In Memorium

Today I lost a dear friend of 16 years.  Antoinette Ruff Johnson.  She lost her battle with cancer today.  I shall always remember her undying devotion to her God, her family, her staff and friends but most of all her beautiful smile. 
Antoinette was always one of the most positive people I have ever known.  She never had a unkind thing to say about anyone, no matter what.  She and I shared the same favorite verse:
Proverbs 3:5-6  Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understandings.  In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.
Today she is at peace and enjoying the reward of her labors here on earth. 
I am proud to call her my friend!
Antoinette you will be greatly missed by all those who loved you. 
Antoinette and I worked together as nurses and managers for almost 16 years.  Her dedication to her patients and staff was unwavering.  What a blessing that this week her oldest daughter Madeline sat for her nursing boards, "following in mom's footsteps".  How wonderful that she was still here to see her daughter fulfill this dream.  I know she will also be a wonderful, caring nurse.

The picture above was taken a few days after Antoinette was diagnosed with cancer.  The smile never left her face.  She knew and would tell everyone that God was in control of the outcome and she would trust him and follow his will. 

This picture is of Antoinette and me with a group of my Arbonne team when I was receiving my New mercedes .  Antoinette was the person who introduced me to Arbonne and in the process changed my life.  What a wonderful loving friend.

Thanks Antoinette for the many gifts that you've shared with everyone but most of all for giving me the gift of your friendship.  You will forever be in my HEART!

On November 20, 2004 Antoinette and Jim asked me as a Notary if I would honor them by Marrying them.  What an honor for me.  Jim and Antoinette had 5 1/2 years together.  They had been high school sweethearts who had each gone their separate ways and had found each other again many years later.  I was blessed to be part of that special day.

Be mindful each day of the people in your life who are special.  Don't forget to tell those you love home much they mean to you. 

Many Blessings,

Shelia

  

Redo

My Bee friend Debbie insisted last week that I let her re-do one of the strips I received in my poster project.  It was one that the person just photocopied the strip and printed onto fabric.  I was just going to make do with what I received and thread paint the heck out of it, but Debbie persisted and I finally gave in.
BOY AM I GLAD I GAVE IN!!  I received a wonderful new strip back from Debbie.  What a difference this makes.

The 2nd strip from the top is the re-do from Debbie.  Boy what a difference.  I hope to get this completed and quilted to be in our Quilt Show in September.

Thanks again Debbie for all the beautiful work.

Hope you all have a great quilting day.  I'm off to work and then the surgeon's appointment this afternoon.

Shelia

Guess What We're Doing This Weekend!

Friday night my Bee girls came over and we had another great evening of quilting and laughing.  After everyone left around midnight I loaded the dishwasher, started it and went to bed.
Saturday morning Roger and I woke to a horrible suprise..........our dishwasher had flooded the kitchen and dinning room.  Wood floors saturated!
So we spent Saturday pulling up flooring and trying to dry out the rooms.  What a ## mess.

The Criminal

Found quilty of TREASON!








We were able to find matching flooring.....thank goodness since our entire house is the same flooring!

Here we've gotten part of the flooring and pad removed and drying the subfloor.  Preventing mold is the top priority in my book.

This is looking from the dishwasher into the dinning room and flooring had to be removed all the way to the fireplace.  We had to push the refrigerator into the other side of the dinning room so we could remove flooring under it also.

We just returned from Lowe's purchasing a new dishwasher.  I should have bought stock in that place 3 years ago before we started the garage...........They know Roger by name there and at Home Depot!  I praise God that I have a wonderful husband who is able to do all the labor for these projects.  What a blessing.

Guess there will be no quilting for me today.

Many Blessings,

Shelia

Working on UFO (unfinished object)

I've decided to work on another UFO in my stash.  This was a round robin (a round robin is where a group of quilters work on a project during the year and then return it to the owner at the end of the year).  This was a poster challenge round robin.  Each person picked out a poster that they liked.  You then had to cut the poster into six pieces, there were 6 ladies in the group. 
This is my poster after I cut into six pieces.

The owner of the poster then chose one of the pieces and pieced that piece in fabric to match the poster.  The next month you passed a box with the poster pieces,  your pieced part and any goodies you wanted onto the next person in the rotation.  They then had two months to decide on their part and piece it.  The rotation continued until the last section was pieced.  We revealed our poster recreations at our Christmas guild meeting.
I chose stip # 6 which was the bottom.  This is what I wrote in the journal that went with the project.  This is a picture of the box I sent my pieces in with candy for each person.  Cute hugh!

March 2008- Please enjoy the goodies enclosed while you work on the poster quilt.  I enjoyed piecing the bottom piece.  Hope that you like the poster. 
Please take a picture of the strip you make with the disposable camera enclosed and don't forget to sign the label enclosed.
Record anything in the journal you want while working on the quilt. 
Thanks for being part of the round robin---Shelia Chandler

Strip #1 was pieced by my mother and this is what she wrote in my journal.
April 2008-I finished my strip on Monday and had a good time working on it.  I never thought I would be able to machine applique.  Just have to learn to go SLOW.  Hope you like it.--Love Betty Adams (MOM)

Strip #5 was pieced by Susan Perham and this is what she wrote in my journal.
July 2008- Hi Shelia!  I'm writing in July because June was a month of vacation for our family.  I chose a piece that I thought was very interesting.  I struggled and FINALLY gave up after many attempts at creating a shadow for the pot on strip 5.  I could NOT get it to match.  I think you'll have to do it when you quilt it.  However, I am quite pleased with the silk ribbon I used to tie the bamboo together.  I hope you enjoy!--Susan Perham

Strip #3 was pieced by Dee Ross and this is what she wrote in my journal.
August 2008- Shelia, I enjoyed working on your poster.  It was the smallest one yet!  I put the shadows on with colored pencils.  It was the only way I could think of doing it.  It turned out o.k.  Thanks for the goodies too!!  Hope you like the poster.  Love, Dee Ross

Strip #4 was pieced by Brandee Lewis and this is what she wrote in my journal.
Sept. 20, 2008--Shelia, I hope you are enjoying the round robin.  I enjoyed making yours.  It was nice to have a small strip.  I found it easier to match up.  I hope you love the finished product.  I'm getting anxious to see mine!  Enjoy--Brandee Lewis

Strip #2 was pieced by Elizabeth King and this is what she wrote in my journal.
November 2008--It's done!!  I'm not artistic, but had fun with my limited skills.  Have fun putting it all together!  Elizabeth King

We all put a lot of hard work into designing each part of every quilt that we worked on.  It was so intersting to see all of the finished pieces.

Below is a picture on the left of the poster taped back together and the finished strips on the right that I received back from all of my round robin quilters.  Now it is up to me to complete the poster wallhanging.  I plan on doing a lot of thread painting, this should be a great project to hone those skills. 

I have been dreading the completion of this project for a long time as I was not quite sure what to do with all of the various colors of backgrounds etc., but I know think I am doing to piece it together and just have some fun thread painting!  I'll blog about the progress as it goes.

Hope you have a great day quilting.....I've got to run to work now.

Shelia

Another Productive Day

I had another very productive quilting day yesterday.  I finished quilting the 2nd habitat for humanity quilt.  I think it turned out very pretty.  Suzanne and mom both came back over yesterday and spent some time sewing.  Suzanne took the top off the zipper leaders, squared it up and sewed on the binding.  She is taking it with her out of town today and will whip the binding done during her trip. 

   Suzanne did a wonderful job putting the pieces of the donated top together so we could get it quilted.  Below is a close up of some of the quilting.  Thanks Suzanne for all your hard work getting this ready for quilting.

Someone will be a very happy recepient of this beautiful quilt at their Habitat for Humanity Home Dedication.

Roger and I found this sign while on our trip to Kansas.  It is so true of our cats and the one on the sign looks just like our "prissy" female cat whom we call "sissy".  Her real name is Cleopatra, but we call her sissy 99% of the time.

What a spoiled brat she that cat is.

I also pieced a miniture top yesterday. 

It was fun, now to get it quilted.  I have got to get busy and get something done that I can enter into the quilt show this year.

So my grand total for my 4 days off quilting was.......finished quilting my friendship star quilt, quilted 2 tops for mom, quilted 2 Habitat for Humanity tops, Helped mom finish piecing a top, quilted 5 extra fat quarters of material to be used to make items for the quilt show bazzaar and I pieced a miniature quilt top.  Boy that sounds like a wonderful few days of quilting!!

Today was another CRAZY day in the ER today.  It was very hard to go back to work after having so much fun in my studio over the past few days, I would have liked if I could have been home in my quilting studio instead.    Oh well, I guess I do have to pay for fabric addiction somehow.....he he he.
Happy Quilting Everyone,
Shelia

Lots of Buzzing In The Bee Hive

Last night we had lots of productive fun in the Bee Hive.  We had 3 peeps missing (Deb, Debbie & Sue), but one honoary peep was here, Mom.  Me, Susan and Suzanne worked on several of our Habitat Quilts. 
Suzanne dropped of the first top at lunch yesterday.  I added some borders, loaded and quilted it.  Here is the top coming out of the longarm. 

Notice again I did extra fabric on the sides to be used for projects.
We then moved on to the 2nd top Suzanne brought. She had already pieced the top together from donated parts.  We pieced the backing and loaded the machine.

This is going to be a beautiful quilt for someone in a new Habitat for Humanity home.  I can't wait for you to see the finished product.

While I was quilting some on the 2nd top, Suzanne was putting the binding on the first habitat quilt, but she had some unsolicited help.......WHISKERS!!  Now he is really a ham and thinks that you can't sew anything without his help.

"what you mean I'm not helping?"

Suzanne had wanted to learn how to load into the longarm using the zipper leaders.  She sewed the zippers on the backing and was able to get it loaded very quickly.
Suzanne also quilted some on the quilt last night.  Here she is taking a test drive on my longarm.  She is a natural at driving the machine and did a great job on the quilt.

We were able to get about 1/3 of the quilt done last night.  It was 12:30 a.m. before we realized it. 

While we were quilting Susan was cutting out pieces for an applique wallhanging.  She purchased the kit for a Fons & Porter pattern a couple of years ago and now is in the process of completing the project. Susan does such beautiful work I can't wait to see the finished project.

Mom worked finished piecing the top with oriental fabrics framed with black strips. 

She did a great job.  It will be the next top in the longarm.  Mom also worked on the binding for the two small quilts I quilted yesterday for her. 

In between working on these projects yesterday I was also piecing some blocks.  I hope to get them finished today and quilt some more on the habitat quilt.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY WEEKEND TO EVERYONE! I hope that you have a wonderful, safe weekend with family and friends.
Life is Good!

Happy Quilting,

Shelia

Automobile Mileage???

While running errands yesterday I happened to look down at the mileage on my odometer  while at a stop light.  This is what I saw.  (111,111) How amazing is that? 

Notice the temperature was also 92 degrees at 2:00 p.m..  YUCK!!!!  Looks like we are going to have another sweltering day today.  We sure could use a little rain to cool things off. 

It's just 5 1/2 weeks until our son Rance and his wife Olivia are coming to visit from Spokane Washington.  It's been a long time since we saw him and haven't seen Olivia since they were married.  We are really looking forward to their visit.

This evening some of the bee girls are coming and mom is also coming up to do some sewing and quilting.  It should be a great evening of laughter and fun.

Happy Quilting,

Shelia

Trying A New Layout For The Blog

I decided to try some new layouts on my blog to see how it would look.  Let me know what you think.
My lilies are blooming and they are gorgeous this year.  I think all the extra rain we got earlier this year has really given them the extra boost they needed.

Today Roger and I were able to run a lot of errands that we've been needing to do.  We started out at County Square picking up some forms for work.  We were out of committal forms and we seem to be using more and more of them lately.  We then went to PetsMart to pick up cat food, both cats were a little miffed that we had run out of their favorite canned food.....you noticed the word favorite, it's not that we were out of food....just their picky little favorite one!!  What spoiled little brats they are.
Our last stop was at Sam's Club.  Now mind you we only went there for Popcorn Oil............$349 later we were out.  Man I love and hate that place.
This evening I am quilting on two of my 74 year old mom's small tops she pieced and asked me to quilt for her.  I am so proud that at her age she is piecing quilts.  She really enjoys making scrap quilts.  She uses scrap blocks, strips etc. and just pieces and pieces.  I think I have several tops that she has pieced in my to be quilted stack.

This top is one she pieced for a friend of hers.  I'm quilting it with purple thread.  I think she will like what I've done.

This is a top that I started mom piecing this past weekend.  I had some happy blocks from an exchange and didn't know what to do with them.  Mom came up to sew and didn't have a new project started.  So while I finished the quilting on the star quilt she started adding black sashing strips to these blocks.  I really like how the black makes the blocks pop.

Better get back to quilting so I can finish her tops and get them back out of the machine.  Suzanne is suppose to bring me a Habitat for Humanity top tomorrow.  I promised to quilt one for the guild.  I plan on quilting on it tomorrow.  Some of the bee girls will be coming over again tomorrow night.
Until then......Happy Quilting,
Shelia