Whirlwind Week

My week has been full of painting, painting, and more painting.  First came all of the wall touch-ups.  That wasn't so bad and went pretty quickly.  I think I got overly complacent that my work was almost done.  Then the reality hit when I started to work on the trim.  Whoever came up with the idea of white trim obviously never had children.  I spent so much time touching up baseboards and door frames it's ridiculous.  Gratefully, it looks a lot better, but man, I'm sick of painting.

Our realtor is awesome and very hands on.  She stages the entire house for pictures.  This was an almost 3 day process.  We started on Tuesday and I finished up right before they took the pictures this afternoon.  It was so much work, but the house looks good.  I was so relieved when it was all done.

During all of this I've had a very sad and sick little boy.  Well, all three boys were sick and missed some school this week, but Little Guy has gotten the worst of it.  It started out with a cold that developed into croup.  He started to get better and then he tanked again this weekend.  I took him to the doctor yesterday and he had an ear infection, tested positive for Flu (Type A), and on top of it all we think he has asthma.  His wheezing got really bad and we went ahead and got him an inhaler.  You would think we're trying to amputate his arm when having him use it.  Joel and I both have to hold him down to get him to breathe into the mask of the spacer.  He's been just sitting on his bed for hours at a time he's so tired and sad.  It's helpful when trying to get the house ready, but it's so incredibly sad to see him like this.  We're hoping the meds will all kick in and he'll start feeling better soon.  Little Lady has been the only person in the family to remain completely healthy.  She absolutely loved working on the staging with Sharon (our realtor).  She became her little assistant.  Little Lady also enjoyed her field trip to the zoo today, so she's had the best week out of anybody in the family.

Now that the pictures are done, we just have to deep clean everything for when it goes on the market next week.  Fingers crossed that it sells quickly, so that I don't have to try to keep it clean with 4 children running around the place!

Quilting Woes

I saw a quilt I really liked that just used Organic Waves for the quilting, and I wanted to do that with this quilt.  It's one of the beginner designs you first try when starting free motion quilting.  Why is it that sometimes the easiest things turn into the hardest ordeals.  That's what happened with me this time around.  I think first of all that I was just going too fast.  I was impatient and it caused its own set of problems. 

 I only did a couple of rows when my bobbin thread ran out.  That wasn't a big deal, but then I ran into trouble a couple of rows later.  This quilt has a ton of different types of fabric.  There's even 2 squares of stretchy t-shirt fabric.  I was careful with it when piecing the quilt together, but I completely forgot about it when I was quilting.  As I went quickly over it, it began to crazy stretch and when I reached the next fabric the t-shirt fabric was bunched together and it caused me to actually stitch the fabric around my free motion quilt.  It was crazy and funky and took me a little bit to cut carefully through the thread and detach every.  I fixed that, but then within a couple more rows I ran into more trouble.  I got to a thick piece of flannel, and as I crossed between the two fabrics it was slightly puckered.  My free motion foot snagged on it, because it wasn't laying flat, and it caused the needle to hit the free motion foot and snap in half.  I don't know why, but any time my needle breaks it scares me to death and I always give a little yelp.  It left a divot in my new free motion foot, so I was a bit sad about that.

I finally admitted I was trying to quilt way too fast.  I slowed down, and after replacing the needle, I didn't have anymore issues the rest of the way.  Slow and steady really does win the race!  I was cranky by the time I was done, but luckily the quilt looks fine, and now it's ready to be sent in the mail.  It's headed to one of my former middle school students who is now a mother.  Most of those students graduated from college this past year.  I'm feeling old!

Scrappy Lines

My husband says I should make a goal never to buy fabric again until I've used everything I have.  Eh- that's a goal that will never be realized, but I did put together a quilt top using only my scrap bin yesterday.  I also told him I hadn't bought any fabric since the beginning of December either, so that's pretty much the same thing.  😂  He didn't really follow my logic.  Even though my reasoning may be flawed, it does always feel good when I use all scraps.

Sadly, I couldn't even tell a difference in my blue and green scrap bin after completing this quilt top, Joel's dreams may never be realized.  

Wonkiness

I finished the Wonky Log Cabin quilt this weekend.  It's headed to Alaska.  We have friends from our time in Ohio who are now stationed there with the Army. 

 I decided to do stipling starting from the center working its way to the edges.  It was a bit tricky at first, but it got easier as I got further out and the sides got longer.

My favorite part is actually the flannel on the back, because I love the frogs and turtles.  I got the idea to do a mostly green quilt top on front because of them. 

Holiday YW Fun

I work with ladies at church who know how to decorate and throw a party like no other.  I'm serious!  I do not have the decorating gene at all, but they've got it in spades! We had a Galentine's Party for the Young Women.  We combined with the other ward that the girls are close to, and ended up with almost 40 girls there!

 Papa Murphy's does heart-shaped pizzas for Valentines.

 If there's ever a time to have pink fluff then Valentine's Dad would be it!

 I love our girls so much!  We were only missing 2 that night.

Meanwhile, later that week my adorable Beehive Presidency went and heart attacked a family's door that needed a little cheer in their life.  These two make me smile every single time I'm with them.  Their enthusiasm for life is contagious!

While I was partying with the young ladies, Joel was holding down the fort with the kiddos at Little Man's Blue and Gold Banquet.  He got a couple more merit badges, and he's super close to completing his Bear.

Blowing in the Wind

It's been raining and the wind is in full "go" mode around here.  I should have cut my losses and known better than to try to get a picture, but I wanted to be able to layer it today.  This is about the best I could do with my Wonky Cabin quilt top.

Forget Me Nots

A good friend of mine from our time in Ohio is having a baby girl.  She's now in Las Vegas and we're in Oklahoma, but we were able to visit them over Spring Break last year.  I finished the baby's quilt this weekend. 

 I've been cleaning up a lot of my pictures, and getting rid of old duplicates.  I went through all of my quilt pictures this week, and it reminded me of how much I used to free motion quilt.  When time is of an essence I almost always do loopy lines, because it's quick and easy.  I decided to take some time and do something different this time.  

 This was my first time in a very long time of doing lines without a walking foot.  Some of the lines are a bit wonky, but I'm choosing to believe it just gives it personality.  I added Forget-Me-Not flowers in some of the borders.  I enjoyed quilting them. 

October Stitches

I finally got our October Stitches quilt completed last week.  It's going to an adorable boy who fought cancer and is currently in remission.