Final Day for Giveaway and saving energy

Today is the final day for the quilt kit giveaway. You just have until midnight to sign up. I will pick a winner in the morning, when I get up :)

I gave the finished quilt to my friend at church today and totally forgot about putting a card in the tote bag. Oops. Oh, well, everyone knows me as the quilt lady from church, so I know the new mom will know who the present is from, and I saved another tree!

Speaking of saving trees, maybe it is all the talk of the economy and raising the debt ceiling, or maybe it is spending so much on the bathroom re-do (which still isn't done by the way!) but I have been freaking out just a little bit on our PG&E bills. I was at the dentist will my little guy the other day and overheard the ladies talking about thier bills. One lady was saying that she just got a $90 bill last month. Another lady said hers was $120. They said that those were pretty low bills, but they thought they would be lower because we have had some really cool temperatures for the summer months. True, our summer has been really cool. We have maybe had 5 days over 100 all summer long. But, our bill is over $400 almost every month every month of the year.

What's running and sucking all of the power? I am starting to do some research in the hopes of saving a little money (to spend on fabric or a robotic quilting machine!)

Here's an article on how appliances still use power, even when off.
I found this article on how much each appliance uses, based on the values for 8 cents/KW hour. Now to figure out how much we pay per hour for a kilowatt :) I bet it is a lot more than 8 cents!

Off to do some more research. I feel like the energy czar at my school. Turn off that light, shut down that computer! Ugh, I wish my shoulder felt better so I could quilt :)

Batik Boutique

Here's a website with some really great products made by people who are working their way out of poverty. Take a peek and see if there are any gifts you would like to get yourself or a friend.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Or so the saying goes...

Let's just see if that saying is true for my quilting. Since I am going to take your advice and stay away from quilting for awhile and give my shoulder some time to heal, I am giving crocheting a go again. I learned to crochet when I was 12. A LONG time ago. I love to crochet, almost as much as I love to quilt. I stopped crocheting when I picked up quilting because you can finish a quilt much faster than you can finish a crochet afghan. But, I do have a lot of yarn stashed in the garage that needs to be used up, so, unless this hurts my shoulder too, I will be working on some baby things. These are a few of the hats I have been working on that will be headed to the NICU at the local hospital. I used to make a whole bunch of baby hats and booties for the hospital and it is fun to make them again. I love to knit too, so maybe I will pick that up again. Must keep the hands busy doing something. I hate just sitting there and watching TV and I feel like I have accomplished something after a couple of hours if I have something to show for my lazy times.

The pattern is similar to this one, but not exactly. I did it from memory, from making so many of these baby hats over the years. But this is a good one to start with, if you need a quick project to make for a friend. My hats come out smaller, because they are for preemie babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

Paying the Piper

So, it is definately the quilting that is bothering my shoulder. I quilted two quilts yesterday and this morning my shoulder is killing me. :(

But, I think it is worth it. At least in the short term. I'm going to do a little google searching and find out how long tendonitis takes to heal. That's what my husband thinks my shoulder trouble is. He had tendonitis in his elbow from playing tennis and it took about 6 months to heal. He had to give up playing tennis tournaments and can only play for short amounts of time now that he is 'older'. I hope that doesn't happen to me. I hope I didn't do some serious damage with all of the quilting I did for the Japan project. I know I put in some long hours on that project. Again, totally worth it, but sad that I can't crank them out like I used to. Ugh.

This quilt is for a friend of a friend at church who had surgery last week for lung cancer. The real kind, not the fake kind that the doctors make up to make you go away when your shoulder hurts. She is home and doing well, but I thought she could use a hug. I love the colors in this quilt and hope she likes them too. I'm going to pop it in the mail today.

made the tote bag :)

Decided to make the tote bag. Took a whole 10 minutes from start to finish, cutting the fabric, sewing and all! Quilt is wrapped and ready to give on Sunday.

That was easy!

Finished the baby quilt

I was invited to a baby shower for a friend at church's daughter last weekend. I couldn't go, but wanted to make a gift. Here it is finished :) Now I need to decide on whether to wrap it or just put it in a tote bag. You see I've been making a zillion and one tote bags from the thick fabric that has been donated. A tote bag saves me time and money on wrapping paper and could be useful to the new mother, but is that tacky? Does it say, hey, I'm too lazy to run to the store and buy you some pretty wrapping paper, come home, find the scissors and tape and spend 20 minutes trying to make your present look nice? Instead, I spent 10 minutes making this reusable tote for you and put your present inside. Would you rather have a tote, or wrapping paper that gets thrown away? I know my answer, but tell me what you think.

FIRE!

This is what it looks like out my daughter's bedroom window. There is an industrial park about 2 miles from my house, across the street from the high school I work at. There is a Clorox plant, Ball (the company that makes the canning jars), a wine bottle making plant, Doritos, and this company, which manufactures plastic which is on fire. Not the best planning if you ask me! Who puts a high school right across the street from all of these places that make things that when they burn can give you cancer? I had no idea this was on fire, right outside my house, until a friend texted me and asked if I could see the fire from my house.

I'm going to try and call to find out if we should evacuate because the smoke is coming our way :(

Ugh, this article on clutter is so me!

I'm an entropy expert and this article is soooo me!

Still want to send quilts to Japan?

Yesterday I sent another 15 quilts to Japan. I am still working through the quilt tops that were sent to me for the Quilts for Japan project that I wasn't able to finish in time for the Free Shipping from Fed Ex. I was a little worried that I would have to get a second job to pay for the quilts to get there, or maybe have to rent a plane and take them myself.

Well, I boxed up 15 quilts in a pretty big box and took them to the post office. The guy I'm sending them to is a Major for the US Marines (hoo-rah) and so I could send the box Military Mail. Yay!

The box weighed 21 pounds and only cost me $12.89 to ship. Wow! Now I wish my daughter was in the military because I have to ship out some stuff to her in college and it will probaby cost me about $60, just to go to Ohio. I sent this big box all the way to Japan for so cheap!

If you would still like to help the Children of Japan and send them a warm hug from the United Stated, you can use this address too. The more quilts you send at one time, the cheaper it is to send. I sent mine the cheapest way possible, parcel post, and it will probably take about a week to get there. If you include your email address, Maxx will email you when the box arrives.

Maj. Maxx Godsey
PSC 78 Box 412
APO AP 96326

When you get to the post office, you will need to fill out the large customs form with all of your information on it and what is in the box. You can just make up a value for the quilts. They aren't charged customs on the packages so it doesn't matter what you put, but mark gift :)

There were over one million people who lost homes in Japan and they are still working to clean up after the disaster. I know that I never hear anything on the news about Japan because we go from one crisis to another. So, if you still have the children of Japan on your hearts and still feel the need to help them, know that they aren't forgotten and that there are still lots of people helping. You quilts will be welcomed with open arms and given to kids who still need BIG hugs!

Baby Tumbler Quilt Kit Give-Away!

I needed a baby shower gift in a Jiffy and also wanted to try out my new 3 1/2 inch tumbler die I got off ebay for the Studio cutter so when I combined the two, this is what I got. Took me about 2 hours to put it together, now I just need to quilt and bind and wrap around the cute little baby!

Well, when I cut out the pieces, of course, I ended up with waaaaay too many. So, here's the giveaway.

You have the chance to win everything you need to complete a quilt top just like this. Enough 3 1/2 inch tumbler blocks, the 1 1/2 inch inner border and 3 1/2 inch outer border. The finished quilt top measures about 37x40 inches and is the perfect size to cuddle that cute little baby that is coming into your life. What? No baby you know of? How about donating to your favorite local charity.

So, how do you win?

First, head over to my friend Carla's blog. Take a look at what she has been up to. If you are a reader of North Hills Quilter, you know I talk about Carla a lot! She is my partner in crime and we get each other in trouble a lot :) You can see that she quilts for hire at the top of her blog. She has a robotic quilting machine that can do some amazing things! She just programs it and tells it what to do and she can go take a nap, read a book, eat some bon-bons and put her feet up. When the machine gets to the end of the row, it sits quietly and waits for her to come back and roll the quilt and do the next row. If you are looking for someone to do some machine quilting for you, Carla does a great job and her rates are really reasonable. She also has a really fast turn around time!

Then, come back here and tell me about one of the quilts you liked from her blog. Just leave a comment with your favorite quilt from Carla's blog in the comment and you are entered for a chance to win the quilt kit for the Baby Tumbler quilt.

One comment per person please to keep things fair. International people are ok this time because the package will be small enough not to break the bank :)

I will pick a winner on July 31, which also happens to be the day that the Accuquilt Facebook contest ends! what a coincidence :) Good Luck!