And finally Goodness...

She's a very prim lady or so the story goes, with such a nice hat and flower.

Harry Potter Day arrives....

HARRY POTTER DAY!!

Apologies to anyone who hates the books or doesn't get the excitement. To each his own. But I love them and I always have a standard date with hubby to see the new movie on the very first day! Normally we see the FIRST movie on the FIRST day, but 9AM was too much for me. So I Fandango'ed some tickets for the 3:20 showing and hubby is taking a half day off to take me on a movie date!

I have lots of finishes to show you, but I'll write about those later today. I spent Monday on the couch with a serious sinus headache sleeping and about 5PM finally started a bit of sewing and realized that it was getting awful warm in the house. A look at the thermostat showed 80 when it was supposed to be 74. Nothing coming out but warm air. it didn't help that the past 2 days here have been over 96 and with a heat index in the 100's with almost 100% humidity. So I turned on every fan and started calling. Strangely all the places that claim to have 24 hour emergency service...don't. But I got one to get me right in for yesterday and they were here at 1:30. Took 20 minutes to replace the ??capacitor?? who knows, and we were back in business. Of course when your house is 86 degrees it takes a very long time to cool it down again, especially when all the nooks and crannies are so hot too. Like the laundry room and closets. Finally about 10:30PM it got to 76 and turned off. I survived, but you don't sew in that heat, or use the very hot computer. You sit under 3 fans and try to read as quietly as possible.

Right now, I'm needed at the machine to get a few things done before the movies! Afterwards will be hand sewing time, so I like to get as much machine time as I can now!

Back again later!

And now Mercy!...

Finished her up last night, and got her side strips all sewn down this morning...ready to add her at the end of the 3 lovely ladies. Somehow Goodness got skipped. I think because she requires less needle turn and more wool..whatever the reason, she's almost done too. I am loving the gals HAIR. No matter which way you style it...it just looks goofy and hilarious!

I spent several hours yesterday fulfilling my duty to myself that I was going to finish up all the quilts laying around from the last several months that have just a bit left to get them completed. it's infuriating to have them 95% done and then shoved into a corner in favor of something new. Bad habit that needs to be broken right now. So I pulled out the Tisket Tasket Quilt and started quilting again. I stopped because I couldn't figure out what to do on the white squares. I got hung up and froze. Well after an hour of trying things on paper I fell back the the old standard of meandering and got that part all done quickly. Now I have a few squiggles to do on the blue section borders and then trim, and binding and it will be done. It's just a scrap picnic quilt...something to be tossed on the ground and eaten on so it doesn't have to be a masterpiece. I'll try to get a picture up as soon as it's finished.

Back to quilting!

Shirley's finished...

Got the first block done for Lynda Hall's class called Shirley, Goodness and Mercy. This is Shirley...don't you just love the hair?

I realized this morning that I would rather have the block sewn together on top of each other, instead of side by side. SO I'll wait for them to all be done before I put them all together.

I started some new blocks today...just as a test. I saw the quilt at the retreat and just loved it. So I went to EQ and started figuring it out. Like I really need another quilt to start at the moment. But I wanted to see how the blocks would make up and well curiosity can't be stopped. Two blocks and I finally think I have the right size square to cut for the four corners. I'll show them when I get the time to really start making them...after I get some things finished FIRST!

Itty bitty rick rack...

I got a new pattern the other day and it has a bit of embroidery on the main piece, so about 6pm I wandered out for a quick run to JoAnn's to pick up some floss. Just in case I might want to start the work on it at some point this weekend. The trip turned into a gold mine!

When Sue Spargo taught our class she showed us scads of innovative things we could use to embellish and couch onto the funky little quilts, all sorts of weird yarns, ribbons, beads, cording, etc. As I went in, making my way back to the DMC floss I passed by the rick rack holder and the lime green caught my eye! Lime green in JoAnn's?
Not just lime green, but hot pink, lemon yellow, and two shades of teal..all in very tiny rickrack. On the right of the picture are the pieces I bought from Sue at the workshop. Regular rickrack and velvet rickrack. What a hoot to see such tiny rick rack in JoAnn's! I scooped up one of each. It's perfect for making stems, embellishing leaves..oh all sorts of things. And best yet it's 4 yards for $1.29. Nothing to break the bank.

I also found this funky yard in the back and wondered how it would look around flower petals, or as stems. It's main colors are orange, hot pink, teal, and lime!
Very cool! I think JoAnn's is moving up in the world of embellishments. Now if I could only find a great source for beads locally, I'd be all set.

Saturday Class...

So are you sick of my trip yet? Buck up..last day. Saturday was one I was again looking forward to since I think I have about 15 Lynda Hall patterns in my collection. What a great person. She was fun, super nice, happy about everything we did and just as supportive as anyone could ask for in a teacher. Mind you the one class I took the teacher chastised and made fun of me because I don't like to rip fabric the whole time. SO this was a breath of fresh air. It was quite funny seeing some ladies get very perplexed over her explanation that nothing would fit, we'd be chopping off rows to make things work, and sewing on strips in a wacky way and then trimming them .."crooked"! I loved it! I was even able to show Lynda something she had never seen before...cutting hst's from strips pre-sewn together!! She thought that was the coolest technique ever. Her class was a lovely table runner/wallhanging called Shirley, Goodness and Mercy.

So let's meet the ladies keeping in mind they are not even sewn yet! Shirley still gets some hair and a halo, and more embellishments before she finally gets another row of strips .

Goodness' hat will be sewn down (maybe another color too) and her collar fixed, and her hat flowers added along with lots more work to come, before she looks pretty enough for another outing.
Mercy ended up with a brown face and she seems good that way. She also has loads of good things left to do to her, hair, eyes, as well as sewing her down before she's ready for another debut. I'll let you know when the gals are ready to play. You can see a picture of the finished project here. About a week after arriving home I finally got my last goodies box of the stuff I bought the final night at Quilter's Station. Just like having a surprise come in the mail. I knew everything I bought but it was fun to see it all again and show it off to my sweetie!

ON the left you can see the Sue Spargo Needleroll Kit for the class I didn't get to take that day. Luckily Sue had a few extra kits and I snapped one up quickly. It will be very fun to make that too. I also got another stack of wonderful homespuns in tan, greens and reds that will go right into my collection of FQ plaids. IN their back corner I found the best grouping of fabrics by Lisa Liffick Designs called Honey and Me that look dipped in coffee and tea! They are so warm and primitive that I had to have a few yards before heading home. I got the cutest ones.

Then wanting one more thing to use for carrying stuff to class I picked up the wooden painted box that had an insert with the word Liberty stitched into the lid. All I have to add is a closure and it will be ready for stuffing with sewing items.

Lastly, I forgot to show you 2 kits that I bought on the first night! The first by Country Lore Designs called #6 9 slice of Summer, should be great for next years summer season.


And then the cutest Uncle Sam wall hanging from Pieces from my Heart called #343 Tip Your Hat! I loved the red white and blue flowers coming up out of Uncle Sam's Hat. I know it looks pink but it's really a very small red and white check. Too late to be up this year, but certainly it will be done by next year!
Sunday we loaded up the car and headed for the airport and home. It was so much fun but I really missed being home. Not enough to keep me from going again next year though! Thanks for putting up with all these long posts. I'm in for the rest of the summer and I have more than enough to keep me busy until Christmas!

New fridge...

A few months ago our fridge compressor died on our still new, barely 2 year old fabulous fridge. SO the guy came out and installed a booster that would help the compressor kick on. Worked like a charm. Friday morning as I was getting ready for Mom's appointment to the oncologist, the power kept flipping off and on, off and on...about 10 times. I bumped the a/c up so that wouldn't suffer and turned off the computer, but the fridge was running and what??? you can't unplug the thing. I had no idea when I would get back home.

So I haul in about 3 o'clock and I don't pay attention to the fridge, the waters cold, that's all I cared about. At about 6 I grabbed a frozen bag of pasta and made dinner and just afterwards I grabbed an icy for dessert and I hear "slosh, slosh"...not what a FROZEN icy is supposed to sound like. That's when I realized it was all thawed in the freezer. We backed it out and unplugged it...waited, then plugged it in and it started. Cool, every thing's fine. Saturday morning when I got up it was still running..what turned out to be the fan, but everything was warm and melted and my brand new barely 2 year old fridge was DEAD.

So off to Lowes, where I picked something IN STOCK that could be delivered the next day. Luckily they had one and delivered it yesterday. The guys come in and start telling me how I almost didn't get a fridge today because the ones they had were damaged. One got opened and the side was ruined and dented, the next one had a huge dent in the door. They couldn't find another one so they were going to call me and break the bad news. Only the driver said he refused to call, since the Manager had been the one who sold us the fridge. So they got the idea to replace the dented door on the good fridge and bring it to me. You are lucky he said, you wouldn't have gotten anything today otherwise. I looked right at the delivery guy and said "well it's a good thing they didn't call me, because I specifically asked for the models he knew he had in stock because I had NO fridge and I WOULD have had a fridge that day even if the manager had to empty out his own fridge and drive it on over. I thought the guy was gonna die laughing. I was dead serious. Who accepts stock and doesn't check it? You don't mess with a women who hasn't had a fridge in 2 days.

So I had to wait all day for the thing to freeze up good before I headed out this morning to put frozen stuff back into the new freezer. We lost everything because it had sat overnight without us knowing, so out it all went. Luckily because I was out of town the freezer was almost empty. But it sucked having to buy ketsup, mustard, mayo...etc. to replace what's gone. It also sucks that the freezer is half the size of the old one.

To pass along what the repair guy and the delivery guys told us yesterday...NEVER buy a Frigidaire! They are awful these days and don't hold up. They said they often don't make it to the 2 year warranty stage, ours lasted just past warranty. We didn't buy another one...the repair guy will be pleased.

After lunch.... the last day and the rest of my goodies!