Alaska Here I Come!

Woohooooooo!!!  I am going to Alaska on a Midnight Cruise With Bonnie Hunter!  8 days of quilting with my idol and Alaskan vistas all around!  It just doesn't get better than this.  My friend, Roz, and I will be traveling together.  I absolutely cannot wait to go.  I do need the 9 months I have to wait to save the money to pay for the whole shebang!  I hope to pay it off by the time we travel so I can really just enjoy the trip without worrying about expenses. 

Today I spent the day at Farmhouse Quilts making Christmas stockings with my quilting buddies.  We had a wonderful time.  Janet's place is such a nice shop and it is such fun to hang out there all day and sew.

Our local quilt shop was destroyed in Hurricane Sandy.  We are waiting for the new shop to open.  Angie found a new location and they are in the process of setting it all up and getting ready for us.  I miss the girls there and look forward to seeing them all again.

Bonnie Hunter "Easy Street" Mystery Quilt Along

Here it is November and Bonnie is beginning her mystery quilt a long again this year.  This one is called EASY STREET.  I love her quilts and loved getting started on this one.  Below is my progress and fabric choices.  I finished 92 four patches the first day.  Working on the next set tomorrow.

SANDY!

It has been some time since I posted here.  I have been very busy with my sewing and with the family.  I have made four quilts for my sisters and sisters-in-law for Christmas, doll clothes for my grandaughters American Girl dolls, aprons for the church fair and some cosmetic bags over the last several months.

This past week Hurricane Sandy paid us all on the East Coast a visit.  She was one nasty lady.  She left devastation in her path in NJ, NYC and on Long Island.  Breezy Point in NYC lost 111 houses to a fire during the storm that was unreachable by Fire Dept. due to flooding.  Long Beach, The Rockaways, Fire Island, Mastic Beach, Westhampton Beach, Hampton Bays are just some of the areas that had awful flooding and lots of damage here in NY.  New Jersey's east coast was just devastated in so many areas.  It has been 10 days now and people are still without power...some without homes at all.  The temperatures are dropping and it is cold out there for those without heat.  Help is coming from all over the country and God bless those that answered the call.  We had men from North Carolina work to get us our power back after 7 days without.  We were luckier than most though as we had a generator so we had lights, hot water, gas stove for cooking and a wood stove for heat.  So many have lost so much more than I could fathom.  To add insult to  injury we had a nor'easter hit us yesterday and the night before.  Winds up to 70 mph and heavy rain that turned to snow.  Some parts of NYC, NJ and western Long Island got several inches of snow on top of all the damage already sustained in Sandy.  The death toll from the storms rises every time I turn on the news.  I am counting my many blessings every day.

I am preparing for a mystery quilt again this year with Bonnie Hunter (The Scrap Quilt Queen).  This year it will be lime green, turquiose, purple, gray and white/black as background.  Sounds wild, but everything Bonnie does is just gorgeous when finished so I am going with it!  I ordered what fabric I needed and am just waiting for the first "clue".

My fibromyalgia seems to be getting worse or I am losing my tolerance for the pain.  I am now on an antidepressant that is supposed to help with fibro pain as well as depression.  It seems to help a little, but certainly doesn't take it all away.  The arthritis is also really painful this year.  I had gall bladder surgery a few months ago.  Funny thing though...I still keep having pain on my right side a lot.  Haven't a clue what it is.  Will discuss with my doctor in Dec. when I go for my regular checkup. 

Things are winding down here at work.  As I have said before, we are going out of business in December so these last two months are preparation for that.  It is very depressing here as we pack up boxes and finish off the last job we had on the books.  I still have no idea if my boss has another place for me.  He told me not to worry when he first let us know about this business closing, but that was a year ago and he hasn't said anymore to me since.  So of course I worry.  I am 60 yrs. old my next birthday and must continue working until age 66 for maximum soc. sec. benefits so I am very worried about my future.  With the economy the way it is those jobs that are out there are being grabbed up my young ones willing to take one third what I am making to do the same job.  Its going to be touch to find a job at my age.

Guess that's it for now......

Connecting Threads Wishlist Contest

http://www.ConnectingThreads.com/cfCart/viewWishlist.cfm?wishlistid=C0FD4682-1EC9-F6B4-AB9626FE418ED3A9&media=WLBL


Here is a link for the Connecting Threads Wishlist Contest.  Wouldn't that be awesome to be a winner!!  My favorite social site as well as shopping site!

Post Surgery!

Well it is Thursday of the 4th of July week and I am home recuping from gall bladder surgery.  Now, I am not one of those babies about pain.  There were a whole lot of people who lied to me about this surgery!  I was told over and over again that being it is laproscopic surgery I would be good as new in 3 days....bull cr%#@!  I had two caeserean's with my pregnancies and although this isn't quite as painful as that it was a close second!  Can't wear pants at all yet...rubs against two of the incisions and hurts.  Can't sleep on my side because that pulls everything and that hurts.  Just a pain in the putukiss!  Looking forward to it being over alltogether.  I am also still recuping from throwing my back out last Tuesday night after a sewing class.  I was putting my machine back in the car and lo and behold I hear this "pop" and feel this "pinch" in my back.  By the time I got home I was in agony.  I had to cancel Thursday nights class and then again on Saturday.  The "pinching" pain is still there if I go up and down steps or turn the wrong way so I am thinking it is sciatica.  My left thigh goes numb as well if I stand too long in one position.  I gotta tell you this getting older stuff is for the birds...certainly not golden years.

Even with all that going on I have been sewing.  I am hand sewing on my crazy quilt which I will post when I finish it.  It is made from 30's fabrics.  I also was working on the wool BOM we are doing.  So I have been busy with it all.  I think I will go through some of my pictures and post a few of the quilts I have done in the last year or so.

The bottom one was made for my 6 yr. old grandaughter for her "big girl" bed.  It is Joanna's Garden from the Elm Creek books.  Above that is a cardinal holiday wall hanging and above that is a Christmas holly red/white checkerboard designed by Barbara Fein at our local quilt shop.  Above that is a  quilt called "hanging gardens" that we did as a class and above that is a stained glass window effect done as a stack n whack.  At the top are some stocking ornaments I donated for the craft fair at church last year. 

The three pictures above those are a flannel that I made three of for my sons-in-laws, a pillow for Christmas and a picture of all my kids with their Christmas gift quilts for their beds.

Last year was a real busy year for me in the sewing room.  I made so many more that I don't have pictures for.  When I look back I wonder how I found the time (and money) to do them all.  I know that I loved doing it!

Tomorrow will be my first day driving after the surgery....guess where I am going?  That's right....my Friday Night Sit N Sew with the girls!  Can't let a little thing like a major operation stop me from going.  Off to rest up for it.........good night!

Another Day in the Life......

It's been a while since I even looked at my own blog page.  I have been very busy sewing, sewing, sewing.  I am making some tote bags for the Christmas Fair in Dec. along with some more aprons this year.  I have started a crazy quilt done with 30's reproduction fabrics and a spider web quilt pattern as well.  I am now doing a strip quilt, a bargello quilt, a carry-all weekender bag, my monthly simple sampler blocks, a wool block of the month and still finishing up the Stitcher's Garden.  All of this in addition to the old projects still waiting to be finished up.  They include my Back to Nature quilt, two Thimbleberries quilts, many finished tops to be quilted, etc. etc.

I am having gall bladder surgery next Monday and will be home for a week recuperating, so I hope to be able to catch up a bit then.  I am a bit nervous about having this surgery.  I am not sure with the fibromyalgia how the pain afterwards will be.  Hopefully they give me some good drugs to help with that!

My two daughters that were having some real issues seem to be making their way back to some kind of relationship again.  I have tried very hard not to get too involved in this whole thing...and believe me it wasn't easy.  I encouraged them to speak to each other and not to everyone else about their issues with each other.  Get it off your chest...bring it all out into the open and talk it over.  Don't know how  much of that they have really done, but at least they are talking.  That is more than they have done over the last year.  I cannot tell you how much sleep I have lost worrying about the two of them.  It was so painful having them at each others throats for so long.  I really pray that the healing is beginning.

I need to take some pictures of the quilts I have finished in the last several months and get them on here.  I am really slacking with that these days.  There is just not enough time in the day.  My fibromyalgia is really causing me to slow down as well.  The pain levels are getting pretty hard to deal with lately.  I am not sleeping through the night unless I take something to help and I don't want to get in the habit of that.  I still haven't tried any of the new drugs on the market to treat fibro.  I am afraid of side effects...short term and long term.  These things haven't been on the market long enough for them to know how they will effect people.  Some of these new drugs can cause cancer, heart attacks and death.  I would rather suffer with the pain thank you!  I try to take the minimum amount of meds that I can.  Bad enough I have to take the blood pressure, thyroid and cholesterol meds.

That's it for now.....

Some Musings...

Just sitting here at work today with nothing to do to help pass the time.  It is really getting so slow as we wind down the last of the work we have on the books.  Once this last job is done it won't be long before we close the doors for good.  Nineteen years in this place...it will be hard to go.  I have worked with so many fine people here over the years and I will miss them terribly.  I still do not know just what my boss has in mind for me.  He told me "not to worry about anything" when the announcement was made that they were closing up shop.  I am not 100% sure just what that means.  His wife tells me that I will have a job with something else he is involved in but that I may have to commute further than I have.  There are two places he owns businesses here.  One would be a commute of over an hour and the other not much less.  I would prefer one over the other, but still not crazy about traveling that far for work.  I really cannot be picky though...I need a job and would much rather stick with someone I know than go out and go through interviews and such.  I have never had to go that route.  Every job I have ever held (and that is only 4) was a recommendation by a friend and I was hired after just a few minutes with the owner.  I have no degree...just a high school diploma.  All I know I learned on the job.  It is hard to make up a resume with my kind of background.  I wish I could just retire, but with a mortgage hanging over my head and not being old enough for social security it will just have to wait a while.

I have been sewing up a storm these last few weeks.  I took a class on making crazy quilts at a place called Farmhouse Quilting in Southold, NY and I am working on the hand sewing of all those crazy stitches.  That ought to take me a while! LOL  I have signed up for many classes in the next 8 weeks to keep me busy.  I did finish the civil war tribute quilt that I started over a year ago.  I cannot wait to get it quilted now.  I still have my Back to Nature quilt to finish.  I think I did up to the 7th month of blocks on it and got sidetracked.  I really want to pull that out and get to work on it again.  I also need to finish up last years Thimbleberries quilt.  I have 3 more months of blocks to do and at least 3 borders to piece together to finish that up.  So much to do....so much to do.....