Happy 2016...finally!!

Happy 2016!!  Yes, it is a belated greeting, but it is heart felt!  I am so thankful to have survived 2015, but so glad to see it GO!  I got to a point of being ready ENOUGH for all the family at Christmas, but not until 3 minutes before the first of them arrived on Monday night, December 21!  Have you ever experienced that kind of entertaining panic?  

(Steve and I were shoving the extensions into 2 huge dining tables, right before the first car rolled up!)

I wanted so badly to get pictures of my efforts in the house before they all came, because I KNEW with 3 kids under 6 yrs old, the house would be SHREDDED quickly!  But no pictures were taken and now I am trying to put things back together again!  The main floor is just about there...

I have not taken down any of the three Christmas trees yet, so I know what that means...WITCHES!  But I say, bring 'em on!  I decided I wasn't taking them down until I had a chance to sit and enjoy the decorations FIRST!  Dec. 21 - Jan. 9 is kind of a blur...there was some kind of family here for that whole period of time (plus we were in Philadelphia for 5 of those days, Christmas-ing with Steve's family).  But now it is just me and Steve, as daughter Riley returned to the University of Alabama for the new semester last weekend.

Ahhhh...

We are almost moved into this beautiful family home that my parents built, called "Yeldell," in rural northwest Alabama.  These pictures feature half of the 'great room' that makes up the center of the house (my back is to the kitchen and dining room...).  The ceiling is 27 feet tall, which is hard to capture in pictures.  It is a log home, so what you are seeing is the interior of the logs which have been stained and varnished, or log panels where opposing wings of this floor branch off.

There are clear story windows up high, so it is very hard to photograph on sunny days, hence the weird patches of sunlight in some of the shots.

The music tree, which features instruments and all things musical...

And a few old instruments underneath...

A nativity scene at the end of the piano...

A snowman scene on top of the piano (standing snowman by Mary Jones)...

And my favorite, my main tree which holds so many years of homemade ornaments, made by dear friends, my daughter as she was growing up, co-workers, and me.  

The look on my daughter's face when she found a car key in the toe of her stocking on Christmas morning...

And when she found the car in the garage...

And checking under the hood with her Dad after Christmas...

Surprising her on Christmas morning was FUN!

Now that the dust is settling, I have started to sort out some fabric and quilt books.  I am still trying to determine where everything will go. There is no single space large enough to house the quilt cave, which comprised most of our large basement in our Michigan house.  There will have to be things stuffed, staged and stashed in a couple of areas of the house.

I moved a lot of the fabrics, books and supplies from the outside storage building to the walk-out downstairs family room before Christmas.  But then I had to cram all the boxes and bins under the ping-pong and pool tables and in a large "mountain" against the back wall of the inside of the house until family left.

I need to drag it all out again now that I have some time to figure things out...I can't find ANYTHING right now!

I will have a small sewing area in our large bedroom equipped with my featherweight and my main studio downstairs with my primary machine. 

Splitting up the tools will be tricky.  Quilt books will be upstairs, but all patterns and files downstairs...trickier still...

All fabric, batting, tools, project boxes and cutting area will be downstairs, except for what I am immediately piecing on with the featherweight and my little containers of applique fabric pieces for applique block prepping.

Getting things in the right area so that I can have ready access will be a complex problem to solve.

I have managed to do some designing of six inch applique blocks and have a few prepped and ready to stitch.  I will share those next time.  Maybe by then I will have a few applique stitches placed! I could be doing some chain stitching on previously cut-out piecing projects if I could just find the bobbins that fit my featherweight machine, LOL.  Oh, and thread.  See my problem??

Thank you for the emails of concern about my absence from blogland.  It has been harder to settle in than I anticipated.  The house in Michigan has sold and trying to blend our furniture and belongings with my parents' stuff has been tricky and emotionally difficult.  I have had to sort through a lot of items.  There is still lots of stuff left to do, but with Christmas out of the way things can wait until I get my sewing areas set up!!

Any news of quilt shops or quilty events in NW Alabama or the surrounding area would be appreciated.  Not that I need to buy anything, but I definitely need to meet some quilters!!  At some point, I will probably join the Huntsville, Alabama guild.  They have monthly meetings and a show every other year.

Looking forward to sewing and creating again!

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

Two more Repro Madness blocks...multiplied by three...

More blocks are finished!  These were prepped for hand applique before the move so I would have a little something to do until the quilt cave emerged from the boxes. 

"Repro Madness" is a little project I am doing with two friends where we swap blocks, so I make three of everything.  All blocks will finish 6 inches square.

These are the first thing I have really appliqued since the finger surgery, other than trying to sew quilt labels and sleeves on quilts being sent out to shows.  Let me tell you, things feel awkward and a little clumsy!

How about them apples!  I drew this block last spring, dreaming about fall and Michigan apples growing fat and heavy.  I packed a lot of pieces into this 6-inch block.

And I HAD to do a sewing machine!  I actually finished these three blocks a month ago, but only found the box with the embroidery floss last weekend...maddening!

That is it for blocks prepped before the move...time to prep some more, as soon as I unpack the right boxes!  I have a few more drawn that I am excited to pick out fabrics for...I am really trying to stick to reproduction fabrics for this ever-expanding project.

Baby steps...

In stitches (again!),
Teresa  :o)

Airing out the stash...

This week I finally moved some of the boxes containing "the quilt cave" from the RV garage to the house, YIPPEE!  They sat down in the walk-out basement all week until I could get to them tonight. Two of my sisters came for the weekend to help me with some of Dad and Mom's stuff, so I spent the rest of last week getting a couple of bedrooms ready for them.

The stained glass shop is not ready to move into yet, but I thought if I set up my folding tables I could unpack the boxes and let the contents "breathe."  (and make sure no scorpions wiggled their way into the boxes while temporarily stored in the RV garage...*yuck*). I am embarrassed at how good it felt just to handle and touch part of my stash again...can you get arrested for that?!?

I had six more of my "Repro Madness" 6-inch applique squares prepped for hand stitching when I moved, which I have stitched up, so now I need to locate something else to work on until I am moved into the new space.  I located some DMC floss I needed to finish three of them, and as soon as I find a ruler to square them up, I will post them.  I have actually done some stitching!!

I still have not located the proper power cord for my light box...when I completed the finishing pattern for the "Baltimore Rhapsody - Symphony," I was using a similar cord Steve found, but it would not fully illuminate the unit without its proper cord.  I guess I need to stop actively looking for it...then it will just appear!

Quilt batts made great padding and kept me from making some boxes too heavy, LOL!  I found about half of my project and scrap boxes.  I just love these art bins from Joann's that I slowly acquired on the cheap with my coupons (and there is a Joann's down here "in the sticks" and I have already started receiving coupons at the new address...how did they know I had moved?!?).

Of course, the project box I WANTED to bring upstairs to work out of while watching TV in the evening was not in THIS pile...sigh.

To maximize time spent unpacking, I have been preparing food with lots of leftovers so that I don't have to cook every day.  Since there are just two of us and I love salads, I have started preparing a bunch of little salads at one time.  We just each grab a container, dump it in a bowl, dress it, and eat it!!  These plastic Ball freezer containers are OK, but when I find my wide mouth Mason jars with one-piece lids I will use those.  They are more dishwasher friendly.

For this batch, I put the lettuces and greens on the bottom, followed by some purple or green onions, tomato, cucumber, broccoli slaw, and some cheese on top (we were out of crumbled cheese so I cut up Mozzarella cheese sticks...ha ha ha...).  Sometimes I add avocado or nuts at the last minute...YUM!

Today I am off to meet my daughter in Tuscaloosa for lunch after her morning classes and I will facilitate her getting an Alabama drivers license and voter registration.  I have an audio book in my bag (and there's a quilt shop in town!).  It will be nice to see her for a few hours.  I really miss that little squirt...

Almost in stitches (again),
Teresa  :o)

Promise fulfilled...

FINALLY after way too many delays, I will be sending out the free setting/finishing pattern to everyone that ordered 16 or more of my "Baltimore Rhapsody" Applique patterns.  All I have to do is copy some over-sized sheets tomorrow, fold and stuff them in the already folded and collated directions.  Out they will fly no later than Saturday morning.

Thank you so much for your patience and understanding!  The last 18 months of my life have been very difficult, but there may be light at the end of the tunnel (I hope it is not a train).

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

Blue Skies and Quilty Stuff...

There is some progress!  For everyone who bought 16 or more of my Baltimore Rhapsody patterns and are awaiting their free finishing pattern, I am SO CLOSE!  It's all done but some pattern tracing!

The good news?  Today I found the moving box containing my light box!!!!  (lots of cheering...)  The bad news?  The electrical power cord was not in the same box!!  (much hair pulling and profanity...)

I'm sure I will find the right box tomorrow...

After I have fulfilled my promise and sent out the freebies, I will have them for sale on my store site in case you want to use the elements to design a border for a quilt incorporating less than 16 of my blocks.  

There are at least 2 people that have already appliqued all 16 of their music blocks, and they are chomping at the bit for me to finish!  Drawing is a little slow with my still-gimpy finger, but I guess that situation is progressing as well, although slower than I would have hoped.

My policy of getting the house mostly moved into before the quilty stuff was touched ended today.

I started moving fabric and quilty stuff this afternoon.

I need my quilty stuff...

This summer, we unloaded two huge moving PODS about 150 feet from the house in a fairly tight RV garage.  A few days ago, I realized that the RV garage is not as "tight" as I had hoped.  There are little scorpions in there!  Son of a BITCH!

I turn over and scrutinize EVERY box and container as I pick it up!  I have killed 6 of them, IMMEDIATELY UPON SPOTTING THEM!!!  Then I thought, "oh...I should post about them...and I will once I am comfortable enough to snap a picture before doing the "Mexican Hat Dance" on their ass!  They aren't very photogenic squished into the sole of my sneaker...

Anyway, I take boxes to the house in this little Kuboto truck, which I finally cleaned out (full of leaves, tools, and going-to-the-woods-to-cut-firewood crap).  My Dad made the little red, wooden wagon back extension, so I can load quite a few boxes and containers each trip.  Then I pull around to the back of the house where there is a door into the walk-out basement.  There is just enough space to get the little truck between the pool and the back patio.

The weather is totally cooperating...dry and blue skies...too dry, really...there is a little mini drought going on in west Alabama, so the leaves aren't very colorful this year.

I went into my Mom's glass workshop today for the first time in months to figure out how to make it into a "quilt cave" in addition to keeping part of it a "shard shop."  It was hard to go in, as everything is as it was at the time of the accident...water bottle and pack of gum included.  

I keep thinking this "moving-into-their-house" thing will get easier, but it doesn't.  I did get through Dad's clothes last weekend...

There is a glass work-in-progress on her glass layout table...the over-the-door-transom for the main entrance.  I intend to learn how to do this at some point and finish this piece, and a few others for the house that she had already designed.

I will need to clean deeply, as it was a "shop" where glass and some wood was cut.  I will put some carpet down in part of it and try and consolidate the glass on one end of the room.

There is a door to the outside, which will help get some of these fixtures out and quilt book shelves, etc. in when I have it cleaned up and ready to receive stuff.  This door has no knob on the outside, so it is a secure door.

My dad put nice plywood on the walls and stained/varnished it lightly.  I think I can clean and use the huge light table Dad built (it is, I think, 48 inches square!

I will take the glass samples off the wall and store them in containers.

The room is well lit with multiple fluorescent lights, and Dad put plugs EVERYWHERE!

Dad built the large plywood storage containers with wheels for the larger pieces of glass and they will fit under the big layout table, when I figure out where to put that.

There is a sink and some cabinets on the outer wall...

There is a raised edge around the layout table dad built, so I may just cover the top of the table with heavy plywood and store the work-in-progress inside until I can cope with trying to learn how to finish it.  I can use my rotary mat on it or something.

There is a large outdoor window...

Here are 3 of her finished windows from other parts of the house...

The huge family room is just through the door and Dad's wood-working shop is on the other end of the house, along with a bar, TV area, pool table, ping pong table, wood burning stove, and two more bedrooms.  These boxes are just dent in the RV shed...SO many more to move...

I feel bad dismantling, or at least moving in with, the glass.  I know it is what she would have wanted, but still.  If their spirits are here part of the time, I am sure they are spending time in their shops...the security motion sensor in Dad's shop keep disabling the security system, so I am sure he is rooting around in there a bit...

If you are going to Houston, remember to look for my "Baltimore Rhapsody - Symphony" quilt.  It will be hanging in the "Quilts in the American Tradition" Exhibit."

I'm considering a road trip to see it...it's certainly no farther than Michigan is from here...

I have not been to the International Quilt Show in Houston since 1995...

Almost...In...Stitches...Again,
Teresa   :o)