Yikes! May Is Flying Past!

Hello all.... I do need to prioritize don't I! Seems that I've been doing things and forgetting to post. So, I will try to play catch up... I re-did Lois's jumper and got that back to her... It wasn't too bad, I didn't have to re-make the bodice... which was nice. Only, well... I had already purchased another yard of the fabric so that I could re-make it if I had too! Oh, well... guess I will find some little simple something to make for one of the grand daughters!
I finished a quilt that I was making for one of the humanitarian projects my friend Karma and I were working on. I wanted to finish it so that we could get it tied last week! Several of us worked from 8:00 a.m. until 8:10 p.m. (with a late break for lunch/dinner around 3:30) and we managed to tie 3 double/queen size quilts. So with working the night before on several baby quilts with the Relief Society we were able to finish 6 quilts altogether! Nice! We will deliver them plus 1 more that our friend Donna is tieing to make it a total of 7 quilts this time. What with all the things that are happening in the world, there are plenty of people that are in need of quilts.
I managed to get some mending done... some of my DH's shirts are looking the worse for wear, so I flipped the collars and also the cuffs on some of his button the front shirts and they look almost as good as new! He is a supervisor at a machine shop so, he doesn't have to wear a tie but wants to look nice and a bit dressy.... picture casual Friday wear with out a tie! Something like that anyway.
My DIL's birthday was yesterday and so we sent out a couple of fun things for her.... (can't say what because she may not of gotten them yet!). I tried really hard to get her gift/gifts to her on time.... but, well I was waiting for a sale on one of the items.... and no one had them in store and then I thought (later than I should have) that I could just order them on line and I got free shipping to boot~ Not bad.... she had forgotten it was even going to be her birthday this week end! So, no high expectations on her part... just on mine!
Hopefully she had a wonderful day.... and our love goes out to her! Always!
I have been busy gabbing with the gals too.... I went out to eat with some of the ladies from the ward... we went to Naturally Chinese. It's a great Chinese Place that is local and is as it says; all natural foods.... no msg... etc... really good. And if you have at least 7 in your party.... birthday girl (or guy) gets to eat free!
I also went with the SIL's and MIL to lunch two days b/4 that to Olive Gardens... it was time to take MIL out to lunch.... we know that if we are going out to eat.... we are going to the Gardens!!!
She loves the Chicken Alfredo.... which she orders each and every time.... very predictable... but since she is easy to please it makes it nice! She bought us lunch! Go figure.... it was just b/4 Mother's Day... we were going to buy her lunch! It was fun... we finally got in to eat at around 1:45 and didn't leave until almost 4! Yikes... we yakked and yakked.... It was very enjoyable. Just goes to show we need to get out together more!
Checkbook and bills are calling my name.... guess I had better get things done... don't want anyone going without because I didn't get the bills paid! LoL....

On With The Jumper Saga...

I got myself over to Lois's house and had her try on the jumper. The bodice at least at the bust isn't too big... it's just the shoulders are a bit too long, so I need to take them up a little and then in the back.... I need to take it in just a smig at the top of the zipper area. But since I have to take out the zipper to do all this anyway, I'm going to replace it with a longer zipper to make it easier for her to get into. My friend Lois is going to be 91 this year... and what ever I can do to make life a tad bit easier for her, I'm going to try to do it! The front has a little bit of a sagginess in it... not a lot so I may try to do a little gather stitch.... to see if this will do what it needs to take care of the problem. It's not much, but since the neck is rounded it draws attention to it not being nice and crisp! If you know what I mean.... basically it also needs to be taken in a little bit... only like 1/2 inch at the very top down to like a 1/2 inch in length. Hard to explain... guess I should have taken pictures. But then, I'm not too sure she would have wanted me to post pic's of her on my blog.
Ooops.... I need to let the dog into the house!
Hope your Saturday night is enjoyable... and your Sunday is very nice too!

Sooo I Made A Little Mistake Or Two

Yeahhh.... so much for just trying to use two patterns to pull off the jumper for my friend! I must say... I don't usually have these types of problems... but, you know things go wrong sometimes! So Lois called and we played phone tag all day yesterday and this a.m. and finally she got a hold of me. Apparently the jumper is too big in the bust! Yep... and she will be busy for a few days so I can't get at it until next week some time! I feel bad... I wanted to have it all done and out of the way! But, then this is what happens when we don't have a fitting! I'm sure we can work it out... I will just have to take in the side seams and possibly take out the zipper and re-do the back. She said that the shoulder straps fall down! So this tells me that the shoulder measurements are too wide. Say la veee! I'll let you know how it goes! Oh.... and it has snowed all day yesterday and most of today! Spring Shming!!! Spring is definitely not here!

Is It Spring Yet?

Although the calendar says it's Spring, you surely can't tell from looking out the window!

It was as they say.... It was a dark and cloudy day...... and then all of a sudden, BOOM, BOOM...... and the Hail came down and the winds came up and BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.... the thunder raged and the Hail came down again..... and then it tapered down to a hard pounding rain and then a sprinkle... til now... a little lightening and next to nothing moisture wise....

If you look hard enough... these were taken while it was coming down and you can see the hail before it lands! Hard to believe it was a beautiful Spring day yesterday and "we", Missy and her kids and I all went to SLC for the day!

No pictures... what was I thinking! The flowers in Temple Square were wonderful and so bright and pretty. But, with 3 kids 5 1/2 and under... yes... we had enough to do... Missy took pic's... maybe I will have to try to get some from her!

Alright... onto another project that I did for my DIL's sister! DDIL's sister just had a baby girl 3 months after our dear little Kate was born! Sooo,

If you take this,

+Plus this;

add some of this....

=And you get this! Have you made these before? They are called

"Ragg Quilts".... they are all made of flannel (the better to ragg with.....) and the seams are sewn up facing the outside and not enclosed! You can make it with either 2 or 3 layers of flannel and no batting. I almost always have some sort of flannel around! This is a great way to use up odds and ends. And super simple too!

The hardest and most time consuming part of the entire quilt... is that after you have sewn it all together.... you snip the seam allowances... and I mean alllll of the seam allowances! Your hand can get a bit tired but it works! ( You will snip almost to the seam stitching.... get the quilt wet and then dry it to fluff it up! ) You do need to make sure that when you make these, #1 if you have flannel that you are afraid will bleed (the dye may run) set the dye with either a soaking of vinegar or salt with water for a while before you start to cut out the blocks. This way it won't run all over your other fabrics. Of course if you do this step; then you must do a quick wash before you dry it.... (don't want your quilt smelling of vinegar!)

#2 When you wet and then dry your finished quilt for the first couple of times.... there will be a mass of lint; (it's important to clean out your lint trap several times before it's finished drying; believe me..... you will notice a difference! And the quilt will dry faster too!) Also... you may want to wash/dry it by it's self the first times. If after you are using the quilt it still seems to drop a lot of threads.... toss it into the dryer a few times with either an old towel and this will help get rid of the excess threads. If you look at this picture closely you may notice that it seems some of the white printed blocks are show thru as different colors. This is because I made this as a 3 layer quilt, I used odd blocks on the inside layers. Oh, and just like any other quilt.... the back can be any color or pattern that you want. I forgot to take a pic of the back side. I have seem Ragg Quilts done in all sorts of patterns.... Log Cabin, Around the World.... etc... and any size and shape! They are really soft and cozy. Make one from your scraps today!

Oh, I also forgot to take a picture of a jumper that I made for a friend of mine.... Lois. She is a sweetie... wanted me to make her a new dress for Church. I finished it the other day and delivered it. She was quite pleased. All in a few days work!

Ooops.... it's Raining again.... so much for letting the ground dry out a bit so we can till the garden! Can't say I mind too much though... it sure does "Green" things up around here!

On to other sewing projects.... my sewing room is calling me!!!

After you make these Ragg Quilts.... make sure and take time to clean out the underside of your sewing machine; these create lots of lint!

March! So What Happened To January?

I know that I posted in February... but what happened to January? Do you really want to know? I've been a bit pre-occupied with a certain grand daughter..... the newest little member of our family I got to go visit in January when she was only 3 weeks old... And then again about 3 weeks ago I went with my DH, 2 of our DD's and our only other DGD.

new little Kate;

Oldest DGD Grace.... with little Kate

Grampa is infatuated with Kate... I think she sorta likes him too, I mean if you can be sooo comfortable that you fall asleep in their arms.... it's a given!
DD holding her "neice"... mommy to Grace. I think she sorta likes Kate too.... well, I mean really what's not to like!

We had this picture taken when Kate was Blessed at Church a few weeks back. Part of the family... our youngest DD in the back and yep that's me in front next to our son Ben and his wifie.....
But in the mean time, you know b/4 all these going's on.... I made this for the above picture/event.

And of course, you need a slip to go underneath it all!

Here is the little princess. Oh, when I took this picture (sorry it's turned wrong) someone called Kate a princess and then later DGD (the older version...lol) went out to her mom and said, (imagine this with a pouty little voice and lip) "Mommy, I want to be a princess!" Too Cute!

O.K. and just so you know I wasn't just messing around not doing anything in between sewing and all, on Valentines Day I asked the 3 grandkids who live here in the state to come play and make Sugar Cookies with me! Look at all the fun we had!!!

We made all sorts of cookies.... I just forgot to take pic's of the frosted ones! And of course, the eating!!!!


This is Wyatt; he wasn't really into making cookies... so he went to play with the dog and everything else... but the rest of us enjoyed all the fun!

The weather keeps calling out "Spring, Spring".... but then low and behold.... we get more snow!

Earlier this week we got around 5-6 inches (during the middle of the night) of the pretty wet white stuff..... (I love listening to it snow!) and before the end of the day.... yep it was all pretty much melted! Gooo figure! Well, the resevours are getting filled and that is a good thing... we will need this water later in the year...

In the mean time there is more sewing going on! Pictures later!

Don't forget to clean out all the little dusty, fuzzy stuff that is going on inside your machine...

The Anniverary Post! Mine, Not The Blog's!

Such a busy time.... anniversaries, (my in-laws 40Th, and our 35Th!) birthdays.... (my daughters 30Th, and also my SIL's 50Th).






Hard to believe this little cutie is going to be 30 years old! She is wearing a dress that I wore when I was her age (about 3 at the time this was taken). Guess I need to dig up a photo of me in the dress too.... hmmmm we shall see what I can find! If I can figure out the scanning again... we shall see indeed!


A couple of the missionaries from our Church stopped by last evening to drop off a hand me down suit one of the Elders received. I need to alter it for him... he is somewhat quiet and a bit shy and well... the suit is too long in the torso and in the pant legs also... if I had gotten a good measurement on him I could have probably take in the seat too... hopefully it won't be too baggy on him. One tries not to embarrass the young men too much! He is all of 19 and all.... and what with my DH and another Elder there well.... I couldn't do too much without embarrassing him.
My friend Karma and I had a day of sewing last week. We had some quilt block that her daughter Diane had made up... long ago of a white background baseball print with some blue and also using some red borders and then we made up some blocks that had a red plaid and also blue plaid centers with the same blue or red borders. Then we used red and blue for sashing around the blocks and proceeded to make a crib size quilt.... too funny actually... I cut and pressing the borders/sashings and blocks while she sewed them all together! It's easier for me to see to cut then it is for her! We got to talking sooo much, that in the end as I was handing her rows to sew together, somehow she had flipped two sections and put them opposite and then added the sashing and final borders before we noticed! The entire quilt top was complete before we noticed that the pattern we had decided on was a bit of a mess! Of course no one but us will notice... it just, well.... it looks as if it should be flowers from Dr. Seuss's garden! It really does still look cute, just we don't really feel like taking it all apart! Sad... I know... but someone will still get a good use out of it when we put on the back and batting! All out of flannel... it will be really soft!

We went into SLC today to play and visited the SLC version of this! Yes.... I was a badddd girl!
Dear Hubby and I shared a mint truffle.... and these are the size of a 50 cent piece! Plus I split another one with him after dinner (his half is going into his lunch tomorrow...) he had a large piece of English Toffee...(and yes he did offer to share a bite with me... but I did declined.... I was waiting for my caramel to warm up, it was a little hard because it was cold outside) but I must say that when it did warm up DH shared a few bites of my caramels soooo I didn't technically eat all of the caramels! Now I didn't have to admit that we did this... ahem.... guess now that I read it.... I feel like a pig.... although, I must say that in my defense.... we didn't eat them all at once! We did eat dinner in between some of this! Ohhhh well, guess I need to get back to work with my exercise routine! Oh, and eating better too! It was our anniversary so we celebrated here and there!
Oh, I forgot to tell you.... this place is called
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory..... as you can see.... there are wonders here... hey, it's chocolate! What's not to like?
















This week this pattern goes on Sale;
http://www.simplicity.com/p-4994-babies-vintage-layette.aspx at our local Hancock's Fabric's Warehouse......
It is the dress I will be making for our new little granddaughter's blessing dress. I need to see what fabric I will be using.... I may have something I want to use in my fabric stash.... I will post a picture if I find something in there..... then again, if I open the doors.... you may never hear from me again! LoL...
I also have to sew up some little white bags for a meeting we are having for the little kids that will be 8 years old this year. It's called Great To Be 8! There will be all sorts of things inside to help them understand the importance of being baptised. And somewhere in there get the Elder's suit altered... guess I will be a bit busy.
So, I'm going to be up to my ears, elbows and maybe at least teeth in the sewing room! Will let you know what I'm up too soon!
More soon.... make sure you put that pedal to the metal.... if you want to get anywhere with your sewing!

Happy New Year!

Shall we try this again? Well, it is still the new year.... I'm just a bit late in sharing the news!
Sorry I've been soooo neglectful! Just life gets in the way sometimes! You know how it is, sometimes I would rather read blogs than write this one! I've been busy sewing, reading, getting excited that our new grand baby was on the way! Oh, she was born the last day of December! So, yes.... she is here! And what a cutie... her daddy and mommy are very happy, and I believe content that she is here. I think they are wondering how on earth did they ever fill the hours without her! And I get to go visit in a couple more days! Am I phyed or what????? Another little grand daughter..... what's not to like? Now we have evened it up so far, 2 boys and 2 girls!
Towards the end of February some time we get to go visit again! And this time, a couple other members of the family get to go also! Possibly a couple daughters and our other granddaughter get to go also. Our little DGD is sooo excited to go, I think that she wants to go now! She keeps asking when she gets to go on the plane and go see baby Kate and Uncle Ben and Aunt Jentica (yep that's how she says my DIL's name... cute hmmm!) Right now I'm doing the really important stuff, laundry, ironing etc.... so DH is all set while I'm gone! When I have a bit more time I will show and tell some pic's of some of my projects that I got done for Christmas. Such a wonderful time of year. And we had beautiful snow.... that is melting as I type! We need more, all of a sudden it's warmer than January should be.... we don't need an early snow melt... that would cause flooding possibly! Not a good thing! My heart goes out to the people of Australia and all that is going on there. Know that you are in our prayers daily!
Oh, and for the people/families that were effected by the shooting in Arizona. Your also in our prayers... our hearts go out to all those who had their lives changed by this sad, sick man.
Bad things do happen to good people, yes... I think that how we handle these trials can be an example to others. Hopefully the outpouring of love will help others in their distress.
Until next time! Don't forget to keep your shears sharp!