some of this - some of that

I finally got moved in the middle of November.  It took forever for the manager to get the new apartment ready!!  This was the easiest move I've ever made!!  I moved by shopping cart and sliders.  There were only a couple of things that really had to be carried.  The sewing room is already mostly unwrecked.  I got the November pencil series wall hanging done and then I decided I didn't like the December one so I made a different one for December.

I finally got my divorce filed in October.  I should be final any day now.  My decree is in the judges box to be signed.  When it's final I'll get the stuff to make carrot cake to take to the office.

I started doing laps around the building.  It's four flights up and four flights down with a long hall between each staircase.  I'm up to two laps at a time and I am doing laps twice a day now.  I can definitely feel it.  My first goal is to get below 160 and stay there.  My weight bounces up and down by 3 to 4 pounds though so it'll take a while to stay below that weight.  Right now I'm pretty much staying below 164.  I was right at 168 at the end of October.  But more than just my weight the laps will improve my blood sugar, blood pressure, and hopefully my cholesterol.  I did lose some weight over the last year too.  I think I was right at 178 when I started my job last October.

I get a sewing room back!!

I'm really excited.  There's a two bedroom apartment available in my building.  It's just down the hall.  I have some friends that will help and there are 5 shopping carts in the building and I have a ton of sliders.  It'll probably take a couple of days but it'll be real fast and easy to do at least.

I'm also going to move the houseplants that are on a third floor landing down to the second floor.  The lady that waters them isn't getting around very well these days and is having a problem carrying water up to the plants.  I'll get them moved and then one by one I'll get them repotted.

I have three new wall hangings designed, two in the pencil series and one more in the large seasonal wall hangings.  I have made June, and August and finished September wall hangings in the pencil series just since Memorial day.  I managed to get May's done in time to hang at the beginning of the month.  The happy birthday wall hanging debuts on Monday.  It took me longer than I wanted to get it done.  Everyone is really looking forward to seeing it on Monday.  Each person gets to hang it at their cube/desk on their birthday.

One of these days I'll figure out the Picasa thing again and post some pics of the new wall hangings.

Living alone

The longer I live by myself the more I like it.  I eat what I want when I want.  Nobody to object if I'm too tired after work to cook anything and just have a bowl of cereal and call it good.  Nobody else's messes to clean up after.  If something is a mess, it's my mess.  When I put something somewhere, it stays there.  Plus this place is small so I have to shuffle things around when I want to sew.  There's nobody here to bitch about having to move the ironing board to use the bathroom.  Ahhhhhhhhh.  I don't know why I waited this long to dump his sorry ass.

I'm about ready to quilt the June pencil series wall hanging.  I think it turned out really cute.  I used the tree, gone fishing sign and the fish from the original and just made a lot more fish.  I need to get it quilted this evening after it cools off a bit so I can do the binding tomorrow.

I'll try and get pics of the May wall hangings when I bring it home and get them posted soon.  It's been so long since I signed in to my Picasa album I'm not sure I'll remember the password though.

I sewed! I sewed!!!

Yay!!  I finally have things arranged enough to use my sewing machine.  I made the background for the May pencil series wall hanging.  I'll get the applique and quilting done this weekend.

Rocks in my head

The rocks in my head are loose and making me dizzy.  I turn over in bed and lose my balance.    Actually it's the calcium crystals in my inner ear.  Anyway, I said something to my supervisor today and she said her hubby has the same thing and she told me about some exercises to do to make it go away.  I'll try it and hopefully it'll help.

Gramma workin?

I'm sooooooooooooooo looking forward to the end of tax season.  Since the first of January I've worked any where from 55 to 67 hours a week.  I had one day off in February.  On the plus side I've treated myself to two new watches.  One super nice watch from a jewelry store and one Fossil from Amazon.  I'll get tires and a new chair in the next month or so.

I haven't sewn a thing since last fall. I'm saving my vacation time for the guild retreat this fall. If I have enough time built up I may take the whole week.

On the plus sides I don't see the ex hubby all that much right now.  He has finally started giving me more space.  He was here almost every single night after I got off work for at least two or three months.  I have no idea what he's doing.  From what I can tell he lives in his car and hangs around a convenience store all the time.

I also haven't heard from my ex "bff" since I moved my stuff out of storage in Denver in November.  You'd think that after emailing someone continuously for that many years you'd miss them.  I actually don't miss her though.  I thought I would but I don't.

I'm also looking forward to having the time to finish getting my apartment in order.  There are still things that I need to go thru and rearrange but for the most part I have the time and energy to get my laundry done and I'm done.

Oh and I've lost a good 10 pounds since I started working in October.

Well that's a lot of water...

Sooooooooooo much has happened since the last time I posted to this blog!!

I moved to Denver to stay with my "bff."  I had been friends with her for over 30 years.  I was there just short of 2 months.  A whole lot of crazy happened in those two months and at the end we ended our friendship.  Well, I should say she ended it and I didn't object.  I would have remained cordial with her if she had wanted to stay in contact but I would have never stayed at her house again or visited in person again.

She paid for the U-Haul truck and we discussed for about 2 months the things I should bring to her house.  While we were unloading the truck into storage I was sorting things out to go to her house but after looking at the available space half of what I sorted out went into storage.  I was supposed to set up a "creative" space in her den.  After I got the things that I needed to set up a sewing space in her den it was so full there wasn't room to create a damn thing.  So part of that went back to storage too.

At the end she said I disrespected her house.  From the beginning I never felt welcomed to her home.  She had stayed at my house three times in the previous two years for a month at a time and I did my best to make sure she was comfortable and had everything she needed.

So after I left her house I went to my mother's for about a month and a half.  Gawd she's a pain in the ass.

While I was at my mother's I started tax class where I used to live.  It's about an hour and a half between the two towns and the classes were twice a week on tuesday and thursdays so I stayed with a friend on tuesday and wednesday nights and then went back to my mom's right after class on thursday nights.  During that time I was job hunting and had interviews for several jobs and finally got hired.  After I got a full time job I moved from my mother's to another friends house until I could find a place to live.

I finally got approved for an apartment in "senior" housing and went back to Denver and moved all of my stuff out of storage there.  Most of my things are still in storage but at least it's just across town instead of in another state.  (I'm pretty sure I'm the youngest person in the building.  I think everybody else is over 65 and retired.)

This apartment is really small though and I don't have room for much of my sewing stuff.  I'll get the machine I use the most from my girlfriends house and find places for the things I use the most and the rest will just have to stay in storage for now.

A life chapter closes

My marriage is coming to an end.  There's a whole lot of bullshit under the bridge and I can not and will not put up with being lied to anymore.

The part that really breaks my heart is leaving my guilds.  I'm on the executive boards of two guilds and a member of two more and they mean a tremendous amount to me. 

I was at a guild meeting today and had a bad morning and the dam sort of broke and I told one lady I had made the decision I was moving this morning and before the morning was out everybody in the room knew and I had sympathy and a tremendous amout of support.  I told several of them what had happened recently with the hubby's jobs and the lies he told about quitting one job and having another job and not a single one of them thought I should stay and work it.  And these are almost all women in their 60s and 70s.

I'm half cat, I can see in the dark and I *always* land on my feet.  I guess I have a new landing to stick.

little red bird

I saw this kit in the Keepsake Quilting catalog.  It was $99 bucks.  Too much.  But then they put it on sale for $79 and I'm thinking I might could do that.  Then I got to looking at the kit and to start with the size was just way too big plus it had elements on it that I would leave off.  So I decided mainly what I liked about it was the branches and the bird.  So I hunted for a nice sky background and cut strips for branches and drew my own bird.

I'm going to send it off for fancy quilting.  He'll get a button eye when he gets back from the quilter.  I have a black button just the right size and I'll add a dot of white fingernail polish to it.

My web store is up and running.  It's www.cottonwoodcreekquilts.com

arrrrrrghhhhhhhhh

It appears blogger has changed things and now I can't upload pics from my computer.  Now I have to go make a picasa album and then upload from there.  What a hassle.

When I eventually get a picasa album done and all my pics uploaded to it I'll show you the next few wall hangings I have done. 

Finally!!

I have tried off and on for the last 10 years or so to either buy or start a quilt shop.  The first time I even went to the bank but because of the way the shop owner did her taxes she only showed a profit of $6500 for the whole year.  No bank is going to make a loan when the business doesn't show enough profit to even make the payments on the loan.

Since then three other shops have either sold or gone out of business at totally the wrong time for me to buy them.  Plus there were all those moves we made that would have made it impossible to have a shop.

When we bought this house my girlfriend and I both figured she'd end up living with us at some point in the future.  That's just not going to happen for several reasons so now I have an unused room in my house.  It's really too small for much more than storage space and too funky for a guest room, especially since there's a nice guest room upstairs.  So it's going to be the fabric room.

I have purchased book cases to store the fabrics and I've started buying fabric.

Because of the way blogger works instead of just adding another blog to my list of blogs here I started a wordpress blog for the shop until I can get a proper website built.  I'll get the website started after the first of the year.

It's http://cottonwoodcreekquilts.wordpress.com/

I hope you all will follow the store and make a purchase once in a while!  Let me know on the shop blog if you're looking for something specific and I'll see if I can find it for you!

a challenge win

The larger guild that I belong to has a challenge every year.  This year the challenge was "what can you do with a panel?".  We get the challenge on the last Saturday of January and it's due the last Saturday of October.  I always go to a small quilt show and one stop shop hop with my friends every year in February and I found a Valentine panel.  I apparently have a weakness for Valentine fabric because I have a lot of it already.  So other than the panel the whole project came from my stash.

Each panel had two of the big heart squares with some really dark red polka dot fabric between them.  I bought two panels and used three of the heart squares in the bed runner and then cut the smaller hearts out of the fourth heart square and appliqued them to a background and made the throw pillow.

I totally love the way this looks on the guest bed.

What can you do with a panel?

That is the challenge.  Pick a panel you like and do something with it.  The challenge was issued at the January guild meeting with your entry due at the October meeting.

So in February I go to a combined quilt show/shop hop and one of the vendors has a Valentine panel.  I know I already have a plenty of heart/Valentine fabric to go with it so I got two panels.  I got two because each panel has two different heart squares on it and I'm glad I did since I ended up using three of the squares from the panels.

I knew I didn't want to make a large quilt and I didn't want to do a wall hanging either.  I've seen lots of patterns and ideas for bed runners lately so I decided that's what I'd do.  I'll also make a pillow shams and a throw pillow to go with it later on.

The first pic is the bed runner after its been quilted but before the binding has been put on.  The second pic is one of the paper pieced hearts.  They were such a pain to do but oh so cool when they were done and they really make the quilt.  The last pic is a close up of some of the quilting.  I had it long arm quilted and told her to "fancy it up."

A new venture

I'm going to open a web fabric store!!  I have a room in my basement that I'm going to line with bookcases and fill with fabric.  I need to talk to the IRS on monday and make sure I can just use the same EIN number I already have and then I'll apply for my sales tax number from the state.  My mom is giving me seed money for my initial set up and inventory.  I should have the shop up and running in about a month and a half to two months. 

Tentative name is Cottonwood Creek Quilts.

I'm excited.

Those jelly roll quilts

I'm sure you've seen them.  You sew a whole jelly roll end to end and then grab the two ends and sew them lengthwise.  They're kinda boring.  Just a buncha strips sewn together.  The only variations are sewing the strips together with bias seams or straight seams and maybe adding a square between the strips when you use the straight seams.

But I had a black and white jelly roll.

So I jazzed it up.

I'll add a very narrow border of orange.  Then I'm going to have to hunt for border fabric.  The black and white I have is more off white and just doesn't work.

Sunflowers!

I'm really happy with the way the sunflower turned out.

The Meadowlark is pretty cool too.  The wheat has been fairly uncooperative so far though.  I was going to make it with beads and perle cotton but the beads were too big, the wrong shape and the wrong color.  They just flat wouldn't work.  I looked thru every bead website I could find and Hobby Lobby and I didn't find anything that would work.  So I'm fusing it too.  Talk about tedious!!

In other quilty news, I'm now the chairman of the quilt section at the county fair.  I knew that Baker Arts thing would just lead me into more trouble!!

I'm working on the Kansas, My Kansas challenge wall hanging.  It's not due until May so I have only been doing enough to show "participation."

Anyway, I have the main sections done for the background now.  I've figured out how I'm going to do the wheat so far.  I am still not sure about the sunflowers.

fabric bowls

So at the retreat in October we had a table of "white elephant" type stuff.  Basically books and notions somebody did want anymore.  Each table drew four cards and each table got to go the the white elephant table according to the cards they drew.  The pickings were starting to get a little low and I saw the book "Fast, Fun, & Easy Fabric Bowls."  I didn't take it the first time I saw it but it was still on the table the next time so I grabbed it.

When I went to Denver at the beginning of November to pick my BFF up to come visit for a month we did a fast shopping trip at JoAnn's and I bought a couple of yards of Peltex II.  It's fusible on both sides so you don't have to use up a bunch of Wonder Under too.

So this is the results.  Next time JoAnn's has a 50% off coupon and I have the money I'm buying a whole bolt of Peltex!!

All three of these bowls are on their way to their new homes now.

Silence descends!

Boy did it ever!!  My BFF was here all month.  We had a great time! 

Then Son 1 and his family and my mother came for a "pre-Thanksgiving" dinner since he had to work on T-D.  My youngest granddaughter will be 1 tomorrow and is just the cutest and goofiest thing ever!

Then the next week on Tuesday I went and picked up DGD #2 and her dad came on Wednesday.  Then for T-D my hubby's best friend, his wife and 3 kids plus my mom came for dinner.  I think I outdid my self this year and reached turkey gravy nirvana.

I took my BFF home yesterday and hubby is off at his second job and the house is totally silent again.  I mean like clock ticking, I hear the cat snoring silent.  LOL!

In quilty news, I am suddenly the chairman of a quilt show at our local arts center.  I volunteered to "help" and now I'm in charge.  The chairman's husband has several medical issues and she quit.  She gave me notice 2 whole hours before the board meeting.  Wasn't that sweet??  I still don't have any of her notes.  Hopefully I can get them before the guild meeting next tuesday.  If she had let me know right after the guild meeting at the first of November when she also didn't show up I could have had several things done and had more info for the board meeting.  I guess I'll spend the next few days playing catch up!

a UFO finish

I have been working on going thru everything and sorting things out.  Since I've moved 3 times in three years and two of those moves were only 9 months apart things got to be kind of a mess and really needed sorted out and organized.


I have no idea what I was originally going to do with these blocks.  I know I made them at least 6 years ago because we moved from that house in 2005.  Anyway, there were 10 of them.  6 of one color scheme and 4 of another color scheme.  And I had some yardage of two fabrics with them.  I put 9 of the blocks together and added borders for a nice size throw and turned the extra block into an accent pillow to go with it.  I love the way the plaid and gingham work with the florals.

I have one more set of UFO blocks put together.  It's not quilted yet though.