I was too lazy to sew after seeing Harry!

Ok, I was going to sew after I got home last night but I just couldn't settle down. I went to see Harry Potter and then we went to dinner. When we got home it was late and I just couldn't do anything but take a bath and head off to bed.... 

I can honestly say this was not one of my favorite Potter films but I did enjoy it.  I don't want to wait til July 2011 to see the next Harry!  Wah, I'm ready for it now!  I hate snakes and this big one in the film scared the begeebers out of me a few times.  I had not seen any commercials for this film so I did not know the snake would come at me like it did...My husband had a good laugh at me about this too!  I am a Harry Potter fan and I've read all the books. I think it would be really hard for anyone to follow the movies without reading the books.    I think Harry, Hermoine and Ron are wonderful and so cute in the movie.  All the characters have aged so well...I really like them all.

Crazy 8 Blocks Finished and Knitting with Lucy Neatby

Yesterday, I got all of my blocks made for my Crazy 8 quilt. I laid all the blocks out and decided how they needed to go.  I pinned  them all together but that was it.  I didn't even take a picture.  I'll do that later when I have the blocks sewn together. I was tired and decided to take a break from sewing. I came downstairs and turned on the TV. I put in a DVD I picked up last week at the Woolie Ewe.  It was a knitting DVD by Lucy Neatby and it was her New Knitter DVD, #16.   I  picked up my knitting needles and  finished knitting a small hat. This will be for Parkland Hospital. (Yes, another community service project. My quilt guild makes hats for Parkland and for soldiers too.)  I knitted it flat and now I have to sew it together.  This is not my favorite part of knitting but it is small and should go pretty quickly.  I would have knitted it in the round but this was the first time I knitted this hat and wanted to make sure the pattern was accurate.  It was, so now, I will knit it without the seam next time.  I'll show you this once it's all sewn together.
Lucy Neatby's DVD was great. Lots of  info on this one and it helped me with the sewing up part to my hat too. I am ready to go back and buy all of her DVD's, now I know what I want for Christmas!   I am not new to knitting, but I consider myself a beginner.  I have only knitted for about three years.  There are so many things I want to knit but I am very slow. 

I crocheted another rose for my hat but I didn't like it. I'm going to make another one that's medium sized.  I made a big one but I'm not felting this one so it was way too big.   I'll get it right soon and show you that finished product too. Ok, gotta go for now, I'll show pics tomorrow, so til next time....happy sewing!

Friday sewing

I was off today. My husband was off today too. He woke me up asking if I wanted to go shopping. Uh, no, I do not want to fight the crowds of Black Friday... so he went out by himself and I went up to sew. I decided that since it was Thanksgiving, I wanted to do some charity sewing. I am thankful for being healthy this year and hoping these few items that I'm making will help someone feel a little more comfortable. I made three of these chemo hats.

I just put the Brooch and rose on them to see how I liked them.  I like the rose but not in this color, so I'll be crocheting a rose to decorate the blue hat.  The other blue hat will not get any decoration.  I think I'll leave it as is.  It is smaller and I think will be ok for a man.  The beige cap will have a different king of flower or decoration on it...I'm not sure yet what I'll do with it.  These were quick and easy to make and our group got the pattern from Hancock Fabrics for these chemo hats.  I think I'll be making more of these but I'll be doing some for my grandkids. I think I'll make them a scarf too to go along with the hat.  This would make a quick Christmas gift.

 After I made the hats, I then made two Walker Bags.  These were also fairly quick and easy to make.  I made one for a woman and one for a man.

I made 6 siggy blocks and now I need to embroider them.  I received three siggies this week.  

This one came from Italy.

This one came from Belgium



This one also came from Belgium.  These two were from a Mother and daughter.

 I cut out 16 more blocks for my Crazy 8 quilt.  I'll be sewing those together tomorrow and that will be enough to put that quilt together.  My husband is going to play golf, my son will be at work, so I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and do some more sewing. Oh my, that's going to be really tough!  Yeah, more time to sew. 

I just finished crocheting a navy blue rose for one of the hats.  Now, I gotta decide what to do for the beige hat.  I think I'll do another rose....I'll show you those tomorrow.  Til next time...

Finding time to play-Happy Thanksgiving and a great Sweet Potato Casserole recipe

Wow, it is so hard to find time to do everything I want to do.  I have tatting that needs to be finished, knitting to do, quilting, sewing,card making, scrapbooking, cooking and work.  I don't have time to blog for everything else. I can't even stay caught up on reading everyone's blogs. I'll have Friday off so maybe I can get caught up on some things.  I have some pics to post and maybe I can get that done too. 
Since I'm not able to share any pics with you right now, I'll share this wonderful recipe that I'll be making for our Thanksgiving spread.  Sue, one of my sewing friends shared this with me last year and she doesn't know where she got it. I would give that person credit if I knew who it was.  Whoever came up with this did a great job.  This is the best sweet potato dish I have ever eaten.    It's quick and easy and I hope you like it. 

Sweet Potato Casserole

Ingredients:
3 cups mashed sweet potatoes
2 eggs
1 cup sugar (if you don't want it as sweet, you can just use half and it will still be ok)
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 tsp. vanilla

Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup butter

Directions:
Mix first ingredients and pour into a buttered dish.
Mix topping until crumbly, and put on top of sweet potatoes.
Bake 30 minutes in a 350oven
This is now one of my favorite recipes to make for a special occasion. I hope you try it...
Ok, I'll see you Friday and here's wishing everyone a wonderful holiday. Enjoy your time with your family and friends and get some good TV watching in. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Gobble, Gobble!

Friday night sewing with Heidi and Bobbi

Hey, I almost forgot to show you what I worked on Friday night. I didn't get alot done but I did sew a little....I made one more block of my Crazy 8 quilt and I sewed the binding onto this Star quilt.  



 

Another Crazy block



 I had made the binding on Thursday night and got it ready to sew on.  Let me tell you, that was no small thing.  I had to search all over my sewing room for the left over fabric!  I thought and thought about it and I just knew I had some but when I couldn't find it, I almost gave up and used something else.  I have been looking all week for the fabric and of course, it was in the last place I looked!   It was the last place to look and I wish I had looked there first.  Anyway, I attached the binding to this quilt and I started hand sewing it down today.   This is an old UFO, maybe 8 -10 years ago it was started.  I  passed the block out and asked my group to do it as a friendship block.  I thought it was pretty easy and one of the girls gave it back to me and said it was the hardest block she had ever done.  She didn't speak to me after that ever again and I quit that group. I only received 12 blocks back and I had to do the rest of them myself.  I like this quilt and it will replace the quilt on my bed.  Well, maybe I should say, it will  be the quilt on my new bed. I'm going from a King Size down to a queen size and it will be my new quilt.  I had a lot of the backing fabric and still have alot of it left. I bought plenty of this fabric as I had planned to make curtains with it too.  I just might still do that as I have more than enough for curtains and pillowcases.   A friend of mine did the quilting and I am thrilled with it. She did a wonderful job.  When I finish the binding, I'll take a close up and try to show you the quilting...I'll also take a better picture of it so you can see how pretty it really is.  I didn't have anyone around to help hold it up for a picture. 

I went over to my friend's house today and visited with her and did the hand sewing while she worked on some of her hand stitchery.  I didn't get it all the way done but  it's about half way finished now.  I hope you had a great day today and got alot of sewing done.  I have some pics to show you from my Thursday night group and I'll post those tomorrow.  Til next time.....happy sewing, Linda

Friday night sewing with Heidi and Bobbi

Ok, guys, this Friday is Friday Night Sewing time.  Hop on over to Heidi's blog and sign up to participate.  There's some special giveaways this month and you wouldn't want to miss out.  Here's a link for you to sign up.  When you  sew on Friday night, whether it's with local friends or by yourself, you really won't be sewing by yourself...You and alot of other friends will be sewing at the same time sending out good sewing vibes all over the airwaves!  Put on your jammies (only if you are at home) and turn on some great music and get ready to have some good old sewing time....

http://handmadebyheidi.blogspot.com/2010/10/november-friday-night-sew-in-you-dont.html

Some great Show and tell from some friends

I went to two meetings tonight. First, I went to my Tatting group but I only stayed for a little while. I needed some help with a sweater and several of the ladies in our group are wonderful knitters too. I gave the sweater and directions to Mary Jo and she's going to look over it and see if she can help me with my problem. I hope so cause it is driving me crazy and I really want to finish it...I talked to a few of my friends and had to leave pretty quickly to get to my quilt meeting. Lots of ugly traffic but I finally got there. We had a quick meeting and then some great show and tell. Here's some of the things this small group has been working on...

We have some great sewers in our group!





This is Naomi's Halloween quilt....



Look at this cute bag.  Nadine made this for her daughter who lives in Savannah, Ga.  Yes, it has Savannah, Ga fabric on the inside and on the pocket. Too cute.




Nadine made this BQ Zebra quilt for her granddaughter for Christmas.



Judy made this charity quilt.



These are two mini quilts turned in during the daytime meeting.




Bonnie's Floating 4 Patch quilt.  Hmm, I need to make some more of these.  I love how she set these together. 




Melissa's quilt.  I forget the name of this one but it is a Marti Michell pattern.




Evelyn has been knitting hats for Parkland.




Evelyn made these cute bags.  They are fabric covered zip lock bags.  You can put quick Christmas treats like Pumpkin Bread or candy or whatever and give as a quick gift.  Evelyn made some for Halloween too and gave to some of her little friends. They were a big hit.  I've got to make some of these too. 




Shirley made this reversible apron.

 



Naomi showing off her sweatshirt jacket. You go, girl!



Naomi made these cut Christmas tree napkins for a church function.



Linda made this great star quilt for a friend's son.



Sunday sewing

I made these two blocks for the Pizza Box Project.  This is block 8 and 9.  This is the last of the blocks and now they can be put together.  These are for Jeanne. My set of blocks will be given to me at our Christmas party.  They will be red, white and blue...I don't ever get tired of red, white and blue and I'll add these to the other blocks I've done this year through Amy's BOM.  I'll be putting those all together into two or more quilts.

This is a little mat my mother in law gave me. She didn't make it. She bought it from a craft show.  The binding was pretty bad so I took it off and rebound it... I love the quilting on it and I'm very pleased with it now.  

I did sew on several other things this weekend but I haven't finished them. I worked on my Brown Bear quilt and I made several more blocks for other projects too. 

 I just couldn't  seem to get it together today.  I felt totally disorganized.  I finally sat down and  made some more siggy blocks to send out. I knitted a while and watched TV and relaxed.  Hopefully, I'll get more done this week and can show you my little Brown Bear quilt.   I hope you have a great week...til next time.

Siggy blocks

Here's some Siggy Blocks I received this week.  Both of these ladies are from the Netherlands.

The first one is from Mary.

This one is from Ineke.



Retreat Pictures

These are some of the quilts we saw at the quilt shop we went to in Anthens, Tx. while on retreat.   This was done in colored embroidery work and it was beautiful.

A Cute Apron

A great Texas quilt...

Look at this pretty Christmas quilt.

This one would be great for scraps.

I loved this one.

This is a friendship block I made for Glenda...

Some Crazy 8 squares I made at retreat.  I am doing these in florals.  I've got 30 so far but need 56.

I made this little Christmas wallhanging.  All I have to do to finish this one is pink the edges.

Jackie made this cute little tablerunner with that little tilt ruler.  I forget what it's called but you cut your blocks, sew them together and then use the ruler to cut

again.

 Here's some more blocks for our church quilt. Jackie made these two.

Glenda made several of these little Angel wallhangings for her co-workers.

Glenda made these for her Mom. This was a BOM and had 6 blocks.  She only decided to do 4 of them and she will be framing these instead of making them into a quilt.

Glenda finished this little quilt top.  She'll be giving this one away.

Back up and running

Yeah, my TV is working and so is my computer...there were problems in my area and they have it all fixed.

Our TV was going crazy last Wednesday night with digital spotting. I don't know how to describe it but there were little blips here and there on the screen.  The TV controller wouldn't work properly either and it was hard to turn the TV off or on or change the channel.  The audio portion was all weird too.  It was really strange.  I called the cable people and they reset the TV and it started working but the computer blitzed out.  I got the TV working Thursday before I went on retreat.
The computer was out until today.
The cable guy came out yesterday  and worked on it and it worked ok while he was here.  When he left, we tried the computer and it didn't work again....Well, it wasn't our computer but the whole area network was out.  Our TV went black too and we had no TV either.  Talk about a black out...I gave up, took a bath and went to bed.

This morning, we called the cable people again and they said they were working in the area.    The TV came on about an hour later and then the computer.  We now have TV and computer and feel like we are back in the land of the living...

It's amazing how I felt so out of touch without my computer.  I can't imagine life without my cell phone or computer now.  I don't know about you but life just isn't the same without  those two things. What did we do before these two great communication devices?  I don't want to find out ever again!

I went to retreat with some friends last weekend and I had a great time.  There was only seven of us and it was great.  Everybody else went to the Houston Quilt show, I guess, while we sewed alot.  I had a great time with my friends and I got alot done....I didn't sleep too well but it let me sew more.  I'm now catching up on my sleep and I'll be back to my normal sewing schedule by tomorrow. 

Tonight was tatting Tuesday and I went there and visited with my buddies. I came home and  I'm trying to catch up on reading blogs that I've missed . I will post some pics of the retreat and other things I did last week tomorrow. 

I know these posts are really boring without pics so I will leave you with one.  I saw this beautiful One Block Wonder quilt and want to make one.   So, here's the quilt and this will be a future project for me.  I can't wait to make it so I'll be searching for just the right fabric this weekend....I'll show more pics tomorrow, until then, enjoy this one.

Computer Problems

Sorry, guys, my computer at home has been out since last Wednesday. I should be up and running again this week. The service guy is due to come out today or tomorrow so please come back and visit me again later in the week.....

I have been busy. I went to retreat and got quite a bit done,  so as soon as I can I will be posting some pics...Stay tuned.

American Sewing Guild Projects

It's been a long week and I just don't know where to start to post.  I think I'll show you some of the things my ASG group is working on...

this was last Tuesday night:

Jan's Nursery Rhyme Quilt

Another Nursery Rhyme Quilt

Jeanne's car quilt

Reba's Halloween Apron

Reba's pillowcase

Linda's burp pads made from diapers

Linda's little snuggly

This was Cathey's granddaughter's Halloween costume. Emily is a year old and she was dressed as Snow White.

Cathy made her son a Cowboy robe.  This is made on the serger.

And, our project for tonight was to make Voodoo dolls.  You get a hat pin and you can stick the pin in whatever ache or pain you want to get rid of...I've seen these done several different ways. This one was new to me.