Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Breakfast first and after Susan showed us her current quilt in progress made with vintage blocks, we went to SR Harris and Quilted Treasures Quilt shop. I thought it was very fun to cut my own fabrics at SR Harris!

Sorry for the blurred photos…I was using the cell phone.

Keith came home with free tickets to the Twins game tonight. We’d been trying to go but our schedules have been really busy.

An online digital class with daily prompts that is starting today. I did this last year and it’s by the same woman who does the Christmas Journal class that I participate in each year. September is going to be VERY busy so I’m using a simple iPad app this year rather than Photoshop Elements.

Last year’s journal

You saw these photos last night but I used them for my first page today.

For more information about the class visit Shimelle.com.

The shower is coming along…we probably should have changed the wall color to tan but we can always do that later…they’ll be working again tomorrow and maybe finishing up if I’m lucky.

I’ve been having trouble riding the distances I want and Keith and I have trails we want to try out around Minneapolis that are just too far for me so we’re going to look at a “hybrid” bike this weekend. It has pedal asset that will help me ride longer and get up those hills without causing my arrhythmia to kick in. It won’t be as much exercise as my current bike but actually if I’m going longer distances it might be…..

I’ve been so busy with visiting and playing with the quilt drafting on the iPad that I haven’t knit a single stitch on my current pair of socks this trip. But I’m heading home today and I’ll work on them while I’m waiting and on the plane.

Enjoyed visiting with two of my sisters….both went home today — tomorrow I’ll meet up with VickiW for lunch and a friend from college for dinner before heading home on Tuesday.

In the meantime, Mom decided she wanted to make a version of the new quilt I drafted on Thursday so we did a little fabric shopping this afternoon. She wasn’t sure which background she wanted to use so we came home and I cut out some of the blocks so she could see both options.

Which would you choose?

Enjoying my visit with Mom and Ann, today we worked on postcards.

Despite a promise weeks ago that the shower would take just 4 days and be finished before I left today, you can see it’s not even close. They’ll only be able to work a couple days while I’m gone so I’ll come home and have to deal with them finishing it up too. What a pain!

I won’t get around to making this for a little while but I was writing up instructions for Mom so I went ahead and posted them. They’re untested so make sure you read through them first and email me with any questions if you plan to use them.

4 Patches on the Diagonal

Ideally, EQ would come up with an app for the iPad but I asked that question at Spring Market and it’s not going to happen so I’m hoping someone will come up with a basic quilt design program soon.

I’m not greedy, I just want an extensive block library, the ability to recolor blocks, and a place to set them next to each other to see how they interact. I don’t need a full scale program that allows me to completely design a quilt….I have EQ7 for that but I want the ability to play with ideas for quilts on the iPad when I’m traveling or whenever the mood strikes me.

So while I’m waiting for someone to create an app, I decided to see if I could use what I already have. A google search for Quilt Block Library brings up several online resources that allow you to save a photo of a block.

iPages has a great snap to grid feature that allows you to “lay” out your blocks, rotate them, and type a few notes about sizes.

Adobe ideas allows you to create color schemes from photos and Color Wheel HD let’s you create them from presets or scratch.

What I don’t have is the ability to recolor my blocks. This block was from a library at the McCall’s site and is called Bridal Path Variation.

But no word if they’re back tomorrow or if they have to wait for an inspection. I was supposed to have a call this afternoon to let me know but as per usual, we haven’t heard from them as promised.

In spite of it all, I’m SO happy to have the old nasty shower enclosure gone but there’s no way they’re going to be done before I leave on Thursday at this rate.

No big giveaway or anything but sometime today, I’ll celebrate ONE MILLION visits to my blog and I wanted to thank everyone who stops by to see what I’m up to!

I’ve been home for weeks now – we’ve planned a remodel of the shower in our master bathroom since we bought the townhouse 2 years ago but haven’t gotten around to it until now. We’ve had MAJOR issues and they most likely won’t be done by the time I leave next Thursday but they are finally going to start tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’m booking travel again – next week I’m heading to VA to visit Mom, family, and friends. I’ve also booked a couple trips in September – a quick one down to Atlanta to see the boys ( well, really to see Caleb) and to Maine for a HeartStrings sew-in.

More travel to come in Oct, Nov, and Dec – we’ll have a busy fall which is just how I like it.

I’m getting a slow start today but I’m binding and will have have something to show later this evening. In the meantime, here’s a new photo of Caleb that Adam sent me today. Isn’t he sweet?

Do you shop for fabric online? I don’t do much of it but I’ve shopped some at Thousands of Bolts (thanks to reading about the site on JudyL’s blog ) but it always seemed like a laborious process to scroll through all the screens looking for what I wanted….until someone mentioned on HeartStrings that their search features had improved so of course I had to run over and check it out.

After using the different filters and still having to page through more fabric that didn’t match what I was looking for, I happened upon the Color Picker (under the Find a Fabric heading) and WOW, I asked for a specific shade of blue and while all the results weren’t exact, most were pretty darn close. Needless to say, there’s a box of fabric heading my way soon.

Sometimes I really really want to love an app but it doesn’t quite work as well as I want it to work. So I decided to try another Reader app for the blogs I follow. So far MobileRSS is working well and it seems to be easier to comment as well as skim posts. I was able to enter my Google Reader info and it pulled up all my blogs, no reentry required.

In case you don’t recognize the blog in the screen print below, it’s Vicki’s, one of a handful of blogs that I read every day.

It’s been almost 4 years since I started HeartStrings along with a group of quilters who wanted to focus on donation quilts and I’m still just as passionate about what we’re doing today but I’ve been unable to find a balance in the last year that allows me to focus on my personal quilting (much of it still for donation) so I’ve decided that I am not going to accept donation tops to quilt, bind, and donate.

The one exception will be that I’ll continue to quilt string quilts that come in for HeartStrings but I won’t be accepting any other tops AND I will work harder to find other volunteers to quilt and finish more of the HeartStrings tops also.

I’ve really appreciated the opportunity to finish all the tops in the last few years and have been amazed at how generous quilters have been in sending them to me to complete and donate.

I expect that it might take me the rest of the year to finish up what I have here but I’m looking forward to more time for creating my own quilts in 2011 while still actively participating in HeartStrings.

So today I spent the afternoon piecing backings and binding…I’ll be doing a lot of that along with quilting in the next few months.

But lots of drawing here and there. My iPad lets me doodle quilting designs when ever I have a minute or two to spare.

Picture me sitting here all day struggling to pull my needle through this Warm & White batting as I tied this HeartStrings quilt. I had a second quilt that I could have tied but decided I’d substitute another batting or maybe a blanket as my fingers were sore after tying the first quilt…..which feels great now that it’s tied but was just too hard to needle.

Click to see other photos from our day.