It’s been a nice weekend!

So finally got my quilt completed and ‘how about this?’ A week before my deadline  lol  but  what is special about this quilt is it’s the first one I completed by myself on my HQ16!  Which let’s me know I have so much more to look forward to with my ‘semi’ new machine. (If one recalls I got my machine new in Dec the day before I had my hand surgery! Then my hand ended up being in cast for 4 weeks and much longer rehab then I had imagined. I needed that hand to even turn on my machine ;-) Now the exciting thing is my hand is back AND I ‘m retiring from teaching official July 1, 2009!.

My students are great and I am presently completing the last time I will teach my MS students clay.  It’s so much fun to watch the students create and then every time I open the kiln it’s like Christmas! Always fun to see what how the glazes have turned out.

Here are some of the items my students have just finished making.

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So 3 more weeks of school year then my new journey begins!

Stay tuned!

 

What a productive holiday weekend! Finally….

Yay! It has been a really nice long weekend! Finally time to chill, to sew, to see movie and dinner with hubby….it’s been so long since we got to just have a quiet nice weekend! Bill got to wax his car, did some power washing of siding of house there’s been so much pollen this year it looked so dirty! He also had some time in his man cave! He still loves his fire pit the kids got him at Christmas yet it has also become a great cigar ashtray lol                                              

I got to finally complete piecing a quilt top AND then yesterday and today actually quilted the quilt top on my HQ16. My first time! Talk about fear! Total FEAR! Thankfully it looks decent, I completed a very simple stipple pattern but still I’m proud….cannot post it yet since it technically is present and I semi would like the person to be a little surprised by the end product  lol

So now to try to get laundry completed and get ready for my 4 day week of bus duty..the last bus duty I will ever have to do since I AM RETIRING! I am so looking forward to working full time in fibers and with my HQ16!

 

 

How do you spell FRUSTRATION?

So today was nice day around home then out to movie and dinner with hubby, actually something we have not done in longgggggggg time!  Was nice to have the time out and we still managed to get lots completed at home in the morning/mid afternoon. It took all morning to load my mid-arm machine for it’s first run on a quilt top? I keep thinking AM I nuts? I am scared out of my wits and then have loads of frustrations…I mean I got the machine with lots of high hopes..thankfully still have  the high hopes but thinking I am crazy to try to quilt this top after all it’s to be a present and I will be bummed big time if I screw it up! Now that’s the fear portion! Oh well…. so back to the loading of quilt top, batting and backing…. lol…. the DVD mention you should be able to load queen quilt in 20-30 minutes…   lol lol……. yea someday? but not today! Oh well at least after I watched  the DVD instruction video

I have the frame loaded and now thanks to reviewing the instruction booklet I think the threading is correct so hoping that means the tension is correct? Only time will tell.  I intend to do the machine work tomorrow in the day light since the room is much too dark for night work especially when I am so nervous and tired! Here’s a peek at my meandering so far?  Wish me luck.

Now a question? How does one figure out prices for equipment they no longer use? I have a great loom set-up that I hate seeing not being used and now that I am retiring and thus trying to downsize my art equipment I am at a loss of how to price items that could be used to create lovely things by others? here is the item/s I speak of…..

my old Dick Blick 4 harness 8 inch table loom. Such a great portable loom great for classes, for testing out patterns or even little wall hangings/scarves. Any advice out there?

It's been too long old friend.....

I seem to be a broken record!  Stuff still seems to be keeping me much to busy to blog,  to sew,  to create!  Thankfully it’s a long holiday weekend sooooooooo finally some time to get to chores, some sewing  and……. BUT Now for my first item of news! I began teaching in Sept. 1973 missed a few years due to moves across country,  babies, life but basically I have my 30.3 year pension from MI already and now I am retiring for good after 5 years teaching MS Art in VA…I put in my paperwork this past week and am looking forward to ‘my time’ to spend on my own art work full time ;-) maybe I’ll be the new Grandma Moses someday. My second item of news I don’t think I shared yet is I’m going to have a new grand-daughter come Sept 09 , life just keeps getting more grand! lol no pun intended. Another item of interest; my dad had his 88th birthday Friday May 22 and is back home with his wife of 63 years and doing quite well. I am so proud of his rehab, he is walking again and getting stronger everyday, he’s very happy to be home with “the light of his life” as he will tell you. Happy 88th birthday DAD!

So I am posting some photos of my MS student work during my final semester of my teaching career and next week will be my last bus duty ever! yay, pray no rain for week please.

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So the great thing about having a holiday weekend is the time to finally get to chores we’ve neglected lately.  Bill got to wash his car , he got a final coat of paint on the chairs I need to paint for my nieces children 

and I  manage to power wash the second story deck, drove the birds nuts cause they wanted their birdfeeders but such is life! lol. Look close and you’ll see one of the birds by the feeder.

And I got in some sewing time!

So enough for today….

It’s been too long!

So hard to think I haven't had time to post for a while but stuff (shit) has been happening, stuff not to do with quilting yet necessary thus making sure that I am not available to quilt.  I do have some fun to report though… I got to go on the annual guild retreat and for the 3rd year my favorite quilter was my roomie! Frances is my hero, she turned90 during January this year and as a surprise I created a little tribute  quilt for us (the guild) to sign and give her and the guild hosted a little surprise birthday celebration during the weekend retreat!  “I want to be just like her quilting and bringing fun and happiness everywhere she goes! “ The retreat this year had the theme “A new box of  Crayons “and we were to choose a color we never quilt with..also create a name using your color. I became“Tanilizing Tawny Teddi Became Muddied Munslow” and my colors were brown…. here some browns I dyed just for fun for the weekend. I also created a tawny silk scarf that I gave away as part of my exchange gift.  Another thing that has kept me busy as of late was a quick trip up north to MI to visit my folks. During the weekend there my dad got transferred from one hospital to another rehab center (nursing home) and I ran my mom around during the weekend while my other sisters and brother-in-laws moved my parents (all furniture etc) out of their condo and into a 2 bedroom apartment in a wonderful senior community center. The greatest part of the weekend was seeing my dad walk again with steady forceful steps. I am so proud that he hung in there and learned to walk again. 

Here he is walking his dog Sammy….I truly think Sammy is what kept him determined to walk again. Thankfully my mom has busted my dad out of the rehab center the following week and they are once again together in the same place. They have been married 63 years. My dad was sadly in rehab centers and hospitals for over 35 days….it’s been a very rough winter for my folks.

Well at least I’ve finally gotten back to posting and even better finally yesterday got to touch my sewing machine and quilt a little. I have a bento quilt going and it has a deadline….wish me luck!