Vacation

This was a nice vacation. Didn't go anywhere but got a lot of stuff sorted and put away. Dropped off a trunk full of stuff to Salvation Army. It was also my 38th Wedding Anniversary. We went out to diner in a little whole in the wall restaurant my daughter found. Good Italian food with Frank Sinatra singing in the background. So much food, got a doggie bag for the leftovers.

Finished my Alzheimer's quilt for June. Came out really sweet. My challenge was to use an orphan block that had been sitting around on my ironing board for 3 months. It was left over from my first Small quilt swap. What should I do with it. After looking at it for a while I decided that I either wanted to create a story or make a scene. But what? While looking out my sewing room window, I kept thinking about the rotten caterpillars that ate all my pepper plants last year.  And so a theme was born! I call it:
Midnight Snack

Amish we will go!

The Doll Swap XII is Amish style quilt. Easy peasy, right?  Wrong! Boy did I struggle with this. I started with a nine patch but I made the blocks 3 1/2 inches so one 9 patch ended up 9 inches. Too big.. Then I decided to make small 4 patches and alternate them with something but what was the something. I just couldn't get over the solid colors. I was trying to avoid using black but that was a big mistake. The dullness of the solids screamed for black. I went to about a dozen Amish websites and then researched the Pennsylvania Dutch. That just confused me more. I kept thinking, keep it simple. Don't over think it.

In the end I did use black, gold , red and blue. I ran out of red 2 inches from the end of the binding and had to scrounge for two little slivers, pieced together to finish it off.

June Bug

Well it has been a very long May. I am glad it is over. My middle daughter move back home, from
Seattle WA, after being gone for 5 years. It is quite an adjustment having someone underfoot after all these years. Quite a lot of head banging while we get use to each other again. Lots of tension and stress. Hoping that it is a short stay as it is time for her to get on with her life. The economy and job search being to bad made this move necessary.

So we had to clean out the back room for her and now I have tubs of stuff to find new hiding places for. I tried real hard not to mess up my sewing room after all that work cleaning it up in April. I only ended up with four tubs on the floor in there. They have to go because I can not sandwich my quilts on the drafting table, since I can't move it to the center of the room.  The room is only 10 x 10 ft.

None the less I have made a Alzheimer's Art quilt. I am starting to enjoy the small quilt projects. They don't take up to much time or space and it is a good way to use scraps and raise money for Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. I feel that one day I will go down that path and maybe there will be hope for me to atleast recognize my loved ones.
This one was a challenge to myself to just use the scraps that were on top of my cutting table. I keep it pretty clean because of Puddy, the quilt inspector. She is a curious cat that likes to eat thread if she can get her paws on it.

After I finished this one, started on my Amish Doll quilt for the swap on about.com quilters forum. Nice bunch of ladies. Hopefully I will get to meet some of them one day.