Today is Monday

Quite a few years ago I used to be a preschool teacher and one of the things we did everyday is sing this song: "Today is Monday, today is Monday, what shall we do today?" That silly song still pops into my head!

So today I went to therapy and then did a little shopping at Homegoods and of course Joann's. I had a 50% coupon I needed to spend! I bought a really cool picture at Homegoods.

It kinda matches one of the quilts I just finished quilting:

When I laid this quilt out in my living room I decided that I really needed more vibrant color in there. So this picture will hopefully provide that while blending in the the browns and turquoise already in the room!

Detail of the border quilting

I also finished this sweet baby quilt last week:

Jamie Hayes Quilt

I"ve been plugging along, but have not finished anything lately. I've definetly been pacing myself, not wanting to flair up the elbows again before they are fully healed. I started PT again today to work on shoulder/neck issues BEFORE they become problematic.

I received an email from the Jamie Hayes Gallery in New Orleans and it reminded me of the quilt that I designed using one of his designs. I wrote to Mr. Hayes asking permission to make a quilt from his copywrited design and he granted it. I keep thinking that I should send him a picture of it. Mr. Hayes designs a new image every year for Mardi Gras. My quilt was patterned after one of his piano key smile designs called Peter the PianoEater!

Here is a picture of it:

This is the picture that I used as my inspiration.

This is the resulting quilt.

Hurray! I'm Baaaack!

It's about time. Yesterday I put a charity quilt-top on the long-arm to quilt. I've been kinda dreading quilting lately and finding any and every reason NOT to quilt. You see, the last couple of quilts that I worked on was very frustrating and a little painful. When I hurt my elbows back in late September I just didn't stop and give them time to heal. Pretty stupid on my part, but sometimes I'm not a very patient person. When I finally went to the doctor I knew that I would have to stop quilting for awhile and that really didn't set very well with me.

At any rate.............I"m Baaaacccck! Hurray! I'll admit that I still have a small bit of discomfort in the elbows, but a month of physical therapy and lots of time resting has really paid off. I just need to approach this slowly and LISTEN to my body!

So this is my first quilt...........I started on a Quilt of Valor that has been hanging in my closet since last MAY! I didn't do alot of fancy quilting, but wanted to check out my tension and get into a rhythm. I was afraid that with so much time away from the machine I may had lost the touch! The quilting went great and during the process I remembered how much I love to machine quilt!

Here is a picture of the finished quilt:

And some block details:

This Quilt of Valor was pieced by my friend MaryAnn.

I'll give the top back to her, she will bind it and send it off to the Quilts of Valor organization where it will be given to a returning soldier at one of the medical centers.

On a personal note..........Mike and I took Jenny and Rafael to the airport EARLY on Sunday morning. They left for thier Kauai Honeymoon.

Please note the shirts they are wearing! I embroidered them for a bridal shower gift. Jenny insisted that she have the "honey", not the "mooner" on her shirt!

Don't they look happy?

(Duh, who wouldn't........when they are on thier way to Hawaii?)

FNQ night

On Friday I attended the monthly meeting of the Friday Night Quilters. We are a group of 12 women who have met for quite a few years now. Last year 4 of our members embarked on a new endevor......we started a Round Robin as shown in one of the issues of "Quilters Home" magazine.

We all started with making a center square and filling a bag with fabrics that we wanted to be used in our quilt. The square was then passed on to one of the group who added a border around the beginning square. This continued for 4 rounds.

Here are the finished quilt tops. Each quilter has the option

of adding one more additional border to her quilt.

This is Linda's quilt:

This cat themed top belongs to Sharon:

This nautical themed quilt is Kerry's:

And this one is mine:

This was really a fun project designed to stretch our creativity and also

give us a challange.

Happy Monday!

Hurray! A normal monday!

Mike and I brought in the New Year in San Diego with my parents.

What a wimp I am!........at 11pm I said that since it was already

midnight in Phoenix we should be able to go to bed! But I propped my
eyes open and made it until the ball dropped in San Diego time!

I am finally able to post the quilt that I finished in December. It was a Christmas gift for my mother! At our last quilt camp at Pines and Needles I put together a t-shirt quilt top consisting of my mom's shirts from Viejas. At home I put a border on it and finally quilted it in December.

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I'm pretty sure that Mom liked her quilt!

Here are detail shots of some of the squares:

Happy New Year!

May all your hopes and dreams come true this year!

Is it time to get back to normal yet?

No, Not quite. I finally downloaded my pictures from Christmas, so here are a couple of snaps:

Christmas Eve with the Family

Making Freezer bag omelets on Christmas morning in our jammies

Our daughter-in-laws job frequently takes her to construction sites

so Mike gave her his pink hard-hat that he got when he crewed for

the Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer walk.

This is the gift that Rafael had worked so hard on the weeks preceeding

Christmas. He would come over on his lunch hour to paint.

The day after Christmas we went to Brian and Jen's house. Here

are the boys playing Wii.

Jen fixed a wonderful homemade pizza dinner for us.

It is so fun to create your own pizza!

Fa La La La La

The Christmas rush is over! The packages have been wrapped and unwrapped.

The cookies and fudge made and (almost) all eaten.

The parties are over.....

Phew! I'm really looking forward to some time where there is nothing to cook and clean for! Seems like that is all I have done for the last 2 months

Whatever will I do with myself?????

December has been a really busy month!

This is the last quilt I finished up before Christmas:

And here are a couple of shirts that I embroidered:

This one was made for Tana's birthday! I went on-line to look for cute sayings and found this one. It seemed to fit the occasion very nicely since she is entering her 60th year and did indeed live thru the 1960's! Tana and I walked in the Susan B Koman Breast Cancer 60 mile walk a few years ago. Tana walked again this year! She is pretty amazing.

This is a Christmas shirt I made for ME!

Rafael is my model!

Poor guy.........he was over painting a picture to give to Jenny as a Christmas gift....and what do I do?

A group of friends met up at Caramba's to celebrate Tana's 60th birthday!

That was a fun night!

I also had Christmas Bunko and quilt meetings.

Here is a group shot with Chips at Cheryl's house.

We had a great potluck supper (My favorite ) and exchanged gifts.

I don't know quite how this happened but I failed to get even one picture at Bunko!

We met up at Kathy's house and FEASTED on a great meal from Bobby-Q's.

We played Bunko and also LRC. I was just seconds away from being the

big winner at LRC, but as luck would have it I rolled the

dice and Tana became the winner!

Better luck next time!

We failed to get a group shot of the Friday Night Quilters, but we had a delicious dinner prepared by Linda and then exchanged quilty gifts. Lots of fun there too! We exchange gifts by playing the stealing game. In one picture below you will see Kathy attempting to keep someone from stealing the gift she just opened by "marking" it! She wasn't successful!