Looking Forward

I am looking forward to sewing or rather hand stitching with friends on Saturday. I seriously cannot wait! I am emailing obsessively and calling. Just talking about it makes me happy--not twitterpated (go to Kim's Big Quilting Adventure--you won't be sorry)--just darn happy.

I am having such a hard time all week--work is wearing me down and I look forward to the weekends like never before. I have even stopped sewing all week! So unusual for me. After tonight, I vow to stop letting stressful days stop me from spending quality time with my sewing machine after tonight. Tonight I went over to my in-laws so I could spend some quality time with my sister-in-law. I really do love her. She is part of the good in my husband's family. In fact, I am lucky because there is a darn lot of good in this family that I have made my own!

I hope you all have something wonderful to look forward to this weekend. I just love it when people are in my boat.

Another happening this week. I have made a new friend. It is unusual when I find I want to be friends with a guy. Most guys don't really interest me except to exist as husbands or boyfriends of my girl friends. Gary, husband to Leah--wonderful guy, but really the friendship is with Leah, although I could call Gary in an emergency and I am sure he would help me out--car problems, removing dead animals etc. Bill, partner to Sandy--just adorable, but don't see us hanging out together, Sandy is really the friend. You get the idea, but now I think I will have three guy friends. I have Noel and Paul and now I am adding Larry. Larry is just sweet like Paul and Noel. So now we know what it is that I require in a guy friend.

Hope we chat again soon.

Meeting At Walmart

Today I took my daughter to Walmart. She was intent on purchasing a fall quilt that she saw in the Better Homes and Garden magazine. I have to admit that I do shop at Walmart--for specific items. Since we were there, I did make a turn through the food isle to pick up a few things. As I walked down an almost empty isle, I thought I saw a co-worker, Missy. There was a girl with her,who she introduced as her daughter. I introduced my daughter and Missy replied, "You are blocking the isle." This while I was remarking on how many of us live in the same neighborhood. We went our separate ways and later in the car, my daughter remarked that she seemed a bit rude. I do think Missy doesn't like me. She just doesn't seem the least bit friendly, yet all I hear about her is how friendly she is! It only bothers me because I've heard how great she is and I was looking forward to getting to know her. One thing I do know is that we have scrapbooking in common, but it may not come to be that she becomes my friend. I can't be friends with everyone.

Just a word about names. Another blogger, who is my friend, gives some people pseudo-names to protect their privacy I expect. After all, some people might not choose to be mentioned on some one's blog--to have even a smidgen of their personal life out there for anyone to read. When I rename someone, you can't count on my using their first letter of their name and then changing it or using a middle name--that kind of thing. If I am going to rename you, then you will get the name of someone you remind me of. Take Missy. She reminds me of this girl I knew in school whose real name was Anna. One day she decided to be Missy and no one told me so I kept calling her Anna. All of a sudden, we weren't friends anymore and being nine I couldn't figure it out. In fact, I called her Anna until we went to middle school. We probably would have parted company anyway by then because she was moving to be part of the popular kids. I know it is hard to believe, but I have never been part of the popular crowd. I was known and generally liked, but not popular.

So, sorry Missy that we missed this chance to be friends, but there will be other opportunities. I don't give up so easily.

There is always a new quilt to make

The blue and brown quilt has been put on hold. I have a new idea for a 30's quilt I have ready to go with 12 blocks. I have only to come up with a setting. The blocks are from a block-of-the-month from Quilter's Corner. Their block program is fantastic. There is always more fabric than you really need, so if you make a mistake--like I did today, then you have options other than crying and praying that someone else out there in that vast quilting arena has a small piece that will save your life! I think I am going to use the medallion from the Wild Flowers quilt by Nancy Smith and Lynda Milligan. They were great speakers at the guild luncheon last Saturday.

I might start tomorrow. Stay tuned whoever you are out there!
Julie

blues and browns

I mentioned that I was thinking of making a blue and brown quilt to go at the end of my bed.
Linda of Little Bits and Pieces asked to see the fabrics. This one above is much more cream than the picture leads you to believe. I have 4-5 yards of it and it will be fabulous for a back.

Here are the fabrics I have set out so far (see above and below). I may not use all of them--some are white with blue and brown while the others are really cream with blue and brown.

I had a great time this past Saturday at a luncheon. My guild, Golden Valley Quilt Guild, put on a luncheon with Lynda Milligan and Nancy Smith from Possibilities in Colorado. There were lots of door prizes and I won a table runner. The food was yummy--especially the dessert, a lemon and raspberry frozen thing that was just yummy. The food was done by students at San Juan High School Culinary Program. They should be so proud of the professional way they prepared and served our meal. Hurrah for the students....

Tomorrow is Embroidery class with some of my favorite people. Tuesday is iffy as of now. Wednesday I will be meeting with my redwork group. We normally meet on the 3rd Saturday, but we were all at the luncheon....Thursday I am doing a demonstration on how to make easy pillowcases. Friday I have tea with Shirley at 2pm. Saturday I go to Quilter's Corner for the Saturday Square class and then sewing with Sandy for the rest of the day. I am praying for Sunday when I have nothing planned.

New projects await

Oh my God! I think I figured it out.....on my own!

I bought this magazine on Sunday. I love reading about other quilt shops, even if I will never get to the lovely vacation state of Nebraska, or Utah......

This first quilt comes from a shop in Stafford, Texas--wherever that is. The most I know about Texas is that my Uncle Wilburn is from there and it has these nasty bugs called chiggers, so thinking of visiting, oh sometime like never. I am picturing this in blues and browns. The pattern is called Chocolate Mint, but I am a lover of the color blue!

This next project is a wool wallhanging from Williamsburg, Iowa, a mere hop, skip and a jump from my nephews Sammy and William who live in Bettendorf, Iowa--not that I will be visiting there anytime soon. That saying--a hop, skip and a jump--is what my dad always said to us as we were backpacking through Desolation Wilderness in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Our destination could be MILES away, as in REALLY far, and he would still try to convince us (me, my brothers and my sister) it wasn't too far. We only fell for it the first couple times.

Back to the wallhanging. This new obsession can be blamed on my friend Kim (Kim's Big Quilting Adventure). She had to teach a class and I had to take it. I got lots of compliments on my bunny pillow (my $40.00 pillow that I gave to my niece for her birthday with instructions to treasure it for the family heirloom it is) and I was hooked. Now I visit Thrift stores regularly, think of crazy quilting, etc. I suppose there is room to blame a few others--Sandy, Shirley, Imelda, Irene.....Thank God for friends to drag me with them. Otherwise I would be really bored all the time.

So, now I am looking forward to Saturday when I will attend a luncheon for my guild and then on Monday when I get to see Shirley, Kim, Pam, Colleen....

My daughter just came out of her room. She isn't as impressed with me as I am, so I am going to bed. My husband appreciates my talents.........where did I go wrong with her???

Julie :)

Confession time

Today I am admitting that I (can I really say it???) bought a quilt from a store. I am so ashamed. Until now, I haven't bought anything for my bed that wasn't made by either me or my mother-in-law. I saw an advertisement in my magazine--Better Homes and Gardens--and I had to go see what was there. I saw this particular one. I stopped some poor helpless male who worked there--someone who probably knew NOTHING about that part of the store and was just passing by when I asked him, "does this ever go on sale?" Imagine my surprise when a week later it was on clearance. I threw caution to the wind and made the purchase. Yesterday I put it on the bed and my husband came in and laid on the bed in his dirty socks--and his clothes--and all I could think was, "damn, does he always have to do that?" Then I remembered it was from the store, not made at my sewing machine with hours of work poured into it and did not cost the major bucks that come with buying fabric and the quilting (even though my mother-in-law does it for free--I still have to buy my own batting), and it was on clearance, so do I care if my husband has on dirty socks? I do, but not as much.

I have another picture to show, but I can't figure out how to move it down and I have bothered my daughter a few too many times tonight (and she did give me her treat receipt for Starbucks and I got a grande non-fat coffee frapacchino with whipped cream), so I will post a 2nd time.

Julie

Opportunity Quilt

Tonight a few of us got together and made up the arrangement for our guild's 2011 opportunity quilt. It is bright batiks and black kona cotton fabric. This quilt has caused quite a lot of grief. The board from last year was very concerned about the person in charge of the project and she in turn was going to quit the project because she was questioned all the time, rumors flew and pretty much she was just tired of their rudeness. There was a small group of us who were sure that Margaret was just the person to lead this project. We were supportive and helped make the blocks. It is going to be spectacular!

In 2007 I was in charge of the 2008 opportunity quilt. I had a meeting and invited anyone interested in joining me. We sat at my kitchen table and voted on a pattern. Our choice was not popular. There was no applique. I am not proficient at applique and I felt I could not commit to a quilt that required it, just in case I ended up making it on my own. There were people who were encouraging in person, but were running down my skills behind my back. I was too inexperienced. I had not been in a guild long enough. The rumors were out there and I heard them. This kind of thing is really hurtful. I admit that my feelings were hurt and it was hard to not listen. In the end, my quilt brought in approximately $2000.00 to the guild--which I believe was our biggest profit up to that point. When I showed the final project, I got so many compliments and the person who won my quilt loves it. I had 7 people working on the quilt--all good quilters. What I learned from this is that you can't listen to the nay-sayers. You have to harden your heart and listen to the people you know and trust. There will always be someone out there who doesn't believe in you, but there are usually more that do and will give you the support you need.

Yesterday, I almost missed my Thimbleberries meeting. I was grateful that my friend called an jogged my memory, otherwise I would have missed seeing good friends. One is Kim from Kim's Big Quilting Adventure. She is so darn creative with her decorating. Each season she has these elaborate decorations--and most seem to be thrift store finds. A rival for Kim, but she has no blog, is Imelda. She goes all our with her decorating and she has the house for it. I am completely okay living through my friends. I don't have the decorating gene, so I stick with the tried and true--a Christmas tree in December, quilts with a holiday theme.

I will close with this. After I came home from Thimbleberries, I went over to drop a from off to Anna, my next door neighbor. Anna also has the decorator gene and she is a great neighbor--even my husband likes Anna. Well, I went over and she was drinking a glass of wine. One thing leads to another and the next thing I know, it is 10pm and we have finished the bottle. It was a really good cabernet!!! I think Anna and I will be friends for a long, long time!

Julie

The family is back together

Wow! Did I whine just a bit last night??? Thanks to Orcs Mom and Gran for their hugs. Isn't it nice to have friends that will put up with a bit of whining form time to time??

Today my husband came home from a long trip to Montana. He goes every year. His parents have 33 acres in Emigrant and it is a yearly vacation. He goes up and does little jobs for his dad. This year he redid the root cellar, had the trees trimmed and did little fixit projects. This year he also made a huge giraffe and hung it in the trees so that when you are driving down the high way it looks like a giraffe is peeking out at you. My husband has quite the sense of humor and loves to find ways to make people laugh.

It is always a vacation for me when he is gone. Dinner is more casual, the bed is mine and mine alone. The kids and I go our separate ways a bit more and no one leaves the toilet seat up in the middle of the night. On the other hand, he is pretty handy to have around. Yesterday the lawn mower died. When my son started it up, oil came flooding out. Even I know that is not supposed to happen. My husband was home only a few hours before he had taken that darn lawn mower apart, put it back together and was out mowing the lawn. When he is gone, the whole house seems more relaxed, but I am always happy to see him come home. Tomorrow night I am making a steak dinner for him with campfire potatoes and green salad.

This homecoming also means the constant stream of friends comes back. I swear they just know he is home. When they begin to call, I will tell them (like this time) he won't be home until Monday, but that never works.

One thing I did this time was to stay out later than usual. A small circle of friends got together and we sewed all day a few weeks ago. Some of the group left around 5pm-ish, but I stayed until 7:30pm. I usually go over and sew with this one friend at the end of the month and I always go rushing home to make dinner by 6pm. I have realized that it won't kill any of them at home if I don't get home by 6pm. It was gloriously lovely on the freeway with very little traffic and we had pizza at 8pm for dinner. I might not be so antsy to leave in the future. My children are adults and were fine with me getting home at 8pm bearing Round Table pizza (large chicken and garlic). My husband can make do with a later dinner from time to time. What a revelation!

My circle of friends will be getting together again in October. I can't wait and I think I will be coming home bearing pizza......

I Said I Was SORRY

Last night was a board meeting for my quilting guild. I had been secretary before and thought I had done my time, but last year we had an issue in the guild that I and others thought needed to be brought to an end and my running for secretary would solve the problem.

Last year the member who was secretary was doing things that were making others (me) angry--speaking out of turn, acting like she was in charge, making decisions without input--and she was planning on keeping the job for another year. It was so bad that she (let's call her the mad secretary) announced a change in our fiscal year without any kind of vote--she just decided so we should have all gone along. People were calling me and threatening to quit. I think they called me because I am a long time member and, unfortunately, I agreed with them. It got so that you couldn't meet up with someone without this coming up as the topic of conversation. The solution was to get this woman away from the microphone and put her in the audience again. The years she was in the audience, she was quiet and rarely made anyone angry. During her year as secretary, she spoke at every meeting, often taking the microphone out of someone hands as they were speaking. Every time she spoke, she began with "I wasn't going to speak tonight, but...." and then there would be some really not nice things that came out of her mouth. What we needed was someone to run against her. I was the perfect person because I was willing to do the time should I be elected, I was okay with losing (although I never thought that would happen) and I am well known. I heard the mad secretary decided against another year when I was nominated.

So, here I am taking notes once again. At our last board meeting I wrote the notes to say we would ask our community service person (Linne) for pillow case kits for a kids sew day. Linne took this to mean she HAD to give us kits and she wasn't asked. Really we spoke about whether we had to budget $ for the event or did we have some material in community service that would work and we would inquire. Linne got really angry at someone else who didn't write the notes and I found out from a close friend. I went to Linne and apologised. I took total responsibility for the badly written sentence--in July! So imagine my surprise when it became an issue to discuss at the board meeting. I apologised--again for my badly worded note. How many times must I say I am sorry??? I am really, really sorry!

About the mad secretary--she wasn't happy with me and made it very clear. A little uncomfortable, but manageable. In a chat with a guild member it was mentioned that she hasn't been to a guild meeting since May and I hadn't even noticed. I just thought she was being quiet and avoiding me. Opps.