Roughly 6 weeks ago or so my SIL, Kellie found a panel on Ebay I believe that she fell in love with. My brother is a huge Civil War buff and she wanted to piece a quilt for their upcoming 19th anniversary.
She mostly does English Paper Piecing but is really good at piecing on the machine too but she just doesn't have enough confidence in herself. I've quilted her machine pieced quilts before and they are good and square. :) Sooooo....she told me what she had in mind for the quilt that she wanted to make for my brother. I told her that I would help her get it assembled.
I did cut and frame up the panel and attach it to the surrounding tumblers and she pieced and pieced hundreds of these tumblers. She did every bit of those tumblers at WORK! Yep! At work! She is a nurse at a peditrician's office and he is awesome about letting them quilt. There are 3 ladies that work there and all 3 of them do EPP. He says that as long as all the work is caught up and patients are taken care of that he doesn't mind at all. He actually encourages them to be productive with something. LOL!
So we decided to do a fairly loose stipple and not over quilt the panel. I also made sure that I quilted around and not over their faces because I didn't want to distort them.
She has a ton of awesome fabrics in this quilt. Their anniversary is Monday April 1st so I figure she will give it to him this weekend. I told her to video it as I can't wait to see his face.
After I got the center panel ready and back to her she sewed like a crazy lady getting all of those tumblers done and back to me. I then trimmed it up and sewed the outer borders on. Now like I said, it's not like she didn't know how to do it but she also didn't have a place to actually use the machine and get those sewn on without him seeing it.
Oh I forgot it is backed with a brown Minkie and we used Hobb's batting. I will be doing the binding on it today. She is so excited to give it to him.
In the mail yesterday I received this charm pack. I signed up for a monthly delivery at Green Fairy Quilts for a charm pack each month. It's $9.99 and FREE SHIPPING! The charm pack that I got is called Remix. Not really my style but I'll keep them and use them in something. :)
All for this post...
I finally got my aunt's quilt finished. Not sure what the name of the pattern is but it's pretty.
I still need to clip some threads and bury some knots but I'll do that this morning. I figure she will pick it up later today. I used the panto called, "Slick" on it.
This past weekend I helped my brother John and SIL, Kellie at a local fair. He sets up at fairs and festivals in his spare time. He has a train that he takes kids for rides, a gem mine, cotton candy booth and now and lemonade booth. He didn't set the gem mine up at this one but did the other three. This was the first fair/festival for the lemonade stand and that is what I worked. He drove the train, my SIL and sister, Chantal worked the cotton candy booth and I did the lemonade. We had no clue how well or bad that it would do so this was a trial run. Let me tell you....I was covered up!!!! It was crazy! They were very pleased that it did so well. Some how I didn't get a pic of his train but here are the other booths....
He plans on buying a yellow tent like the pink one for the lemonade, like I said this was a trial run with it. I had a ton of fresh lemons that I run through the lemon dicer, then to the smasher, etc. It was fun but very busy. I had a great time! There were a bunch of other things there I just didn't have time to take a pic. LOL! These pics were actually taken before it all started.
I have a ton of quilting stuff coming up so expect lots of posts and pics!
Oh...and I almost forgot...on Richard's way home from work Thursday night the Jeep motor blew up! :( Not at all what we needed. :( It's always something it seems...
This photo sums up my sewing this week. Worked on a few more Orange Peel blocks and some hexies. I keep this tray in the living room so that it is easily picked up and worked on while I am sitting.
Did you notice the little brown basket/thread catcher? My dear friend, Shell made it for me. I love it! It works out so well for me to put my little threads and snips in. I can't believe that I didn't have one of these before. LOL!
I have also been cutting strips of various sizes out of my scrap basket. I have a quilt that I plan on making soon that has a million 1.5" strips in it so I am cutting 1.5", 2", and 2.5" strips. Those are sizes that I will eventually use anyway. Actually, the 2.5" strips is what I can cut my Windmills out of. I still have several more to cut out of the basket.
Yesterday was one of those days....Richard headed out to work at around 5:45am he called me at 6:30am and he said, "everything is okay now but call work and tell them that I will not be there today because the Jeep caught fire" WOW! Of course I freaked out!
He was just driving along and POOF, flames just shot out of the dashboard. He quickly pulled off the road and it was still dark but he could hear water running in a nearby creek so he grabbed an empty gatorade bottle and ran. The creek was about 30yds away so after about 3 trips he realized that he couldn't get the fire out like that. He then grabbed a pair of gloves that my mom had gave him from her work and they just happen to by fire retardant. He just started gabbing anything that was on fire and throwing it out. At this point it was just a bunch of burnt plastic and such. He said that at one point the flames were tickling the top of the Jeep and if that cloth top had caught fire we would have lost the whole Jeep. Thanking the Lord for watching over him and so grateful that it wasn't worse. As you can see the dash and wiring are a loss.
When he got back home he was coughing really bad from breathing so much of that in. He really smelled of burnt plastic too. This was his first day of work that he had missed at the hospital so I think that bothered him but it's not like he just didn't want to go to work.
He was making lots of calls yesterday about replacement parts and everyone kept saying the heater wiring is a big problem with the Jeeps. You can't beat a Jeep when it comes to going in bad weather and it gets good gas mileage but I guess every vehicle has a few issues. Since everyone kept saying that the heater wiring was a problem I decided to look and see if there had been any recalls issued but there wasn't.
So that about summed my day up yesterday! LOL! Shew...just thanking God that even though it was bad and costly that it wasn't any worse....we still have a Jeep that can be fixed and I still have my precious Richard.
The past few days I have been working on a few hexies! Things have been a little busy around here so that is all that I could get done.
Recap of the wonderful weekend....my brother, SIL, their 3 kids, Chantal and Ronnie all came over for supper. I enjoyed it so much. Families just don't seem to spend enough time together. It is hard when everyone works all different shifts but it was so nice. We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, broccoli and cheese, peas and cornbread and of course chocolate cake. Not a big fancy meal but it was nice and everyone was well fed. My brother made me cry as they were leaving, he said, "sis, you just don't know what this had meant to me" So we all have made plans that this will happen a lot more often. We missed mom as she was working but after she gets home we have plans to do it again with her. I was happy to spend the time together but also very sad that it was over.
My sister was here but I gave her strict instructions to keep her feet up. LOL! She had a doctor's appointment yesterday and she is dilated to 3 maybe a 4. The doctor said 3 but he said his assistant would say a 4 but he also told her that she would NOT go 40 weeks. She was 36 weeks yesterday so if labor starts he will not stop it. Last night she was having some light bleeding and back pain but it didn't progress in to anything. Shew....I'm excited and nervous and I have my little bag of hexies packed and ready to go to the hospital at any given moment. Her husband Ronnie works away like mom does a month at a time. He is due to leave out on Tuesday morning so he is really stressing. The doctor said that there was a good chance that Addison may make her appearance before he leaves!!! The thing with babies is that you never know when they will decide to come!!!
She mostly does English Paper Piecing but is really good at piecing on the machine too but she just doesn't have enough confidence in herself. I've quilted her machine pieced quilts before and they are good and square. :) Sooooo....she told me what she had in mind for the quilt that she wanted to make for my brother. I told her that I would help her get it assembled. 
I did cut and frame up the panel and attach it to the surrounding tumblers and she pieced and pieced hundreds of these tumblers. She did every bit of those tumblers at WORK! Yep! At work! She is a nurse at a peditrician's office and he is awesome about letting them quilt. There are 3 ladies that work there and all 3 of them do EPP. He says that as long as all the work is caught up and patients are taken care of that he doesn't mind at all. He actually encourages them to be productive with something. LOL!
So we decided to do a fairly loose stipple and not over quilt the panel. I also made sure that I quilted around and not over their faces because I didn't want to distort them. 
She has a ton of awesome fabrics in this quilt. Their anniversary is Monday April 1st so I figure she will give it to him this weekend. I told her to video it as I can't wait to see his face. 
After I got the center panel ready and back to her she sewed like a crazy lady getting all of those tumblers done and back to me. I then trimmed it up and sewed the outer borders on. Now like I said, it's not like she didn't know how to do it but she also didn't have a place to actually use the machine and get those sewn on without him seeing it. 
Oh I forgot it is backed with a brown Minkie and we used Hobb's batting. I will be doing the binding on it today. She is so excited to give it to him. 
All for this post...
