Busy, busy

I'm working like a crazy lady trying to get my quiet pages done in time, but in the mean time here is a little music humor for your viewing pleasure.

Where was this when I was teaching 2 years ago?! I would have loved to post this on my classroom wall. :)

A Finish for a Very Special Person

I can hardly believe it!  36 blocks, 3 quilts and a year later I am completely done with the Skill Builder Sampler.  I have loved every minute of it and can't thank Leila enough for hosting this fabulous quilt along.  I have learned a ton.  I finished the third and final quilt of the series yesterday.  This quilt has some of my favorite blocks on it, and definitely some of the hardest.

This quilt is for someone near and dear to my heart.  It's for my Grandma Leona.  Growing up we lived across the country and only saw her about once a year, but we were really close, because we wrote letters back and forth my whole childhood.  My Grandma is an amazing woman and one of the most giving people I've ever known, particularly to her family and loved ones.   My Grandfather died in his early 50s (I was 4 at the time), so she was widowed at a very young age.  She worked, but was always in debt, because she gave everything away and was always putting other people in front of her own needs.  She would have given you the shirt off her back if she thought you needed it.

(You can see from the back I have 3 "branches": Bare Branches, Tree Roots, & Cucumber Vines from the Free Motion Quilt Along):

5 years ago my Grandma had a stroke and didn't receive medical attention for several days, and as a result she never fully recovered.  She's been declining ever since.  She recently made the move from Sandy, UT to my Aunt and Uncle's home in California to get the assistance that she needs. She has moderate dementia, and the depression and anxiety that comes with it.  It's hard to see my grandmother without the spunk and vitality I grew up knowing.  One really hard thing for her is that she literally spent her entire life serving others, so now that she's not physically able to do that she does not have a single hobby and is extremely bored.  This obviously does not help the depression.  I'm sending this quilt out to her in hopes that it brightens her day, and as a small token to her for being such an amazing grandmother.  She's still on the other side of the country, so I can't give it to her in person, but I am sending it with all my love.

This picture is of my grandmother in front of her home in Fresno, California in August of 1987.  It was the day my family moved from California to Pennsylvania (that's our moving van in the background).  We had lived with my Grandma that summer while my dad started Grad School in PA.  





(This post is part of my 2012 Finish Along, One Thing: One Week Challenge, and TGIFF).

(My original goals for 3rd quarter are here)

Cucumbers Everywhere

I have to say that I LOVED Cucumber Vines- this design is beautiful!  It's by far the most time consuming and difficult so far, but I think it's worth it because of the way it looks when you're done. 

 You can see from the close up of the back that I struggled to always keep the travel stitching lined up.  Black thread on black fabric didn't help me out much, but it's not half bad for my first attempt.  This is a design I don't mind practicing over and over either. 

It's very apropos that we did Cucumber Vines this week for the Free Motion Quilt Along, because my cucumber vines are currently taking over my garden.  I took a bunch of cucumbers and made pickles. (It was my first time canning pickles and it was surprisingly easy).  Even after a double batch I still have a bunch of cucumbers, so if anyone wants some feel free to stop by.

I don't like pickles, but my husband loves them, so making all of these should definitely get me points in the "you're such an amazing wife" category. :)

A Laundry Nightmare

Matching socks is probably my least favorite thing about doing laundry.  I'm pretty sure there's a sock monster that exists solely to eat one of each pair of socks.  I've been living socks lately -- felt socks to be exact.  It's taken me a couple of days, but I now have 167 socks for quiet book pages.  I'm not really sure what I was thinking when I decided on this specific page to do for the swap.  I always pick complicated things.  Oh well.  Next step is to applique the socks.  I really hope all of the pairs show up this time around.

Dinner Etiquette 101

A couple of months ago we set out to teach some basic dinner etiquette to the Activity Days girls.  They prepared for a dinner and then brought their Dad as their date.  I missed the actual dinner, because I was on vacation, but the process of getting things ready was a lot of fun.  We taught them the proper table setting (minus the wine glasses obviously):

Source

 They folded napkins origami style into dress shirts with a tie, and made invitations for their date.  They also helped create the center pieces for the tables.  Lisa had a really cute idea for the center pieces.  It's the perfect way to use all of those old cards hanging around your house.  You cut out the shape you want from the card and then glue or tape a straw in the middle of it.  The straw functions as the stem, and you arrange them as you would a bouquet of flowers.  I wish I had a picture of the finished product, because it's really cute.

It was hilarious teaching them some of the basic manners when eating at a dinner table.  It appears that dinner etiquette is a dying art form these days.  Meanwhile, you can always brush up on the do's and don'ts with the Etiquette Scholar if you feel rusty on the subject.

Dystopian Reads

I don't know why, but lately I've been reading a lot of books that are about dystopian societies, and they've been all really good.  Hunger Games was the beginning and now I can't get enough.

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My friend told me about a trilogy written by Alie Condie (also a BYU graduate) that sounded like it was right up my alley (complex plot with a love triangle), and it did not disappoint.  Here's a brief description:

"In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.  Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s barely any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one . . . until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion."

I enjoyed the second book as well.   Crossed had some mixed reviews, because some people thought that after the amazing first book the second was a bit of a disappointment, but I read them back to back, so it was almost like one continuous book for me.  There wasn't any waiting, so I liked it just fine.  The last book in the trilogy comes out in November and I can't wait!!

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Another trilogy I enjoyed started with Truesight.  We read it for Book Club this month.  Here's a brief description:

"Everyone in Jacob's colony is born blind. It has always been this way. They embrace the philosophy of Truesight: Blindness brings unity, purity, and freedom. It is an exceptional community. Everyone is happy. As Jacob nears his thirteenth birthday, he anxiously anticipates his new role as an adult and all the changes that will bring. But as the day approaches, a far greater change threatens Jacob's future. It all starts with a searing pain in his eyes..."

I really liked the first book; I definitely liked it the best of the three books in the trilogy.  I'm not a huge science fiction person, so the third book was a little much for me, but I was invested enough in the characters that I read all of it.

My sister recently read Divergent, also a dystopian book, and I'm curious to read it, because I heard it's really good.  Anyone else read it?  I wonder why we have such a fascination with dystopian societies.  Do we worry it will happen to us or is it nice to pretend that our existence is so much better (even if it's not)?  Either way they are very fascinating reads when written so masterfully. 

Back Up and Running

After sewing at a blistering pace trying to get everything ready to teach a beginning quilters class last week, I got a bit burnt out.  I took a few days off, read a good book, and then finally headed back to my sewing machine last night.  I'm happy to say I have progress on 2 fronts:  I completed the July Bloggers BOM and then quilted some Bare Branches.

Split Ohio Star

 I made things hard on myself with the travel stitching by quilting with black thread, but I didn't want the quilting to stand out in the borders, so that's the color I needed. 

 I think what I love about this design the most is how versatile it is.  I didn't want the quilting on the Quarter New York Beauty, so I made the branches go all around it, but then I quilted through the Tumblers, and it looks great either way.  A view from the back:

Linking up to BOMS Away and Free Motion Quilt Along.

Last of the Samplers

I put together the last of my Skill Builder blocks this past week.  I wanted to do something different with the sashing than I had previously done with the other 2 Skill Builder quilts.  I decided to make the sashing the same as the background color, so that the blocks look like they're "floating" around the quilt top rather than boxed into their particular square. 

It's now layered, pinned, and ready to be quilted.  Now if only I could decide how I want to quilt it.  :)