Pendleton Quilt Show This week-end

The Krazy Horse Quilt Show in Pendleton starts on Saturday. Usually this quilt show is over the Mother's Day week-end and I haven't gotten to go. I have entered quilts and am looking forward to going this year to see all the quilts. I will have 3 entered this time. My Gypsy Caravan, Mosaic Tiles, and one of the two "Check out Spiderman" quilts. I had fun quilting in a Web pattern over the pinwheels in this one last night. It is now bound and ready to go. This one will be for one of my 4 grandsons at Milton and Christen's house. Until then I get to show it off. I need to get my Design wall to save the walls in the guest room for pin holes. Even if I make it portable it would still help a lot in getting my UFO's done. I feel good about completing 3 quilts just in the past week. My back isn't happy but my gel/ice pack helps a lot. I just was looking at the Spiderman quilt and noticed I turned one block on it's side. That's what happens when I stay up too late too many nights in a row... Can you tell which one that is?? Not a Humility block, that's a falsehood about the Amish.

WW #3 Women's Retreat 2009

I attended a Retreat in the Mountains over Friday night with ladies from Church. I had stewed over going all week. I don't like choosing between good things that come on the same days of my calendar. Most of the people I visit with weren't going so I wondered who was. The cabin isn't far from home, so it was nice to get away and just get to know the Relief Society Sisters. There were 16 ladies and 2 babies. We ate soups and Home made Rolls, we played with Ice cream, [I couldn't not "Quilt" while I was there...] Our sculpture won the voting. YEA for our team. Thanks for playing Tara and Elizabeth! We crafted magnets, we listened to wise counsel and shared a few tears. Our dear Sister Tyler passed away this week and our Speaker brought the daffodils and had us share a memory of her and put it in the vase. In some way we were all touched my this sweet sister. Her Memorial service was Saturday Morning. We left the Retreat early enough to return in time to attend. I took a KING sized Airbed with me and bedding. This was a birthday gift from 08 that we received and had not gotten to use yet. The battery air pump worked fine, noisy though. I visited into the wee hours with our Relief Society President. I hope she was able to get some rest this afternoon. I got to nap and thought it was morning when I finally woke up. Thanks for the planning of this event dear R.S. sisters. I'm linking a slideshow of my pictures. I didn't take as many pictures as Daniella, it was nice to see someone else taking pictures too.

Time to Clean out the Dust Bunnies!!!

I was quilting again today and thought... I wonder how bad the lint is under my feed dogs and this is what I found... I realized I probably haven't check under there since I've been going out to sew with Lynn. That means the lint has been adding up with all the quilts from before Christmas until now. NOTE: This is NOT how your machine should look under the feed dogs!!! Lynn and I have been setting D9P quilts in a multitude of ways. I thought I'd put together a slideshow of the all D9p's we've made. Notice that the original 9-patch blocks for some of the finished tops are shown prior to the picture of the quilt. It is amazing what changing the position and total of different squares does to the way it turns out. ie:2 corners matching or all squares in the corners the same. I've taught others to make them too- so I have Ellen and Wendy's included. The variation that Wendy made for her parents last fall was so cool. Ellen made a Christmas one.

Midnight Snack

Dear Hubby had to look out in the big freezer for bread for his lunch tomorrow and found like Old mother Hubbard's cupboard, there wasn't any there. I've been a slacker, so I whipped up a batch. I had a little whole wheat flour that needed to be used so it went into the mix. This time it made 4 loaves. Wonder if that will last a couple days??? Since it was done so late and it's soooo good while it's hot with butter and honey...I had a midnight snack. Decided it was BLOG-worthy and took a picture. The dent in the cut loaf came from my finger holding it still while I sliced off the best part- the "heel" to eat... It was HOT. Not much on the Quilting front, I did cut the next step of Judy L's Stash Project. Today was Daughter's of Utah Pioneers, yummy chili and Carrot cake. Tuesday is my regular Quilting day and I'm taking UFO's out to work on with Lynn, my quilt Buddy! I think I have some backings so I hope to get some of the tops pin-basted if nothing else. I need to put some blocks up on the design wall to decide how to arrange them, too.

Happy Birthday, Wendy

Wendy and friends went to El Sombrero in Eastgate for a celebration of her upcoming Birthday on Sunday. We had to get the deep fried Ice Cream, sombrero and singing of the Feliz Cupleanos for her. She will celebrate her real b-day with her family on Sunday. Her Dear Hubby is home this year to celebrate with her. We love you, Wendy! Thanks for playing today! Left to right in the group picture- Sylvia, Mary, Janice, Wendy, Gwen, & Dianna.

"My Favorite Quilt"

There is a Quilt Festival online. It features "My Favorite Quilt". I have posted this one recently, but it is my Favorite quilt! It's called "A Bouquet of Friendship". Not just because my quilt buddy and I designed it, because it is so beautiful that we had to make our own. This one was Machine Quilted by a Local LAer with feathers in the white spaces and a feather border. Tickets are $1 from our Guild members. We are still working on the pattern to publish for the layout. It takes a while. We have just finished testing our pattern by making our two copycat quilts. They were posted a few days ago here. I hope you like it too.

100 UFO's

I sit corrected... I only had 96 published posts when I added this one. Must be my Moses Lake Math... 100 UFO's, I bet I have at least that many by now. I won't list them all here. I started on a new Stash Project with Judy L. I've not done the "No Waste" Flying Geese so I HAD to try. Patty's site has the Tutorial. Well they are pretty fun to do and I am now waiting for Step 2 from Judy L. I'm using the fabrics that Hancock's has discontinued ---my favorite fabric--Quilters Shades Plus :(( That way I can always look at this quilt and know that I at one time had almost all the colors. Some just won't work in this part of the quilt, I can put them in the border though. ie: the forest green.I will work on the items that need finishing for the Krazy Horse Quilt show and of course my copycat quilt needs the borders still. UFO"s are like that. I have some that are just a stack of blocks from past Block of the Month with Jo Fox at Hancock Fabrics and winning Block Lottos at the Local WW Guild and Quiltmania. (pictured here are Multiple sets of blocks and PITS [Projects in totes]) At least 19 sets and a pile of Orphans in the upper right corner. Some are really OLD! I even have some that were my Mothers. I hope not to leave a bunch for my daughters to finish. I might leave some quilt tops, but hopefully not too many quilts in progress that they might have to wonder what I was thinking to finish. Here are 36-40 of the tops or partial tops. These are only the ones I could find quickly enough to post a picture of all of them today. Of the ones on the bed 17 are just needing to be quilted!!! I need to rent a longarm for a year, maybe I could get them done that way. I have a magnet on my fridge that says " She who dies with the most fabric- has happy relatives" My Dear #2 Son has informed me that the magnet is lying! Just this week I've added more to the list. How bad is that??? Don't answer! The printed list I recently updated, is out of date now. It had over 60 UFO's on it. So to CELEBRATE my 100th Posting--- I'm doing a UFO-ATHON on Friday night and Saturday working on UFO's. And for the rest of the Month... No new projects! It's only the middle of the Month, I think I can make it.

"The Lost Quilter"

"The Lost Quilter" is the latest novel by Jennifer Chiaverini. I not only quilt but I like to read about quilts. This book is more of a Historical/fiction. The story keeps me reading... so not much else is getting done. I think I got quilted out making 18 - D9P blocks on Wednesday. They will make semi-twin quilts for some of the Grandsons who like the characters in the fabric I'm using. I want to show a different layout with each one, so the fabrics are all the same. I made 18 so each quilt will have 9 blocks set 3 by 3. The blocks are 16" so it will make a 60" square quilt before I put borders on. I'm almost to the magic number - 100th post! How will I celebrate it??? Watch and see.

A Bouquet of Friendship TWOS...

The goal was almost met... we had wanted to have our tops ready for quilting by guild this month. We got very, very close to that. Lynn worked tirelessly while I was out of town last week and we started out Monday with a pile of blocks. The layout went up on each of our design walls and stayed there, while we sewed the center and borders together. Today we added the inner borders and attached the outside rows of blocks. Thanks to my having to do a bit of 'frog' stitching today, we didn't get the final borders cut. We are deciding how much bigger they need to be to fit Lynn's big bed. We only have the final borders to put on before they can be quilted. I call these our "copycat quilts". They are almost identical to each other and made from our own design that we used on the Guild raffle quilt. We figured we couldn't buy enough tickets to win and know it would look a bit fishy if we won the quilt - plus we'd fight over who got to keep it at their house... Thus started the idea to make our own versions of the pattern. Can you see the difference??? Had I not frogged they would have been totally turned around opposite looking. I had to take a picture of Lynn at her machine with the quilt behind her. The wall will look very bare without it. I'm glad that they are nearing completion. I have many more quilts to work on this year.

Blessed

It was a blessed Easter morning indeed. Our family had a baby blessing at Pasco and another young man was blessed and given a name by the power his father holds. Samuel Thomas Crowther - Our 13th Grandchild. The 21st great-grandchild on the Crowther side, and 38th on the Brown side. I'm sure that my parents are smiling on us today. I know Mom was singing in my ear the ALLELUIAH's of the hymns. I'm so grateful for worthy priesthood holders who can bless their children. On this special day. It has been a day of sadness because my father; Alma Brown was buried on this date when our second oldest son was a young child. To have a baby blessed will make it a different day for us now. We drove to Pasco early and left after Sacrament Meeting so we could attend out Ward here as well. We celebrate Jesus Christ and his Resurrection and atonement for all mankind. Because he died for us we can all live again. We enjoyed two Testimony meetings. How fitting that on this day we testify of the divinity of our Savior. Great-Grandma and Grandpa Crowther were there to be a part of the event. I took more of the Chocolate marshmallow eggs that I made to share with all the rest of the kids in Tri-cities. Sorry I didn't mail them to Brant and Jeffery's families. They don't pack too well and the dipping chocolate I used was not the best. Winco's is the best!

Flimsy D9P

Flimsy D9P's are just tops of quilts that aren't finished yet. Here is another one for the grand-children's birthdays. The month of April had NO birthdays so I can get a head start on the ones for May and June. Before I went to Vancouver, I sashed a D9P and liked it. The lighter squares were too close together when I turned them so adding sashing helped that. I ran out of the aquamarine blue so this one will wait until I get the fabric again. Hancock's has discontinued my favorite fabric- Quilters Shades Plus. :(( I had a stash of all the colors I thought I would ever need but after 2 years it is getting depleted. Thanks to Tina for checking her local store and getting me the last piece I will be able to finish the quilts that are started with the blue. One that might be for the new baby due in May... I also took pictures of the two turquoise D9P's that Lynn is working on. One is set the normal way and the other looks like boxed squares. Guild is coming right up this next Tuesday so we will have some flimsies to show and share. I had to take a video of Jackson balancing on the skateboard. Jackson had fun playing with the sticker that he got when we went to visit his mom at Picture People. She worked an extra long shift Thursday and he was missing her.

Quick Trip to play

I ran away from home on Tuesday. I drove four hours to get to Jes and Janessa's home in Vancouver. I got to play with Jackson while Janessa and Jes were gone today. We are making the Chocolate Marshmallow Eggs. I have made them for many years and Janessa called wanting the recipe. She needed someone to watch the boy on Wednesday also...so off I came. See NaDell's Food Blog to get the recipe. Jackson liked licking the spoon with the pink marshmallow on it. If you don't hurry to put them in the flour they set up and make big globs. This time the recipe made about 35 yummy eggs.

Conference Sunday Visitors

We enjoyed listening to the morning session of Conference and got a call from our oldest son's family asking if they could come and watch the afternoon session with us. It was great to have them come listen to the all the talks from the General Authorities and the Prophet with us. We don't turn away grandkids very often, so they came to visit. They realized they haven't come to see us for quite a while since we didn't have everyone at Christmastime and the weather has been so unpredictable. We have seen them at their house and at other family gatherings. The children sat fairly quietly during the 2 hours. Jared took a few notes and I got to help him when the scripture references went off the screen too quick for him to copy them. The picture on the stairs shows them all with a Beanie Baby animal that I let them choose from Jeff's box that he left here. They all said, "Thanks" Uncle Jeffery! They traded a few times before deciding which ones they wanted to take home. Seth ended up choosing the skunk "Stinky". It was such a nice day that the children took their dinner outside and ate, only coming in for refills and then for dessert. Hungry Boys! I told them Grandpa Brown always said he'd rather feed someone that was hungry, than someone who wasn't. Christen and Milton brought BBQ Chicken to cook and a Potato salad. I made a fruit salad with marshmellows and coconut, with Pie and cupcakes for dessert. Lydia liked playing on the toy outside. She even stayed outside without her Mom and Dad with grandpa for a while. We don't take offense that she screams when we hold her. She is a momma's girl and that's ok.The other picture is the kids blowing BUBBLES with their Mom and Dad on the driveway. I miss having all of the kids over on Sunday evenings. We didn't have 13 almost 14 grandkids then though and it was easier. We have too much POPCORN in our supply because we don't make the poppycock like we did in Burbank almost every Sunday.

More D9P Quilting

Quilting while having Colby visit was very interesting... He told me that my sewing machine made too much noise. That doesn't stop me from sewing. He helped me with the extra strips of fabric. I let him play with them. He rolled them up. Today (Fat Quarter Friday), we went to the LQS to see if they had any more ORANGE to put in Colby's quilt. We found two fq's. His b-day is a ways off so I'm still playing with the ones for Milton's two boys who have birthdays in May and June. I still have the one for Vincent to finish. The first picture is a finished center for a quilt. I had to 'frog' 5 of the 12 blocks when I realized I'd sewn them wrong. I hate when that happens... The second picture is how the blocks are started to make the D9P (Dissappearing nine patch). These blocks have some cute "Sock Monkey" fabric I got at the Quilt show last week-end. I will need to make more than 12 blocks to make the quilt big enough, or use many borders to enlarge the quilt. This was Sam's first time to visit Walla Walla so following tradition, he is photographed under the "TOY". General Conference is this week-end so I will make more Blocks and try to figure out how to make these two quilts bigger without doing "BLOB O' BORDERS". I might have to do more of the fast HST's that I got the new Quilt in a Day ruler for. It is WONDERFUL for trimming them to size! A sawtooth border would break up the busy-ness of the pattern. Plus it would use up some stash.

Fun cooking with Colby

Colby's little Brother Sam is growing. Grandma had to take a picture of him too. Colby wanted to make a funny face in the car on the way to Grandpa and Grandma's that live by the mountains.He can roll with the rolling pin, and put lots of cinnamon and raisins on the dough. Colby is spending some time at Grandma and Grandpa's house. He likes to cook and is a fun boy to have around. We made Colby Rolls and put Cinnamon and Raisins in some. Grandpa worked late so we ate without him. Here he is making a Lego rocket ship, like his cousin Jared made. He brought his favorite movie to share with Grandma... BOLT! He also like to play games on PBS.org. He had to show Grandma how to find the games. We have made parts of the cousins quilts today. Colby helped pick the fabrics. He found some that were his favorite colors for when I make his birthday quilt. Orange and Monster cars... Grandma likes having him all by himself... Great- Grandma always said how fun it was to have my children one at a time. Now I can agree. I hope it doesn't rain all day tomorrow so we can take a walk and have a picnic.