Get a head start on the Holiday

5MinutesforMom is hosting a fantastic give-away this holiday season. Go check it out so you can get in on the winnings as well.

Thankful Thursday

We will shout for joy when you are victorious and will lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests. Ps 20:5

I am thankful that my teenager as started to act like a pleasant human more often than not.

I am thankful for my husband's commitment to sobriety.

I am thankful for the opportunity to make quilts through my church that will go the children in crisis.

These are all answered prayers for me. Some have been prayed for a long time.

Crystal at God is in Control http://candlebabe299.blogspot.com/ is hosting Thankful Thursday. Please visit her to participate. Thank you Crystal.

Take care and God bless, Cory

Bragging

We, my son and I, were able to go to Quilting in the Garden on Saturday. This is the quilt show http://www.alexandersonquilts.com/garden/ that Alex Anderson hosts annually at Alden Lane Nursery http://www.aldenlane.com/ in Livermore. It is a wonderful show in a beautiful location. The quilts are hung in the 300 year old oak trees that are on the grounds of the nursery. Unfortunately, this year, it rained. They were not able to hang the quilts in the trees. There were quilts in the buildings. And we got to see Valori Wells and some of her quilts. And my son got to make a quilt block.

This is the child who complained about having to go. I reminded him of all I do for the family and that he should be good and enjoy himself so that Mom would not be cranky.





Now, doesn't he look like he is having fun? I think so too.

He got to meet Alex. She is one of the most friendly tv quilt stars I know. Like I know all that many, huh.

We even make it over to the Diablo Valley Quilt show as well. They have their show the same weekend as Quilting in the Garden every year. The shows are less that 30 minutes apart and it makes a lot of sense to me.

We had a good time together. DS said, "It was more fun than I thought. I thought we were just going to sit in a chair and they were going to show us the quilts." I told him that is a trunk show. His response? We aren't going to one of those are we?:-)

Quilters are a generous bunch

Several weeks ago, I saw a post on Debra Spincic's blog offering scraps to anyone who wanted them. I commented that I would take them for my church's Hugs Ministry. We are sewing blankets (not just quilts, but polar fleece, crocheted and knitted as well) and matching them with a stuffed animal for the local sheriff and fire departments to have on hand when they go to a fire or accident involving children.
Last Friday this is what I found on my doorstep.









You probably can't tell by the pic how big the box is. It is nearly 20" square and 10" deep. It is huge!


And this is what it looked like after I opened it and looked through it. The strips and scraps just kept falling out. She must have had to sit on the box to get it closed.:-)


Thank you Debra from the bottom of my heart!


You will find a link for Debra's blog in the sidebar. She is a wonderful quilter.

UFO Incentive

As you can see I have added a UFO list to my blog. Hopefully this will give me a push to get some of these things completed. As I get them finished, I will create an FO list and move them there.

I have recently seen on other blogs UFO and FO listed being published. I have also seen one with a excel table that had columns for all of the stages and couldn't figure out how to created it here. When I find the blogs again I will put links here.

Take care and God bless. Cory

Give-away Opportunity

I found this give-away

at The Preachers Wife. Here is the link to the contest http://www.challies.com/draw.php?userid=11027. The link to the Preacher's Wife can be found in my sidebar. Sorry about any confusion I might have caused.

Sounds like it will be a perfect addition to my church's library.

Thought you might be interested in entering it as well.

Take care, Cory

Q.O.V.

I first posted about the Quilts of Valor here http://cjcal4now.blogspot.com/2007/07/vip-mail.html These are quilt for injured soldiers. You will find the links for Q.O.V in the post linked above.

Here is the first of two quilt tops completed for Quilts of Valor.

And a close-up. The second one is three quarters done and very similar. So, in a couple of days, when you think you are seeing double, hopefully you won't be. :-)

My husband went to the mountains last weekend for a man's getaway. We were chatting about the weekend on Sunday afternoon and he says, "Oh, I brought you pinecones. Your gonna like them." And he hops up to go to the car. I'm thinking, Oh, great, what am I gonna do with foot long pinecones. We saw 12" long pinecones the last time we were up there and I commented on them. So I figured that he remembered and was kind enough to bring some home for me.

Aren't these just the cutest pinecones you ever saw? He was right, I do like them.

I WON!!!

Does all caps mean you are shouting? OF COURSE IT DOES!

I was reading my bloglines and saw the headline about the winners of the book. I thought nah, I never win anything so I won't bother clicking to open the blog and read the whole article. But, I did anyway. Scrolling down, I see CJ at the top of the list. Cool, another CJ has won. Click to see who this other CJ is, and.... Hey.... It's me. Wow! I won. Now that is really cool.

I won the book Woman in Red http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593154445?ie=UTF8&tag=jenniferssnap-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593154445 over at 5 Minutes for Mom http://www.5minutesformom.com/. This is a blog by moms for moms. It's great. And right now I think they are even greater. Go check them out. Thank you Jennifer, Susan and Janice. I will now go to bed with a smile on my face.

Take care all and God bless.

4 Generations

I was reading Leanne's post about 4 generations of first born daughters at http://leanneshouse.typepad.com/leanneshouse/ She is the third of four generations of first born daughters just as I am. That means first born child and daughter.

Here is a pic of Me, Grandma, my daughter and Mom. This was taken in 86 or 87 and the little one in blue is now 24. We have taken lots of 4 generation pic like this over the years and this was the only one I could find quickly this morning so it will have to do. Nearly ever time we got together, we were posing for these 4 generation pics. When I find more, I'll post them as well.

This makes me wonder how common or how rare is 4 generations of first born same gender.

Hope you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane with me. Take care and God bless.

Rising Early

There are benefits to rising early. Really, there are. If I keep telling myself that, maybe someday I'll believe it. LOL :-)

My husband left for work early today. I mean early, as in 4:15 a.m., I made his lunch and sent him on his way and got busy reading email and blogs. At one point I hear what sounds like rain. Sure enough, it's raining in July in California which is very rare indeed.

As I got up to refill my coffee cup, I noticed the sunrise through the tree out front (see Three little monkeys post) and think "that looks like a beautiful sunrise". I grab my camera and head outside in my robe and barefeet.

It's an okay sunrise. As I am heading across the wet lawn and into the wet street to get a hopefully better pic I am rewarded with this view in the west.














Yes, it was a beautiful sunrise this morning.

Mom's Quilts, Part 2

These two quilts are on the bed in the third bedroom. This is the room where my sister stays. There are two quilts on most of the beds, not because we are cold but because Mom is a very prolific quilter and she is running out of room to store them. :-) These are both Drunkard's Path and they both look so different due to fabric choices and layout. They are both wonderful.

This quilt was made using the leftovers from a challenge Mom and I did. I bought a half yard of each of the brights and cut them into fat quarters and sent Mom one set. I got the quilt she made and I gave her the one I made. This one is similar to the first one she made. When I unpack it, I will post pics of it. The interesting thing was we both did pinwheels for our challenge quilts.

This is Mom's interpretation of her aunt's drawing of the Pearson farm where her father and aunts grew up.

Hope you all have enjoyed Mom's quilts. I enjoyed sharing them with you.

Take care and God bless

VIP Mail

I felt so important yesterday morning when the mail man delivered this well before his normal delivery time.



Let's ignore the fact that I was standing on the curb, barefooted, hosing out the cooler. Not the most attractive pose. Thank goodness nobody had a camera! :-)

This is what was in it.

This are for two quilts for Quilts of Valor sent to me by Debra Spincic. You can visit her blog here and click on the link for Quilts of Valor on the right side. http://debraspincicdesignstudio.blogspot.com/

Quilts of Valor is an organization that gives quilts to wounded veterans of our armed forces. This is just one of the small things we can do for the men and women who put their lives on the line every day for us.

When the tops are pieced, I will be sending them to Deb Geyer at http://debgeyer.wordpress.com/ She will be longarm quilting them.

I will post pics when the tops are ready for quilting.

P.S. Did you notice the peaches on the table in the pics? We got them from a friend at church and now I think I need to make a pie or cobbler.

Until next time, take care and God bless, Cory

Mom's Quilts

I had the opportunity to go home at the end of June. Unfortunately it was for a funeral. I was able to take some pics of quilts that Mom has sewn.

This is the tabletopper on the coffee table. It looks like the created it after receiving the Jim Shore Angel as the colors match perfectly.

This is the quilt in the master bedroom.

This is on the bed I slept in. The bed is an antique wrought iron bed. I don't remember if it came from Grandma's house or Mom and Dad got it at an auction.

This is my niece Brooke. She and Grandma worked on the quilt last summer during her vacation at the lake. The pics are of her dance recitals and the did all the piecing herself. She had done a great job on it.

That's it for today. I'll share more soon.

I had no idea!

In the evenings we have the wonderful sound of toads coming in through the front door screen. I love the sound. It is so peaceful and lets me make-believe that we live in the country. I know it's silly but it works for me. I have even went out to look for them. They sound like they are right outside the front door and surely they are large enough to find. At least they sound quite large.

This is my front door. And these are the plants that I watered this afternoon.

Imagine my surprise when I found this.

Toad and Frog living in my planter. No wonder they sound so close. And I am amazed at the volume of sound that they put out.

Happy 2nd Birthday "FAT"

I belong to FiberArtTraders, which is a yahoo group. The 23rd was the groups 2nd birthday. I small group of us got together and created a book of Quilted Journal Pages for listmom Normajean. She is the best Listmom ever. I know, I'm biased in this opinion. She keeps things creative and inspiring and feeling like family.

This is the page I made. The hearts are recyled from another project and the machine buttonhole stitch is one of NJ's favorite elements. I wrote "You are the inspiration that fuels us, you are the glue that holds us together, and you are the support that keeps us going. I turned it over to decide on a backing and liked the look of the chocolate stitching against the white felt so I left is unbacked.

This page came together very quckly and naturally once inspiration struck. I am very happy with the results.

Hulkette and Hulk Jr.

This is currently my favorite picture and is the wallpaper on my computer so that I can look at it several times a day. It represents my kids, 15 & 9, getting along. No bickering or tantrums or accusations all weekend. It was soooo nice! Now that I know a trip to the mountains and physical exercise are the keys to family harmony, I will be volunteering them more often to rake pine needles,

and to shove piles of pine needles into bigger piles.

We went with our church to the camp clean up day at Jenness Park up in the Sierra mountains. It is beautiful and serene and uplifting there. Our kids go to camp in the summer there and every year the camp hosts a clean up day. The camp feeds us Friday dinner, Saturday breakfast and lunch in exchange for us raking pine needles from around the cabins and public areas of the camp for fire breaks.

Oh, and we also get to have mid-morning snack with camp staff. :)

The two on the outside are the daughters of our youth leaders and they did their fair share of raking and earned their snack with the daughter of a staffer.

Twisted Threads Round Robin

I belong to a small quilt group by the name of Twisted Threads. Every year we do a friendship type quilt and a charitable effort. This year we have been doing row friendship quilts. For this past months row I attempted to make waves, literally. When M unveiled her theme back in August, I immediately knew what I wanted to do and hoped that no one else would decide to do it. Her theme is Marine and I wanted to do a row of waves in a snail's trail block. I finally accomplished it on the third attempt.

This is the first try. The piecing looks great. The block is how it's supposed to look but it is about a half inch too small. Not gonna work. Thank goodness I tested it first.

The sizing is from the book "Knockout Blocks and Sampler Quilts" by Judy Martin. It you haven't seen this book yet, I highly! recommend it. This book is fantastic. I will post about it in depth later.

I test all my iffy piecing in red, white, and blue fabrics. That way I don't waste fabric needed for the project and someday I will have enough blocks in that color scheme to make an Americana quilt.

The next attempt was even worse.

I printed out a "Monkey Wrench"? block from EQ4. I measured the printed templates and cut and pieced.

UGH. The whole block was just way off. You can see where the points don't match and they stick out all funky. I think I forgot to adjust the print settings so it printed out all wrong. Oh well. Another one for the Americana Quilt.

The final blocks were done with freezer paper foundation piecing. This time I actually enjoyed foundation piecing. And I drafted the block myself. Although I usually reverse things wrong or forget to reverse them until after the first round of ribbet stitches. :) I used dark blue, light blue, grey and white so that they looked like crashing waves. I am quite proud of the (pictureless) results.

I will be meeting with them again in the next few weeks and will get a pic then. This concept of having a digital camera is still new to me. :)

Ohhh, to own a Dyson

A girl can dream and plan can't she. And might as well make it a big one.

So, here it the plan. To have my name drawn for the Dyson Slim Vac that is being given away over at 5 minutes for mom http://www.5minutesformom.com/1343/dyson/

And to see the details on this new and wonderful machine go to Dyson http://www.dyson.com/homepage.asp?sinavtype=menu

You can add your name to the drawing by visiting 5 minutes for mom at the above link and following the very clear instruction.

Thank you 5 minutes for mom and Dyson! Now to dreaming about my wonderfully effortlessly spotless floors once I own this modern marvel.

Project Spectrum, Finally

Here is the first piece done for Project spectrum.

I took a piece of batting and layered on a piece of grey fabric with little black flowers (this fabric has a story of it's own and when I find the box the quilt is in, I will share). Then I raw edge appliqued several colors of blue satin, pieces of grey and white satin and white tulle. I then couched eyelash yarn, ribbon and tulle in random swirls. I like the piece and I may use it as a journal quilt page or cut it up for postcards. Haven't decided yet. I enjoyed the creation process. I picked out the material I wanted to use, sat down at my machine and just started stitching away. I haven't done that in a while.

I have some projects that I need to get pics of and then I will share them.

Oh Oh OH!!! I got a digital camera for my b-day on the 18th from Mom and Dad. Can you tell I am excited?! It chimes when it turns on and I told the kids "Listen, it says Cory's New Camera". I love it and as soon as I get pics taken and downloaded I will share some of them.

No Strain Cutting Table

This is what my husband did for me so that my back would quit hurting everytime I cut material.

This is 1.5" PVC pipe cut to a 15" length and slipped over the legs of a fold-up banquet table.

We determined the length of the pipes by measuring from the table top to my bent elbow above the table then added the length of the table leg that slipped into the pipe. Our first length was 18" and we cut it back to 15" once the pipes were put under the table. The table is about 2" below my waist. This height is recommended by ergonomic standards.

My lower back no longer hurts when working for extended periods of time.

What do you get with a sled, a rope, a bike and two little boys?

A bloody street.

Just kidding. You get skinned knees.


Well, after the first crash test dummy was damaged,
(apparently severely if you believed all the yelling about broken legs)



They found a new crash test dummy who wooden't yell when the curb testing began.



(The first crash test dummy is carrying his replacement)

Ginabee, are you having de ja vue?

These two are always coming up with something. The first crash test dummy is my nine YO and the driver/tower is my 8 YO step-son. They are either building something or tearing something apart.

Cutting Implements

I was reading blogs through Bloglines (love it) and found pics of rotary cutters and sewing scissors at Craft Apple http://craftapple.wordpress.com/ This got me thinking about how many I had. I had no idea I had that many scissors until I started rounding them up. Of course they each have their own home and specific uses. 3 are for hand embroidery, three are at the sewing machine, one each at the ironing board and the embroidery machine. The rest are in a bin on the cutting table so they are within easy reach. I have 2 Fiskars Softtouch because I thought I lost my pair and after I replaced them, they showed up. But they are the best scissors if you have a lot of cutting to do so I use both equally, one at the cutting table and one at the sewing machine. The two black handled scissors are antiques and don't get used. If you look close, you can see the black paint has chipped. The two across the top are pinking shears (one antique). This was informative just for myself. I guess I need to stop scissor shopping.:-)

Round Robin

This is a round robin quilt for one of the ladies in my small local quilt group. I made the top row. They are balls based on the current years project linus pattern. I don't like paper piecing all that much so I pieced strips together to make a 6.5" block and snowballed the corners. The other strips are made by other members of the group. The turtles have hand embroidered mouths and eyes. Very cute. And the bus windows were fussy cut so that kids are looking out the windows. They little people were the first row created by the quilt owner. This will be a very cute quilt when completed.

Vintage Valentine Swap

These are the Vintage Valentine ATC's I did for the swap on FiberArtTraders. These were fun and very quick to do. I stitched the words on wire edged ribbon using my wonderful Elna Quilters Dream Pro. (Can you tell I am in love with my machine?) I first ironed the ribbon onto freezer paper to stablize it. I have tried stitching onto ribbon without first stablizing and had a mess. And, frankly, freezer paper is cheaper than solvy or tear-away and works almost as good. If you don't need to worry about picking all the little bits out of the back, then this is a perfect alternative.

Bottle Swap Update

I don't have any FO's to post. I have been very busy with alterations for a local modest bridal shop.

Now to the reason for this post. I had the best time mailing my New Years bottle. No, I didn't say receiving, I said mailing. I was standing in line. Booring. Then it was my turn at the counter. The clerk absolutely loved that I was sending a bottle. She went on and on about how cute it was. She showed it off to her co-workers and go the other customers wondering what it was as well. She even teased her co-workers that she wouldn't tell them how I got things in there. I even had a customer waiting at the end of the lobby to ask how I did that. And to say how neat that was and how fun it would be to mail things to her granddaughters that way.

So, YES, it is as much fun to mail a bottle as it is to receive one.

Project Spectrum

I was just reading Elizabet's blog http://veridianeyes.blogspot.com/index.html about Project spectrum. Well, I was intriqued and had to find out what it was about. http://lollygirl.com/blog/?p=585

This is just the thing I have been looking for. I have been wanting to explore color and the color wheel. This is just the impetus to keep me motivated to work at it in a structured way. I will be sharing my explorations here with all of you and invite you to join in and to share your thoughts on my experiments.

Items for Etsy Part 2

This is a rotating tiltable quilt hoop made by my Dad. This same thing happened here as with the quilt ladder. Mom wanted one and didn't want to pay the price they were charging. Especially not when we have such talented men in our lives. I think he did a wonderful job with this. In fact, several years ago, one of these was a birthday present for me. It has a "Handmade by" label on it and when I read that it was dad that made it. I cried. My parents had come to visit for my birthday. I was helping unload the car and carried in this gift. Of course, being wrapped in a white plastic bag, it was kind of a give-away as to what I was getting. But of course, being the good daughter, I dutifully pretended not to know about it. So, I knew what I was getting. The surprise was that it was made by Dad.

Items for Etsy

This is a Quilt ladder made by my husband. We are going to put these up for sale on Etsy. He really does and good job and I wanted to show it off. We had seen them at several quilt shows and I wanted one but couldn't afford what they were charging. Well, he says "I can make one". Of course I took him up on his offer! The next week I had my quilt group over for our monthly meeting and several of the ladies ordered them in woods and sizes. So, that was just the beginning.

Magical Business Card Case

This is a magical business card case made for a swap on Fiber Art Traders. This is a fun case to make with a lot of possibilities for creativity. You pull the ribbon and your business card magically rises from the case. I have several more ideas but I won't get them done in time for the trade. The pattern for this is found in the November/December issue of Quilting arts magazine in the article by NormaJean Brevik. She is the listmom for FiberArt Traders and she is a wonderful and inspiring person. Thank NJ!

New Years Bottle Swap

This is the New Years Bottle I received in the FGM Bottle Swap.

This is the second year we have done this and it is fun. You find things that are small or can be rolled or folded small enough to fit into a 2 liter soda bottle. You cut a three sided door in the side, you don't have to fit it all in through the top hole. :-) Then you tape the door shut, tape the address label over the door and mail it. And yes, the bottle is an acceptable mailing container.

Then it is even more fun when you receive yours and you get to open it. You would be amazed at how much you can get in there. Last year when mine came in, my 8yo DS said, "I can figure this out for you mom." I had been teasing him about how we were going to get the stuff out. He took the cap off and stuck his finger in, hooked a piece of material and started pulling. Needless to say, I stopped him after a few gentle pulls and showed him how to find the door and remove things without damaging them.

This years bottle, pictured above, arrived when my step D & S (8yo twins) were here so they got to help open and unwrap everything. I heard lots of "How neat" and "cool" and "another one!" As you can see, E-Fairie packed so many goodies into this bottle she even had me saying "another one!". There are some sewing and embellishing notions that I can't wait to try. A tube of iron cleaner that is perfect for someone who uses fusibles on a regular basis. Several floral pins, and a beaded ring that looks old, (E is this from your grandmother's jewelry box? I think you inherited it didn't you?) There is a pretty mirror compact that will fit nicely in my purse. There is a beautiful shell and a heart shaped polished stone, stickers, a little coffee paper note pad and more. Thank you E-Fairie!

This is always so much fun. Anybody out there wanna swap?

First UFO completed

I have completed my first UFO of 2007. Yeah!!! No it's not a quilt but it's still completed.
I found this great and reasonably priced tooled leather look vinyl at Walmart and knew I had to have pillows for my bed. They fit right in with the new chocolate and teal green colors I want in my bedroom. I am pleased with them even though the pic isn't the best.

Chistmas Tradition

These are this years ornaments for the kids. They are a free snowflake alphabet I downloaded. They are stitched with cream for the letters and gold for the stars onto dark red felt. I then layered a second square of felt and the ribbon and stitched a leaf stitch with my wonderful Elna. (Can you tell I'm in love) The outline stitch was done placing a thumbtack 1.5 inches away from my needle so that I got a perfect circle and then trim the excess felt. I also added 2006 under the initial in gold thread which is hard to see in this photo.

Every year my kids get new ornaments for christmas. They get to open these when we decorate the tree. I make sure they get dated and have their initials. Then, when they grow up and have their own house and tree, they have ornaments for the tree. I remember when I was first married and had my first house. We had a few hand-me-down ornaments and we filled in the gaps with candy canes. Then I guess that would be another tradition because, according to my 24 YO DD, the tree isn't complete until the candy canes are on it.

A new year, a new start

This is the year of organization for me. I will have to get organized as this year is starting out very busy. Work is going to be crazy for the first three months for the merchandizing. And I will be busy in the alteration business for most of the year. That's good cause I'm tired of struggling financially.

One of the ways I am getting organized is to list my UFO's. (We won't even get into the length of the list, Psst, 27) This is a personal challenge and contest issued on the FGM yahoo group. So, even if I don't win a prize in the end, I will be winning by finishing projects. And the people who will recieve the finished quilts will also win.

I am going to rearrange my sewing studio. This will make things flow more smoothly. Right now I find myself running in circle, literally, as my sewing table and cutting table are facing each other & I end up circling the table numerous times if I have a forgetful day. One of these days, if I'm feeling brave, I'll post the before and definitely the after photos.

I think that's it for today. Take care, Cory