Finally Some Pictures!

  Well, how is your day going? I have had a h____ of a week. Hubby started 3rd shift this week and I have had to sleep alone , or at least try to. I did not think it would be hard to sleep alone after I was in TN for so long and sleeping alone. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I finally got some sleep last night, but I am so tired still. It appears that he is getting enough sleep, but now we have to see what we do with the weekends. This is his Sat. and he has decided he will take a nap this afternoon then get up and we will have our date night. Then he wants to sleep in a sort of regular manner tonight. I think it will make for a hard week next week, and mess up his sleep patterns. Then again what do you do in the middle of the night if you aren't at work. hahahaha well that is what we have had on our plates this week.  

   In the mean time I thought making a gift would be a great way to practice my free motion quilting . I have not gotten a very good photo, of the actual quilting, but it will be a great way to keep me up to date on my gifts, and pay it forward gifties. I really enjoy the free motion quilting, and I think I am getting much better at it. I still used my stitch regulator, but I have done some without it a long time ago. I got pretty good at keeping my stitches even ad regular. The next one I do I will try without the regulator.

   I am not too happy with the handle hole on this, and how it turned out, but after all this is the first one I made and I didn't have a  pattern. I saw one on pinterest last night and instead of using bias tape they  made the hole and sewed to it and pulled it through before they did the quilting. I may try that next time, since it looked better than mine does. 

  Even with the sleep problems I have found myself working in the sewing room more than usual. I got more done on the quilt I am in the middle of than I have all year. I may actually get it done by the end of next week. I also needed to make a wedding gift, well, a shower gift for the 4th of March. I started that gift with making a wine bottle carrier. My next portion for the gift will be a travel bag for wine glasses, and some coasters. I may even make some napkins to go with all of it. I would like to make a picnic quilt, but that takes too much time and I just don't have the time now.
  Well, until next time, I hope you all will have a very quilty weekend.
Tennye

Free Motion Quilting Challenge

  I have not gotten the chance to do as much of the challenge processes as I wanted to so far, and for some reason I still have not gotten the latest email update from the challenge. It may be because I have not posted any photos to her group. I will have a couple of pictures to post in the next day or two. I am making some small gifts this week in addition to working on the quilts. So I am doing several sample quilting's, and using them for the bags I will make to give as gifts. I don't have the funds to make sample blocks just for the fun or learning of it, so I will learn on bags. The first one I plan to do is a wine tote. I made some as gifts last year and I just didn't think they were as firm as they should be. I didn't want them to be floppy, and fall over when you put the bag down on the counter. I tried to use upholstery fabric, and iron on stabilizer. I was not satisfied with the results, and I think this free motion quilting will give me an advantage. I thought I had pictures of the bad, or should I say unsatisfactory ones, but can't find them .
  The challenge is one you can join any time during the year, and if you click on the logo, in the side line of my blog, you should be taken to the introduction page of the challenge. When you sign up you get a news letter with a new tutorial every month, and you are encouraged to add photos to her group. So far I have been very impressed with the tutorials I have gotten, I hope I am just between them right now. I feel like that is the case, and I look forward to the next one. I will check back with you later this week, and hopefully have some pictures to show. Until then have a very quilty week.
Tennye

Word For The Year "Gratitude"

 I have seen in blogs, emails and just from friends, that many choose a word to live by for the year, and last year mine was "Challenge". I thought I might not have a word this year, even though I did pretty good with my word last year. You might remember I did some things I have not done before or that I am just really bad at. I felt good about those things, but  in the long run I often felt like I was putting so much into improving me I was forgetting others. That is why I chose to do the pay it forward thing with the blog. I am sad only one has taken me up on the offer, and only 2 have taken me up on it on Facebook, so I am glad I chose to add my own list as well. That was all said to tell you,' I feel like gratitude is such an important part of a good attitude. Therefore I will try to add at least one blog a month this year to tell you how grateful I am about some part of my life, my quilting, or my family. "
  Today, I want to tell you about my stash, and the many wonderful fabrics I have there, that I did not purchase. You see, over the years, my friends and family have seen me making quilts and bags and other little and big things to give away, or sell. So when they find they have fabric they want to get out of their house they offer it to me. I in turn have offered the fabrics I don't want to others for the things they make. So I have lots of not only small pieces of fabric, but large ones too. I have plans for some and others I just know I can find  a way to use them, so I am grateful for the choices I have when I get out fabrics to make a gift or project and don't have to go to the store and buy. I am so grateful for the friends I have who think of me when they have fabrics to get rid of. I am grateful to the strangers who heard about me from a friend and gave me their fabrics they wanted to get out of their house.
So until I get back to you, thanks to my friends, family, and strangers, and yall have a very quilty week.
Tennye

Happy Valentine Day

  I do wonder sometimes just how the Valentine tradition came to be. I have heard about a ?? centuries ago priest, who is not a Saint, but don't know the story. I have also heard the same can be said of Valentine as Christmas, that it was a heathen tradition that the Christians chose to use for their own purposes. Either way, I have a love hate relationship with this particular holiday. My daughters have for years called it the "singles awareness day" and tried to plan something to do with other single friends. This year is a little different, the middle one (Aften) has a boyfriend. She had a bad break up several years ago and has been single for a long time. Older daughter( Aislynn) has a date for tomorrow night, but not tonight, so I think she is planning to cook for me. Hubby is taking me out for lunch, since he works nights these days. In the past we sort of celebrated our second date, by doing what we did that night. We had a lovely meal around the fire pit in my back yard with beef kabobs and rice, and a lovely bottle of wine. I may try to plan something like that for him on the weekend, since we have not gotten to do it for a few years. Before I met my husband I was mostly single on the day, and rather than find a fun way to handle it like my girls did, I just hated it. I am glad they were more secure and creative than I was. Hubby came in yesterday with a lovely vase of carnations, which are my favorite flowers. I created from a pre formed heart wreath a lovely door decoration with ribbon and silk roses. I didn't take a picture of it, nor did I take one of my flowers. I am just glad I have found some time to get on the computer and write today. It has been a hard year so far, and I have gotten very little stuff done in the sewing room.
   I am still working on the t-shirt quilts, and I had a snafu the other day. I was doing the prep work on the t-shirts and sewing the sashing to each block, when I realized I had mixed up the shirts and I was putting some of the ones I was supposed to save for the second quilt in the first one. I am not using the same pajamas for both quilts sashing, so I had to unsew some of the sashing on a few of the squares. I finally got that all straightened out and I am starting to make progress again. It is so frustrating when I make that kind of mistakes. This woman was fond of red, and I am having to be creative with placement so that it is not too red in spots, and not enough in others. I can lay it out on the floor, but that is hard on the back and I am quilting it as I go to avoid that this time. So I have to do it on my bed, as the kitchen table is not big enough.
  A few years ago two of my girls did a cruise with friends , and asked me to make them bags to use when they got off the ship in port. I did , but they asked kind of late so I was sewing right up to the last minute. I took a few short cuts because of time on the last one. Well, that was Aften's and she still lives here so when she started making mustache heart key chains. She is carrying them to work with her so she can sew when she has down time at work.  I noticed some of the short cuts have started to show and look very bad. I can't have her carrying something I made that looks bad, so yesterday, I took apart some of it and fixed the problems. I feel much better about her carrying it. I did get a picture of that, but you know me I have not gotten them on the computer yet.
  Well, we got daddy home from the hospital and he seems to be doing pretty good. He has several ulcers in his stomach though, so they have temporarily taken him off some of his heart meds. It seems he was taking 3 that are known to cause ulcers, but no one thought to give him something to protect his stomach. This was the scariest of all his stays in the hospital. Over the four days he was there they gave him three units of blood. He spent most of the time in the ICU, and he has never had to stay there before. We were pretty sure he was about to die the last time he was there. Also this was kind of a surprise to all of us since he seemed to be feeling so much better than he has in so long. I am glad he is home, and I am trying to get my exercise back on track so I can handle the stress better. Well, I need to get ready for lunch so until I can get back I hope you will have a very quilty week.
Tennye

Wow, Again

  Hi, well, I just have a minute today, but I wanted to let you know I have not dropped off the face of the earth. My dad is again in the hospital and it is one of the things that is keeping me off balance and not getting my quilts made. I have worked all day today on the quilts that I am so behind on. I spent all day yesterday and most of Tue. in the ER and ICU with my parents. I have some things I want to share with all of you, but it will have to wait. I am trying to keep my day timer with me so I can write notes when I think of some stuff I want to write about.
Until I am able to get back yall have a very quilty week.
Tennye
  BTW I have gotten on comment on my Pay it forward, so please think about commenting.