Down with the crud

No pics today

Barely a post :)

I've been down with this rsv junk for 3 weeks now.

Thought i was going to hack up a lung with as bad as the coughing was.

But right at the 2 week mark, i started feeling better. Soo thankful!

20%... then 40%... and then beautifully I was 90 %! Coughing up the last of the junk... or so i thought.

Yesterday it's like everything came back - with a vengance! ? ?

Chest hurts now... feels like someone is sitting on it?

Is this just the nature of the beast?? (this virus' m.o. ?)

Or do i need to get antibiotics? Anyone out there gotten this nasty stuff and gotten through it WITHOUT

antibiotics??

Thought I was! ha! Guess not?

Working on DQSX

Ok, so i'm not so handy with arranging pictures on here in the order that I want them! LOL!

So bear with me that they are a little backwards! :)

I've been working on my DQSX. (doll quilt swap 10)

I got the idea right away for my secret partner. And went to town getting it started! But had a comedy of errors happen one after another while working on it! LOL

And in the pledge to show process, I guess I'll be showing you some :)

I made a couple of little pouches last night, working on a few things to send with the little quiltie.

Here's one of them... it was the first. I think i'm keeping this one!

The second one, I will be sending to my partner. It's a little bigger, and a little more usable than the first one.

And I put umbrellas on the front :)

(dummy me... got it all done and realized i had wanted to put lines coming down the umbrellas to the points. erg.. hate it when you get working and forget things!)

Ok, sooooo my idea for the quilt was multi colored umbrellas. I posted two pics on flikr, asking which my partner liked best... grey background, or white background? She liked the white. (so thankful commented!) So I made two :) I figured I would keep the grey one, and send her the white one. Doing the grey first would let me fiddle around with my idea, and if i made any major mistakes it wouldn't be on hers! LOL

So... got it all fused, stitched and ready to quilt. Then there it sat.

I knew WHAT i wanted the quilting to look like - i just didn't know how to acheive it! So i doodled. And doodled some more - not lifting my pen from the paper - like on my sewing machine. Finally i figured I'd best get on with it or else my partner wasn't going to get her swap!

So... playing with the idea of rain drops.... i started quilting.

And it just wasnt going well. I thought the rain drops would hit the umbrellas and go down and around them - that's what umbrellas are for, right? LOL

Well it turned out HORRIBLE! HAHAHA!!

I think it looked more like a deluge of pouring rain, and all whimsy was gone!

Back to the drawing board! LOL

You can see in the upper left corner I started playing with a more open and "windy" look.

So I made a much smaller version and played with that idea.

You can see below that's what I ended up going with. Still not the look i was really going for... but... it worked. ;)

So... i went to get the final one done. Well... that's when my 10 year old iron decided to have a little hissy fit, and go out in a blazing hot fit of glory! LOL!

I SCORCHED IT!!

Literally

Two big honkin yellow iron marks on the white background!

FULL iron marks mind you. With holes and all.

I've NEVER scorched anything before while ironing!!!!! Oh my gosh! And I couldn't figure out why it happened! So... thinking since I was sick, i must have zoned out or something?? I started YET AGAIN!

Dude... refused and cut all those little umbrellas, for a fourth time!! arrghh

And in making the new ones, i realized my iron was hot enough to explode! LOL!

(thank goodness i didn't figure that out on the fourth background! hahaha!!!)

Went and got a new iron asap!!

Took about two weeks off at this point because i had the flu crud that was going around. I could just see myself screwing up yet another one! So.. thought it was just better to wait it out! ha!

How could such a simple idea (and simple execution) have gotten soo convoluted?

geez!

Ok, so new iron and I set off (carefully) to get going on the final product! :)

Ironing went off without a hitch.

Stitching went off without a hitch.

Quilting semi went off without a hitch.

Trimmed, and went to choose binding.

road block

grrrr

Nothing looked right. Tried everything i have in my stash. NOTHING worked.

Turned to medium grey, thinking it would make the white and the colors pop, and set it off nicely. Yah. Boring. lol

Then thought maybe this grey with fun sewing words on it would look neat, if i could get it stitched so only one row of wording showed around the entire edge. Cut a strip and pinned it on to get a visual. (that picture is down below)

I liked it actually.

But thought it added to the business of the quilt... and wasn't quite sure if my partner would like it.

So late last night... frustrated that I could not make a decision, and not knowing what she would like, I "re-stalked" her. Read her entire blog for the last two years. lol

And one thing was loud and clear.

She LOVES GREEN.

With a passion. And would put tons of green on everything if she could.

Ok then. Green it is!! I auditioned all my greens, and finally settled on tufted tweets chairs to bind with!

It brings out the rest of the green umbrellas (which number more than the others because i knew she loved it) And hopefully -crossing fingers- she'll like it with a green binding! LOL!

Now.. as long as I don't accidentally put a slice in this baby while binding it, i think i'm finally in the home stretch! God willing!!

LOL!!

And last but not least... all the little scraps I had left over from cutting out the umbrellas were just too cute to throw away! So I made a little mini quiltie using them as a frame/border.

yes... i know her "bear" looks alot more like a frog! hahaha!! They both still need eyes stitched on, and I need to bind this one too!

Calli fell in love with it, she likes the bear/frog. LOL So once finished it will hang in her room. :D

Now, I gotta go get these guys sewn!

xo

Bren

Best Barter Ever!!

I haven't been sewing as much as I would like to the last few months. My "new" machine had a breakdown right after I got it. Nice huh? Anyway, finally got it into the shop and got it back a few weeks ago. Yay!

I'll post some pictures of what I have been working on lately in the next few days.

But in the mean time, here are a couple of pics of one I finished last month.

This was a commission/barter quilt. An aquaintance/friend of mine really wanted to buy a quilt made especially for her. And she's a young gal, still in college. She asked me if she could set up a payment plan of some sort.

LOL

For those of you that don't know me personally - you don't know how laughable that was to me!

AS IF i would take her hard earned money for something that I love to do, and would do for free!?!? Yah. No.

(enter in my loving husband who says you can't always give everything away! haha... WHY NOT??)

Sooo anyway... I skirted around her questions of price, thinking I would just make her one and surprise her :) When that didn't work - the hedging that is - i finally just said I would love to make her a quilt, and not to worry about any cost! No... she wouldn't have any of that. :(

A week or two later she was talking about some photography courses she was taking, and how her goal was to set up a photography studio.

LIGHT BULB!!! :D

So we struck a deal!

She agreed to take pictures of my kids, and our family, in exchange for me making her a quilt!

PERFECT!!

So she took some GREAT photos of our family - our goofy, never sit still, A.D.D. family. (not an easy job!!)

And in return I made her this quilt :)

She wanted springy, fresh colors. With a touch of "granny" and a scrappy look. So I went springy and fresh and scrappy on the front...

And feminine and "granny" on the back :)

She LOVED it! (man.. i was soooo nervous! That's all she would give me as far as direction or ideas - she kept saying it was all up to me. And I was really afraid I might have misinterpretted her likes! I did know she loves pink, and loves polka dots, so kind of took off with that also! LOL )

Anyway, she couldn't be happier! Yay!!!

And we were absolutely THRILLED with the pictures she took!! :D

(I'll post a few later)

What a wonderful barter!

And I made a wonderful friend in the process!

xo

Bren

The Best Things in Life Aren't Things

I love this picture. This reminder. So true, and so appropriate for my return to blogging!

So, my best friend continues to point out that it's been "____" days/weeks/months since I last blogged. LOL Yes, I am aware! :)

But where does one start when so many things are going on? And have gone on? And blogging seems so trivial in comparison to the life lessons that are being learned and taught? When the people in your life deserve and need your whole focus, everything else just falls away.

Because they are the most important "things" in my life!

Being a Mom ... a Christian mom... one that is involved in her kids' lives daily... keeping them on track and healthy, both mentally and physically... is exhausting.

And SO rewarding.

Much more so, than anything else in this lifetime!

Life is a roller coaster. With unexpected twists and turns, ups and downs, laughter and screams. And you only get to ride ONCE! :D

So please excuse my absence. I've been on one helluva ride these last few months!

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming :)