20,000 wow

Wow, today I hit 20,000 views since July 7. Who would have thought? Thanks for stopping by to see what's going on. Feel free to leave a comment any day. I love to read who is out there watching what I'm up to.

a little of both

I decided to start with some binding and got three quilts bound,

then sat down and worked on some more preemie dolls

and am now working on some more quilting. Of course, there was grocery shopping and laundry thrown in for good measure.

I still need to get outside to enjoy the warm winter day! Just had to check in quickly to update the numbers on the left, in case I didn't get to it later.

a big finish?

Today is the last day of the month and I am faced with a question. Should I try to end the month with a big finish and raise my number of finished quilts by binding a whole bunch of my quilted quilts, or should I work on quilting a whole bunch of quilts today?

I have to go grocery shopping and it is a gorgeous day outside, so there is that too...

Decisions...decisions...

Check back later to see what I decided :)

good for quilting

Having a child go away, at least for a little while, is good for quilting. When my #2 daughter goes for a sleepover, I get a lot of quilting done. It helps relieve the stress and worry and gives me thinking time as I wonder what she is up to. It also keeps me busy so I am not calling her 12 times and embarassing her.

Daughter #1 went back to college today and was on the airplane for about 11 hours, counting the layover and waiting to take off. That's a lot of time to think and pray and quilt.

I moved the quilting machine into her room and got busy working on the quilts that are ready to go. I have 16 more that are tops with backs ready to quilt and about 20 tops that need backs either sewn to fit, or don't have backs pulled from the stash yet. Now that the quilting machine is back in

the house, I would like to get these 16 quilts done by the end of February--quilted, at least if not bound. We have a long weekend coming up soon. How do people with 'real jobs' do it?

I didn't cry...

until I actually drove up to the airport and saw the planes taking off and then realized that my daughter would be on one of them and I would have to say goodbye. Then, when I left her and was driving home, I cried again.

Not too bad considering...

I will miss her terribly, but we are going to visit her in April and she will be home in May and she gets to have a ton of fun. Of course, she is leaving 70 degree weather and returning to snow and ice and cold. I hope she is ready! While it looks pretty, I'm glad it isn't me.

Superbowl Sunday?

http://www.quiltville.com/striptwist.shtml

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2009/01/superbowl-twist.html

Head on over to Quiltville and check out the Superbowl Challenge quilt. I'm not sure if I will join in the challenge or not, but this looks like a nice quilt to use up some scraps. I will be off of work tomorrow to take my daughter to the airport so she can go back to college and have some extra time to sew. I plan to move the quilting machine into her bedroom so I can do some quilting without freezing to death (ok, so you really can't freeze at 60 degrees, but I get cold easily) and hope to have lots of pictures to share by this Sunday.

One of my online groups is having a Superbowl mystery. I still haven't finished the New Year's Eve Mystery that I should be working on and I promised myself that I would make one quilt from a book each month this year and that hasn't happened yet either. I only have a couple days left this month to get busy on that. I have almost used up a whole box of fabric though, so that is great! Most of it went to match to quilt tops, so it is still in the fabric stage, but about half got cut up and put into tops or actually quilted with those quilt tops I worked on a couple weekends ago. This Sunday I will pull another box of fabric into the house and sort through it for both inspiration and as a push to keep working on getting these quilt tops quilted and into the hands of kids who need them.

There is also a male teacher at my work who is in a medically induced coma from the surgeries he has undergone for pancreatitis. I was thinking of working on a quilt for him, I think I have a quilt top that I could add a border to and make it a bit larger for him and maybe get that one quilted up this weekend.

So many plans...

I love rainy days!

After yesterday's unproductive day, I am so happy with everything I got done today. Binding two quilts before church, then coming home and getting the rose bushes all trimmed. They were ready to start sprouting since the weather has been so nice lately. I know you are supposed to trim them way back in January and I just barely made it this year.

Then, when I came in, it started raining so hard and started to hail. That is always fun. We don't get snow, but sometimes get the hail. It only lasted 5 minutes and by the time the kids grabbed a pan and ran outside, it had stopped.

But, the rain gave me a good excuse to sit on the couch, watch some of my new DVD of the TV show Dirty Jobs and work on the preemie dolls I make. You can purchase the pattern here.

http://dollnetmarket.com/product.php?productid=7

I got two of the dolls finished up today and they are ready for their new homes. These are three pounders. I make them as 'fit' models so that people who make charity preemie items for hospitals know that their items will fit real babies. I sponsored a contest in 2006 and am getting closer to the end of all of the people who made over 100 items for the babies that year. I only have 26 more dolls to make :) I've made about 75 of them so far. It takes about 3 hours for each doll.

You can order the dolls already made from this website

http://www.weebundles.com/dolls.html

She does a great job on the hands and feet. I finally gave up trying to get the tiny fingers to turn correctly. I did one and it took about an hour per hand to get the fingers to turn right side out and I figured that it just wasn't worth the extra time and effort, so my fingers look like mitts. If I had the extra time, I could stitch fingers, but I have a lot of these babies still left to make so I don't stitch each finger or toe.

I also cut out 4 more dolls in the 5 pound size and started sewing those.

We also had a double rainbow today, which made the day extra special!

2 more bound

I got in the binding mood this morning and got two quilts bound before church. Here they are, two stripie (or is it strippie) quilts. They will be headed to Kazakhstan or prehaps to Mexico with the group that goes every summer.

wasted day

Wow, do I ever hate days like this.

I woke up this morning after not sleeping well and had a terrible crick in my neck. After getting everything done that 'had' to be done today, I took a muscle relaxer and was out for the count for most of the day. After finally waking up, the knot in my neck is still there and now I feel horrible for wasting the day.

From what I saw of the day, it was a nice, sunny day outside too. Oh, well, there is always tomorrow...

one week

My oldest leaves for college again in one week. I can't believe the time has gone so fast since she came home for break. Although I'm excited for her to return so she can continue to grow and learn, I will miss her terribly. I wish sometimes there was a 'pause' button you could push to spend just a little more time doing the things you love with the people you love.

Take a minute today to hug your kids and remember they won't stay little for long. I know one day, not long from now, she will be leaving for good. I have thoroughly enjoyed this time she has been home.