Hi Rosa, I don't have a problem with you starting the new threads. I'd been wondering when you were having your surgery, but I see it's next week. Sorry about that nasty sinus infection! I found a site I was going to post for you but I'm on my laptop and it's saved in the other computer. Guess you'll have to wait. @:) Did you enjoy sitting in your sewing room? lol Hang in there, you'll get back to it soon. We want you alllllll well.

SharonG/FL

Here ya go, Rosa! I thought of you and your embroidery machine when I saw these placemats. You've probably already started a list of things to do when you can get back to sewing. Hope your surgery goes well this week and someone lets us know how you're doing.

DGD started band camp at the high school today. She's so excited. What this means is that our school year duties have begun as we pick her up at 3pm. I think school starts in 2 weeks here...that'll keep DH running. @:) We laughingly say DD keeps him on retainer to take DGD around to her various activities and pick her up when DD can't get away from work.

I need to check my To Do List for today. I'm trying to do at least one housework thing a day (besides normal stuff). I'm thinking it's gonna be clean the fan blades today.....2 ceiling fans and one on a stand.

KOKO everyone and keep guzzling some kind of fluid.

SharonG/FL

Here is a link that might be useful: personalized placemats

Rosa, I hope you are feeling better. It is not good being sick in this dreadfully hot weather.

Sharon, sometimes I miss those band days, then I go sit in the hot bleachers and the feeling goes away.

Can't wait for the retreat!

beverly

Hi everyone,
I thought when all my grands went home, life would slow down but not so, so far. I had unexpected company on Tue. It was very nice and actually I knew on Monday night she was coming. Very pleasant visit. My DH ask yesterday if we had anything on the weekend and I said no then remembered we are expected at a B/d party Fri. night. I do like to be busy but would not mind a few days of boredom. :)

I have been getting all caught up on all my B/d blocks and my BOM from my LQS. I haven't gotten to go for 3 months but sending my money by friends. It will cost me this year but not as much as I would have spent if I'd gone probably. It's one you pay to get in then if you go with your block made each month you get the next block free but of course, we all know we can't go near a quilt shop without spending something. It is a good advertising tool.

Rosa, if I understand correctly you should have had your surgery this week. Let us know how you are doing. Hope everything went fine!

Sharon, the site you posted had some really cute things. I have a DGD who loves bugs; maybe we can build her a bug bonnet not for keeping bugs out but for keeping them in. :)
I'd also like to try the little sissors case. Sewing the bias on the circle concerns me. Maybe I could make it with fleece and not have to have a binding. Then I could just add a ribbon tie.

I think we all have enough projects to keep us busy forever but like to find others.

I have been using my embroidery machine and putting things on dish towels. They make a quick little gift. I recently bought some of the white sack cotten pieces I found in the towel area. After using one I found it was really large so I cut the others in half and hemmed up the side. I decided to put embroidery on some of them. They worked out nicely. Rosa, I learned a couple of new things on my embroidery machine this week (that mostly says I haven't used it much). I learned I have a feature for mirror image so I used it on the towels. I also learned how to go back to the beginning of a color. Both super simple but I just had not used it enough.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

KOKO
Sally

Thanks everyone for thinking about me, I can still manage to lurk and drool!! My hand should heal fast I have been soaking it a lot.
We had record breaking temps lately, hottest day yesterday since 1954. I told my fam to remember we did not have AC then either!!
Beverly the retreat sounds wonderful I know ya'll will have a great time.
Sharon I love the placemats I do need to make some for myself for the holidays. I had decided if I spent 1 hour a day cleaning SOMETHING it would not seem as much of a chore. That didn't last long!!!!!
It has been way too hot to play in the dirt and we have someone to mow the grass. He had a young man fresh out of the military with him, very, very polite.
But he weed eated my spider plants to the ground and left the weeds that had flowered!! LOL
They will grow back, we have one area by the house that is mostly clay and I was just trying to get something to grow. And that weed that has flowered due to the humidity and rainy afternoons looks really pretty!!
Sally I have found embroidery to be trial and error. The problems I have had with thread breaking and other ugly things has been from the stablizers I was using and not hooping 'tight as a drum'.
I wrapped pieces of batting around my hoop, hoops tighter all around, and now my projects do not shift at all.
I love embroidered towels and they wash very well. I use tear away on the back and tulle on the front. Both tear away easily and the tulle keeps the embroidery from sinking into the towels.
My niece just asked me to make 12 more burb cloths for her angel. The first 3 I made for her I used fleece, this time she bought a dozen cloth diapers.
My fam is all into the 'dawgs' so 4 of them are for Georgia fans.
Tees have been the hardest (for me), these canvas bags I found on sale at KMart embroidery well too.
KOKO Rosa

Good morning everyone. Just a quick note as have a busy Sunday ahead of us. We are driving an hour to see Chicago in concert at an outdoor arena. Before that we have tomatoes to can and a walk to get in. Have been doing really good with our walks and next Saturday I am walking a 5K for our local festival. Need to get a birthday block done really soon but just am not touching the machine lately. You all sound so busy and summer just seems to be that way. Heading out camping for a couple days this next week so I won't be reading or posting for a while.

KOKO Deanna

Where have I been???? I noticed dripping in the doorway between my bedroom and living room, so DH went up on the roof between storms and has finally gotten it taken care of. By the time we knew it was leaking, the living room wall and ceiling was stained. How it could leak and not come through, I don't know, but it did. I sprayed/soaked bleach cleaner on the plaster wall and was able to get the mold off around the floor but it sure gave me fits breathing for a few days....better now. The ceiling will need to be redone and that won't happen til after the retreat when it's cooler. I had to move a lot of my sewing things so that area, and my bedroom is messier than usual! Life.

Beverly, I was active in band boosters when DD was in band in MI and still had a shirt and jacket with Bearcat Band Booster on them. DGD's middle school was the Bearcat's here in FL so I gave her the shirt and I wore the jacket to their games. People asked her where she got the shirt! DH did all the art work on them for printing. He comes in useful. (grin)

Sally, What colors are your quilt from the LQS? I've never done anything like that and probably never will. I don't have any local buddies to pal around with and not sure I could keep up if I did. For the circle needle case, you wouldn't have to have a binding if you didn't want to. Just put your fabric right sides together with your batting and sew around the circle leaving a small area open to turn right side out. Then, sew 1/4" in from the edges. I've thought-up and have learned to do what I call a cheater binding on my tablerunners because I like to 'turn' them, but still like them to look like they have a binding to give that 'finished' look.

Rosa!!! Good to see ya, girlfriend!! Hope you're healing up fast! That embroidery machine is calling your name!!! An hour a day cleaning??? LOLOLOL My SIL sent me a link to joesgoals.com. She thought it would help her and me, too! Don't think so. Sorry about your spider-plants. My DH considers Queen-Anne's Lace a weed, but I like it. I sent you an email the other day, did you get it?

Ok girls.....I gotta get off'n here and get something constructive done today....like, finish that carrot tablerunner I'm working on. (grin)

SharonG/FL

The minor surgery went well. My thumb is sore in the joint but the doc told me I can start doing thumb exercises tomorrow.
I didn't know they used staples now!!!
Next week I can start sewing again. I actually can sew now, I just can't cut with scissors or the rotary.
Still can't embroidery, it is way too much pressure on my hands to hoop the project.
It has cooled off here about 15 degrees and I sat outside at my Mother's for a couple of hours drinking iced tea. Southern sweet of course!!!
Deanna for some weird reason I enjoy canning tomatoes. I either make a salsa we use in chili or sauces. But it is messy.
Sally my machine came with tons of white bobbin thread and
I JUST found out that you us a different weight for the bobbin than the top!!!!
Wow Sharon, my daughter had a slow leak in a closet that they did not find until it started to creep into the hall carpet. It was so bad the wall had to be completely replaced and the living room carpet had mold under it.
At least the humidity is starting to drop some.
At least you have a good attitude about it!!!!!
Have a great week everyone,
Gained 4 pounds Rosa!!!!!!!!!

Rosa, It's too hot and humid to get out and be active and with your recent surgery, you need to concentrate on getting your hand healthy so you can stretch that fabric on the emb hoop!

Sooo, I didn't complete the carrot runner, but it's ready for the stem part. I'm working on a block that depicts Florida for the retreat. I couldn't find one so made a sort of landscape one....with a dolphin in the background upright in the water like they do at Seaworld. I hope it'll work out ok with the others. I need to take my machine in for a cleaning....just hate to give it up but it's been over a year. I have some applique I can work on, and could also do some housework....yuck.

SharonG/FL

Hi all,
As you said Sharon, yuck who wants to do housework. I try to stay clean enough to be healthy but that is about it. :)

Sharon, the fabric for our blocks from the LQS have the same background fabric but several colors. My blocks are from the Thimbleberries collection. At first I didn't like my background but I guess it is growing on me. Actually, she has several different fabrics but we just got what we got by the luck of the draw and not by choice. One group has batiks and there are several others.

When I met the group that goes together last week I told them I wasn't thinking I'd do this next year only to find out they had also decided the same thing. They want to do their own thing. We will still go to the LQS on that Sat. sometimes because that is when fat quarters are on sale but we won't be obligated to go every month. I had missed the last 3 in a row. We have also decided we may make a trip occasionally to another quilt shop-there are 2 others not much further away but in other directions.

Thanks for the tip on how to make the scissor holder, Sharon. And speaking of scissors__ yesterday I had to take our lawnmower to the shop in the next town so I decided to shop while I was there. I went to several places I don't usually drag DH into and shopped all day! I found a pair of Fons and Porter fabric scissors at Tuesday Morning. I have been wanting a new pair of scissors but just haven't made up my mind. This was a 4" thread cutting scissor and an 8 1/2" fabric scissor for under the price of the 4" scissor. I looked them up after I got home just to see (sometime discount prices aren't so good) and I am very happy with my purchase.

I have now walked 2 days in a row!! I still dread weighing tomorrow but I may as well bite the bullet. I can at least remind myself of all that summer fun. Ha! I am not disparing but I do hope to get serious again and I think I said that my goal is now to get to my driver's license weight!! :) May take me a while but that is my goal.

Rosa, so sorry about your spider lilies but as you said they will come back. I have had that happen a few times. Once just after we got married my DH mowed down a small rose bush(I think he was mowing as it was getting dark). Anyway when it came back it was much nicer than it had been orginally. Also, as Sharon said it is in the eye of the beholder. Some "weeds" are very pretty.

I looked up joesgoals.com. I have a little notebook I keep my weight in and also write sometimes. I started by writing about what I was eating and when I walked back in Jan. Needless to say it hasn't gotten a lot of attention this summer but I will go back to it now that I'm serious about walking again. In the beginning it helped me because I was going to record it.

Rosa, I can see how canning tomatoes would give you a sense of accomplishment. However, my mom canned a lot and of course we helped and there was no AC in those days-not for us anyway. When I think of canning I think of the hottest job ever. Boy was I glad when Mom got a freezer and started freezing instead. Of course she still blanched most everything which I hear isn't necessary now.
There is a certain satisfaction seeing that row of jars filled with the "fruit of your labor". You will also enjoy it later!

Have a great week!!
Sally

Just a note to check in and say I'm walking.
I did weigh in on Wed. and even though I know it was more, I am 3 1/4 lbs over what I was when we began our summer with the grands. I am relieved. I had gone to the Dr. 2 1/2 weeks ago and her scales had me up 10 lbs. I guess getting back on my routine has helped get some of it off as quickly as I had gained it. I will KOKO!

We have had much rain here the last few days and it is a little cooler than it was.

Have a great day!
Sally