I had a great weekend!

This was a great weekend for me. Friday I didn't do much of anything, I couldn't I didn't get up untill 1:00pm. I do sleep late sometimes but not that long. My late is around 10 or 10:30. We went shopping for things that we needed for the cookout on saturday. The family quilters were coming to my house. We cooked chicken legs and thighs on the grill. We quilters exchanged our secret sister bags and they had birthday presents for Aunt Carol and I since our birthdays are in June. I got cows, fabric, and some tools to use with my quilting. My stepdaughter called while everyone was here. She forgot my birthday on the right day and was sorry. Brittany brought my present over later that afternoon. More fabric and buttons and a giftcard for Joann's. All things that I really like. We had our fat quarter exchange and I can't figure out what I want to make yet. I know that it will be a quilt but I don't know what pattern or how big it will be. When we are all done with the exchange we will have 84 different fabrics. At least we hope they will all be different. The last time we did this I made my bearpaw quilt. Last year we did scraps. I haven't used all of mine. I made some tiny bowties with the first scrapbags I got.I don't know if I liked exchanging scraps I can make enough of my own without getting them from someone else. I like doing FQ's or blocks. I bought Quilters home mag. today, That man sure can make me laugh! It seems like he knows each and every one of us. And coments on all of our bad habits. While I was shopping at Joann's today I found a bright colored stripe fabric that I think will work with my retreat challenge quilt as the outside border and a solid purple that might work as the binding. I will have to wait till I get the quilt done to that point. I could change my mind. It has been really quiet here this weekend Nick is on vacation with his mom and Korey and Gert went home yesterday morning. Nick called a little while ago and said that they are on the way home. Going through Dayton at that time. I was going to sew today but I never got past putting my new buttons away and cleaning up Nicks mess in there. I wish the barn was done. It still has no power. I have been tempted to run a heavy duty cord out there and using it that way. If we could get it wired I would move out there. The man that was going to wire it has been sick for awhile now. We went to a farm market today and got fresh from the field strawberries. Short cake tomorrow night, yum! I could keep on going but I have to get ready for bed 3:30 comes early.

Is this our summer?

Where did the sun go? I get the pool opened and cleaned up after being closed all winter and the sun goes away. It took Nick and I three days to get the dirt and leaves cleaned out and to get the water sparkly clean so I thought that he and I would get to swim and play last night and tonight but it is way too cold to swim [its not heated unless the sun is out]. Nick leaves tomorrow for vacation with his mom. I am almost ready to turn the heat back on in the house. If it does not warm up for the weekend I hope I can get some sewing done. Nick won't be here to kick me out of "his room" . Saturday is the family quilt get together. That is always fun. Nothing like a day of eating and gossiping. And oh yea quilts! Thats what it is all about. It also keeps some of us in the family in touch. The last three quilt blocks for the raffle quilt has been found so it will be bigger than it was in the picture. Like we have been looking for them for about 2 months maybe longer. Today is my 50/th birthday. It has been a very uneventfull day. You would think that something would happen. Something good I would hope. I don't feel like I am 50 or that I am smarter than at 49 but maybe that will come later. The day just comes and goes like every other day. Bummer I wanted fireworks or something!!!! Butch and Nick did bake me a cake today.

I think I am ready for the meeting tomorrow morning. I have my notebook and my sewing things ready along with my machine and quilts. I also baked 2 cakes so Joanne will be happy. My grandkids think it is someones birthday cause I don't bake cakes very often. They will think that they died and went to heaven when I bring the leftovers home. I started to do block 2 of my retreat challenge quilt and found that I cut my pieces too big but I can work with that it is better than too little. We had 3 of the littles here today. Lucky us. They just can not get along. You know how it is with kids. It was ok till this afternoon when it started to rain and they had to come in the house. This house just is not big enough for the three of them. Nick went to bed at 9:oo so he can be up to go to quilt club with me in the morning. He must like to hang out with old ladies. He says that he has fun when he goes. He wants to learn how to make a quilt. One of these days I will start working with him.

Weekend

Here it is the weekend!! For me anyway. I only work 4 days a week but 10 hours a day. Nick and I have been working really hard to get the pool ready for sunday. We are having a cook out for fathers day. I have it all brushed down and tomorrow I will vacume the gunk out. The bottom of it looked crappy this year. I think the cover was letting water through it. That means dirt and everything else. Nick is reading this as I write it. Can't write anything that I don't want him to know. He is getting too smart for his britches. I have quilt club on saturday. I think that we are having a sewing day. I have to find something to take. It is my turn to take the treat. I have to think of something really good. Joanne said so. Mom is going to help with it too. nickolas wants to say hi, so hi to who ever reads this. This meeting is going to be a good one. We get to show our challenge quilts for the first time. I can't believe that mine is done and has been done and I won't be up till 2 or 3 in the morning trying to finish it like I usually am. I even have my flag done for show and tell. I also have 7 blocks done for my retreat challenge quilt. I only have 17 more to do of that style and 17 of another to do. Can I finish it by Febuary? I can only hope. I will unless something else catches my eye. I am having fun with this and my FQ's are all bright colors so it is easier to work on that something dull and boring.

Quiet week

Not much has been going on this week. The kids came over and helped me take the cover off of the pool saturday. I do have a mess to clean up. After getting it filled with water I tried to get the pump going and had no luck. It seemed that the outside plug went bad and I wasn't getting any power to it. Mike came over tonight and put a new plug in for me. Now I can get to work and get it cleaned. I did get the chems. in it tonight so that will help. Today was Nick's last day of school and now he thinks that he is staying here for the summer. He said that he might go home for a day once in a while. I did get my retreat challenge quilt started and I have 7 blocks done. I can't wait to get it done now. My fq's are all bright colors and I am putting black with them and it looks good together. I am paper piecing it and that means that all of my seams should match up when i am done. we will see. I had to cut 1" noodles to use and Nick came out with a handful of them last night and asked if he could have them.I don't know for what but I couldn't let him have them cause I don't know if I willl have enough as it is. This is the biggest project that I have done this way.

What should I start next?

Now that I have the raffle quilt top done and my challenge quilt all the way done, binding and everything but the lable I have been looking for something else to start or finish. I have been thinking about starting my retreat quilt. It was my idea so i better get mine done. I have everything for it except for the outside border. I haven't found what I want for it yet. I have the long weekend to start it. The only time I won't be able to work on it is tomorrow when I am going to pick up my Pfaff machine. Yes it is done!. I hope it works longer this time. They said that they found the problem this time. And saturday when we are taking the lid off of the pool. I could have used it today. I was very hot when I got off of work. The 10 hour days are going to kill me. I know that it is only for 4 days a week but the hours poop me out. Its going to get ugly when it really gets hot out. I got our air turned on today. I had to change the filter before I could. It feels so nice. I think that I will sleep good tonight. So will Butch. He didn't sleep good last night, he said that he was too hot. I don't know if it was or not I was sleeping like a log! A while back I wrote about hanging things on our walls again. I have every thing hung up except for my quizzel which I can't find [Butch put it somewhere] and I need to find something for on a shelf above the couch. Probably a cow since the big picture has cows in it. Its not like I won't be able to find a cow for there I do have a few around here. I also need to make two small quilts to replace the two I have hanging now. They are getting old and faded. I think I made them around 12 years ago. I even hand quilted them, now there isn't enough money in the world to make me hand quilt something. Maybe when I really get old I will do more of that. Thank you cousin Lisa for getting your long arm quilting machine!!

Raffle quilt

I have the top done now it goes to the machine quilter for her to work her magic on it. Soon it will be a beautiful quilt. I will pass out the tickets and pictures at the next guild meeting so we can start selling them. I hope we do as good on this on as we did last year.

As you can see it is a big quilt. 96x96 done in pinks and browns. We had Mikey's birthday party yesterday, he was 16, so look out he will be on the roads soon. I would post a picture of him but that one didn't turn out very good.

Our Gabby girl is learning how to ride her bike without training wheels. Nick took this picture so it is not the best but he is learning how to use the camera. Now if only Korey would. He really doesnt have much to do with his bike. He would rather play with swords and knives. Not real ones .

We kept Korey and Gabby for 2 days and for once they were fairly good. That don't happen very often. Nick was here too. Usually when we have the three of them they fight about everything. I told you how Nick was learning how to take pictures, Well this one just showed up yesterday . I think he is doing a Brittany. She is always taking pictures of her self with my camera or my phone so when I use them there she is. I have the binding sewn on my challenge quilt now all I have to do is the hand sewing on it. I can't put a picture of it on here yet. I am not showing it to anyone till I show it at the guild meeting. I just love it. I got my counter put on last night thanks to Kare and Brittany. I got it as far as saved on my favorite list and didn't know how to get it on here. I do now! Thank you Kare and Brittany!!!