Checking In

I just realized it's been a week since I posted, so I thought I'd check in quickly while Stanley Steemer cleans my carpets! It's been a busy week with almost no sewing time. I did manage to quilt a customer quilt over the weekend and will load another when I finish this. We've been working nights and weekends on our Canoe Carnival float...picture a 20 foot tall building made of 1" thick foam, along with a street scene of smaller buildings, mounted on a deck, which is mounted on 2 - 17 foot canoes and paddled around a lake. I'll post pictures once it's done and has floated...if it stays afloat! :o) It's great fun to work on the floats and we've built one every year since we moved to town. The photo is of last year's float. Our theme was "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". You can see the newspaper taxi, tangerine trees and at the very top right, Lucy, swinging on the moon. At the center, left, you can see the two paddlers sitting on chairs behind the float. One of them is my DH. You can also see one of the canoes...

So, that's it from here...I'm off to quilt!

Gratitudes

1. Men to clean my carpets!

2. Good friends to build floats with, to blog with, to quilt with

3. Summer camp for my youngest

4. I am blessed in so many ways...

I've been reading...

but I haven't had time to post to my blog, so I'm making up for it tonight. Three posts, with pictures even!

Last week's Vacation Bible School went off without a hitch. (She says with a great sigh of relief!) Ellen (my 16 year old) did a great job of organizing, keeping the kids moving through their groups and just running VBS. She showed quite a few doubters just what a 16 yo can do, I was so proud of her! And...she was asked to run it again next year, so everyone must have been pleased! She is working with another girl next year to run it, then the new girl will take over the following year and have a new helper. It will be a great way to keep VBS a project for the youth of the parish. Thanks for all of your kind words about Ellen...she was a brave soul to take this on!

I got my Pfaff back last week from the shop and she runs like a dream...not bad for a 15 year old machine. I haven't had much time to play with her because I've picked up my paintbrush again to paint the family room. It's a dark paneled room and I'm slowly getting it painted...pictures to follow in the next posts!

The quilt I've included in the post is a little one hanging in my foyer. I made it from a kit (I just didn't have enough little pieces of batiks to make it on my own) that I bought at McKenna Ryan's booth at the International Quilt Festival in Houston a few years ago. I put it together in a weekend at my guild's retreat...everything from cutting the fabric, fusing it, quilting it and binding it. It was completely done when I left for home...I was a woman on a mission that weekend! I love how it turned out.

Studio pictures follow in another post, then the family room. Time for me to get back to work...maybe I'll load a customer quilt!

Studio

Finally, some pictures of my studio! I don't have everything up and I'm not sure if things will stay where they are. I have bins to hang on the wall above the filing cabinet in the corner which I haven't hung yet. I'll probably also change the quilts, when I have some more to hang. The color didn't turn out quite as yellow as I thought it would...it's more peach than yellow, but it looks good in the pictures!

The china closet holds my threads, templates and batting. The large closet holds customer (and my) quilts. I'll need to make some sort of valance for the window. We also took down the broken doors between the studio and computer room (AKA living room and dining room!) and I'll need to remove the clips and paint that area.

House Painting

I'm hoping I got these in the right order! The first picture is of the end of the family room that I haven't painted yet. It's very dark and depressing in there...although that's the way my youngest daughter likes it! The second picture is the end that I've painted. The paint color is called "Pecan" and I've left the trim along the top and the ceiling beams in the dark wood. I've painted the rest of the trim a cream color to match the trim in the rest of the house. Even with this small area painted, it makes the room much brighter. Tomorrow I start painting the other side of the room! This is the last room in the house that I will need to paint...I hope!

Gorgeous...

This is one of the prettiest quilts I have ever quilted, I just wish it could have lived with me! The pattern is called "Faceted Jewels" and it is put out by Glad Creations. It is almost all batiks, some of the lights are an oriental fabric and together it is just stunning. The customer pieced it beautifully and it lays so flat, it was a pleasure to quilt it.

I don't have anything of my own to show right now. My Pfaff has been in the shop for 2 weeks and even though I pulled out my Featherweight, I haven't had time to sit down and sew. I did paint my "studio" AKA the living room. I've rearranged the furniture that was in there so it left me with more wall space to hang quilts. I've got a few on the walls, I'll post pictures when I finish!

This week is Vacation Bible School at our church. My 16 year old daughter is directing this year and she has done a great job of putting it all together. I'm very proud of her! There are about 40 kids signed up to participate as well as a crew of teen and parent volunteer helpers. This is the first time I've worked on VBS and I had a lot of fun last night. I'm the registrar, so for me the hard part is done. I don't know that we'll get many more kids to sign up tonight. When I finished my part last night, I helped in the kitchen with snacks. Tonight I hope to sneak around and see what happens in the groups.

I am a Violet

You Are a Violet

"You have a shy personality. You tend to hesitate before trying new things or meeting new people. But once people get to know you, you open up and show the world what you are really all about."


Wow, I'm impressed! This is pretty accurate! Thanks to whoever got this one going...

Happy Independence Day!

I hope everyone is having a safe and wonderful 4th! We celebrated yesterday here...today will just be a BBQ with our family.

Yesterday morning we went to the Andrew Wyeth exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (The picture is of the fireworks over the art museum, which will take place tonight!) It was a spectacular exhibition of his work. The detail in his paintings is sensational, he was a true master at his craft. After seeing the exhibit with our 2 daughters and one of our older daughters' friends, we headed down to Johnny Rocket's on South Street (where all the hippies meet!). Their milkshakes are amazing!

After lunch, we drove home to get ready for the local fireworks. With the cooler filled with sandwiches, water, M&Ms and Cracker Jack (our fireworks tradition!) we went to Freedom Park. We found a spot, spread out our quilt and listened to the band while my husband read and I did some applique. We were soon joined by friends and we relaxed together until the fireworks began. Medford put on an amazing show last night, there were several times when we thought the show was over and then it began again! It was a great night, the weather cooperated and we all had fun.

There hasn't been much quilting going on this week, but I'm headed into my studio now to work on finishing a customer quilt. Once this is done I can start preparing my studio to paint it. I've chosen a color called "Cottage Yellow" from the Eddie Bauer line of paints at Lowe's. I hope to have it done by early next week so I can get back to work.

Enjoy the holiday festivities everyone!

Carolyn