Calf Snot Shots"

I drew the line at photographing kids tossing their cookies...but you get the idea.





Finally, some good ol' slip & slide fun!



What a crazy, fun, icky, slimy, messy, gaggy, night! And these pictures are just the tip of the iceberg! FBCLS Uth Rock!!!

Quilters have their own language....

I don't consider myself bilingual, but on second thought I just might be fluent in another language. This language might sound completely weird & alien to most folks, but not to quilters...because it's the language of quilting!

These are just a few fun terms we use to describe our obsession....

•FART = Fabric Acquisition Road Trip
•FQ = Fat Quarter
•HST = Half-Square Triangle
•LAQ= Long Arm Quilter
•LQS = Local Quilt Shop
•PIGS = Projects in Grocery Sacks
•SABLE = Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy
•SEX = Stash Enhancing eXperience (or eXcursion)
•STASH = Special Treasures All Secretly Hidden
•TGIF = Thank God It's Finished!
•TOT = Tone-on-Tone
•UFO = UnFinshed Object
•WHIMM = Works Hidden In My Mind
•WIP = Work In Progress
•WISP = Work In Slow Progress
•WOF = Width of Fabric
•WOMBAT = Waste of Money, Batting, and Time
•WOW = White On White

Here's is one of my personal favs.... It started as a WHIMM, inspired by this picture of a quilt I saw on a calendar...

After much thought, and many hours creating my own pattern via EQ (Electric Quilt ~ my quilt design software program.) the idea progressed to a real WIP,
and then this...

But alas, it is currently a UFO. It's safely stored in a large box - all the fabric I collected on a FART & SEX trip (did I really say that!?) & the designs I drew up neatly stacked together...waiting for me to change it from a WISP to a TGIF... but I sincerely hope is never turns into a WOMBAT!

A Day of Watery Fun

Today we decided to do something......different!!

We haven't done any traveling this summer, so we needed a break and wanted to create a memory. After much discussion, we decided to go to the Georgia Aquarium! Despite a VERY late start, and a long, hot, wait to get in (almost 2 hours!), I have to say - it was wonderful! The variety of water creatures, each one uniquely suited for it's environment, is amazing. God's creativity is endless - He made the Beluga whales smile, and have the ability to bend their neck...the only whale in the world with this ability. He made the tropical fish with such bright beautiful colors, and the otters with fun personalities. And the WHALE SHARKS! WOW is not a big enough word to describe these massive, beautiful giants. I could sit & watch them swim by all day long & never get tired of it. The big tank at the GA Aquarium was so cooooool! The big ol' groupers, giant, graceful manta ray, so many various sharks, and those 4 giant whale sharks all share a tank the size of a football field. WOW!

Here's a few pictures from our day....

Before and After

I confess. I let things go. I mean REALLY go, as in almost beyond help and way too close to the point of no return. I've been meaning to do something about it for the last 6 months, but other daily demands just seemed to take priority. And to be honest - I procrastinated....a lot! So it just got worse, and worse and worse.

But NOT ANYMORE!!

This weekend I decided to do something about it.

I turned over a new leaf.

I did it....

I cleaned my sewing room!

I don't actually sew in my 'sewing room'....it's actually my laundry room. (My sewing machine/cabinet is just outside this room, in the kitchen.) The washer/dryer/freezer are on the far right side of the room, and all my sewing stuff - fabric, books, patterns, ironing board, and a bzillion miscellaneous crafting/sewing supplies are stored on various shelves on the left side of the room. And I have various UFOs ~ UnFinished Objects, and PIGS ~ Projects In Grocery Sacks stored in boxes, too. These boxes vary from shoebox sized, to copy paper sized.

So Saturday I started clearing out, cleaning, tossing out and organizing. I spent most of the day in there & still didn't finish. I did more today and feel like I'm almost done, but still need a bit more organizing. I have a small filing cabinet that I want to put underneath my cutting table - which will hold/organize a lot of my purchased patterns, as well as my own drafts, notes & patterns. But for the most part - it's finally respectable and reasonably presentable,... and bloggable.

So I submit for your contemplation and evaluation.... BEFORE
(Don't hate me. I know it's awful.)




And AFTER..... (*happy sigh*)



The funniest part of the whole thing - See that box on top the wooden cabinet... it's full of Christmas gifts! And since both birthdays have passed...I guess they'll be Christmas presents again!
SHHHHH ~ don't tell the boys where their gifts are hidden!