I Am So Glad 2012 Is Over

Today we had to put my precious little kitten Cleopatra "Sissy" down.  She had kidney failure and was having such a hard time.  I am so glad that she is finally at peace.

 

I'll miss you my sweet girl!  We buried her in my flower garden when I got home from work tonight.  She would have been 13 years old in a few months.  What a way to end a very stressful year.  I pray that 2013 will be a happier year for all of us.

Many blessings for each of you in the coming year.
Shelia

Christmas Day In The ER

Working today in the ER and here is my crew of hard working nurses, tech and registration staff. 

Left to right:  Jennifer, Leslie, April, Jennifer, Terry, Me and Denise.  Thanks for all your hard work everyone!

Merry Christmas.
Shelia

Merry Christmas Everyone

Christmas is a very special time of year when we remember why we are blessed.  We have a savior who paved the way for our salvation.  Thank you Lord for all of your blessings and for the biggest blessing of all, the gift of your son Jesus Christ.

Spend time today with those you love.  If you can not physically be with them make sure that you touch base by phone, text, e-mail or whatever technology you have available to you.  Time is the one thing that we can not get back.

Merry Christmas to all. I wish for you a blessed Christmas and a very happy new  year.

I'm in the Emergency Room working today......so I pray for a safe Christmas Day for all.

Shelia

Accuquilt Take 5 Die

One of my Christmas presents is the Take 5 die from Accuquilt.  This is a really cool die. 
This die gives you the ability to use fat quarters to cut different pieces at the same time and rearrange them into quilt blocks.  This block finishes at 12-inches.

I used 15 pink and brown fat quarters to cut out my pieces for this quilt.  I then moved each pile of squares, rectangles etc. to mix up the blocks for piecing.  In one stack I moved the bottom to the top, next I moved just a random piece to the top and so on until I had messed with each stack of pieces.  This will give the quilt a random scrappy look.

 With the leftover edge I was able to cut 4 of my 2-1/2 x 4-1/2 inch rectangles.  I plan to use these rectangles as a border on the quilt.  It used all but some very fine slivers of the fat quarters.  Not even big enough to save as a string.   the final tally of pieces cut from the 1-fat quarter was:
4- 2-1/2 x 4-1/2 inch rectangles
1- 4-1/2 x 8-1/2 inch rectangle
1- 8-1/2 x 8-1/2 inch square
6- 4-1/2 x 4-1/2 inch squares
12 total pieces from each fat quarter.  5 pieces to make a 12-inch finished block, 3 extra 4-1/2  x 4-1/2 inch squares and 4- 2-1/2 x 4-1/2 inch rectangles which could all be used in the border of the quilt.  Now that is what I call effecient cutting.  I'm also pulling some rectangles I already have in my scrap bin of bricks to use in the border.  Although I haven't looked yet I am sure that I also have some precut 4 1/2 inch blocks already in my bin that I can pull out pinks and browns from to use also.

I give this accuquilt die 5 stars for effeciency and ease of use. 

 

Happy Quilting,

Shelia



Family Christmas

Today we are having our family Christmas dinner, since me the nurse is working Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after. 

This is my Christmas from Roger a quilt rack.  Isn't it pretty with my four-patch swirl quilt hanging on it.

I just realized that I didn't take any pictures yesterday????  Guess I was too busy cooking etc.  Can't believe that I didn't snap some pictures. 

My nephew Dale and I played a game of horseshoes after lunch.  I am definately out of practice, but me and my hot pink horseshoes won....Yippie!  Dale was a touch competitor and did not cut me any slack.  It was fun playing and the weather was beautiful.

Merry Christmas,
Shelia

Bee Night With My Girls

It is always great to get together with my bee girls and have some fun laughing and quilting.

Tonight it was just four of us who could meet.  Gina and Susan were both out of town.  So me, mom, Suzanne and Sue got together to play.

Below we are sorting precut squares from my bin of 2 1/2 inch blocks to use as the block of the month at our January guild meeting.  Our block chairman asked members to make 9-patch blocks with white backgrounds to donate for a habitat for humanity quilt.  I had pulled out 12 sets for me and pieced them while we were talking.  They go together so quickly.  So now I have 12 blocks to donate for the habitat quilt. 

Mom, Sue and Suzanne are here also going through the same bin for some blocks to donate.  I think each of them found enough for at least 8-10 blocks each which means the four of us will be donating over 40 blocks to the cause.  And do you know the crazy thing.........you could not even tell that we have taken that many blocks out of the bin.  Suzanne said there are enough blocks in that bin to make about 3 quilts.......I think she is so right.  It was amazing how quickly we all could pull together that many pieces for blocks which were already cut and ready to sew.  Thanks Bonnie Hunter for a wonderful system of using and sorting scraps of material.

 At our last bee night we had cut up a ton of fabric that was donated to our guild to us in Habitat quilts.  My Accuquilt cutter really came in handy that night.  Cutting out 80 squares at a time sure made the kit making go faster.  We packaged these up into kits and gave out to members at the guild meeting.  Mom took several of those kits and had been piecing away on them.  Below is one of the "brights" kits that she took.  We were laying it out on the design wall for her.  Isn't it cute.

 Below are pictures of one of the other kits mom pieced.  It is also going to be a wonderful habitat quilt for someone.

 And my baby girl........she has been sick lately and was sleeping on my quilt in the livingroom when I snapped this picture.

Happy quilting,
Shelia

A Christmas Thank You Poem

Today when I worked in the Greer Emergency Room I received this poem from one of the nurses.  It brought tears to my eyes when I remember WHY we do what we do in the craziness of the emergency room.

I can't write poems, and I am

not artistic. 

But I want you to know,

You Make A Difference.

When the doctor tells a child that their father is gone,

you are there.

When a parent hears their child is sick or has a mass,

you are there.

When the doctor notifies parents of a fetal demise,

you are there.

Through the good and bad,

You are there.

Thank you for being there,

Thanks you for being you.

 



Thank you Lord for my blessings.  I work with a great group of nurses!

 

Happy quilting,

Shelia

November Quilt Guild Meeting

We have such a wonderful quilt guild.  So many talented ladies who are always willing to share their beautiful quilts and techniques with others.  Our guild is known as the guild with heart......and it truly is!  I have been a member of this guild for the past 20, almost 21 years and have so many wonderful friends because of this guild.  I am blessed.  I realized when looking at some pictures on my phone that I had not blogged about the meeting....oops....so better late than never.....

During show and share my friend Debbie from Stitchintherapy showed her color block string quilt.  BEAUTIFUL!

Our speaker tonight was Marti Michell who did a wonderful lecture and trunk show.  Don't you just love trunk shows!

Another great night with a wonderful group of ladies.

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Decorating For Christmas

My precious husband and cats are trying their best to get me into the Christmas spirit.  Below is Roger getting the tree up and going......it is always awesome to see all of the special ornaments that we have collected over our years together.  We try to pick up a new ornament each year from somewhere we have traveled during the year.  Alot of special memories in this tree.

 While I was getting out the Christmas quilts, sissy decided that this one was hers and I could just move on and leave her alone!

 We have Christmas music playing and are getting things decorated.  Christmas candles burning with a great cinnamon aroma in the house.

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Sunday Quilting Fun

Today I was able to spend some time watching a movie with my honey......we watched Fire with Fire. 

Lots of good actors in it and I had not heard of it before.  Enjoyed spending the time with Roger.

Next I started sorting some 2 1/2 inch squares that I already had cut in my scrap bin.  I'm going to piece this as a 20 patch block for a scrap quilt. 
So while we watched NCIS, I sorted some blocks.

Doesn't look like I made much of a dent in the 2 1/2 inch square bin does it?  I think I have enough blocks in here to do several quilts just with these blocks.

It's been a good day....I even baked a blackberry cobbler today.....But this is all that is left when I went to take the picture.  My husband who doesn't eat a lot of sweets decided that this was really good.  I too enjoyed it.  Should have bought some vanilla ice cream to go with it.

Time to get some work done.
Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Cutting For Bonnie Hunter's New Mystery Quilt

We had a blast at bee tonight.  Lots of projects getting worked on.  I got to show Dave the Accuquilt......needless to say I think he is hooked.  Where was this machine when I was cutting out the first mystery for me and mom???????  Remember those 1600 quarter square triangles I had to cut with the rotary cutter?????  This time I'm using the accuquilt and oh my does it make a difference.

Here are the triangles for the next mystery and it took me all of about 10 minutes to cut them!  Now she can get to the sewing faster.

While she started piecing the triangle blocks I was cutting her strips for the four patch blocks.  Love that machine and how quickly it gets us to the piecing process.

Off to work now for another shift in the ER......and can I say that this full moon is killing me.  Our census has been horrible, don't know where all these people are coming from.  Until then,

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Quilt Bee Night

Tonight the bee girls are coming over to play....YIPPIE!!  I sure need some time with my crazy bunch of girls. 

Why is it when you cook a huge pot of chili you make a horrible mess in the kitchen?   Or is it just me??? 

Either way it is dang good chili and it has been hard keeping Roger out of the pot today.  I'm making chili, Sue is bringing cornbread, Gina and Dave are bringing drinks and Suzanne is bringing dessert.  YUM, YUM!

I've been busy today cutting more 2 1/2 inch strips out of the donated fabric to our quild philanthropy project.  It would have taken me forever to get this done without the accuquilt.  See this picture.....now that is a bucket of strips!! 

All of these beautiful strips are just waiting for a guild member to work their magic and turn them into some beautiful quilts for habitat for humanity.

Not sure yet what I'll be working on tonight with the bee girls or if I'll just be laughing my pants off!  Either way it is good for the soul.

Holy Cow....I just realized that tomorrow is December 1st.  Where did this year go.  Time to start looking back and see what I've accomplished this year.  And what else I want to get done before the year is over.  I do have 31 days to get some more projects completed.

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Enjoying My Accuquilt Cutting Machine

Today I decided to do some cutting for the guild with my Accuquilt.  A month or so ago a lady donated a lot of fabric to our guild to be used for Habitat For Humanity Quilts.  Susan and I cut out a lot of kits at bee one night and we were able to hand those out at our last meeting.  This time Sue asked me to cut fabric into 2 1/2 inch strips which the ladies could use to make some Habitat quilts.  So today I've been "stripping".  Below is a container that I am putting the stips into for the guild.  The first picture is where I was after about an hour of cutting (bear in mind that I am having to press some of this fabric to get the strips cut).

 The second picture here is after about 3 hours today of playing, pressing and cutting.  I don't know how many strips are in this bucket but it is really heavy.  I just kept mashing the layers down and adding more.  I think that some ladies and gentlemen from the guild are going to have fun piecing some quilts from these strips. 

There are some beautiful fabrics that she donated and I'm almost to the bottom of the box she donated.  Looking forward to getting the box out of here and getting back my space.  Whew....but the accuquilt made the job so easy.  Cutting 60 strips in one pass is awesome! 

Today being cyber Monday I did take advantage of the sale at Accuquilt and ordered a few more dies for my machine.......early Christmas present..hehe.

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Yes It is Cold This Morning!

While on my way to work this morning I looked down at my outside temperature guage......and yes it reads 27 degrees.....burrrrrrr.

Knowing me you know that I am not a cold natured person, but something about this morning, maybe the 10-15 mph winds have me cold to the bone.  I don't think that I got warm today at all.  But the ER being busy sure kept my blood working.  No time to really think about being cold.

A couple of days ago Bonnie Hunter posted about using the extension table from her Janome 6600P for her featherweight.  I thought that it would be too big....but I was wrong.  Look at that pretty thing.  I put a phone book under the machine and wow.  My husband saw it and said it was great too.

Guess that I will be taking this with me to bee next time.  Thanks Bonnie Hunter for all of your great inspiration!

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Sewing Day With Mom

I set aside today for working on a special project and to sew with mom.  Our sewing time together is so precious to me.  Mom sewed some of the blocks for my special project (I can let you in on it later) while I cut out more fabric for the quilt.  We got all of the partial blocks done and now all I have to do is complete the rows and add a border.  Yippie.  I hope to complete that project this weekend.

Mom brought some Christmas fabric today and wanted to cut out a Christmas quilt.  We cut out a quilt using this ornament fabric as the center of a signature block pattern, without the signatures...hehe and are using green Christmas theme fabric for the triangles.  We cut out this entire quilt in just a few minutes using the Accuquilt cutter.  Wow does that save me a lot of cutting time.  Love this machine.

Since we got the first quilt cut out so quickly mom decided to cut out another one using this red fabric in the center.  So she is working on two Christmas quilts.

 Here's mom piecing a couple of sample blocks for her quilts.

Below is a picture of the green Christmas prints that we cut out for her to use.  See in the front on the right stack......that is Elvis Christmas fabric that she brought. 

Mom has also been busy piecing string blocks on phone book pages to use in quilts.  She pieces them and brings them to me to square up.  Today I had a lightbulb moment.  Why not square them up with the Accuquilt?  I had not tried it before because of all of the layers in the string blocks.  But why not?

I looked at the blocks mom had pieced and decided I could use my 5-inch block die.  It will cut 8 blocks at a time and 10 fabrics deep.

The first time I laid one string block on each space on the die and cut out 8 perfectly square 5-inch blocks.  YIPPIE!!  That was exciting, but you know me I couldn't just do one layer.  I carefully looked over the blocks and estimated that I would count each block as 3 layers......so technically I could layer two or three of the string pieced blocks at a time and cut our 16-24 total 5-inch blocks with each turn of the machine!!  I chose to play it safe and layer only two blocks at a time.  Man I can tell you that this truly saves me a ton of time.  We cut out over 100 blocks that mom had pieced in just 15 minutes.  I can truly say that it would have taken me a long time to get all of those blocks squared up for her using my rotary cutter and a square ruler one block at a time.

See the beautiful string pieced blocks.  Mom is going to have some wonderful quilts out of these.

 And here are the remains......I convinced mom that we could throw these out.  We don't have to try to piece these into any more blocks.  She agreed that she thought we have gotten the money's worth out of these scraps.

Not to let you think that she is finished piecing scrap blocks, she went home with a trash bag full of scraps from us cutting out some Habitat quilt kits, her Christmas quilts and my special project quilt.  I'm sure I'll have many more strip blocks to square up soon.   But now I have a secret weapon..  Thank you Accuquilt!

Better go check on the hubby....he's watching the Florida/Florida State football game and is planning to watch the Clemson/Carolina game tonight.  Maybe time for some snacks.

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Thanksgiving Memories

Happy Thanksgiving

Today we have so much to be thankful for.  Our home, family, friends, jobs and wonderful food to enjoy.  We have had a good day today and here are some of the many memories we shared today. 

 

Roger and Roger III set up the horseshoe stakes and played for a while.  They really had a great time.  We had taken up the horseshoe pits when we built the garage and I think it is past time for us to put them back out.  I think at Christmas we need a little gender competition.  I think the girls can take them!

 So good to see grandfather and grandson having so much fun!

I finally got to give little Anthony (Great grandson) his quilt.  It was so cute and Haley loved it.  Here is some pictures of Anthony with his quilt.

 I can't believe how fast he is growing. 

 Here below is Anthony with Great-Great Grandma Betty Adams.  They both look great.

 Roger decided it was his time to feed Anthony, so Great Grandpa Roger did the honors.  What a sweetie.

 Here is pictures of Haley receiving a package of goodies from Great-Great Grandmother Alberta Hudson (who lives in Florida).  She sent several outfits that Anthony can grow into and some that he better wear quick.  Especially as fast as they grow. 

 Grandson Roger III had a great time time.  He stayed until after 5 today and watched the football game with us and ate supper.  Priceless time together.

 My beautiful Great-Neice Taylor Black, how quickly she has grown into such a beautiful young lady.

My Great-Nephew Dale Black.  He had a blast today playing kickball out in the yard with Taylor, Roger III and Uncle Roger.

 Sweet Grand Daughter Haley and our little Anthony.

 Always a cut up.....little Dale.

 A blessed family enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving Meal. 

Me and little Anthony.  Isn't it wonderful how a little one at a family gathering just keeps everyone smiling.

 Me, Anthony, Taylor and my Niece Kelly Perkins.

There's Great Grandpa with little Anthony again.  Such handsome fellas.



We all have so many blessings everyday.  Don't forget to tell those you love how much they mean to you each and everyday.  You never know what tomorrow will bring.  Sure miss my dad today!

I'm off to work tomorrow.  Mom and I plan to do some quilting on Saturday. 

Many Blessings,
Shelia