I am bad, bad, bad

I told you that it would be trouble if I bought an embroidery machine.......didn't I? Didn't I?

I've got my daughter's wedding in less than 2 weeks and I'm doing embroidery on this cool machine. Well...........technically the embroidery project is FOR the wedding so that is okay.......right?

My sister is coming in from Oregon and she has graciously offered to help me with the cooking on the wedding weekend ( we are having HERE at my house.....the rehersal dinner AND a luau brunch the day AFTER the wedding, plus just feeding everyone who is staying at my house!) AND my mother has offered to try to keep up with all the dirty dishes...........I figured that the LEAST I could do was to make aprons for them..........right?

Here they are:

Pretty cool aprons!

What started this apron craze was my HUSBAND!

He is going to India on Saturday and wanted to take aprons for his team of 10 people. Yes.......I embroidered 10 of these puppies! So he ordered aprons from a company on the internet and wanted a heart and TLC embroidered on them. I think that the "TLC" stands for Test Leadership Cooks. Something about making a statement about having too many cooks in the kitchen! I guess he is going to have his team wear these aprons (and chef's hats) to a meeting that they are all attending. Whatever...........!

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So the aprons came in packs of 6 and he needed 10.............so there were 2 left over.

I had such fun designing these aprons. I really love my new machine. It is so much fun designing things on it. I knew I would love it............I knew it would take me away from things I really need to be doing..............like making curtains for my living room and cleaning bathrooms and such........but it was really fun. Guess I can clean bathrooms tomorrow......right?

Embroidery

I took a day off from "wedding plans" and did some embroidery yesterday.

I made two really cute shirts.............

I also learned how to put screws in concrete block so I could hang decorative items in my garden. That involves using a drill to make holes, then screwing in a masonry screw. I can't say that I enjoy doing that........the drill kinda of scares me. But I do like hanging stuff up. It's probably good that the drilling process scares me............I'd have holes all over the fence!

Today I am working on my last customer quilt before the wedding. I need to finish that up so I can clean up my studio space. Then Mike can hang the curtain rods and I can make the curtains that go in there! I still have alot to do, but things are starting to come together!

Go Coyote's!

I attended the Coyote Hockey game last night with Mike, Brian and Jen. Now.........most of you know that I am not a huge sports fan. But I did have fun watching all the different people and I always enjoy being with my kids. We ran into quite a few people that we know too!

Mike and his buddy Steve worked really hard yesterday cutting a huge branch off of the Euclyptus tree that resides by our house. This past monsoon season we had 4 major branches snap off and land on our roof. This big branch seems to be dying and keeps spewing off dead leaves by the thousands into the pool!

Did I mention that Mike is really afraid of heights?

Jenny and I worked on filling all of the wedding favor boxes! Phew! That's all done!

Estate planning

Man o Man, last night my husband drug me to an Estate planning meeting. I did NOT want to go. I wanted to sit at home and watch Dancing with the Stars and work on beading my daughter's wedding veil. Well, I went to the Estate Planning workshop. I was not on my best behavior I'm ashamed to say. So I wasn't kicking and screaming, but I wasn't my usual pleasant self! Basically what I really wanted to do was put my head in the sand. Estate planning is not a very pleasant subject. However..........the meeting was informative and really something that needs to be done. So, grudgingly, I'm glad I went.

Finally my Living room has some color and is not longer only VANILLA! I've also finally found some curtains and some fabric to make a valance!

This is a picture of the accent wall I painted. I also painted over the green wall that I worked so hard on earlier. It just was not ri ght. The new turquoise color is great!

My kids came over on Sunday and we worked on our Halloween costumes. We are going as a group this year! I can't really say what we are going to be just yet, but we sure had a great time working on the project! I always love it when we get together with all the kiddos! Sure do love them! Brian and Jen had just participated in a kick ball game at thier church and Jenny and Rafael had just returned from, yet another and thier final bridal show!

Garden inspiration

I was looking on the internet one night for inspiration for a garden fountain. Instead of buying one we thought it would be fun to try to make one. I didn't find the perfect fountain project to make but I did find this really fun garden sculpture. I planted lobelia, impatients and some hearts and flowers, oh and a lemon thyme plant. This is going to look really cute when they start growing and start trailing down!

We finally got a new chair for our living room!

Mike finally has a LazyBOY.

He works really hard and he deserves to have a comfy chair!

I am trying out that quilt for the back wall. It is not quilted yet and I'm not completely sure it will find a home there, but it is auditioning for the part!

I've finished 2 quilts this last week, unfortunately the first one I forgot to take a picture of! So this sweet cat quilt is the second one I finished. I'm not a big fan of doing hand work (carpel tunnel surgery!) but I REALLY like this embroidered cat quilt! This would be a fun project to take along to just pull out and work on.

Here is a close-up of one of the kitties.

I quilted cats into the outside border of the quilt.

Well, I'm off to finish up some painting that I started yesterday.

I've got a really fun day planned tomorrow and I can't

hardly wait to take pictures and write about it!

Bridal Shower

Here I am with 3 of my favorite girls..........The little one on

my left is Brandy and the lovely girls on my right are BOTH
Jenny Baldi! Of course the BRIDE will soon be Jenny Hernandez

and the current Mrs. Jen Baldi will then be the ONLY Jen Baldi!

Jen was our lovely hostess and the organizer of the shower.

She (along with her mom and grandma) really know how to throw a party.

The two ladies at the end of this row are Lee and Darcy. They welcomed us in to thier home and helped Jen create alot of little special touches that really were wonderful.

This was the welcoming table where Jen had set up a place to put your address on a return envelope so that Jenny could write her thank-you notes with ease. There was also a basket for you to "help Jenny and Rafael write thier vows" by writing advice on a note card. (Using personalized "Jenny and Rafael" pencils of course!)

Ah, the dessert table! You can't really tell by this picture there there were dozens of tiny glass slippers with red candy in them for a favor. Lee found some disney characters on the computer and enlarged them and printed them out........Darcy made stands for them and they graced the table.

My next favorite table.......FOOD! We had homemade lasagne!

One of the activities that we did at the shower was to sign the quilt.

Here is Joanne and Kelly. Kelly and Jenny met at Walt Disney World, were roommates AND they both played the characters of Chip N Dale! Kelly drove up from Tucson to attend the shower!

Mary signs the quilt.

Cynthia seems to be checking the spelling and it looks like Jodie MAY be counting!

Tammy took over as my photographer at the shower. Thank goodness for her, because without her I might not have very many photos!

Doesn't this look like a fun group of friends?

Troublemakers

I have these two friends (Carole and Christina) who are REAL troublemakers! I met them many years ago while teaching quilting classes at a Viking sewing store. Carole and Christina are machine embroiderers and I have finally turned them into QUILTERS! They have been after me for YEARS to buy a sewing machine that does embroidery and I have RESISTED! I resisted it because I knew I would LOVE it and it would take away from the time I have to quilt! Well, they finally broke me down and have been helping me learn some of the tricks of the trade.


AND needless to say............I love it and am becoming more and more addicted!





Here are some pictures of some of the recent embroidery projects that I have completed:

The completed bridal quilt top. As you can see I decided on Setting A,
mainly because I asked Rafael and this is the one he liked. The very day that I
finished sewing these blocks together Jenny told me that she liked Setting B!

Here is a close-up of the embroidery I did on the center of the quilt! I gotta tell ya! I was pretty excited with how it turned out!

This is one of the sets of Hand&Fingertip towels I embroidred as a gift for Jenny and Rafael. I love the way they turned out as well! I think I might like this embroidery stuff!

These two pictures are of Carole the trouble maker and Christina the troublemaker! They are posing beside the Egg Money quilt that they completed! They sure look like QUILTERS to me! Wouldn't you agree?

I've had a really busy week. We finally ordered some chairs for the living room. We have worked really hard on the secret garden and got some plants for that area. Jenny's bridal shower was today and a huge success. My daughter-in-law Jen was the party planner and she really did an excellent job. She included so many little touches that really made the day extra special. I'll post some pictures of the shower next time.