Another Ornament Runner

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas this year and got lots and lots of goodies, especially quilting goodies. I did not get one quilty thing. I guess my family decided I had enough. LOL! Never!

Here is a picture of another Ornament Runner that I made........this one in Christmas fabrics. I really liked how it turned out.

I took this whole week off as vacation time and this morning, I am so glad that I did. I am tired after the last few days. I got up yesterday morning at 6:3o to get started on Christmas dinner.We had to eat right at 12 as youngest dear daughter and new hubby had to go to his family after lunch. I had gotten a good head start on Monday.......I made 2 pumpkin pies, one pecan pie, 5 pounds of fudge, pecan pralines and had a lasagna together waiting to be cooked. The lasagna was for oldest grandson, who loves lasagna! However, I needed to bake a ham yesterday morning. I got my coffee and got woke up and got started. I got my ham in the oven and got all the ingredients out for the cherry sauce. I then went and got my shower, dried my hair and about that time oldest dear daughter called me. She was nearly hysterical. I could hardly understand her. I finally got her calm enough to tell me what was going on. They had received a phone call from her mother-in-law that her father-in-law was unresponsive. Sandra could not wake him up. Anyway, they needed to postpone our Christmas as they needed to meet Sandra at the hospital. So, I called youngest dear daughter and told her to go ahead do her in-laws first and we would play it by ear for ours. So, my husband and I finished dressing and drove over to oldest daughter's (40 minutes away) to pick up her children. We brought them back to our house. But, everything turned out okay. Stefani's father-in-law was diagnosed with too much ammonia and was treated and sent home! That is a miracle in itself. So, everyone finally got to our house about 6:00 and we had a Christmas supper instead of lunch. Then we did presents and visited for awhile, watched RV again which oldest dear daughter and family just love and snacked on all those pies and candy I made. Thank God dear daughter's father-in-law is okay and having a delayed Christmas celebration turned out okay too. I bet all my grandchildren were asleep before they got off our road last night!

Everyone have a great day!

My First Project On My New Machine!

Ok, I am finally getting around to posting a couple pics of the first project that I did on my new machine. What a sweet machine she is!! I had so much fun playing around. I took six blocks that I had and made a small runner. It measures 25x18 finished. I used silver metallic thread and just played with several different stiches. The runner is a crazy patch of stitches!! :) I used several different ones......a herringbone, bells, flowers, stars and penguins. I think it turned out rather cute. I gave it to my youngest daughter, Courtney who actually used blue/silver and snowmen as her Christmas theme this year. Perfect for her!


The second picture is a close up of some of the different stitches that I used. I hope they show up well enough.








I really wanted to do some more sewing on her, but I had to get out and get some Christmas things done and I had to get started wrapping Christmas gifts. I am not big on gift bags for the kiddos as I like to watch the kids open their gifts, so with 4 grandchildren, I have lots and lots of wrapping to get done and only a few days left to do it. Ack!! How did Christmas get here so quickly this year! I am usually more prepared than this year.

Oh, I almost forgot. Elna called me yesterday to verify my mailing address. They shipped all that thread yesterday so I could have it by Christmas!! Isn't that just too much!! I can't hardly wait to get it.

So, anyhoo...............make it a great evening!

Christmas Came Early!!!

WoooHooo!! I got the most marvelous, fantastic, stupendous early Christmas gift!! Well, it's actually my Christmas, anniversary and birthday gift....but that's just a technicality. Here is what I got this week:

An Elna Quilters Dream II!! I am so excited I can't tell you. I have sewn on a cheapo Brother or a vintage Singer (which actually sews very well, but had no features) for so long that I think I am in Heaven with this new baby! She has 200 stitches! It's going to take a while to try all those out! Plus, all the feet that came with her! She also came with a nice padded bag to carry her places and I got a nice extension table for half price. Plus.........when I send in my registration card, Elna will send me a Maderia thread chest valued at $199.00............60 spools of thread! It's like getting another $199 off the price of the machine!

I'm telling you that I won't be doing any house cleaning today! Today, I am sewing on my new baby!!

See y'all later!! Make it a great day whatever you do!

Ornament Mat......and Other Things

Wow!! I didn't realize that I hadn't posted in so long a time!! I have been busy and I guess time just passed by faster than I thought.

Anyway, here is a picture of one of the little Ornament Mats that I made. I did not do a Christmas theme.......but, rather a fall theme for Thanksgiving. I also did not use flannel as the lining, but used muslin instead. I needed to practice my free motion quilting, so I free motioned quilted the mat with gold metallic thread. I thought it turned out okay. I put it on my dining table with a ceramic pumpkin on it. You can't see the quilting in the picture, but it is there. :)

Tomorrow, the Christmas tree is going to be put up and some of my Santa collection. I don't think I'll put them all out.........just some of them. Now, to find some time to go Christmas shopping for everyone.

I hope everyone has a great rest of the holiday weekend and make it a great day!

Back Home Again!

Yay!! I got to bring the big guy home yesterday evening from the hospital! He and I were both soooooo glad that he got to come home. We still don't know what its wrong exactly, but should find out soon. They did an MRI yesterday before he left, so maybe it won't be long until we can have the results. We do know he did not have a heart attack, anuerysm or pulmonary embolism. WHEW!! Any of those would be bad, so I am very grateful. He did give us a scare and I threatened him should he do that again! :)

Friday afternoon I actually sewed a bit........I made a Christmas Ornament table mat, like Texas Jan (http://quilterjan.blogspot.com/) made. I was planning on making some more Saturday and making a whole table runner from them......but, that did not happen! I had the next one all laid out on the ironing board and it is still there! I'll try to finish them this weekend and post a pic! It sewed up really easily and I am anxious to finish at least one runner for the holidays.

I am just sick when I see the price of gas keep going up and up. It seems so ridiculous and I am hearing stories of people having to stop buying necessities to pay for gas or having to quit their jobs because they can't afford gas anymore. It's just not right. Something needs to change.

Okay, enough of that.......make it a great evening!

Husbands......A Stubborn Lot!

I have spent the weekend in the hospital with my husband. He is much better, but he sure gave me a scare!

He has been feeling bad for a couple of weeks, but he only told me about it last weekend. So, Monday morning (Oct. 29th) I made him a drs. appt. He was diagnosed with bronchitis/pluerisy. I thought okay........maybe that's why his back/arm are hurting so. The back/arm pain is why he went to the dr. He has been hurting on the left side right by his left shoulder balde, midway and radiating down his left arm. We also thought he might have a little cric in that muscle by the shoulder blade. However, the dr did no give him anything for that. He hurt all week, so Friday I was going to make him another appt, but he called me from work (hasn't missed any work) and said not to.......that it might be a bit better. So, I didn't. He had a horrible night Friday night, so Saturday morning I told him to go to the Sat. morning clinic and let someone see him. He went and came back home rather fast. He said they would not see him when they heard his symptoms because they are cardiac also. They told him to go to the ER. I called my nurse daughter and was talking to her when he told us he threw up on the way home! Stefani said, "Mom, get him to the ER now." So, I took him. They called him straight back, started an IV right away and a dr. came in to talk to us. They had him in a little bitty room which is like an urgent care, but not ER. Around 5-10 minutes after starting the IV, which was very, very messy because he bled everywhere, the dr was talking to him and I noticed he didn't seem to be paying any attention and next thing I know, his head falls over and the nurse is over him, yelling at him, dropping his bed down so his head is lower than his feet and the dr is grabbing things. I stepped around the corner to call Stefani and she assured me she was on her way. I couldn't get hold of our younger daughter, so I wanted her to try for me. I go back around the corner and Travis is gone!! I looked in the next cubicle and was turning around looking when someone told me they took him to a bigger room to have room to work. I went in there and there are 6-7 people in there, starting more IV's and stuff. They had stabilzed him, but they told me he would not be going home today! His blood pressure dropped from 149/105 to 70/50 in 3 seconds time. He was in extreme pain, sweating, short of breath. They drew lab, had an x-ray done, gave him some nitro and morphine. Our girls finally arrived, the youngest bawling her eyes out. I had to tell her to get ahold of herself.....that her daddy was okay and she could not do this in front of him! We got moved to a room finally and they continued over the weekend, doing blood work and EKG's. There was talk of moving him to Dallas because our hospital does not have a cardiac unit, but since he was stable we stayed in Greenville. His blood work and cat scan showed no evidence of a heart attack, no pulmonary emboli and no anuerysm, which were 2 things that had been thrown out to us also. He is feeling better and is ready to come home. He is seeing a cardiologist this morning and we will go from there as to whether he will have more testing done. I plan on bring him home today and then taking a long, long nap!!

OK....make it a great day everyone!

Funky TIme.....

I have been in a funk for the last couple of weeks. I have done absolutely no quilting during this time. None. I have had problems in the past with tendonitis in my wrists and have had a attack in both wrists. So.........no sewing/quilting and very little computer time as I needed to rest my wrists after working all day. I had been trying to open a jar with a very, very tight lid and actually felt the tendon pop as I strained to open the jar. Silly me.....I should have just stopped, but really wanted that jar opened!! I'm not sure what happened with the other one.....it started aching a couple days later. My husband (God bless him) is getting very used to the smell of Ben-Gay!! LOL!! He has also been very helpful with the things around the house. What have I been doing, you ask?? Well, I've read several books that have been on my "to be read list" for a long, long time. I have also spent some time browsing through my multitude of old quilt magazines for applique patterns. Boy, did I see some quilts that I really want to make! But, I must finish some from my UFO's first!! Back to applique..... after doing the DFW Challenge blocks, one of which was an applique block, I want to get back into applique. I really did enjoy it when I used to do it and would love to do more. I need to go to the quilt shop and look at a couple books too. I am planning on finishing up some UFO's first, but just wanted to look for some patterns. I do have a goal set to get some quilts past the pieced stage.......I am a world class piecer, but not so good at getting them quilted and finished. I seriously need to look at buying some sort of machine quilting setup. That would be so great.........then I could really crank out the quilts! Of course, I need to win a HUGE lottery first!! LOL! Some day..................

Make it a great day everyone!