Wishing you and yours a safe a memorable Memorial Day. My DH and I are nursing a very sick dog and we haven't had a good nights sleep for three nights. The upside to that is the down time we have to reflect on what Memorial Day means to us. DH was in the Navy during the Vietnam War and we have a son in the active Army Reserves who served 18 months in Iraq.

I haven't posted for over a month. There has been so much going on and I feel like I'm going non stop. My computer has tried to flat line on me twice. I had to use the system disk to boot up and I think I'm getting an outside sources trying to invade my system because I restore my system to a latter date and it works fine again. What's up with that? So now I don't shut down the computer, I just let it sleep. I'm trying to keep this computer alive until July and then I can purchase a new one, which I hate doing because I like Windows XP and I've been using this computer since 95. You would think a computer would last longer when you consider what you pay for them. Oh well, life happens. I'm thinking about buying an Apple computer.

On the quilting front, I'm ready to quilt my Sister's Choice and I only have two rows, and the inner and outer borders on my 19th Century Red quilt and it will be ready for quilting. I'm not sure what I want for the blocks but I differently want some full and fancy feathers in the borders. Film at 11:00! I pre-ordered the EQ7 upgrade and I signed up for a block of the month. There are more quilting surprises on the horizon.

On the home front, the main bathroom is done and it's beautiful. I still have to make the window treatment and hang it but after that, mission accomplished. Now it's off to the dining room.

Praying for peace and joy throughout the world.
Sandi

Never enough time.

Greetings. I was listening to a speaker saying that the only thing that can be stolen and never replaced is time. I have been giving that a lot of thought. Who or what has been steeling my time? My first thoughts are the television, newspaper, telephone, computer, husband, mother, family in general, and poor planning. It seems like I have been work all week to strip wall paper and paint a bathroom. Í started Monday and it's still not done and I find that very upsetting. Part of the problem is depending on somebody else to do their part. I was scheduled to start the painting at 7:00 a.m. today and I'm updating my blog and catching up on emails because the old flooring wasn't removed and that needs to be done before the painting. That flooring was to be out Thursday and no later than Friday. Oh well. Dare I hope for this project will be completed by May 1? I have so many projects around this house that need completing and I can't afford to have my time stolen.

A great use of my time is attending a quilt guild meeting. Thursday night the Pioneer Quilter's Guild brought their 2010 Opportunity Quilt to show off and sell raffle tickets. This is their beautiful quilt. Their web site is pioneerquiltersguild.org and their show is November 5 and 6th.
This is Judy showing off her Dresden wall hanging she started at a workshop a few months ago. She hand quilted it. Judy's work is beautiful.

This is Julie's Dresden quilt. I love her use of blue's and a splash of yellow. Julie is another accomplished quilter.

Barbara did the same pattern as Judy with different colors. She said it wasn't intended to be a Christmas wall hanging but it just might end up that way. When I see the beautiful projects these ladies create I want to start my own. I'm fine tuning the art of self control. It's a very slow process.

The upcoming week should be very productive, that's the plan anyway. I'm hoping to get my 19th Century Reds quilt pieced this week and who knows, maybe that bathroom will get finished. I do believe in miracles.

Wishing you a blessed and productive week.

Philanthropy and Quilting

On Tuesday's some of the Manteca quilters meet at a church in Manteca to put together quilts and other items for philanthropy. Some of the ladies work on their personal items too. Connie brought in the quilt below, that she pieced and quilted. She still needs to finish the binding. She spent most of the day working on philanthropy projects. I thought she did a great job and wanted to share it with you. This quilt is my Sister's Choice pieced with fabrics from the More Pink and Chocolate collection from Windham Fabrics. I worked on this at the Gold Beach retreat. I have an idea how I want to quilt it but, I'm not too sure of my skill level. We will see.

This is a shot of some of the worker bee's enjoying good company and doing for others.

That's Janice with her arms up. I'm not sure why but I know it wasn't a touch down. In addition to quilts we also make small pillows, hospice gowns, wheelchair and walker bags, and knitted infant caps.

These ladies are pinning a quilt top, batting, and backing for stitching. This is truly a group effort.

This is Rosemary and Judy showing off a quilt that Rosemary just completed. It's a boy's print and I'm sure it will give lots of comfort to the little guy who gets it.

The first Tuesday of month there is a Potluck. There was a lot of great dishes and desserts. Good thing they don't do that every week because I would end up big as a house. These ladies are good cooks. So I have to tell you, meeting every Tuesday with these awesome ladies is just another perk of being retired. I am so blessed. I did a lot of visiting so I brought the project I was working on home so I could finish it. I think it's terrific to be able to help others by doing what you love to do.

Have a blessed week.

Just checking in.

I hope you all had a blessed Easter, I sure did. The day was filled with so many of the things I love. I started my day with Easter services followed with friends, family, food, and fun. The afternoon was topped off with a steady rain. I worked on a few quilt blocks after I cleaned up the kitchen. Life is too good!
Today is Mary's birthday. I wish I was in Oregon celebrating with her. Happy Birthday Mary, we love and miss you. I'm looking forward to Sister's.

I've been trying to find a way to spice up this blog, hence the new look. I'm not sure I will stay with it. This process takes up a lot of time I should be spending on other things. I thought being retired would free up time but it seems I'm busy doing something all the time. I'm sure that's a good thing, I just need to be selective on the things I choose to do.

I'm looking for ways to arrange my quilting studio and make it more efficient. I want to hang shelving on the walls and and get things off the floor. My hubby is not being very supportive on this issue. I did find some great pic on the web and hoped they would inspire him. If they did he sure isn't showing it. Any suggestions out there?

This week I will post a picture of the quilt I was working on at the retreat in Oregon. I'm joining friends for a quilt day tomorrow so maybe I'll have some other fun pics to share.

Have a blessed day.

Quilt Pictures

This year I had the opportunity to help set up for the Manteca Quilt Guild's show. This gave me the opportunity to take pictures of the quilts before the opening. This is a specular Baltimore Album quilt made by Sandra Mollon. I wish my picture showed the incredible detail in the quilt. I have added the Baltimore Album quilt to my bucket list. This next quilt was made by my friend Jan Truscott. She was Manteca's featured quilt artist this year. The pattern used to make this quilt is Venice Rose by Norah McMeeking from her book Bella Bella quilts. I will be starting this quilt sometime in April. I've picked my fabrics from the Stonehenge collection by Northcott. If you haven't seen this fabric line you might want to visit Northcott's web site. Quilter's Friends in Lodi carry a few of the bolts. There must be 25 different color's in the line with new ones arriving in the next couple of months. These fabrics are a good change from batik's. They have a marble or stone look to them. The January 2010 issue of The Quilter features a quilt, Rolling Stone, in this fabric.

This is a close up of her applique in the center.

This wall hanging has a lot of detail work and rumor has it, it was a round robin project done my a group of quilters. They seem to be at the same skill level. The trees in the corners are machine embroidered.

This quilt is from the Once-Block Wonders Encore book by Maxine Rosenthal and Joy Peizmann. I think they are very interesting to look at.

I would love to post every picture I took but I don't have time. All the quilts were beautiful and I think the show was great.

Spring is in the air and I would rather be outside then sitting at my sewing machine. I guess had work on a Baltimore Album quilt might be the project to start. I could have the best of both worlds, sitting outside and working on a quilt. Either way I know it will be a glorious day.

Keeping Busy

This is a picnic quilt I made three years ago. The pattern and fabric came from Fons and Porter. I love their magazine and the quilt kits they offer. I started quilting this soon after I got it pieced but need to put the binding on. Finally, a finished project. I think it is so cheerful. I was putting all my projects together that I need to complete but it has gotten to overwhelming so I have stopped. I will just take them as I go.

I've been spending a lot of time on the Internet because my car has been in the shop. That's not exactly true. I'm going to quilt a couple of tops I finished last year and I'm not sure how to quilt them. I've been spending hours looking at different blogs and trying to find the best designs to use on these quilts. This is really a tough decision. Since I'm looking at three hundred plus to have them quilted I will work through this process. I have taken four different classes on how to quilt your quilt top so it's time to apply some of those lessons.
I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Cars. Where would we be without them? Home!!! That's were I have been stuck a lot lately because my car keeps getting sick. My 93 Honda has 99,580 miles on it. Honda's are supposed to lost 200,000 plus miles so I wasn't worried about it. I have never had any real problems with it but now it seems things are creeping up on me. I get it in the shop to fix one thing and another thing pops up. What's up with that. I keep telling myself it's cheaper than a new car payment and life goes on.
Have a blessed day.

Quilting on the Oregon Coast

I'm home after a four day quilting retreat at Gold Beach Oregon. It was a long nine hour drive but I didn't mind because it was a beautiful drive. I went up hiway 20 to 101. It rained off and on and the hill sides were green. There were numerous places where patches of daffodils grew. There wasn't a lot of traffic and I cranked up my CD's and enjoyed the drive. Before I share some photos of Oregon I wanted to show you the quilt my friend Cat made. She attended the Dresden workshop in January that I mentioned a few posts back. I should have gotten a close up because this picture doesn't do her quilt justice. Great job Cat. Now, back to Oregon. This is the view of the ocean from our condo. Mary and I lucked out and had to take the condo because the two couples who were booked in it had their dogs and the motel has the pet friendly rooms, not the condos. Being the kind and thoughtful persons that we are, Mary and I agreed to take over the condo. This is Mary showing off fabric she purchased at one of the quilt shops she stopped at along the way. This is her room. Our rooms were the same except for the color.

This is picture of the living area overlooking the ocean. It would have been nice to have spent more time at the condo but we were having such a good time quilting, eating and chatting that it was late before we headed back and we usually were in bed within an hour.

This is a quilt panel Mary picked up along the way. It is so cute.

The room we were set up in had windows along one side and people took advantage of the space between the windows to hang small quilts. This is one of the small wall hangings.

I did a demo on X-Blocks and these were two examples I took. There was fabric, patterns and quilts all around the room.

They were very creative when finding ways to display merchandise.

This is a view from the back of the room. Everybody got a gold bag filled with goodies.

As soon as somebody finished a quilt top they found a way to show it off.

There was a variety of projects going on all around the room.

The top and bottom wall hangings were done by the same person.

This is a picture of one of the tables that was set up next to a window. Friday it rained all day and it was nice to be inside and see what was going on outside.

I did the block in the middle, top row. Mary did the others. They are tonga bitiks and she is making up quilt kits and wanted a completed quilt top to display in their shop.

This quilt was cut and pieced in less than a day. I should have bought the pattern. This was made for a wedding gift. It's a picnic quilt that will be accompanied by various picnic items packed in a basket. How cute it that? The theme has something to do with black birds in a pie.

So after three days of eating, quilting, talking, eating more, quilting more we decided that we would get up Saturday morning and take a long walk along the beach, since there was no rain in the forecast. Much to our surprise, there was a Tsunami warning in effect and we couldn't go down to the beach. The warning wasn't lifted until 2:30 that afternoon. Oh well, it was more quilting and a short walk to a gas station to buy a latte.

This is a picture of the 2 foot tsunami wave. We watched it from the window. It was such a beautiful day.

I think things were just about over when these pictures were taken.

I love the ocean and the day was beautiful. I'm looking forward to going back even if it takes nine hours to get there.

This weekend is the Manteca Quilt Guild's annual quilt show. So, look forward to more eye candy.. I'm going Friday to help with the set up and will be there all day Saturday. My friend Jan is the featured artist. She is so talented and I'm looking forwarded to the vendors and to seeing all the beautiful quilts.

Have a blessed day.