Quilting Design Wall & Christmas Carol Countdown 2014: 3 Days to Go!

My vacation quilting began on Saturday. I worked on a Christmas gift for my granddaughter who will be born in January. I can’t say anything now, because Chief and Noel Heart don’t know what it is.

Noel Heart is the pregnant one! My granddaughter is
hiding behind her Mommy's sweater. At right is Hubby and
at the bottom is Firstest

Tomorrow I’m going to quilt with my friend, JP. We’re both excited for being able to quilt almost every day of the vacation! I will be doing the “final stretch” on the Mystery Quilt “Cascadia.”

Lori from the blog “Humble Quilts,” started a QAL on November 7. It was to be a wall-hanging and end up about 17” x 19” square. When she mentioned using up 1.5” squares, I was hooked. I have a box of those little squares and it would be fun to use some of them. On November 26th, Lori did the reveal. It’s an adorable quilt. She copied it from an antique quilt she found.

Here’s my progress so far. The center strips are seminole piecing. It’s my first experience and tomorrow will be my third day trying to get it right. I believe I got it figured out at the last quilt-together. I’m anxious to see what I can do tomorrow!

We’re in the final stretch for Christmas! I miss the days of having the kids home for Christmas vacation and doing fun activities with them. Young moms, believe me, there will come a day when you miss having the kids under your feet at Christmas!

Quilting Nonnie with my three young kids.
In front, Nancy Drew  3 yrs, Noel Heart 5 yrs
and I'm holding TGS, 1 yr

I have told stories of our Advent Calendar activities when our kids were at home. My crazy son, TGS, and his lovely OSLW, have finally dropped over the cliffs of insanity. I thought it was cute when OSLW told me she painted the husky’s toenails. Of course, I helped things along this year by sending my granddogs an advent calendar. Now they’ve gone around the bend! TGS excitedly told me just a bit ago that Ginny and Gandalf (my granddogs) had done the Jello Slurping contest. Once Hubby had brought me back with smelling salts, I got the second-by-second description of the contest. A video is forthcoming. TGS said he wouldn’t spoil it by telling us who won. I think it’s Gandalf; Dale thinks it’s Ginny. I think we should make a bet!

OSLW with Gandalf (left) & Ginny (right)

 Now that Nancy Drew suggested a song, TGS, whose name might be changed to Crazy Geek Son, sent his Christmas “carol” into me.

TGS was totally absorbed with Dr. Demento when he was a teen, which might explain his personality now. He’d record each show from the radio. Actually, it was fun! I learned some goofy songs during that time!

TGS sent me a Christmas “carol” he heard on a Dr. Demento show. It is by the great comedian, Stan Freburg. He was well known in the 50s and 60s for his satire and parodies of many common themes of the day. TGS’ request today is “Green Christmas,” which TGS loves because he agrees with the jist of the spot.





Because of the Design Wall, this has been a little bit longer post. I hope you enjoyed the quilting, the music and the stories.

Don’t forget to come back every day to see the next Christmas Carol Countdown. If you’ve missed any so far, click on the badge near the top of the right sidebar!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

My sister, on right, and myself at Christmas in 1962.

My mom would always start singing that popular song, "It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas" around the beginning of December. It has stuck with me through all these years, and although I don't know most of the words, I always have to hum it when I start seeing Christmas lights on houses.

The weather here in California is cooperating for the beginning of December and the Christmas season. It's been cold, very cold, in fact. We've been getting frost!

I love the Christmas season. The joy, the giving, but mostly children. I had so much fun when my children were little. In the coming days, I'm going to share things that we did when my kids were little.

Last year at this time, two of my three children lived on the East coast. My daughter, Nancy Drew, and her family, including my new grandbaby. Curly was 2 years old. My son, TGS, also lived on the East coast with his new bride.

An event that our family had been anticipating for five years finally happened. Nancy Drew and her family moved to Utah! I live in Northern California. We are only 12-14 hours away from each other. Nancy Drew moved at the beginning of September. In the Veteran Admin. where she and her hubby work, they get almost every holiday off. In October, she got Columbus Day off and so did her older daughter. She added a day to the long weekend and came out to visit for the weekend.

Next came Thanksgiving and her family, my oldest daughter and her new hubby came to dinner! I'm heading to Utah for Christmas. This is so much better than a visit once a year. And I get to spend Christmas with children. I'm very excited, to say the least.

Now on to Christmas...

The advent calendar and the Twelve Days of Christmas have always been heartily celebrated in our family. More details in the days to come! My countdown to Christmas for this blog is going to be sharing some of my favorite carols sung by the artist I think did it best! Music has such a wonderful way of bringing the Spirit of Christmas, the Spirit of Christ, into our lives. We feel the warmth of the spirit and it makes us vow to do more, help more, give more.

My first choice for Christmas Carol Countdown is by the Norwegian singer, Sissel. She has a truly incredible voice; it makes you think of angels! A few years back, she was the guest artist on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. It was the first time I had heard her and I was entranced. The selection today is Angels from the Realms of Glory. And don't be too surprised if Sissel shows up later this month in the carol list.

Remember to check every day until Christmas for the Christmas Carol Countdown!

Oooo! Lookie what's on my design wall!

My hubby and I are back to ourselves; TGS and OSLW went home about a week ago. What fun we had! It was a whirlwind visit with lots of things to do. I miss them already, but am happy I will see them soon. I will be winging my way to the East Coast in just about a month to visit them and to see Nancy Drew and her family. I'm excited about seeing Nancy Drew; it's been a year. Curly will turn three right before I come. She is a little firecracker and talks all the time. I'm looking forward to seeing how she's changed.

One of the things TGS, OSLW & I did when we were in San Francisco was to take the tour of Alcatraz. It was a federal prison for about 30 years, until 1960s. It harbored the most heinous criminals and was escape proof. The tour is fantastic and I highly recommend it if you are in San Francisco. The tour is self-guided; you get an digital recording and are able to wander at your own pace. This is the second time I've gone and I enjoyed it just as much as I did before.

TGS & OSLW on boat to Alcatraz

A cool pic I took of the two lovebirds
during our tour of Alcatraz

A cell at Alcatraz, very, very small
@ 6 feet across

A decaying building. They continue to reconstruct the
buildings to add to the tour.

A great picture of the three of us
(against a picture backdrop  of Alcatraz!

No, the decaying building is not my next project! I finally am going to get going on the wedding quilt for my TGS & OSLW. You might remember in January I was making goals to start the Double Wedding Ring quilt in the colors of fire. (see post here).  I kept getting stumped by the arrangement of the fabrics and trying to get them all to play together nicely.

Once I finished the current quilts I was working on, it was time to start on the DWR. But by golly and by gosh I couldn't make those colors work. In the meantime, I hadn't quilted for almost two months. I knew I needed to start, but I just couldn't. I actually stopped quilting at all for almost two months. It IS true that quilters cannot make quilts that they don't like or don't like the colors.

I pulled out the last playing card I had and called in SUPER COLOR DUDE: my hubby. I had him come in and help me out. Hubby is the "color guy" around here. He helps me out oodles with figuring out colors for quilts, sashings, etc. Well even the guru of color couldn't find a way. He finally threw in the towel and said, "These colors just don't work together at all." Wow. I heard the death knell, the boat sank and the train wrecked. My lovely plans for the beautiful wedding quilt that OSLW loved was toast. I determined to break the news when they came to visit.

OSLW took the news well. After talking about colors and quilts, we went to the LQS and looked for fabrics that would go together for the quilt. We finally conceded that a DWR would not be the quilt to use with the fire colors. Next we wandered around looking at other fabrics. I had tried to be helpful and told her the blue and yellow quilts are Beautiful. We picked out fabrics and OSLW realized we would need a different quilt pattern. I suggest a Log Cabin and we were on our way!

Here is a mock-up of the Log Cabin square that I've done.

Add caption

Isn't this going to be gorgeous? I absolutely love Log Cabin quilts. I made a Log Cabin quilt for Hubby for Christmas one year. I followed Eleanor Burns Log Cabin methods and it turned out beautifully. Since the quilt will be a California King size and I'm using two-inch strips instead of the 2.5 inch that Eleanor uses in her book. I wasn't sure how much material to buy. I estimated from Eleanor's fabric requirements, adding a half yard or more to what she put. Then when I got to the fabric store I panicked. What if I had too little? What if I ran out of a fabric and I couldn't find the same one anymore? The what-if imp got to me and I added a half-yard to a yard more to my already inflated yardage. I have a feeling I'm going to have some beautiful blues and yellows to add to my stash when all is said and done!

I already have all the strips cut and ready for the quilt. Thanks to Hubby's generous and fantastic birthday quilt, an Accu-Quilt Go, I made short work of the cutting!

I'm linking up with Patchwork Times; check out what others quilty doings by clicking on the badge on the right! Also hooking up with Fabric Story at Quilt Story here. Linking up with WIP Wednesday, click on link in sidebar.

How Random Can I Get?

It seems that if I only post once a week, it's either Random Thursday or Whoop Whoop Friday.


This week has been everything except for quilty. Preparing for my son and his wife to come has been the household past-time for two weeks! I started in about three weeks before their arrival. I had to dig out the guest room, uncover the living room and prep the garden, plus forge my way through the back porch. Guest room and living room are recent occurrences, but the porch is actually the same as the last time TGS was here, two years ago, and I asked him to help me clean it up! Click here for the post on my euphoric list of endeavors and before-pictures.

As the three weeks moved along, I lost two highly anticipated cleaning Saturdays. One to illness and another to "something that could not be avoided". Each day I swore that I would come home after school and do x amount of work. When I stumbled in from work, I was too bushed to do anything. If this sounds familiar to you, join in on the second verse!

The closer we grew to the target day, the less concerned I became about how much was going to get done. Isn't it wonderful how amazingly flexible I am in lowering my standards?

Meanwhile, my brave, noble, talented and incredibly fantastic Hubby was trying to get a shower put in the 2nd bathroom. That bathroom only had a tub. With just the master bath having a shower, it's a bit difficult when four people only have one shower!

But, good has been done here!

A quick glimpse of the shower progression:

L to Right: Tearing out the ugly 70s backsplash, Hubbing tearing up wall to put in pipes for shower head, Bathroom with cement board, Our hallway during the "project"!

I'm sparing you all the rest of the pictures, including the one of my hubby's hand with 6 camo bandaids on it from taking the cement off the walls. And the cement dust. *cough*cough*

I was trying to still use the sink and do my hair and make-up in there. Last night I walked in the bathroom to get a glass of water. I looked at my glass innocently sitting on the counter, open side up...yummmmmmy! Water with cement dust. I toddled off to the kitchen.

This morning I went to brush my teeth. I looked at my toothbrush innocently sitting on the counter, bristling waving in the air. Well, wouldn't that be a brand-new experience for me? Cement my toothbrush to my teeth?

Back to the good stuff: I'm so excited...a shower! It's our first ever home improvement project! We've lived here nine years and it's the first time we've been able to afford a "project!"

Tomorrow's a Whoop Whoop Friday...tune in for happy garden news and the emergence of the guest room (almost).

Check out more randomness over at Live a Colorful Life and Patchwork Times. Click on the buttons in the right column and relax and see some goodness.

Same blog time, same blog station (with a tip of the hat to Batman!)

A Few Photos from the Week

I've been perusing the links on Judy's Design Wall Monday. (click here) My design wall in the other room is empty, but here's a shot I took of the two projects I'm working on. I had just tossed both the quilts on my cutting/ironing table the other day. Later I glanced over and they were such a lovely jumble that I had to take a picture.

I'm making progress on these quilts, which are part of my February Get It Done list. The Spiderweb needs one more border and the sandwiching and quilting. Wait until you see what I picked out. It needed a dark border to tie it all together. I went and found a gorgeous, plain midnight fabric. It is a dark blue, or wait--is it dark purple? It's one of those fascinating colors that have two colors that show up different depending on what color they are next to. I love fabrics like that!

I have to sandwich and quilt the spiderweb. I'm doing a beginner's class for our quilt guild teaching them how to make a spiderweb. I showed it on Wednesday night last and seven people have signed up. If you're interested, the pattern is from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville blog. (here)

The square in a square is just a teensy weensy way away from being finished. I worked on it all weekend. Mondays are my wonderful quilting day. My husband works late on Mondays so I get three hours of quilting after I get home until he arrives home. I worked on it today. I've got the sashing finished on the two long sides. It's pinned and ready to sew for the two short sides. After that it's just the binding. The square in a square was my first QAYG (Quilt As You Go).

I told my husband I was trying to think of the name for the quilt. It is almost completely 70s fabric. The 70s were an interesting decade for me. In the space of those ten years I graduated from high school, graduated from college, got married, and had three children.

Hubby came up with a winner: The Seventies Are Calling, They Want Their Fabric Back!

This is the same guy who helped me name an all-blue batik quilt: Jacques Cousteau's Undersea Adventure. You should hear the interesting names he gave his stuffed animals as a child and gives our cats!

A few pictures from this week:

Calla Lilies my hubby gave me when Newt died

Our swallow who is building a nest in the eaves above our front door.

TGS with one of my granddogs, Ginny

OSLW with the two granddogs

My dog, Miko, looking cute

Shhh! It's secret!

I guess I should say "Shhh! Oh darn. It's no longer a secret!"

My Talented Geek Son (TGS) and his Oh-So-Lovely Wife (OSLW) have already found out that I making them a Double Wedding Ring. It's OSLW's favorite quilt. How could I not make it for her? I love her dearly. Of course, DWR is a difficult quilt and sometimes I shudder thinking of it. OSLW wanted the colors to be like a fire: red, yellow, orange and blue. Lots of blue. She's seen audition of fabric colors. She probably didn't recognize the fabrics as batik. I thought it was the best bet for fire. And, as of yesterday, they saw the background fabric. Here's a sneak peek. I still need more blue:

Most of the Fabrics for DWR

The darkest blue will be the cornerstones. One of the blues there got discarded because it had some purple in it. I still think it's going to be beautiful. I'm going to make a couple of rings and let her see to make sure she likes it in quilt form.

My first daughter may know there's a quilt coming for her. I mentioned a couple of posts back that I was going to make her quilt as a leader/ender with the DWR. Of course, she has no idea what that means. It can stay that way for awhile.

I haven't gotten a "Name Alias" for her yet. I've switched it three times already! She has a dozen nicknames. It's quite a record. I'm just nervous about their privacy on the web. It's a big place and I'm not comfortable enough to call them by their given names.

I should ask my TGS. He knows all about Net Security. It's part of his job. In fact, he scares me to death with stories of what people can do to steal your identity and how far they can go to practically make you disappear from cyberspace. Among his credentials is one of his college classes was Ethical Hacking! Basically learning everything about hacking (fight fire with fire) but only for defense.

But I Digress. That's probably the phrase they'll put on my gravestone...

The Happy News is I just finished cutting all the sets for the main blocks, which are churn dashes. Now, you know and I know what that block is, but this will still keep some of the surprise until a few inches down!


I've shown my daughter the fabrics when she was here once. I saw them and thought they were perfect for her. They are Japanese Taupe Daiwabo Fabrics. I love this type of fabric so much and #1 better be careful. This quilt may do a disappearing act also! Not into cyberspace, but into a Secret Hiding Place in my home. Shhh!

A preview of the fantastic fabric in the block sets.

But I Digress. There are 72 sets of blocks. The dark is two 3" squares and four 2.5" squares. The light fabric is two 3" squares and one 2.5" square. Those of us who can do quilt math can tell this is going to be a six inch block. Oh oh. That's the first time I put it through my math brain. Ouch!!! Say it's not so. Six inches--arggghhhh. I'm 90% through making the Farmer's Wife quilt, which is 111 or close to that, Six Inch Blocks. I only made it through by paper-piecing.

Breathe.

Big Breath.

Sit down.

Put your head between your knees.

Okay. You can do it. This block only has 4 HSTs in it. (The pulse is coming down). That's child's play next to some of the FW that had 50-75 pieces in them. (Pulse going up.) I kid you not! I sadistically counted the pieces for the blocks. It's amazing I even went through with it.

Oh dear, you're beginning to get enough information to think I'm foolhardy. I'm using that nice word. Some would just drop the "hardy" part of the word.

But I Disgress. The quilt is going to be absolutely gorgee-oh-sus. Here's a looksie.

I'm going to go lay down now. I'm still feeling a little faint....

My Nutty Son

Barely a few minutes after I posted my Get It Done list, I received a text from my son. "Move number four up to number one and it will be perfect!" Of course number 4 is starting on the Double Wedding Ring quilt. This is the wedding quilt for him and his wife. Wouldn't you know that a few moments later his wife chimed in with a cute remark about abandoning numbers 1-3 and just doing the DWR. At least both were happy that the DWR was on the list and that I was planning on "working furiously" to get it done.

This is a picture of the two of them on their wedding day. They were married in Virginia in June 2012. They had it in a bed and breakfast in Leesburg and the wedding was in the back of the inn. As part of their wedding package, the whole inn was rented out and the family of both sides got to stay there. It was utterly fantastic. The entire inn and room were enchanting.

 It was not too bad in the weather department, for late June in Virginia. But doesn't this picture look so wonderfully green and shady? One thing we learned there was that the pineapple is a sign of hospitality!

We had the "mandatory" wedding pictures of family. Then, of course, my side of the family began to show their true colors.

This is by far my favorite picture of the wedding. This was taken after the wedding as they were "walking down the aisle." There is so much love and bliss in their faces. And let me tell you, if two people every deserved to be happy and crazy in love, it's these two.

 You've seen these lovely portraits of my son but truly his personality is more like this:

That is my middle daughter with her brother. I cannot tell you how many pictures I have of these two growing up where they are goofing around. There's another in the wedding picture of this daughter and her husband being silly during a family picture, but I'll spare you.

If you want to sum up my son's personality, this picture is pretty representative.

When he calls me when I'm quilting with a group, I let him know I can't talk right now. Then he proceeds to tell me about the quilts he's making. He'll name an actual quilt pattern, like Log Cabin, and tell me he's almost done and it only took 2 days. Whenever I press him about giving me a quilt, he says he gives them all to charity. The goof.

When he texted me about making the DWR the top of the list, I told him since he could quilt he could help me out. He just said that he was too busy making his own quilts!

I can tell you life was never dull around our house when our son was growing up!