Category: NASCAR

longarm quilting · machine quilting · NASCAR · quilt top · quilting · quilts · stash busting · weight

Still Busy as a Bee

Wild Rose Quilter10 Comments

Sorry you haven’t had much new to read here lately.  I’m spending most of my spare time getting my customer tops quilted.  I finished up both OSU lap quilts, and yesterday, I finished up what felt like 100 miles of Cutie Patootie panto.  It is a cutie, but boy was I tired of it by the time I got this one off the machine.  107″ long, 80 something wide.  I was Patootie’d out.  This is a printed panel top.  I must say, the quilting totally changed the look of it.  I think my customer will like it.

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I really like the way it looks on the back.

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I loaded it with the 107″ length going the length of the table.  I thought I would be able to make a whole pass on one bobbin.  Wrong reindeer!  I wanted the stops & starts to look really good on the back, so I took the extra time to tie off & bury. 

Today, I am working on my log cabin blocks, for the commissioned quilt I’m doing.  Of course, I’m watching the NASCAR race at Bristol while I’m doing that. 

The next project on the longarm will be to finish the borders on my friend’s quilt, if she has her binding removed.  If not, and it’s going to be a while, I will go ahead and load the king size custom top I have waiting.  I don’t have it scheduled to start til next weekend, so if I can get those borders done first, that would be great.  I’m looking forward to getting started on that king, though.  I think I’m going to enjoy working on it.

Sunday weigh in is back.  What was I last time…144, I think.  Well, I was pleasantly surprised today.  I have not been keeping up with the diet & exercise very well, for at least two weeks.  I figured I had gained at least 3 lbs. back, and was happy to see it was only 1!  I was 145 today.  I must get back on track with this.  Hopefully, I will do better this week.  I’ve had some comments from others that no way would they post it publicly.  I find that doing so really helps me to stay on track.  I feel more accountable.  And knowing all y’all know encourages me even more to not want to fail. 

I hope everyone had a great National Quilting Day yesterday.  I better get back to sewing.  The sooner I get done with these projects, the sooner I can get back to working on my own projects, and making progress with my stash busting!

Oh darn! Bobby Labonte just got caught up in someone else’s wreck.  Crap!

daily life · machine quilting · NASCAR · quilting · weight

Monday Menagerie and a Meme

Wild Rose Quilter8 Comments

Since I didn’t get around to a Sunday report yesterday, I’ll throw some of that in here.  I don’t have much to report as far as accomplishments, mostly due to the trip.  I did finish quilting the vintage top, and I’ll try to get some pics of that up soon.  Other than that, nothing really noteworthy quilting wise.  I didn’t buy any fabric.  I did quilt a customer fleece blanket, and I have a baby quilt coming in this week to quilt.

My weigh-in report is not so good.  I knew it wouldn’t be this week, but I didn’t know that my mother was going to make us a batch of cookies to take on our trip.  How could I say no?  And OMG, they were good.  They were addicting good.  My friend and I that went together ate the whole bag in two days.  I know there were at least 2 dozen, maybe 3.  She made a bag for the boys, too.  Five boys on the golf team, and they didn’t even eat all of theirs.  I’m serious, we could not stop eating them…we started calling them “crack” cookies, ’cause that must be how a crack addict feels…lol.  Ok, so remember those 2 lbs I lost last week?  Guess what came back to me?  Yep…starting weight was 145…my weight yesterday was 147, for a total GAIN of 2 lbs.  Crap! Oh well, I’ll be back on track this week.  I’m disappointed, but not discouraged! Besides the cookies are all gone now 🙂

I totally enjoyed watching the Daytona 500 yesterday, even though I was having a somewhat bad day otherwise.  I was happy to see Ryan Newman win, too.  Really happy to see Kyle Busch NOT win 🙂   My apologies to you Busch brother fans.  I don’t really care for either of them. 

Why was I not having a good day?  I have had a relatively easy child to raise, thus far.  He’s a good kid, really good kid.  I’m not just prejudiced, he is a good kid.  And I’ve always been able to reason with him.  But we have begun to butt heads a bit, and it’s all over a girl.  Lord, give me the wisdom, strength, and heart to handle 16.   And give him the wisdom to understand.  And please don’t ever let him decide to move out and go live with his real dad and step-mom (which he says he will never do, but I still worry about it).

Now for a bit of fun.  I was tagged a few days ago by Southern Girl Musings, to do this little Meme.  Here are the rules.

Now, you chosen ones, this is what you have to do:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Okay, now for my 7 things:

1. I love going bass fishing with my husband.

2. I was named after my uncle Randy Matson, who was an Olympic Silver medalist in 1964, and the Gold medalist in the 1968 Olympics, for throwing the shot put. 

3.  I love NASCAR! Boogity, boogity, boogity…let’s go racin’ boys! 

4. I wear a gun to work, a .40 caliber Glock.

5. In the spring, if we have had a lot of rain, and our yard gets a lot of baby toads in it, I will go around the yard and collect them in a bucket, before my son mows, so they won’t get smashed.  Then I let them go again, after he is done…every week, til they are gone.

6. I’m not much of a traveler…I’m uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations.

7.  I’m not what I call a “foofy” girl…you know…a really girly girl…hair & makeup done perfectly “all” the time, manicures, etc. 

Hmmm…who to tag…how about Diane, Kay, Gayle, Jan, Freda, Carla, and Terri.  Ok, so play if you like, if not, that’s fine, too! No pressure.  If I didn’t tag you, and you want to play anyway, go right ahead!

daily life · dogs · longarm quilting · Lulu · NASCAR · quilt top · quilting · quilts

Thank You, Gina!

Wild Rose Quilter7 Comments

Yesterday, my mailman brought a sweet surprise.  My prize from Gina, for winning her birthday drawing on her blog.  She had all kinds of goodies packed into this adorable coffee cup, including fabric & chocolate.  There is also some yummy Apple Cinnamon Chardonnay jelly. I need a little smilie face licking it’s lips to insert here.  (WordPress really needs to improve the smilies and ease of use.  How hard could that be?) Anyway, I digress…Thank you Gina!

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Thank you for the “feel better” wishes. After taking muscle relaxers for a couple of days, I’m still sore, but better.  I’ve taken Jan’s advice, and ordered an inversion table.  My chiro had mentioned a couple visits ago, that he might start me on traction, so hopefully the inversion table will do the trick. I have had xrays done, which show I have significant straightening of my cervical spine, and I have a bulging disc.  My chiro has helped, it just doesn’t last very long.  I had an MRI on my shoulder, but not my cervical spine.  That might not be a bad idea. I’ve taken it pretty easy all weekend, but I did manage to complete my cousing’s quilt top, and prepare the backing.  I also loaded a throw size customer on the machine, and have a couple panto rows done.  Of course, I’m watching NASCAR today.  🙂

Lulu still seems to be doing better, but I think I will call the vet to see if it’s too soon for her to have another allergy shot this week, and maybe just have him look in her ears again to make sure the antibiotics did all the good in there.

We watched The Illusionist last night.  I give it two thumbs up!  One of the better movies I’ve seen lately.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

daily life · dogs · home improvement · longarm quilting · Lulu · NASCAR · quilting · remodeling

Busy Saturday

Wild Rose Quilter4 Comments

Today started off like normal, with coffee 🙂 , only not as early as most days.  Then I had to do emergency grooming on Lulu.  She is having a horrible time with allergies this year.  I have already taken her for shots, but she keeps itching.  Yesterday, while we were at work, she apparently scratched under her chin til she made a large hot spot.  I didn’t notice it til yesterday evening.  DH made a quick trip to the grocery store to see what we could get, came home with medicated shampoo, and a couple bottles of stuff that is supposed to help.  We cleaned up the area last night, as best as we could, and put medicine on it, and little socks on her back feet to try to minimize her scratching.  This morning, I got the clippers out, and cut all her hair as short as I could, bathed her with the medicated shampoo, doctored her up, and have spoiled & pampered her as much as possible today.  I will call the vet Monday and get her back in for more shots.  Poor baby.

Also, I worked on our entryway hallway some more.  I am almost done with the texturing…one more coat on one side and it will be ready for paint as soon as it’s all dried out.  I finished Kilz-ing the paneling on the bottom half of the walls, and got one side painted.  The new color looks really nice, I think. 

Also, I went to the shop with DH, and we pulled out a retail gondola shelf that he had disassembled and stored in the back.  We cleaned it up and put it together, and filled it up with my packages of Quilter’s Dream batting.  Now to get the word out to the local quilters that we have it available in the shop.

I am excited to report that I have found a group of longarmers that meets once a month, and I have been invited to go to their meetings.  It’s a two hour drive for me, but I am really looking forward to going and meeting them.  This month’s meeting was today, and I was hoping to get to go, but with Lulu like she was, I wasn’t about to leave her.  Hopefully, I will get to go next month.  I found them through one of our local deputies.  Since I work in the adult probation office, we visit often, and he knows about my quilting.  His mom is a longarmer, and the meetings are in her shop.  He talked to his mom and got me invited. 

Oh! I had a wonderful surprise this morning while drinking my coffee and surfing the blogs I like to keep up with.  Gina had a contest on her blog, on her birthday.  I won the drawing!  How fun!  I need to think of a contest for my blog.  Maybe a celebration contest when I hit 10,000 views.  This is the 2nd blog contest I have won.  Earlier this year I won some of Gayle’s gorgeous hand dyed fabrics.  Hmmm…maybe I need to be buying more lottery tickets 🙂 !

The NASCAR race is on, so I must get back to watching!  My favorite driver is Bobby Labonte.  He is driving with lots of pink on his car tonight for breast cancer awareness.  I am calling it the Boobie Cure Car! Go Bobby in the Boobie Cure Car!

longarm quilting · machine quilting · NASCAR · quilt top · quilting · quilts

Waaaa!! It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to!

Wild Rose Quilter5 Comments

Ok, yesterday it was Kay, today it’s me 😦 .  I’m doing the dreaded “f” word.  Yep, frogging.  It was supposed to be a quickie, easy peasy little money maker.  42″ wallhanging with Leaf Pile panto.  How hard can that be?  Well, apparently pretty difficult.  My customer requested a variegated with colors in the fabrics.  I have a cone of Signature Autumn, and the colors in it are PERFECT.  But, it’s a Tex 50.  I’m not experienced with this thread, so I filled  a bobbin with Tex 40 Signature in Camel.  I thought I had the tension set pretty good…did some practice stitches first and tweaked it, took off stitching.  First problem was a thread break.  Fixed that, then noticed that the pokies on top are pretty bad.  Looks great on the back.  I’m frogging the whole first row.  Thank goodness it’s only 42″ and not 102″.  So, I’m sure it’s a tension balance thing, and I went back to my practice sandwich, and have it looking good on top there, but then I look at the bottom, and the pokies have moved down there.  GRRRR…maybe I just need to give up and use a pretty Rainbow I have that will work with this top, also.  I also tried filling a bobbin with the variegated, and try to match the bobbin color with what was coming off the top at the same time, but that didn’t work and I had worse pokies.  Is it possible to run variegated in top and bottom without ANY pokies?  I hate pokies.  

Right now, I’m leaving it alone for awhile, to watch the NASCAR race and work on piecing my borders for Carrie & John’s quilt.  I got the entire center pieced together yesterday and am quite happy with it.  Wonder if I will see Diane on TV today? 

This is the center of the quilt, before I got the last row added.

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And, on another bright note, I now have the starry log cabin block countdown under twenty!

applique · daily life · family · NASCAR · quilting

Haircut

Wild Rose Quilter10 Comments

At the start of the day yesterday, I had a fairly long ponytail.  No more! I got a fun, new haircut yesterday afternoon.  I’m really bad about getting a new cut, color, etc., then not going back for six months or more.  I’m not good at the “maintenance” part.  Hard to find that “pamper me” time.  In fact, I needed my roots redone yesterday, but didn’t want to take time for that, so I will just have salt & pepper roots for a little while.  I’m kinda curious to see just how much more gray is up there now, anyhow.

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I did jump in and get started on the applique yesterday.  So far, so good.  Not perfect, but looking good.  I’ll post pics when I get it finished. Have a great weekend! I hope my friend Diane has the best birthday ever, and that Jr. wins while she is there watching!

For those just now reading this, if it doesn’t make sense with some of the replies, I edited it to remove some content.  Had an unusual “visitor”,  so I removed a pic that was here earlier.  No, Poodle, I’m not referring to you…LOL.  Anyway, probably me just being overly cautious…

butterflies · caterpillars · daily life · food · NASCAR · photos · pretty fabric · quilting

A butterfly, good food, and more FABRIC??!!

Wild Rose Quilter12 Comments

I had hoped to blog this stuff yesterday, but spent most of the day battling round 2 of a headache.  My shoulder is really flaring up, and I believe it causes part of my migraines.  I don’t get to go the chiro again til Wednesday.  Not soon enough! 

Now for the fun stuff!  Did I say I wasn’t going to buy more fabric, til I had used up some of my stash?  I know some of you have seen that stash in my other blog.  I had a moment of weakness.  I’m blaming it on my Mom, for getting the ball rolling with those batiks she bought for me, the email I got tempting me with words like “blowout sale” and “FREE shipping”.  What’s an addict to do?  Buy SIX more BOLTS of fabric, that’s what!  It was $2.50 a yard! And it’s the good stuff…last year’s line or whatever, but hey, I have clothes in my closet way older than that, so why would I care if my fabric is a little “aged”?  $2.50 a yard and FREE shipping…there really was no other option but to buy, buy, buy….right?  I was a little embarassed by my weakness, so I thought I had changed the usual shipping address from my husbands shop to the home address, where I might have a chance to slip it onto my fabric shelves unnoticed.  Mind you, he never complains about my fabric purchases.  He is worth his weight in gold, and my DH is a BIG guy.  He comes in after work Friday evening, toting it in the door.  “You got packages.”  I did?  Ohhhhh yea.  Hmmm….Two new western fabs to go with the two I already have.  Here in Texas, cowboy fabrics will never go out of style.  Paid for the other two bolts with only one baby quilt.  The three pastels are Robyn Randolph’s.  I needed more fabrics that I can use as background’s or coordinating fabrics to go with busier prints.  And lastly, a pretty Tuscan textured fabric.  I also ordered it in a pretty green, but alas, it was all sold out.000_4813.jpg Next, I thought I’d share our brunch with you.  Another thing about living in Texas, if you like Mexican food, you can find it here.  Whether you prefer authentic, TexMex, mild or smoking hot, we’ve got it.  This would fall under the category of authentic, and once the green sauce is liberally applied on top, smoking hot.  It comes from a local restaurant, La Casita.  Started by a woman in one of those little snow cone type stands, serving some of the yummiest breakfast burritos.  She quickly outgrew that little stand, and now has a walk-in restaurant.  We ordered the huevos rancheros, for take out, yesterday.  Here it is in the takeout box, two eggs on crispy corn tortillas, spicy shredded beef, refried beans, a homemade flour tortilla, hot green sauce, and a cheese quesadilla in a crispy corn tortilla, that you will see on my plate, once I moved it all over for easier eatin’.  By the time I was finished, my tounge was burning and my nose was running.  Yummy!000_4819.jpg000_4820.jpg

I know that Carla R., Jan & Michelle will especially love this next part.  I got pics of a beautiful Swallowtail butterfly, laying more eggs, I think, on my dill yesterday.  This is what the caterpillars will eventually turn into.  I’m getting concerned that my dill supply is not staying up to the rate of demand.  I planted more but it isn’t coming up too good.  I was thrilled to finally get some butterfly pics. 000_4871.jpg000_4874.jpgHere is a shot with the butterfly and the caterpillars in it. 000_4900.jpg If you find these guys on your dill, parsley or whatever, please don’t see them as pests.  Try to spare a bit of your garden for them, and let them have a chance to find their wings.

I did manage to get the backing sewn together for Mom’s quilt.  I am going to get it loaded today.  Not sure if I will get anywhere on the quilting.  NASCAR is at the Brickyard today.  I will be watching the race this afternoon.  Go Bobby!