I know, I know!

It has been FOREVER since I posted but I have been crazy busy! I finished my part of the quilt for my mother, finished the quilt for my daughter-in-law and nearly finished my parent's quilt. It is sandwiched and ready to be quilted. Thankfully, I am not celebrating Christmas with them until 12/29 so I have a few days left to complete that.

I am in Virginia staying with my youngest son's family. When I arrived here I discovered that my darling daughter-in-law has a wonderful antique quilt on my bed sewn by her great-great grandmother when she was 12. It is made of feed sacks, shirting material and goodness only knows what else! It was pieced by machine and then quilted by a child. She signed it in pencil on on one of the squares. It is so charming and not perfect! As soon as I can lay my hands on a camera I will post a photo of it.

Anyway, this is a quick post because I am feeling guilty. I know that everyone else has lots to do and they still manage to blog so what the heck is my excuse?!

Off and running...still more shopping to do! Merry Christmas Eve!!

My building did not explode...still here. I don't smell the gas odor any longer so perhaps I AM crazy?!? Someone in my office suggested that it might have been caused by a blockage of the stack for the sewer. I don't know. I just know that I was finally able to sleep and, for that, I am extremely thankful.

I have a couple of photos here. Two are the newest blocks for the quilt along. When I put all of the squares up on the design wall I can see that the colors are really muddy. I am going to frame them all in one of the pink fabrics and hope it looks ok when I am finished. One real plus to doing this quilt is that I have discovered some new blocks that I really like. Thanks, "Crazy Mom"!

Big snow is coming this weekend. I have to go to the family cookie exchange on Saturday morning and then I am chaining myself to my sewing machine. So much to do and I am leaving for Virginia next Saturday! (Can it really be true that Christmas is only 11 days away ?!?)

I am not crazy!

It's almost 3:30am and I have been up for an hour. It wouldn't be such a bad thing if I had gotten a few more hours sleep. I went to bed at 11 after a harrowing evening. About 6pm or so, I went into my storage room to get my big cutting mat. Usually I cut over there but I have Christmas decoration boxes sitting all over my cutting table and I was too lazy to organize anything. So...I pulled the mat out from under the boxes and then realized that I smelled gas. I IMMEDIATELY freaked out! I ran upstairs to my neighbor's and asked if he had the landlord's phone number. He couldn't find it so I ran back downstairs and basically just ran in circles. A few minutes later, the GFUS brought down the number that he found. I called my landlord, told him what I smelled and he said he would be right over. There is only one place in the building where there is a gas line and that is in the boiler room next to my storage room. All of the apartments are totally electric. The GFUS brought down the key to the boiler room and we both went in sniffing. Nothing...nada...zilch. So I dragged him into my storage room and said, "Smell it?" Nope, he didn't but then he is damned near 80 and his nose probably doesn't work as well as it used to. Then my landlord arrived and he went into the boiler room and then I also dragged him into the storage room. "Smell it?" Nope. He sniffed and wandered around and I kept sniffing and would say "I smell it right here!" and he would come over, sniff and tell me he didn't smell anything. I am not crazy, people! He assured me that everything was OK, there were no lines running over or around my storage room and then he hugged me and asked if I was ok. I told him I was sorry that I dragged him out of his home for nothing. He told me to call any time I had a concern.

I STILL smell gas and I periodically smell it now in my apartment. Just a little waft. I don't know what to do so I guess I will just open up the storage room, prop open a couple of doors that lead outdoors and let the gas dissipate when the smell gets too strong. I did call my mom and tell her about the problem. I figured if the building blows up in the middle of the night, at least my mom will know why it happened and then sue the crap out of somebody!

Bottom line...I cut out the fabric for the quilt along and started sewing. I was too keyed up to sleep so I woke up after about 3 hours and turned on my sewing machine. I know there isn't any point in trying to go back to bed even though my eyes are burning. I just put on a pot of coffee so my day really begins now.

They are going to love me at work today...sleepy and cranky!

Catching up

Just a quick post to catch up on what I have been doing for the past week...

I made a wall hanging to match the new table runner, made a strip pieced Christmas stocking for my son, decorated for Christmas, started quilting on the penguins and was the hostess for my quilting group (Society of Sexy Sewing Sisters) this past Sunday for our Christmas tea.

By the end of this week I will have finished my parent's Christmas quilt, made 2 table runners for my co-workers and, hopefully, will be caught up with my block production for Amanda Jean's quilt along!

Just so no one thinks I have been laying around eating bon-bons!

Insomnia pays off...

About 3pm on Sunday, I discovered that I didn't have a Christmas table runner. I hated the way my "hidden wells" quilt top was turning out so I pulled it apart and used one of the panels to make a table runner. I woke up at 2:30am on Monday morning, started quilting it and finally finished hand stitching the binding on this morning. I joined together 4 squares from the destroyed quilt top and am going to make that a table mat for my large coffee table. I have a theme going here! I love this fabric, 3 Sisters for Moda - Mistletoe Manor. If I can just come up with a wall hanging to go with this theme, I will be a happy girl. I have a Christmas quilt that I bought in Seattle (before I knew any better!) and I have been hanging that one for many years but it really isn't my taste any longer and I can quilt WAY better than whomever quilted it for Costco!

This morning (at 3:00am) I started quilting Sally's wall hanging. The wall hanging for my mother is clipped on a hanger in my studio. I feel like the penguins are looking over my shoulder so I have got to get that one quilted and sent back to my sister for the binding application. I love tandem quilting...I do the stuff that I like and she does the handwork. I think we need to do more projects together!

Really reluctant!

I have two quilt tops basted and ready to quilt but for the life of me, I just can't get started. I have been flitting around from one thing to another all morning. Maybe just too much caffeine! I started packing up all of the autumn decor, got distracted by a box in the storage room and now I am at the computer. This may be one of my ADD days...