Time with Baby

Aurora is visiting us this week while her parents are off on a cruise to the Bahamas, celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary. I was thinking, what did Tom and I do to celebrate OUR fifth? Probably order out for delivery pizza! lol

Fortunately, Aurora is a happy little person and easy to tend. This morning we vacuumed. I wasn't sure how she'd react to the vacuum cleaner. The cat runs from it. Not Aurora! She laughed, waved her arms excitedly in the air, and chased it! It was such fun, I ended up vacuuming the whole house, just to watch her reaction. Funny funny girl.

She has also been enjoying chasing our cat, Taz, around the house. Taz is more tolerant this time, than when she was here in August. I'm wondering if the difference is that Aurora is walking on two feet now; and now is classified in Taz's feline brain, as a human and a source (eventually) of petting and cat treats. If I were Taz, I would run away from this little critter, but Taz holds her ground, even when a baby finger tries to poke an eye, or a baby hand grabs a fistful of hair. I'm keeping close watch on the two of them, just in case...but perhaps Taz is a bit too tolerant and should, instead, take to napping in higher locations around the house. Although, I guess Taz has found perks to all this. This morning, I found Aurora sharing her Gerber yogurt "melts" with Taz. Who knew cats liked yogurt?

Tom installed a few baby latches on kitchen cupboards, but not nearly enough, so I have chairs and other objects, blocking access to most of the cupboards. Aurora does have access to the Tupperware and yesterday, I showed her what noise could be had by hitting two pan lids together like cymbals! Oooh, she likes that!

Here are some Aurora-photos for all the baby fans out there.

Another Christmas Quilt

While Tom was off on yet another business trip recently, I decided to try to get rid of some of my Christmas fabric stash. I've had the idea bouncing around in my head for years now, that it would be nice to have a Christmas quilt for each of the beds. HA! Last year I finished one, and now this year: two more! Since we have three beds (two in guest rooms), I've got it covered (lol) but oh dear, I still have more Christmas fabric left.

Taz, our Manx cat, always comes into my quilting room to keep track of what I'm doing. After all, she wouldn't want to miss anything! When I put a quilt on the HQ Sixteen, she hops up on the back of it, winds her way through the machine a few times--back and forth, and then ends up sitting there, showing me her back, like she is ignoring me. Pouting perhaps, because I'm quilting instead of petting her? I'm never sure. Once I start up the machine and start quilting, she retreats to her assigned napping spot in the room. One time when I was cleaning and rearranging my quilting studio, I neglected to factor in the "napping spot," and Taz, who is seldom vocal, let me know in no uncertain terms (meows, in her case), that I needed to fix the problem. Phew! Who runs this house, anyway?

Here is the quilt, finished. It is all triangles.
While Tom was on his last trip, I set my sewing machine up in the livingroom, in front of the big screen tv. I took over the whole house with my mess: the diningroom table became my cutting area, a counter top was the pressing station..and fabric everywhere! It was a nice change. Then I sewed and sewed. I never did try out the quilt for size, on my bed, until I was finished. As a result, it came out a bit narrower than I would have liked--but long enough for a tuck-under with the pillows! Oooh well. It is very warm...and I do have more Christmas fabric; a good start for Christmas quilt #4!

Wheeler and Wilson Treadle

My husband loves yard sales and Craig's List. However, he doesn't just look for goodies for himself. Nope, nice fellow that he is, he finds surprises for me a well. Check out this latest toy! It cost him all of $15.




It's a Wheeler and Wilson treadle. W&W was the big sewing machine manufacturer before Singer took over. Actually, Singer bought them out in the early 1900's. This machine is a #9. There's a gold seal on it, with it's serial number, the company name, location (Bridgeport, Connecticut) and "patented Mar. 25th, '90--Aug. 2, '92." Of course that's 1890 and 1892. It's in useable shape, but lacking a few parts. I've located new needles, an extra bobbin, but still need the belt for the treadle. The hunt continues! Meanwhile, it's pretty to look at!

My grandmother had a treadle machine. My sister ended up with it; "gutted" it and turned it into a planter. As always, I don't know what she was thinking!

Halloween and Men in Tights

Hope you all had a fun Halloween! I don't know what it was about this year, but BOTH of my "boys" wore tights! And..they look good in 'em!

Jim and Sheena:


Jeff, Frieda and Aurora in their Halloween costumes:

My week of sewing

Sometimes Tom travels a lot for work. It all has to do with his radar projects and which ones need personal supervision. Currently he's working on setting up and testing radar systems in Alaska. Since I can't go with him, I find myself with a lot of quilting time! This is good, and bad--it gets very quiet at home with just Taz the cat for company.

Here are two projects finished this week. The bear is from a pattern in Eleanor Burn's book "Christmas at Bear's Paw Ranch." I made it out of an old quilt top that was given to me, along with a lot of fabric, when I helped a littl' ol' lady clean out her storage unit. She never finished the quilt and as I attempted to do that, I could see why. It was wonky and misshapen. Quilting didn't improve it, and I realized if I tried trimming off the bad parts, I'd probably end up with nothing left! So..patchwork bears might be just the thing. What do YOU do with cutter quilts?




The quilt is from a kit and the top was finished last year, before Christmas. I dug it out of my UFO pile. The squares with the birds aren't appliqued, but rather printed on the fabric. The rest is pieced.

I have one more project to finish up, a Christmas quilt made of triangles. It just needs borders and since Tom won't be home until tomorrow (weather permitting), I should be able to accomplish that and maybe even get it in the frame for quilting!

In Which We Celebrate Jim's Birthday

My firstborn had a birthday this month! You can breathe a sigh of relief that I am unable to post the video of us singing to him, but here are some photos.






I found a most annoying candle holder, for a birthday candle. When the base is twisted, it plays the Happy Birthday song! Jim thought it was hideous, of course, but the rest of us were amused. Okay, Jim was amused too, but in a horrified way! heh heh heh

Sunbeam Fun

Sunday my lesson for the three year old's was about being a good example: Following in Jesus's Footsteps. One of the visuals I had for them involved paper footprints I'd cut out of construction paper. Taped on two of the walls were pictures of Jesus. One was of Zacharius in a tree. I told them the story about Zacharius from the Bible. Zacharius wanted to see Jesus but was too short to see him over the crowd, so he climbed a tree. No one liked Zacharius, but Jesus was nice to him anyway. AHA! So..we should be nice to people even if others aren't! The other picture was of Jesus praying. (morale: we should pray for others) The children each had a turn walking on the footprints to the pictures, and then telling us what they were about. They thought that was fun.

We also talked about being good examples to our family, especially our siblings. Most of the children have younger brothers or sisters, but do they know that those smaller people look up to them for how to behave? I told them about my big sister. She is five years older than I am. When we were kids, she would sometimes say, "Yvonne, do you want to go outside and play with me?" Excited, I'd get my jacket on, run out to play with her--only to find her gone. I remember calling for her and really having my feelings hurt because she'd tricked me again. Phooey! Or she'd lock me in our grandmother's basement and turn out the light. Scary to be in the dark alone. Karissa asked, "did you cry?" I admitted I did! My big sister really wasn't nice to me at all (some things never change) but I decided she was an idiot when I was about 12 years old. Okay, so I didn't say "idiot" to the children, I said, "she was making bad choices!" Marigene was 17 and dating boys. Funny, all the girls made faces at the "dating boys" idea. I laughed and told them they'd do that someday and find it fun! They looked sceptical. Anyway, Marigene was dating a very creepy boy named Rick. I told the children that Rick used bad language and was the type of person that you could imagine knocking down a little old lady, stealing her purse, and running away. Yup, that was Rick. I was 12 then and asked Marigene, "why are you dating such a creepy guy?" She told me she didn't really like him; she was just doing it to upset our parents. I asked the children if they thought that was a good reason to date someone and they all said "NOOOO!" Smart kiddos! Then I asked them if they wanted to know what happened to my sister? They said they did. I told them she got so used to being around "creepy people," that she married men who were creepy. Two of her ex-husbands spent time in jail. Not a good thing! (the other three weren't that nice either) I also told them that I have a little brother and asked if they thought I was the kind of big sister to him, that my sister had been to me. I got another resounding "NOOOOO!" from them over that too! Like I said, smart kiddos! I told them I played with my little brother and was nice to him. I knew what it felt like to have a big sister who was mean. Malachi told me that he's going to be a good big brother to his baby brother. I know he is already, even without hearing my story, but that was good to hear.

Our craft was coloring "fake feet" to remind them to follow in Jesus's footsteps. I took photos of all the children wearing theirs. Well, except for Zoe who is apparently very particular about photos. One of our recent lessons was about friends and I gave them each a class photo in a foam frame, that they decorated with glow in the dark stars. Cool, hmm? Zoe didn't think so and told me later that she threw hers away because it had "other people in it." ??? Her friends from class! That was the whole point of the lesson! Sigh. ooh well. Can't please 'em all. I have noticed that Malachi carries his class photo in his scripture bag. At least he likes it!

Here are the kiddos and their feet! Well, except for Zoe!

October

What a busy time it's been! Tom has traveled a lot for work over the summer--and start of autumn, so I've had lots of quilting time. Here was what I finished last time he was away.


I put two baby quilts on the HQ Sixteen at the same time.


Here they are, finished!


For this one, I used one of those cloth storybooks. In this case, it's the Three Little Pigs.

Time to dig out more quilts. He's off again, this time to Anchorage! BRRRRR

Baby Time

Aurora's Aunt Lizzie wasn't the only one who fell under her spell. In fact, I was lucky to get a chance to cuddle her at all, what with also having her Grandpa, Uncle Jim and Aunt Sheena around. Sigh.









And, TAH DAH! Here is Aurora, surprised to find herself balanced and standing up, all by herself! We clapped and cheered, which of course made her fall down...

What Happens When You Give a Baby A Fudgecicle?

it leads to this:

Nephew's Wedding and Family Gathering

Last weekend was the wedding of nephew Ian and his bride, Karin. Scroll back through the messages here and you'll see the quilt I made for them. All in blues. Very pretty!

We were having a heat wave, and although August 1st wasn't THE hottest day (that had been a few days earlier, with a temperature of 106 degrees), it was still very hot. In the 90's. The wedding was outside in a garden, but there wasn't any shade. It was pretty miserable for the guests, just imagine if you had to wear a tuxedo--or a wedding dress! Still, they looked delighted, don't they? Perhaps because they were finally married and heading toward the shade!


While the toasts were being made, Ian was making goofy faces. Rolling his eyes, bugging them out... I don't know why, maybe he was self conscious with us all looking at him. I was relieved when they finished that and went to the dance floor. At least until I saw Ian dance. He is a goofy dancer too! He looks all right in the still photos, though.
Here is Ian, dancing with his lovely wife...and then with his very happy mother, Pam, who has been wishing for a daughter for a long time!




Great-aunt Betty visited from New York for this occasion. Here she is with sister-inlaw Sue, and with Aurora.