Oh so pretty

Come to Mama...

I just fell in love with these fabrics!  The top piece just called to me and I had to buy three yards because it said it wanted to be the back for a lap quilt.  And speaking of lap quilts, don't you think those bottom six fabrics will look great mixed and matched for a double slice top?  Ohhh, what fun I am going to have!

The fabric on the right is a cheater cloth that is going to also become a couple lap robes, with the help of the solids on the side that I picked up.

This fabric just said it wanted to become an Autumn wall hanging.  I think it will be a simple one, and it will just let the fabrics be the focal point rather than the pattern.  I'll match up some other fabrics with the colors in this material and run with it.

These cute pooches are in panels and their miniatures are in the border of this piece of fabric.  It will make a nice lap robe for a man.

So these were my fabric purchases out in Arthur.  I just can't say it enough times - I had a very nice day yesterday and really enjoyed myself!  It was so relaxing and peaceful out there.

I see the moon

I see the moon, the moon sees me, please Mr. Moon, don't tell on me!

We have a beautiful full moon tonight.

Goodies!

 Here are a couple pics of the goodies I got at a store in Arthur today.  Above is homemade bread, dehydrated mushrooms, ground and stick cinnamon, garlic flavored bagel chips, vegetable chips, dill, Italian seasoning, marjoram, chicken rub, celery seed, popcorn, disposable pot pie tins, bean soup mix and a couple paring knives.

And in the photo above there are two iced cinnamon buns, two packages of frozen chopped rhubarb, a bag of soft caramels, garlic and herb cheese spread, three chocolate covered marshmallows, smoked hot pepper cheese, sliced pepperoni, and garlic and dill cheese curds.

These came from Beachy's Bulk Foods.  The rhubarb will be for pies but for now it's just going in the freezer.

I have pics of my other purchases from Miller's Dry Goods, but they will have to wait.

While out there today I saw many horse drawn buggies.  It is so peaceful and relaxing out there.  I really enjoyed it. 

I had lunch at a neat little sandwich shop.  I had a grilled chicken breast with barbecue sauce and mozzerella on a croissant.  It was heated then put in a panini press.  Oh it was so yummy!

Ready for the frame

Last night I found a good piece of material to use for the back of Nick's quilt.  It needed to be seamed down the middle, which I did yesterday.  Then today I squared it up and added about six inches on both the top and bottom of the backing piece because it was only a few inches larger than the top and I needed some wiggle room.

Took the top and back downstairs and laid it over the frame.  It was hard to walk away instead of going ahead and loading it, but I am tired and really just wanted to go to bed.  If I could just load the back and stop, I might have done that, but I know myself and once I started I would have had to finish loading the back, top, and batting!  Will be nice to have those measuring tapes on my leaders when I load it.  I think I'll get a lot of use out of them.

The kids and I went to the Chinese restaurant for dinner tonight.  Was pretty good.  I got the same thing I always get.  It's funny because I say to myself that I'm going to order something different, then when I get there, I look at the menu, and my favorite dish always wins!  sigh.

It was a good thing I was sitting down...

So a couple days ago I told my hubby that I was going to go to Arthur on Saturday even if my friend couldn't go.  Everett hates to shop and particularly hates to shop in fabric stores.  When I mentioned Arthur to him again yesterday he said to me "I'm not going, you know that?" and I of course told him I didn't expect him to go, so yes, I knew that I would be going alone.  Even if Mary goes, I would be driving alone because she and I come from different directions and meet there.

Today, before he had to leave for work, Ev calls me and says "If you promise that we can be home by 8 p.m., I will go to Arthur with you."  The first words out of my mouth were "Why would you want to do that?"  I mean, seriously, he would have absolutely no fun at all and would make me miserable because I would know he was sitting in the car waiting for me to get done shopping.  And that takes all the fun out of it!  He is just concerned about me driving by myself (Hello?  I have been driving for the exact same number of years you have, darling...) I guess. 

It was a sweet thing for him to offer, and I love him dearly for it, however I gently told him that was not necessary.  And as far as being home by 8?  The stores all close around 4, so that would not have been a problem!  Now, getting his butt out of bed at 7 a.m. when I planned to leave might have been a different story!

If it's raining I may take him up on his offer, but more likely than not if it's bad weather I will postpone the trip.

Maybe he's worried that I won't let him visit the Harley Museum when we go to Milwaukee...  haha!

Whirlwind week

I know I mentioned it in a previous post, but there are some big changes going on at work.  It's been a whirlwind around here.  I will be glad when the dust settles!  Hopefully by the end of next week things will settle into place.  Hopefully....

Stayed up late to watch Sons of Anarchy last night, so I'm a little tired today.  My own fault!  I know better, but have to see my show, you know.

Not sure if my brother in law will stop this evening on his over the road run.  If he does, I'm going to get something good to make for dinner, kind of a treat for him, since he doesn't get many home cooked meals.

If he doesn't stop, I am hoping to get upstairs and choose the backing for Nick's quilt.  If I have something big enough to use one material, I'll do that, but if I have to piece the back, that's okay too.  I think I will try and find some kind of backing material with a pattern on it so that if my stitches aren't perfect they don't stand out as much!

On the border

Finished the quilt top for Nick.  Put the borders on it tonight but didn't get it on the frame.  I need to decide what kind of backing to use.

Got good results at the doc.  Thanks for all the prayers and kind thoughts.

Stormed off and on all day today.  Still rumbling thunder out there and raining.  Makes for good sleeping weather and that's just what I'm going to do!

Stormy weather

Had quite a thunderstorm last night.  Started around 3 a.m. and stormed off and on, mostly on, for the next 4 hours.  Ivy decided the safest place was curled up on the bed as close to me as she could get.  What a sweet puppy...  Believe it or not, 65 pounds of dog can curl up into a pretty tight ball when it wants to!

Have a doctor's appointment this afternoon.  I had some routine bloodwork done and this is the follow up visit.  Praying the results were good.

Since I'm leaving work early today, maybe I will get Nick's quilt done and loaded.  I have the borders ready to go on then it's ready for the frame.  Kind of exciting to see it get to this point finally!

Sure wish Connecting Threads would have another sale on their Essentials thread.  I would love to stock up on it, now that I know it runs through the longarm so nicely.  I need a larger selection of colors.

Going to TRY and get to Arthur this Saturday.  After so many failed attempts, I may just go myself, no matter what!  Mary and I were going to meet there Friday, but with all the upheaval at work, I felt that it was necessary for me to be here.  So Saturday is what I'm shooting for!

Closer to the finish

Spent about an hour today working on the borders for Nick's quilt.  I have them pieced together, now I need to press them and add them to the body of the quilt.  Then it will be ready for the frame, yay!

Oh, I am so anxious about work.  I'm trying not to be, especially because it's Sunday and the last thing I should be doing is thinking about work and because there isn't anything I can do to about it.  My best friend at work has been permanently laid off and all of the other employees in her agency will be removed from the office in a week.  Our agency will either stay in the office and have more people come in from different agencies or we will have to find a different space to rent. 

Wow.  Putting it in print and reading it sure helps.  I just read what I typed and even though it isn't good news, it sure isn't as bad as it could be.  There are things that I'm not going to like, such as my friend being gone, but it's not the end of the world and i do still have a job, which is a heap of a lot better than a lot of people have it.

Enough whining.  I'm going to pick up pizza for dinner!  Maybe after I eat tonight I will go do more sewing, but if I don't, I do feel that I accomplished something today.

I like it...

I like this web service that Jo mentioned on Jo's Country Junction.  It's  www.picmonkey.com   and I was just playing around with this photo.  Want to spend some more time with it and see what I can do.

Changes

Not a good day at work. Change is in the wind. While not a big fan of change, I just have to roll with it.

 I took the monster back. This time it is done for good. Might make my friend some pillow shams with the scraps.

Redo

The monster needed a trim.  The gal I made it for decided it was too big!  I have it back and I'm giving it a trim.  Tonight I cut it down to size and cut more binding.  Will get to putting it on soon.

Went to dinner with my friend Diane tonight.  That was a good time.  Hadn't been out with her in quite a while.

Where did Monday go?

I know it seemed like it took forever for the day to get over once I was at work, but when the clock hit 4:30, time sped up!  I had to make a couple stops before I went home, then started right in making spaghetti sauce for dinner.  Did the dishes while it cooked, watched a little t.v., then fell asleep on the couch before 9!

Needless to say, I didn't sew yesterday.  Hoping to get a little done tonight, but not going to stress if I don't.

Maintenance

I had to do a little bit of maintenance/upgrade stuff on my longarm leaders.  I have my homemade snap together system for loading quilts on my leaders, but I needed to make the casing narrower because there was too much slack when I snapped the other piece over it.  I did that on the two leaders that needed it done.  I also sewed tape measures onto all of the leaders.  They start in the middle and go out from there, so I used two tape measures on each leader.  I saw that on someone's system once.  They said they measure their top or backing and then take it out evenly to be attached to the leaders.  Thought it was a good idea.

Isn't this cute?

To kitties sleeping in the comfy chair downstairs by the longarm!  Kitty love...  haha.  The black cat, Lenore, has become quite the little lover.  She likes to get under the covers and sleep at night.  Shadow still likes to cuddle every time I sit down.  She will jump in my lap and immediately start purring!

Quilts Beyond Borders

The quilts I quilted for Quilts Beyond Borders were featured on their webpage!  Here's a link:

http://quiltsbeyondborders.wordpress.com/


It is mentioned that I have a business, which I am just starting up.  I'm only doing very simple quilting jobs right now, but as time progresses I intend to have a full service quilting business.  

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Tennessee August is in the wash

Here is Tennessee August before it was bound.  I finished quilting and binding it today and it's in the washer right now.  Going to send it to my mom on Monday.

This is one of those quilts that I had to give in and say 'done is better than perfect'.  There were problems with the quilting.  These problems were my fault, and I'll take that responsibility. 

I pieced the majority of this quilt years ago while in Nashville, TN with my friend, Donna.  We went to a quilt show there and stayed a few days.  It was blazing hot that summer.  The colors, especially the flame type orange print, reflect the heat of that summer.  The greens are scattered around sparingly, just like there was little green to be found with the heat and lack of rain.  The neutral squares alternating with the four patches are varied.  Those darker neutrals in the picture really aren't that dark and don't stand out like that on the quilt.  Some of the neutral squares have a very faint pattern of a winter scene, which reminded me of the fact that even during that very hot summer, winter would actually come again.

A little bit of sewing last night

It's not much, but I did a little bit of hand sewing last night on these diamonds.  They are on paper.  I'm not real sure how I'm going to arrange them and put them together yet.  It's just a little bit of something to do while I'm watching t.v.  Don't know if it will ever turn out to be anything bigger than a potholder!

Itchin' to be stitchin'!

Things just keep popping up that keep me from doing much sewing!  Yesterday my brother in law was visiting, and tonight I promised my great-uncle that I would take him out to dinner.  I'm just going to have to force myself to go either upstairs or downstairs to do a little bit of sewing when I get home from dinner!

I'd like to set a date to go to Arthur soon.  I've about given up on meeting my friend out there.  She has had to cancel the last two times we planned.  Both were unforseen circumstances, and I understand that.  However, I want to go....wah wah wah!

Nick seems to really be settling in to his 40 hour a week day job!  I'm so proud of hime!

Johanna is in the final push for her nursing degree.  Between school, clinicals, and juggling different jobs, she is stressed to the max.  Poor baby.  She's a trooper though.

Company Comin'

Tonight my brother in law is stopping at our house for the night.  I'm going to pick him up from where he parks his truck, then we are going to pick up some fried chicken and head to the house.  I'm desperately hoping that the dishes have been done, but not holding out any hopes...

That being said, I sincerely doubt I will be doing any sewing tonight.

Just a few updates

On the 3, 2, 1 post regarding replacement of the downstairs facilities - change it to 3, 2, 2 and done!  Woohoo!  Now I don't have to run upstairs every time I am working on the longarm and have to go to the bathroom.  The toilet still sits in an open area against a wall, but hey, I can hang a curtain!

The perfect piecing seam guide arrived a couple days ago.  I have not put it to use yet, but did play with it to see how it will work.  I'm pleased.

The magnets I bought from Harbor Freight probably are not going to do me much good as there isn't enough metal on the bed of most of my machines.  Still haven't checked on two of them.  Oh, wait, the Featherweight probably has a metal bed!  Hooray!

I have the Featherweight back from the shop.  Would you believe I haven't sewn on it yet, though?  sigh.

Tonight is the season opener of one of my favorite shows.  Now, please do not judge me, but I really like the show 'Sons of Anarchy'!  It's a bad boy biker show and totally out of character for me, but it's got me roped into the story line!  In fact, that's where the name for my longarm came from - Gemma is the matriarch of the show.  I know, I know, I'm strange...  haha.

Still haven't done any more on the borders for Nick's graduation quilt. 

I've been quilting hearts on Tennessee August, not a meandering stipple.  If I could just get that tension right on it, I would be super happy, but I'm settling for 'done is better than perfect' on this one!

Dinner should be done

Dinner should be almost done when I get home.  All I have to do is make some egg noodles to go with the crock pot meal I have cooking.  It was a slow cooker recipe that was emailed to me from Campbell's.  There are pork chops, apples, onions, and golden mushroom soup in it, among other things, and Ev says it's smelling pretty good right now! 

Before I left for work this morning I went downstairs to throw a load of clothes in the washer.  The pull of the longarm drew me over to the machine where I pulled off the piece of material covering my work just to look at the quilt I'm working on.  There's just one more pass left and it will be all quilted - bumps, gurgles, and all other manner of errors that were encountered on this one.  Going to bind it and wash it, then see what I can do to it to make it look better.  Would be nice if after getting washed it just hid all the boo boo's...  Doubtful, but a girl can hope...

I've taken to throwing a piece of yardage over whatever I'm working on on Gemma.  That way, I can leave the kitchen door open and get a bit of a breeze from the back porch.  The back porch has the steps leading down to the basement and if the kitchen door is open the little cat has access to the basement, and in turn, to Gemma.  She has jumped up on the quilt on the frame before and I do not want that at all, but I also need to have some air movement in the kitchen.  She has only jumped on it when I was downstairs at the frame, so I'm hoping she just leaves it alone all other times.  I'm still keeping it covered.  And if it's a customer's work, she won't be allowed down there at all.

I'd like to get this quilt done soon so I can put another one on the frame.

Extolling the virtues of quality thread

I have admitted it before and I'll admit it again.  I'm, well, frugal.  I have a sizable amount of a certain brand of thread that I had purchased before the longarm.  It is 100% cotton and I have a lot of different colors.  So, I have been trying to use it up, and have tried to use it on the longarm.  Over the past couple days I have been working on Tennessee August and have gotten frustrated repeatedly because the thread would break.  It wasn't consistently the top thread breaking or the bobbin thread breaking.  It would just break.  It was a big mess.  Three hours on the quilt yesterday yielded one pass without turning the take up bar. 

This morning, when I started fresh, the same thing started happening.  I decided enough was enough.  I found a color that was fairly close to what I was using in the Essential Threads Cotton brand and started using it.  Wonder of wonders, no more broken threads! 

I did still have some tension issues on the back side.  Too many loops where there shouldn't be any.  Considering what a mess the quilting turned out to be, I was not even shooting for perfection any more.  I've decided to continue quilting it, bind it, wash it, then assess it again.  If necessary, I'll pick some areas out and repair them on one of the domestic machines. 

This quilt is a gift for my mom.  She doesn't expect it to be perfect (at least I hope not), so I'm not going to worry about it.

Oh and throw into the mix that the borders were waving like a beauty queen in a parade, this has been quite a challenge.  What was I thinking?  Sigh.

Garage sale finds

Yesterday I stopped at a garage sale on my way home from work.  Usually I don't find much at garage sales, but this time I got lucky.  Take a look...

There were 11 of the basket blocks and 12 of the wreath blocks, which are 18" embroideried blocks.  There were also 12 of the little heart blocks which are 6".  The bigger blocks were yellowed and smelled of smoke, so I soaked them in an oxy type solution.  That's why they are wrinkled, because I didn't want to put them in the dryer or iron them.  I don't want to set any stains that might not have come out with the heat.  The stains and the smell came out really well.


I'm thinking that I can use these to make three quilts.  One would have the basket blocks alternating with a solid, one would have the wreath blocks alternating with a solid, and a smaller lap quilt with the heart blocks alternating with a solid block.  That would be two full size and one lap size quilts.

Any guesses how much these blocks cost?  Total for all of them was $4!  Yup, just $4!  I got a deal.

My little town

Nostalgia time!  Hahaha.  I live in a small town where I know quite a few people.  Just to give you an idea of my Saturday and how neat I thought it was, here's how the day has progressed.

Got up and had breakfast at a local cafe on Main Street with a friend of mine.  While we were in this cafe, whose owner we both know and whose husband works with mine, several more people we know came in.  One teacher and four people who attend my church were among the group.

After breakfast, I went down the block a short distance to the local drug store where my sister is the Pharmacy Tech.  Next door to the drugstore is a little park and the girl scouts were having a bake sale, whooping and hollering trying to get people to stop and buy goodies.

Before coming home, I picked up some farm fresh eggs from the gal who sold produce outside of town.  She was coming into town to visit her mom so I stopped at her mom's to get my eggs.  Now, I couldn't tell you the address of her mom's house, but I knew that it was the last house before the tracks at the crossing just north of the pond.  Got it?  haha.  Makes sense to me...

Ev had to go to work at 11 a.m. (poor guy working 12 hours today), so I came home and got his lunch all packed and saw him out the door.  Then I ran out to the Dollar General store and saw a group of people there who were taking a Route 66 tour.  DG is right next to one of the 66 landmarks so a lot of people stop in their parking lot then walk over to the landmark.  While in DG I saw a couple of people I know (last night my next door neighbor was in there buying ice cream because the underpass was flooded between here and the next town over where there is a Dairy Queen and he didn't want to go the long way around!).

Later on I decided to get dinner from a new little restaurant on the outskirts of town.  On the way down Main Street I saw my friend who I had breakfast with driving and said hi to her, and also waved to another friend's daughter who was walking with her baby.  Before I got out of town I saw a fellow I used to live right across the street from when I was growing up.

The new little restaurant is owned by a gal who used to live in my house.  There were a couple people eating in there, including one of the parents of a girl my daughter went to school with.  Helping out the owner was a gal who works with my brother's girlfriend and whose husband also works with mine.

I do like living in a small town.

Glue tip update

Last night I ordered Item No. 21052, Roxanne Glue Baste It, from Connecting Threads.  It's a two ounce bottle that has the needle like tip, plus a spare tip.  I figured if I wanted to use the glue that was fine, but if not I could always just refill the bottle with Elmer's washable school glue.  It was a few bucks more than I wanted to pay, but if you figure that I would have had to drive almost an hour one way to get to any store that might have the glue tips, a couple more dollars is a savings, compared to what I would spend in gas!  Let's just hope it works!

A moment of terror

Sometimes things happen that are so scary, even if just for a moment, you almost lose your mind.  Tonight the house phone rang, and as usual I did not answer it.  Since we all have cell phones, it's almost always a sales call when the house phone rings.  Well, a couple minutes later it rang again, so I thought it might be important and I answered it.  Much to my surprise it was a county police officer asking if this was Nicholas' residence.  Yes, it is.  Well, they found his motorcycle on the side of the road.  Okay, now all you mother's out there know the panic that flooded me at this point.  What do you mean, you found his motorcycle?  It's sitting on the side of the road, the officer tells me.  Apparently not having taken any classes in "don't scare people to death with the way you word things" this officer failed to mention at the beginning that the bike was on it's kickstand, apparently abandoned.  I had to drag this info out of him and also that it had not been in a wreck.  He was just calling because it was sitting there and he wanted it picked up so it wouldn't get stolen.

Long story short, Nick was riding it to go teach lessons in the next town over when the bike conked out on him.  He got a ride home to pick up his car but didn't have time to take care of the bike until he was finished with lessons.  He was teaching when the cop called.  When he got home he went and picked up the bike and all is well.  Thank God.

Hoping to sew tonight

Sure hope I get upstairs to do some sewing tonight.  Or downstairs to work on Gemma.  Either one would be fine.  Kinda starting to get nervous about all the Christmas presents I want to finish yet.  Or start.  Sigh.  I would like to make the lap quilts for the nursing homes again.  Maybe Johanna would like to help.  Probably not, though, because she is so busy with school and work.

They don't have to be fancy, so if nothing else, I can just put two pieces of material together and call it good.  I was looking at some orphan house blocks that I thought would be interesting for nursing home quilts.  I made them a while back and haven't done much of anything with them yet.

45 minutes of progress

Went upstairs for 45 minutes and got a little further on the border for Nick's quilt.  I put the letters and numbers together in a strip and decided to make the rest of the border with six inch squares.  There are a few already cut, so I picked through the music themed material and pulled what other fabrics I have to make enough squares.  There will be some nice sized chunks left over which will work well in the backing of the quilt, should I decide to piece it.

Inch by inch

Talk about procrastinating...  Here are the letters and numbers for the border of my son's high school graduation quilt.  Yes, the year he graduated was 2009.  I don't want to hear it!  haha.

Now, these letters haven't even been pressed yet, so they are pretty wonky, but they are going to be wonky in nature anyway.  Some letters are bigger than others and not very proportional to the rest.  I'm okay with that.  I will put them in the outer border and make them fit!

I have a lot of scraps that I think I will just cut into strips to make sort of a piano key border.  Or maybe just squares.  If I had enough of any one fabric I would do a solid piece of fabric just to get this sucker done!

What's on Gemma

Here are a couple of pictures of the quilt I have on the frame right now:

This is the Tennessee August quilt I started to hand quilt many moons ago for my mom.  I started the quilting in the borders but haven't done anything in the main part of the quilt.  I'm kind of roadblocked about what to do in it.  I will probably end up doing just a meandering stipple. 

Sleep deprivation and the visiting Beagle

Over the weekend, I was destined NOT to have an uninterupted night of sleep.  On Friday night, a very close friend of my hubby's got himself in a bit of a pickle.  Ev was working until 3 a.m. so he couldn't help extricate his buddy from his situation, so Nick and I spent from midnight to 3 a.m. rounding him up and taking him home.  We were pretty wound up and didn't really get to sleep until after 4 a.m.  I haven't done that in a long time.  I'd prefer not to do it again any time soon.

Sunday night the guys went out for a beer.  When they rolled home in the wee hours, they sat in the driveway for a minute to listen to the end of a song on the radio.  When Ev opened the door to get out of his truck, in jumped a little beagle!  Of course, they had to wake me up to see it.   They brought it in the house!  I sent it back outside immediately!  It's not that I don't like beagles or house dogs, I happen to like both, but this pooch was covered in fleas and we didn't know if he was house trained or what.  He had a collar on, so we thought he must belong to someone.  He was a very friendly little guy.

The men in my family were begging to keep him, but I had to be the bad guy and said no.  We have one dog and that's enough right now.  We did the two dog thing, and it was difficult.  Having one dog makes travelling so much easier.  You can take one dog with you, where as taking two gets to be a bit much.

Reluctantly, the guys agreed with me and let the hound loose outside the fence (after feeding him a big bowl of kibble).  At 5 a.m., yes, 5 a.m., I was woke up by the distinctive barking and howling of a beagle.  He had worked his way back INTO our fenced in yard.  I got up and shoo-ed him out of the yard.  At 7 a.m. he was back in the yard, all happy and cheerful, ready to play with Ivy when I let her out for her morning romp.  Sigh.

I called the local police station to see if anyone was looking for him.  Nope.  I checked with a couple people in town who I thought might know someone missing a beagle.  Nope.  I went to the animal shelter with the dog to see if he had a microchip.  Nope. 

Finally, I called a guy I know who raises beagles and asked if he wanted him.  He came over and told me if the dog didn't run rabbits he would not keep him, but would give him to a friend of his who likes beagles and lets them run on his property.  As much as I would like to have seen him become a sweet little house dog, I also know that beagle's love to run, so this was an acceptable solution.

If anyone calls me looking for him, I will give them the number for the guy who has him, but I really doubt I will get any calls.  Some day we will probably be a two-dog family again, but it's just not the right time.

Soup and biscuits

Dinner yesterday was a great big pot of vegetable beef soup (just veggie for Nick!) and some of the evil  biscuits.  This time I put them in large muffin tins and they came out wonderfully!  I only have one large muffin tin and it only has 6 spots, so there was enough batter for 2 more, which I put in wide mouth mason jars.  Ideally I should have used half pint sized, but all I could find at the time were pints.  Those two rogue biscuits were pretty good, too!  Not quite as browned, but that was okay.

Still looking...still waiting...

I'm still looking for a glue tip.  I haven't been to Hobby Lobby, yet, but I have looked online at their site.  I'm not seeing the metal tips online, which is what I think I would prefer.  Maybe next weekend I will get there, or possibly I will find something online and will post about it.

I'm still waiting for the perfect seam guide tool to be sent from Keepsake Quilting.  It can be purchased at other places, too.

While in Springfield, we stopped at Harbor Freight.  I wanted to get a couple smallish size magnets to try and use as guides on my older machines.  Well, the one I tried it on did not have enough metal on the bed of the machine, so that was a bust.  There are two other machines I will be checking to see if it will work on.  They were real cheap magnets, less than two dollars for a package of two. 

I also bought a magnetic picker uppper tool.  Yeah, I know, that's a real scientific description...  haha.  It's about two feet long with a magnet and grabber tool on the end of it.  I thought that would be good to pick up pins.  It was less than two bucks also at Harbor Freight.

Shopping trip

Ev and I went shopping yesterday in Springfield.  We had a real nice time.  Stopped at several stores, then had dinner at Olive Garden.  We don't do these things very often and it was real nice.

I did stop at Joann's and at Michaels.  Ev didn't go in, because I was just running in to look for one thing, which I did not find at either store.  I'm looking for a very thin tip to put on a glue bottle so I can run a thin line of glue.  I watched Sharon Schaumber's video on how she puts on a binding and I would like to try her method.  I guess I'll find the part online somewhere.

Yucky

I tasted my tomato jelly today.  It was yucky.  I'm disappointed, but not upset really.  It doesn't taste like it did in my childhood.  Oh well, I tried.

Loaded Tennessee August onto Gemma today.  Started quilting it, just in the borders.  Trying to decide what to do in the center portion.  I'm thinking just a simple meander.  My brain is frozen for other ideas right now.  I just walked away from it after an hour.  Maybe something will pop into my head.

Making a meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner.  I was going to make a big pot of soup today to have through the week, but when I got out the meat from the freezer it was freezer burned.  Sigh.  When in doubt, throw it out...  So, tomorrow I will go over to the grocery store and pick up some meat for soup.  I'd like to go early and get it cooking so it can cook slow all day.