Another Patch Abilites..

CHECK! Another one completed. These are so sweet to make and I love how they finish up.

I did add some beads into the flower centers for interest. The kit came with little black beads, but since I do have an assortment of my own beads, I came up with this effect for my finish. I actually used three different beads. The orange are triangular while the yellow I used 2 sizes of regular beads.

Summer has been too busy. Between all the Dr's appointments, BBQs, get togethers, weddings,... it has been a blur! This past week, the Day care Center my daughter uses for her 2 little ones was closed for vacation, so we got to enjoy our youngest 2grandchildren whilst helping her out. They are such well behaved children.

When I had activities to keep them engaged for 30-60 minutes it was so much easier then when they just did as they wanted. I called out the Play do, the Fisher Price cars and garage, the animal bag, toy blocks, the jeep the 5 year old GD drives around the yard, swimming and the much needed rest-time (for Meme and Papi) it filled the days quickly.

Here is a photo with PGD#1 having curlers in her hair for the first time. We enjoyed a beauty day polishing the fingernails, washing and blow drying the hair and I was able to talk her into curling her hair. She thought she looked dumb.



Where do they come up with these ideas.



Shortly after removing them from her hair we fixed her dolly's hair too.



Nice to spend some quality time with them, but phew! Meme was very tired!





Her brother is going constantly and he loves his food! I spent more time closing the refrigerator door, trying to keep him out of it. Every 2 hours there was a snack or a meal and then he wasn't as mischievous, he'd be a happy camper. We also know a little trick. The boy (PGS#3) loves vacuums!
Put a vacuum anywhere around and he is busier than ever. Placing the tubes together, into each other and then the tool holder areas on the shop vac. I even used child (really toddler) labor to clean our front steps while they were here. Shhhh.., don't tell any authorities. I do realize about child labor laws, but they were having such fun that I thought I might as well try to get one of my own chores done. VBG!



Here is a recent photo of him. What a cutie pie and a smartie!

Jane

Quiltathon weekend

Retreat weekend, sewathon going on, well however you want to phrase it, many of my on line friends are sewing up a storm this weekend. I am amazed of how much every body gets done all the time. They produce a quilt in a week, and it takes me months. OH well, at least I am progressing more than I have been. This back injury surely limits my abilities, too often than not.

The guild my Mom belongs to in FLorida has a UFO challenge. How it works is they have you list some UFO Projects in a list and number them 1-5. Then the chair person draws out a number and you have 2 months to complete it before another number is drawn. So here is a list of the numbers and what Mom and I each plan to do for that respective number.

Mom's:
1-Bear Paw
2-Beth's White and Cream
3-Is her 4- Patch
4-Lone Star
5-Scrap quilt w/ prairie points
6-Moon Glow

Mine:
1-Alien Invasion
2-PAtience Corners
3-Double Four PAtch
4-Montana Log Cabin
5-Snow friends and Convergence Wallhangings
6-Kashmir IV

Of course the guild has a nominal fee and prizes given out to encourage and add accountability, but I play along in Northern NY unofficially. Previous years I have NOT been too successful at finishing anything within the 2 month constraints, but this year is going to be different. SO the number I need to finish by April 13th is Number 4. Yippee! It's the one I wanted to work on next.


Happy to see progress of pgs#3 valance. I've had this mantra of

"the dreading is worse than the doing"

going on in my head recently thanks to a Ruth, a sage voice on stashbusters and it has liberated me into taking the steps to finally get to it. For such a little thing, it took up quite a bit of yardage. 2.5 yards of stash used. Right now my daughter has it to audition it in the window for the length she wants. I used the hotdog pillowcase method to sew the strips of fabric together for the hem so that way wall of hte seams are contained within. And with the overall width of 92.5 inches I figured it would be difficult to turn. Nope, not with the dimensions I used.
Note to self here: The bottom hem = 11 inches, accent band = 3 inches and the main curtain part = 18 inches. I had to get 3 WOF cuts from each fabric piece to get the required 2.5 mulitiplication in for the finished curtain width of 92.5".
Also was able to finsh a fab four of mine.



Candy Hearts from Patchabilities with a little change to the pattern. Deciding not to do the piecework in the top, that the contrast of the hearts on a solid red ground was better in my eyes so tha't what happened. But to help give it a better finish, I added a small bright white piping before doing the binding. It gave it a nice little frosted effect. I love the white fabric, it has on the selvage M.E. Hordyszynski for Michael Miller and it only has 2 paint chips 1and 5 but this fabric has a beautiful ahnd and an irridescence to it. The hanger provided with this month's kit seemed inferior than their prior months, I wonder if they have a new distributer for them. I might contact Patch-Abilities and let them know my feelings. Thank goodness I had a hanger on hand with a heart motif on it that was much better suited.

Stay well,
Jane