Favorite Things Friday

As I was thinking about what I wanted to post as my favorite this week, I thought about my grandmothers and their jewelry.

My father’s mother, Granny, had a charm bracelet that was really neat and had all sorts of charms from places she visited. I remember that I thought it was really cool and that I wanted one like it.  never happened. I wonder where that bracelet is now.

My mother’s mother, Dessie,* wore a bracelet with all the names of her grandchildren on it made by Mik Stousland. Her bracelet was wonderful. Made me feel really special that she carried my name with her wherever she went. A favorite for another time. As a side note, Mik and his wife, Betty, were family friends. He was a professor at Miami of Ohio where my grandfather was also a professor. Katie posted about them here. And here’s a link to Chris Stousland’s website where you can see Mik’s jewelry and some of Chris’s as well. I think my favorite of the originals is “He Loves Me” -- an optimistic look at pulling the petals off the daisy. Why go any further than the first one?

However, my favorite this week is the other jewelry that Dessie used to wear: fishing lures.  I have a few pairs (hopefully, my sisters and cousins do too).

My grandmother had a huge collection of these earrings in lots of bright colors.  She always wore them, she seemed to have every color possible to coordinate with whatever she was wearing.

Okay, now, I know you think they are kind of goofy looking earrings.  I do too.

Maybe it's just because she was my grandma, but I think the earrings look great on her -- classy even.  They were made by my great uncle (Eddie Pope) and that may be why she wore them.  Another side note, he had two design patents (D152,287 and D161,870) for fishing lures and these were made from those fishing lures.

I thought I had a second pair that was light blue but I don't.  I looked for the earrings on eBay but could only find the fishing lures.  Anyway, seeing these always makes me smile.

They were never adapted for pierced ears and I’ve thought about doing that .. if I could find some it might be a fun thing to do for all the cousins .. hmmm.

So that’s my favorite this week. To see what everyone else is into this week, check out Shay’s blog.


*Yes, we called our grandmother by her first name.  Weird, I know. 

Appreciation - thanks

Yesterday was Administrative Professionals' Day (formerly Secretaries' Day) -- we just call it Staff Appreciation.  Our New York office decided to have a barbeque lunch so we followed suit.  We had corn on the cob..

 chicken wings .. (boneless in this case -- I"m not sure if they are really chicken wings, but they were pretty good).

Rolls

 Pulled pork and baked beans

and a few salads 

I'd post pictures of everyone eating but it's against the firm social media policy.  Everyone seemed to like the food and we had a great time.  I have to plan the parties -- I've tried to pass it on to someone else, but it doesn't seem to work.  So even though, it's not something I enjoy doing, I do it.

Purple Pinwheel - Finished!!

Here it is!!

You can't see all the quilting I did, but I stitched in the ditch on every vertical and horizontal row and then did diagonal lines through the yellow pinwheels.  I'm really happy with the way it turned out! Yay!

And now to send it off ...

Easter with the Wagners

We spent Easter afternoon at Michaels.. lots of good food, of course, no pictures .. and swimming!  Here are some pics.

Skyping with Aunt Kelly in the Dominican Republic. 

Grandma & Andrew

Mikey's picture of Uncle Mark... (see Grandpa in the background)

Mikey's 2nd picture of Uncle Mark (with a little help)

In the pool!

On the slide

Baby's turn

there's a video of the boys in the pool on my picasa pictures .. I'll also upload the video to facebook.

And today I got these two Easter Penguins from Anna & Katie .. and their penguin adventure continues. Check out their other penguin adventures here.

15 minute challenge - April 26

I had a pretty good week, in spite of having to re-do the backing and basting for the Purple Pinwheel quilt. I'm glad I did though.  I don't know what I was thinking.  So here's my week.

Tuesday -- basted Purple Pinwheel quilt ..
Wednesday -- unbasted Purple Pinwheel; put on new backing; re-basted Purple Pinwheel
Thursday -- quilted Purple Pinwheel
Friday -- quilted Purple Pinwheel
Saturday -- quilted Purple Pinwheel
Sunday -- watched Pride & Prejudice
Monday -- finished quilting .. attached binding to front of Purple Pinwheel, started hand sewing binding.

I'll probably finish the hand sewing tonight.  Now the real challenge begins.  working 15 minutes a day on the Prom Quilt.

To see what everyone else has been up to this week, check out Life in Pieces ...

Quilting on My Mind ...

I have a few quilts in the queue, but there are some others that I want to make. (I should have posted this yesterday which was "Q" in the A to Z Challenge and called it "Quilts in the Queue". But I didn't think of it until today.) Anyway, here are the ones on my mind ..

• a red and white one. Maybe using a log cabin block -- I've never done one of those before but I kinda like them.
• a black and white one -- no ideas on that yet. I did use black as sashing before and didn't like it very much, but if the fabrics are all black and white, that should be different.
• a coin quilt
• a scruffily quilt

and then there are the ones in the queue, that I should at least start on before I start on the ones above ..

• Purple Pinwheels (basted, just needs to be quilted and bound);
• The Prom Quilt (lots and lots to do on this one)
• The Lion Quilt (for Erin's baby, which will be born soon) (I haven't even started it yet) -- this may end up being a Noah's Ark Quilt since I already have some Debby Mumm Noah's Ark fabric
• The Spiderman Quilt (not even inthe planning stages, just the thinking stage -- probably should have been up above, but I do have some of the fabric already)

Notice how creative the names are. At least I'm starting to name them, perhaps the creativity will come along later. I have to start labeling them too.

15 minute challenge - 4/19/11

Another week has gone by.  I feel pretty productive although I've run into some problems.  The prom quilt continues to be a challenge because I am using fabrics other than cotton.  The backing for the purple pinwheels was 42" wide and the quilt top is 42" wide -- which would be perfect except that the selvage (aka selvedge) on the backing fabric is about 1" wide and I don't want it to show.

Tuesday - finish squaring blocks; sewed two rows of blocks
Wednesday - sewed rest of the rows; finished quilt top
Thursday - found prom quilt pieces, sewed some parts together*
Friday - nothing
Saturday - worked on prom quilt
Sunday - nada
Monday - worked on prom quilt; backing for purple pinwheels

These are the pieces I'm putting together for the prom quilt.  It's really quite purple though the pictures make some of the pieces look blue - they are a deep purple.  So far, since I'm taking it slow, it's beginning to come together.  I am using a modification of this pattern for the quilt; I am not totally confident about how it will come together ... if it doesn't work out, I might just bag it and make something else.

Check out what everyone else has been up to at Life in Pieces ...

Favorite Things Friday

My favorite thing this week is Favourite Things Friday.  I look forward to it every week, and it doesn't disappoint.  I love that some people spell it favourite and others of us spell it favorite, but we know it is the same thing and it's okay that it's spelled different in different parts of the world.

I love that it makes me spend time thinking of things I really like.  What a positive way to spend time -- even though the post is only once a week; I think about it at other times trying to come up with something.

I love seeing all the different things people call their favorites, kitchen gadgets (I'm still thinking about the egg topper), places, people, animals, colors (colours).

I love learning things about my bloggy friends.  I also love learning new things about those I know outside of blogland (okay, so far there's only one of you).

So anyway, check out other favorites at QIMP and jump in so we can all learn about your favorites/favourites too.

Purple Pinwheels

Purple pinwheel quilt top done!  I don't think I'm going to add a border, but haven't really decided yet.

I was going to use these two flannels for the backing for the quilt but am leaning away from that now.  I think pink is not the way to go -- I'll have to get something that matches the front better.

I really like these two flannels - I may make a baby blanket with just these.

15-minute challenge - 4/12/11

Kate at Life in Pieces is holding a 15 minute challenge. If you haven't checked it out you should.

Here's what I accomplished last week, after picking my sewing machine up on Monday (it was only in the shop for two days -- hooray!).

Tuesday - 32 HSTs
Wednesday - two blocks and 12 HSTs
Thursday - one block and 12 HSTs
Friday - one block and 48 HSTs
Saturday - nothing
Sunday - nothing
Monday - four blocks; the final four finished

And this is my 300th post!! party time!!

The Final Four

I finished the final four blocks for the purple pinwheel quilt .. hooray!  I'm squaring them up and then sewing them together.  Don't know if I'll do a border, but I do need a binding .. and then on to the next one. 

  

Hooray! Another one completed ..

I checked another one off the list today!  Number 22 - Mikey and I made chocolate chip cookies together today.  Here's a picture .. he doesn't look too thrilled does he?

Here the boys are helping out in the kitchen ...

Disastrous .. 15 minute challenge - 4/5/11

This week's progress ... is disastrous (probably a little over dramatic, but it starts with a "D").

Tuesday - made one pinwheel block; sewed 12 blocks together for 24 HSTs (one hour)
Wednesday - two pinwheel blocks (one hour)

Thursday - no sewing

Friday - no sewing

Saturday - took the sewing machine to the shop - no sewing

Sunday - no sewing

Monday - no sewing

So this week I am 2 for 7.  I sewed 28% of the nights.  I'm batting .285 and that's not even a good average in baseball this early in the season.

This week should improve.  At least I hope so.  You can see how other quilters are doing on the 15-minute challenge here.

Happy Birthday!

Sunday was my #2 son's birthday! We celebrated by having a steak dinner (London broil) and cheese cake for dessert.

She's back .. sort of

I wanted to participate in the A to Z challenge and write 26 posts this month from A to Z.  I even came up with a topic for today -- California -- but decided that it just didn't sound like me.  I could talk about cats, or Costco, or California, but that's not really what I do (or how I roll).  It needs to be something that's going on in my day that happens to start with the letter of the day.  If today had been "R" I could have talked about how my sewing machine has been repaired; or if "P" how I am putting off picking it up; or if "F" how I am frustrated that I wasted my evening watching TV and playing stupid computer games or a failure with the 15 minute challenge this week.  Anyway, I'm going to call today's use of the letter C a bust.  Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to come up with a D post, but if not, that's okay.

As I noted my sewing machine in ready.  I'll pick her up tomorrow night and get back on track.  Looking forward to that. 

Bye Bye Bernina

I took my Bernina to the shop.  the tension had been really off and it was getting so that I was not happy with the way the stitching was looking.  It is a wonderful machine and I love using it.  I don't know when she will be ready but I will miss her until she's back.  She was given to me about a year ago and I just love her :) -- no sewing for me this week. :(

On another note, I completed another item from my list, #12 .  I actually ate two different kinds of ethnic food this week.  On Thursday, I ate Cuban food and today I had Filipino food.  I'm really branching out.  I enjoyed both and would definitely eat both again.

Someone came to look at the house today so we took the devil cat with us when we went out.  We went to a party at the park and then to the flea market.  He did amazingly well.  How funny to be walking around with a cat in a carrier.  (Should have gotten a picture -- next time.)

Favorite Things Friday

My favorite thing today is Amazon.com.  I love that you can get just about anything you want and have it shipped for free.  This week I ordered the following two quilt books ...

Modern Basics: Easy Quilts to Fit Your Budget, Space, and Style

Modern Log Cabin Quilting

and a Jillian Michaels Yoga DVD on Tuesday and had them in hand on Thursday.

I can't always get out so it's great to be able to find stuff on line and just click and then it shows up at work! (or where ever I want ..).

For other favorites, check out Quilting in My Pyjamas...