My poor little sewing machine

is huffing and puffing. It thinks that it has just ran a marathon. I finally finished the tops of these quilts for the boys. What started as simple block bedspreads really morphed into something way bigger than I normally take on. I am sort of an "instant gratification crafter" and these were way out of my league. I was planning in the early stages to tie tack them but right now I have a call in to a machine quilter that I am hoping will take them on and get them done before Christmas. Is that too much to ask?

For right now I am going to give my machine a little cool down while I put away the basket of laundry that has been sitting here since Friday, run the sweeper, straighten up the house, get a shower and then it is back to the sewing room to make the curtains for the boys' bedroom, maybe some curtains for my sewing room, work on my ornaments for church, and oh how about the 15 or so painting orders that I took on for before Christmas. All that UNLESS the quilting lady calls and says, "I can get those done this week if you get them to me today" In that case I will be firing up my car and heading the 75 miles to her place, quilts in tow. That is in a perfect world!

Back to the real job tomorrow! Oh how real life puts a damper on my crafting productivity.

Number 5!!!!!

Thanksgiving brought a joyous announcement to our home. We are expecting grandchild number FIVE next summer!!!!! Dianna and Travis announced the happy news Wednesday night. She reminded me that she is keeping her end up with what I asked for, a new baby every year for Christmas for the next eight years. I am such a glutton! How truly blessed I have been to have this loving, growing family.
Thanksgiving brought crafts to Gramma's this year. I found these foam trees at Pat Catan's a couple of weeks ago and thought that the kids would like them. I hope that this can continue as a tradition, it was fun. Of course we had to strip down to diapers and underwear for this event. Glitter Glue would have to be hard on clothing. How can she sit like this for so long? I would be in traction.

Tyler is probably the perfect age for this. He was so excited with craft time.

And Logan loved the Glitter Glue, making big piles of it on his tree.

Even Kendall got thrown in to the action, with Gracelyn, ever the little mother, trying to help her.

Finished this scarf on Thanksgiving morning. Since we have Thanksgiving on Wednesday night, John and I have Thursday to do whatever we want. It is always a day of much needed rest for us. I am embarrassed to tell you how much I slept. Let's just say it went something like this. Breakfast, tidy sewing room, lay out some ornaments, sleep, lunch, cut out some ornaments, sleep, supper, sew some ornaments, sleep, make a jello salad for today, sleep, sew, sleep, go to bed, sleep. Seeing a pattern here?

These are the boys crafts. They were left here to dry.

And the ornaments. Cathy at Cath's Pennie Designs was making an adorable candle mat and one of the elements was three button snowmen. If you have not checked out her patterns, you need to do that. They are wonderful designs! Anyway, as I was still drawing a blank for my ornaments for in my Christmas cards this year, this idea seemed perfect to me. Off to the button collections and digging through wool.

They are fun and every one is a little different. Right now they are hanging on my lamp at my chair. They still need steamed, but I like the way they are turning out. The first few were a little thin, so I cut a smaller oval out of blanket wool as sort of a batting for in them and now I like them better.

Fun TV work!

Today I am off to my cousins' house near Ohio. I have not been able to spend time with them in so long and I sort of invited myself to Thanksgiving. I am going to try a reprise of the cake this morning. Dear hubby has left for deer camp and I am sure this one will not burn as he is not here to witness the success.

Surely, it's Friday!

It really can't be only Wednesday, and AM at that. There has been enough jammed into my three days that I think I could call it a week. Most of it lots of fun though.
I would try to put this in chronological order, but I can't even remember it that way. Yesterday, Molly and Kim came for lunch, something I rarely get to do, have lunch with the girls. I felt so bad when it was cut short by the arrival of my neighbor's family with lots of questions.

Kim brought me all this fabric and goodies and this morning I woke up at 4 and all I could think was that I wanted to go through it all! That and because we have our Thanksgiving tonight, I needed it moved out of the family room also. Thank-you, Thank-you, THANK-YOU Kim!!!! It was so fun to go through and divide up between my Mom, Shawnee and I. I can see so many projects in it already! Now to get it all to my sewing room.


Wool pieces and blankets and even a quilt top! Stacks of homespun and just in time, our stash was depleted after the Open House.

And tons of ideas in this stack.

I love the colors in this sweater. I think I see some stockings or ornaments there.

And I just bought this vine on Sunday and it matches this wool perfect! This is a huge piece and I can't make up my mind what to do with it. I hate to cut into big pieces like this until I am sure.

Pic of Little Miss Kendall from Monday. She is just reclining away watching everyone at work on Monday. I just thought that she looked so much like her Mom in this picture.

Finished this towel the other day...I think Sunday, not sure, my days are all running together.

And this hat for Gracelyn. Her coat is such a pretty turquoise color and when I saw this yarn, I thought it would look so nice with her coat.

Finished this Monday AM for an order. These message boards have sure been the hot item this year for me. I think this is number 8 or 9 that I have done.

And the cake. It didn't turn out too bad. The problem was the cake pans, at least that is what I am blaming it on. They had a separate bottom and the praline topping that was on the bottom of the pan all leaked out. John bought regular cake pans for me last night when he was in town. I used to have lots of them, where did they go? I am going to try to make another cake for Friday when I am going to my second Thanksgiving.

And the issue of the camera cord was solved. Molly brought her cord with her, she has the same camera as I do. Her cord worked when I finally had a chance to try it late last night. I am almost embarrassed to say what the problem was. But here goes, it was a really blond moment and I am not even blond. John got this new Blackberry and the cord was laying with my camera cord behind the laptop. I grabbed the end of that cord and plugged it into the computer instead of the camera cord. How stupid was that?

And now for noodle making. Jenn wanted to go to town last night to get groceries and all I had to do was make noodles so I offered to keep the boys for her. I figured John would be here to help. WRONG! When he saw the start of the noodle making and the boys helping, he decided to go grocery shopping with Jenn and Di. As a matter of fact, you never saw three people clear out faster than those three did. Not before snapping some pics for evidence. The boys loved to stir and crack eggs. We used a few extra in that process. Logan kept tapping and twisting until he got frustrated and smashed and egg went everywhere. Tyler is actually pretty good at breaking eggs. Very gentle for his normal trash 'em, crash 'em demeanor.

And rolling out the dough. Needless to say, there is flour everywhere in my house, clear to the upstairs bathroom where we finally got it washed off of little boys. I think that the bath water was turning to paste.

And honestly, these are the messiest noodles I have ever made, but the boys are excited to eat "their" noodles tonight for Thanksgiving.

And in the downstairs shower, the turkeys are brining. I am not really sure about this process, this is John's experiment for this year. Talk about a no stress Thanksgiving though. The kids have divided up all the trimmings and are bringing everything except the turkey and noodles. How easy is this? I am so looking forward to a nice evening with all of my family AND a day off tomorrow, AND a quiet weekend at home. Hubby is headed to deer camp and I am hoping to spend the weekend around the house working on all the projects that I have started and maybe starting a few new ones....

I hope that all of you have a great Holiday and remember to give thanks for all of our many blessings.

Four words that strike fear.

These words always manage to strike fear in my husband.
"I found this recipe..."

This time was not an exception. I found this recipe, or rather my MIL found this recipe and since the computer that she found it on will no longer link to the printer, (long story involving a four year old that wanted to print out his Imagination Mover pictures that he created online) she sent it to my email for me to print out. Actually to be honest, she sent several recipes, a JC Penney online purchase receipt and a Walmart site to store pick-up paper all while I am trying to print out a five color seperation job for shirts that needed done last week, and NEEDED them immediately as only a 70 plus year old prioritizes. Can't wait until I get there.

Not to digress, but while I am glad that my MIL stays current and can surf the web, shop online and keep up with about 100 friends on Facebook, there has to be a special jewel in the crown in heaven for anyone that teaches someone over 70 years old to use the computer. At one point in the five year long process, I actually used a highlighter on the screen after the two zillion post-it notes of directions did not work.

Back to the recipe. As the recipes came out, this one for pumpkin praline cake looked so yummy and because I have friends coming to lunch today, I thought I would tackle that this morning. Long story short, every window and door in my downstairs was open by 6:15 trying to clear out the smoke and my dear husband's parting comment as he walked out the door for the shop where I am sure he is trying to recuperate from some bug that he thinks he is getting was "Good grief, Cathy, it is just a cake. Babies can bake cakes in plastic ovens with light bulbs. What is wrong with you?" Then, "I am going to the shop, if I hear the fire whistle and see an orange glow, I am going to turn up the radio louder and ignore it, just so you know" Well!

I took pictures of the smoke, and the cute little hat that I finished for Gracelyn and the tea towel that I embroidered, but for some reason the cord won't work on the camera. It is going to be one of those days.

Molly and Kim, please ignore the smoky smell in my house and maybe now when I say, "Let's just go the restaurant." you will understand why.

Back to cooking/baking. Honestly, I used to bake and cook. Cookies, cakes, even some pies. Full meals and I have cooked for crowds of people. I don't know what happened. I think that I got rusty in the kitchen. Maybe I just don't make it a priority any more. My husband loves to tell the story of the turkey that I put in the oven and then decided to make new curtains for the family room. Maybe a good dose of Ritalin would help.