My adventures in quilting, my adventures at Hackberry Spring Ranch, and other tidbits of my life.
Author: Wild Rose Quilter
I’m a simple woman…at least that what my DH (Dear Husband) used to say about me…I was a wife, I am now a widow, mother, step-mother & step-grandmother, quilter, and have a full time job in criminal justice. I lost my DH on May 22nd, 2011. I live in a small town in Texas. I love piecing quilts, I love quilting quilts. I have a serious addiction to fabric. I’ve been quilting since 1998, and purchased my first longarm, a Gammill Premier, in 2004. I upgraded to an A-1 Elite, named Corky, in March, 2007. I am in the process of rebuilding my life after losing my spouse. All photos and content in this blog are my own, and I request that you not download, copy or otherwise use anything here without my permission. I hope you enjoy visiting my blog and would love to hear your comments. Thanks for stopping by!
First, I need to give y’all a quick update on the baby girl, Riley, that was fighting e. coli. She made it! I don’t know any other details, teenagers are not the best relayers of info, but she is home. Apparently, she’s been home for a bit, but he forgot to tell me.
I ran out and took these pics of the sunflower, Sunday evening. Glad I did, as a storm blew in last night, and blew it over. The stalk is pretty damaged, but I propped it back up and staked it. I don’t know if it will make it or not. I hope so, as it has more blooms yet to open. I will look at it at lunch today, and make a decision as to whether I should just cut it and put it in a vase and hope the rest still open. Here’s a ridiculous amount of pictures of it…I couldn’t choose a favorite to share, so enjoy! As I’ve mentioned, I’m taking an online art quilting class…hmmm….
I stayed strong and did not buy any fabric. I did buy assorted other items, including Isacord embroidery thread, some applique supplies, and some patterns, but no fabric.
I busted 3 yards this week. One on the inner border of my dad’s log cabin, and I gave away 2 more. The recipient doesn’t know they are getting them yet. 🙂
66 yards in ytd
71 yards out ytd
5 yards total stash busted (small, but going in the right direction!)
I have not had a great week, physically. Not feeling well, ribs & shoulder hurting a lot, hands & fingers hurting, as well as hips & knees. Also, had a headache and extreme tiredness, along with all this. I have an appt. with my doc tomorrow, and I hope I can keep my resolve and make him really listen to me, because something isn’t right. It may just be some kind of arthritis, but it’s time to try harder to figure it out. Anyway, I still managed to keep up with my lessons for the onling art quilting class I’m taking. And over the last two days, I sewed the inner portion of my dad’s log cabin together. I did manage to make a little more progress on the custom job that’s loaded on the machine, but with my back issues, I didn’t do much on it.
I’ve been anxiously waiting for this to happen! And finally this morning…
Giant Sunflower
This next shot is just to show you how tall it is.
I can’t wait to photograph it in the dark!
Earlier this week, Theresa awarded me the Arte y Pico award. Thank you for thinking me worthy, Theresa.
This lovely statue is called the “Arte y Pico” award which was created to be given to bloggers who inspire others with their creative energy and talents no matter whether it be in the form of writing, artwork, design, interesting material, or contributions to the blogger community. When a blogger receives this award it is considered a “special honor” and, once presented to you, it is to be passed on to at least 5 other bloggers who meet the criteria.
I know this little award has been making the rounds lately, so I am going to try to pick five that I don’t think I’ve seen awarded yet, whose blogs I enjoy. Gayle, Terri, Jan,Sally, and Jacquie, consider yourselves awarded!
Until I was a mom, I didn’t realize how fast it really flies. Happy 17th!
I also didn’t know how much I would miss that sweaty, smelly little boy that used to run around this house. The one that played Bomberman, Jurassic Park, Monopoly and other games with me. That dyed Easter Eggs with me, colored coloring books with me, bugged me to the point of insanity to open his Christmas presents early. The one that sent me searching for Power Rangers, Megazords, and Transformers. Oh, let’s not forget the Pokemon cards. I can still see his face light up brighter than the brightest Christmas tree when I would show up to get him at the end of the work/school day, or to eat lunch with him at school. The one that insisted on this routine, every night: (me) Good night (him) Good night (me) Sleep tight (him) Sleep tight (me) Sweet dreams (him) Sweet dreams (me) Don’t let the bed bugs bite (him) I won’t, you either (me) I won’t, I love you (him) I love you, too. Yes, I miss that boy. He left so quickly…But what a wonderful young man has taken his place.
DH & I did a bit of yard work Sunday evening. I found this.
This is what yard work does to me. Nice hair, huh? LOL And yes, my glasses are crooked…I really need some new ones.
And I have gotten to play with my new embroidery machine a little. I made this label for my friend, to put on her snowman quilt. She loves it and I got a hug!
I’ve had a customer quilt on the machine ever since I got done with my Storm At Sea. It’s not a big quilt, but it’s custom, and it’s going slow. It’s been one of my biggest longarm challenges so far. I’m anxious to see the final result.
I have been in two different fabric shops in the last week, and the only fabric I picked up was a bit of bleached muslin, for an online art quilting class I’m taking at MQR, which I am not counting in my totals, as it was a class requirement, and will be used up right away. TWO shops, no purchasing, lots of beautiful fabrics….I’m getting the shakes….I’m jonesing bad…I feel like going on a binge…I need a sponsor…
0 yard in this week
5 yards out (I gave it away in my reward challenge)
total busted YTD is 2 yards (woohoo! a positive number, small though it may be)
I made a day trip to Pampa yesterday to hang out with the folks, and to do a bit of shopping. I bought new crayons for the aforementioned art class. I didn’t need them. And I certainly didn’t need 120, but I did want the crayon sharpener, that is included in the box of 120 crayons. I also bought some embroidery thread. In the pic, you can see my very first tries with my new machine. I still have a lot of reading to do, in the instruction manual, and look forward to taking the class that the shop offers.
I also came home with some canning jars, that my Mom was wanting out of her way. Don’t know what I’m going to do with them, I just love canning jars and wanted them.
Some commemorate the bicenntenial. I was in the 4th grade that year.
I like these square shaped ones, too.
My husband asked, “What are YOU going to do with them?” My response was “I don’t know…I just like them…maybe I’ll can something sometime.” That comment evoked laughter from husband. Ok, so maybe I’ll just use them to make pretty displays, and store things like buttons and golf tees, like I already am doing with some I had. I just like them…
Wendy has been posting all these Christmas in July posts, over on her blog, the last few days. Today, my wonderful, fantastic, sweetest man ever, darling husband comes home, from a work related trip to Amarillo, with this!
No special occasion…just knew that awhile back, quite awhile back, I had toyed with idea of getting an embroidery machine. He said he hopes I like it, but I can take it back if I don’t. I was like, whatever! I’m sure I love it! What a man! Gotta run! I have an instruction manual to read!
I love it! I used Quilters Dream Poly for the batting, Rainbows Rain Forest on the top, and So Fine Marigold on the back. All the pics are “clickable” so you can see them better, if you’d like.
I wish I could get a pic of the true color of the back…it’s almost the color of canned pumpkin. Much more vibrant and pretty than the pics show. Quilting this was fun!
EDIT: Thanks for the photo tip, Vicki! It worked perfectly!
BTW, it’s a nice, cool 68 degrees outside here, right now! How awesome is that for July?!
Look! I found another use for the craft foam! Instead of writing down all the names on paper slips, I made reusable drawing squares of the craft foam, and numbered them. Now, whenever I have a drawing on my blog, I can use these again. It also adds to the anticipation of the drawing for me, too, as I don’t even know who the winner is, til I come back to the comments and see who’s “number” was drawn.
And who is commenter #9? Teresa L! You are the lucky winner! Please email me your snail mail addy so I can send out your prize. Congratulations! I want to thank all of you that participated in the “party”. I wish I could send you all something. As a consolation prize, I took some pics of my pretty little mini zinnias for you. A cyber bouquet, if you will.
I got a bit of an update on the baby girl, Riley, that is battling e. coli and salmonella. She is still in the hospital in Dallas, but yesterday she went to the bathroom twice, and this was a good thing. I gather it’s still very serious, but this was an improvement in her condition. I’ll keep pressing my two teenager news “relayers” for better info.
Again, thank you all so much for your sweet comments. I appreciate them all and you gave me lots of smiles the last few days. It was also very nice to “meet” some of you for the first time. Have a great weekend!
I had to show you some more peeks! I’m not quilting it as well as I had hoped I would, yet it’s better than I expected. I don’t always hit my marks right on, but I’m just having so much fun quilting this one, and I’m liking the way it looks. If you do like Eleanor says, and just hang it up and go by at 30 or 40 miles an hour, it looks pretty good! 🙂 Somewhere after the first few “bobbles” where my stitches didn’t land exactly where I was aiming, I remembered why I made this one in the first place. Because I saw it in a Fons & Porter magazine and fell in love with it, and thought “I want one of those”. So I said to myself, quit obsessing over every little mistake, and enjoy what you are doing. Suit yourself and worry about no one else. Wow! What a little epiphany! I still think I might put it in the quilt show I have in mind. We’ll see. Oh yea, here I am rambling again, and you just wanna see pics, don’t ya!?
I really struggled over what to put in the large diamonds. I finally came up with this design, after doodling like a gagillion other ideas, used a paper template of the diamond to fold up like when you cut snowflakes, so I could make a symmetrical template. Then I used the paper template to trace the pattern out on craft foam. I’ve been using a Fons & Porter chalk pencil, or a Marvy marker to trace the design. This shape has been a little challenging for me to quilt “perfectly”, but I’m finding the more of them I do, I’m getting the hang of it a little better.
I also tried out this chalk spray, to mark the stencil designs. I like it, it works pretty well, but it is a bit messy, kind of expensive, and puts off some pretty strong fumes.
I really like the way the back is looking. I couldn’t get a really good pic of it, though.
If you haven’t commented on my Blog Birthday Post yet, don’t forget to scroll down to it, and get yourself entered in my reward challenge give-away! There will be one lucky winner come Saturday morning. I can’t tell you how the nice comments that have already been left have warmed my heart!
It’s my 1 year WordPress blog birthday party, and you are invited! Thank goodness I checked in on one of my favorite bloggers, Kay, yesterday, and saw that she was having her one year blogiversary. It reminded me that mine was coming up soon, so I hopped back on over to mine to see, and soon it was indeed! It’s today! I have enjoyed sharing with you this past year. I am always amazed that so many of you keep coming back to visit me. I’m not the most interesting blogger, not the wittiest, nor most creative. I’m not sure why you keep coming back, but thank you! Thank you for taking the time to visit and share with me. What will we do to celebrate? How about a reward challenge? If you are a “survivor” of reading Randi’s ramblings this past year, I think you deserve a chance at a reward. What is the challenge? It’s simple. Just comment on this blog birthday party post, by the time I stumble out of bed this coming Saturday morning, and settle in front of the computer with my cup of coffee. (that is usually somewhere between 7:30 and 9:00 am central time-sorry I can’t be more specific 🙂 it depends on how tired I am) So, Survivors, wanna know what you are playing for? How about one yard cuts off of the five cheeriest, most partying looking bolts of fabric I have in my stash?
Worth playing for? If so, get those comments coming! You have til I become conscious on Saturday morning to be included in the drawing! I will post the winner shortly thereafter. Good luck!
I resisted all tempation to buy new fabric, that came my way! Zero yardage added to the stash this week. Seriously, I have reached a point where my stash *almost* overwhelms me. I really do want to reduce the amount I have on hand, so that I can keep my closet neater, and have more storage space for my longarm quilting thread. I used 4.5 yards just playing around with my new Circle Lord, and practicing stencils, and other designs. So it ends up as a dog or cat blanket before heading to the trash. It’s still out of my stash! I also used a three yard piece for backing for my Storm At Sea. Yes, I started quilting it today! That gives me 7.5 yds busted this week. YTD totals are:
Incoming 66 yds.
Outgoing 63 yds.
Total busted YTD -3 yds.
Woohoo! I’m almost to a positive number!
Wanna see a peek at my Storm At Sea? I’ve been really intimidated by this one, and have put the quilting off a long time…
If it turns out well enough, I might even put it in some quilt shows. There are a few area shows I’ve recently become aware of, and it might be a fun experience. I’ve even got a name picked out. I’m still undecided about what to do in the big diamond shapes. I’ll be saving those for last. At least I’m liking it so far, and will have a pretty Storm At Sea to hang on my wall, which is all I really wanted in the first place!
I forgot to do my weigh-in this morning, but I did weigh yesterday morning, and I’m still stuck…145. That’s a miracle, considering how I’ve been eating!
How did you do with your stashbusting this week? Don’t forget to stop by Judy’s and let us know!
Ramblings From Randi, The Wild Rose Quilter 
