We Interrupt Monica's Vacation with a Little Sewing!

 

Monica's oldest son is getting married in May so Monica helped me pick out which quilt Cory and Amber would like for their wedding.  Twist of Fate was the winner!  So tonight while she was packing up I made and attached the binding and label and it is now in her suitcase for the trip back to Wisconsin!

I also finally had a chance to hand sew up the last hexie flower so when Monica turned in for the night (she leaves tomorrow already!) I quickly sewed the rows together for Ring Around the Hexies.  I love this little quilt top!

My Best Friend is in Town! (Nothing Quilty!)

 Monica is here for her second annual trip to Arizona!  She is only here a few days during her spring break, but we make the most of it!  Yesterday we went to the Queen Creek Olive Mill for lunch to check it out.  It was a great place and we will be going back.  I didn't know they had tours and all that or we might have planned more time there!

 Next we went to Rawhide.  I have been there many times as a kid and even with my own kids, but only to the old one...this one was rebuilt really close to our home and I have always wanted to go.  I really recommend it if you like silly pictures or have kids that want to do all the fun kids stuff (panning for gold, petting zoo, carriage ride, etc.).

 We could not resist the urge to dress up and get our picture taken.  I hope to do it again in a year much healthier!  I am getting in plenty of walking and am up to 13 minutes on the elliptical along with 20 on the bike.  Whoot, whoot.  Have not exactly been following my food plan, but have not gone completely off the rails either!

 Could not resist posing with this metal day of the dead gal at Rawhide.  We then talked Coleman into joining us for a beer tasting at the SanTan brewery.  We had also never been there even though it is a few minutes from our house.

 Kathy and I did not do the beer tasting, but I did sip some of most of them (I am not a huge beer fan unless you count Leienenkugal's Honeyveiss as a beer chaser!) but I did really like one--the lightest colored one they had.  That was Monica's favorite too.

Today we went to see the Brewers (get beat by the White Sox) and it was tons of fun.  The weather was perfect--82 degrees (and apparently 28 degrees in Milwaukee!) and the crowd was mostly from or had ties to Wisconsin.  Most folks were in some sort of Wisconsin wear!  Of course we saw lots of Brewers clothing--even in green for St. Paddy's Day--but also so lots of Green Bay Packer shirts and even Badgers garb!  The funniest thing was when they announced some winner from "cheeh-tick"  which was understood by us to mean Chetek.  What a riot!
Nothing quilty is happening at the moment, but I cannot wait to get back to it!

GO PACK and Polar Bear Paw Block!

Monica is flying her way here from Wisconsin as I type!  We are so excited for her second annual visit!  I cannot believe it has been a year since she was here (and I saw her in June when I was there too) but I know she is happy to get out of the cold and snow and come have a few days with us!  We ordered a small fold up bed for our Packer room and made up the bed with green sheets and the Packer Solstice quilt!  Today I whipped up a Packers pillowcase for the other pillow too.  Now she will be all set!  We have spent most of the weekend spring cleaning...works out well to do all that before we have company.  So the house is looking good, I have still been doing the elliptical (up to 13 minutes total now--in two or three shorter workouts) and am doing my bike.  Feels like I have a gym in my house!  Lost 2.6 pounds this week (total is 12.2 I think) so still going strong.

I also finally got back to the Wild and Goosey blocks and made one today.  Still love these blocks, gotta try to do one every weekend so I eventually have enough for a quilt!

You may have noticed I added a new picture to my sidebar several months ago for the Classic Meets Modern QAL that I have been wanting to make time for...I finally just decided to get going on it and hopefully will be caught up before the April block is announced.  I have the Vintage Quilt Revival book by Katie Clark Blakesley, Lee Heinrich and Faith Jones--if you like modern or vintage you will drool as I do over these blocks and quilts.  I have marked off several I would like to make!  So here is the January block "Polar Bear Paw Block" and I am pretty happy with it!  I wanted one paw to stand out so it got the orange, and I was thrilled to FINALLY use up some of the hst's left over from making Picnic!  With any luck I will be on to February's block soon!

A Spool, Some Butterflies and Searching...(and an Anvil)

 This block was fast!  It is called the Large Spool block.  So much fun to play in my aqua/teal scraps even though I really don't have tons of them!

 Small Butterflies went together pretty easily...if I don't mention that I sewed extra triangles onto the body parts too and had to recut my centers.  I really do need to read the directions instead of just going gangbusters on things!

 This block is called Searching and was quick and easy to sew up!

Here are all the Rainbow Scrap Sampler blocks I have done so far!  I believe this is all of them that have been put out so far.  I really like that the scale of some of them is large and in others small and in a few teeny, tiny!  Also love the one wonky block so far, really will make this visually interesting when it is all together.
I will be linking up to the next linky on Saturday too!
PS Finished up another block!  This is the anvil.

Mickey Mouse for Aunt Nancy!

 This past weekend I finally finished the binding on my Aunt Nancy's Mickey Mouse Quilt.  I know she will love it and Monica plans to squish it in her suitcase and deliver it when she gets back to Wisconsin.  Nancy has always been a cherished aunt who spent loads of time with me before her own children were born (first one when I was ten).

 She is a huge Mickey fan and has been long deserving of a quilt from me.  I hope she loves it!

This was the NYE Mystery for this past year too!

Quelf and QOV Blocks!

 My cousin Tricia is in town and though she is from my Dad's side of the family, she discovered she has tons in common with my half brother and has become friends with him.  My mom is also her God-Mom though there were many years they didn't see each other, now they do!  So my Neff cousin hangs with my Hirn family (and me and my sister).  You may recall me telling you about my Uncle Jim who passed away this past year, this is his middle child.  So many good memories of growing up camping and such with them!  Anyways, Tricia came with her daughter Bella (who is almost four) and last night we all played a few games of Quelf.  It was great fun and I will never forget my brother saying Peek-a-boo every time he talked for an hour!  Talk about an inside joke game...it is a loud obnoxious game, but we had a blast!

 Today I got some cleaning and organizing done since Monica will be here next Saturday (has it been a year already?) but also got in some sewing.  I did Kevin the Quilter's QOV Block drive and got it all ready to send out.  Five blocks took me less than an hour!  Click on over if you want to help out.  Sometimes it is hard to do an entire quilt, but a few simple blocks from lots of folks will turn into lots of quilts!

 I also went ahead and cut and sewed my 35th Ave. BOM--Traditions.  Nice easy block and here are the three I have so far.  Kathy is doing hers too, and we plan to gift them to my Grandma Char's sisters when they are done.

I also found out my cousin Brian (Tricia's baby brother) and his wife are expecting another baby girl!  They are due soon and I am behind on the news.  So I packed up my Dimestore Schnibbles quilt for her.

Rainbow BOM--A Finish and Aqua Progress!

 Ros quilted up Jack in the Box (Pattern in Quiltmaker Jan/Feb. 2011) and today I got it bound and labeled for my nephew Colton who will soon be one year old!  This block was my Rainbow BOM for two years and is the perfect size for Colton at his Nini's house where he is has a little bed.  I hope he likes it!

 The other night I managed to make another Trash to Treasure block in aqua.  This is not the easiest block for me to go a month in between making.  After the first month, I wrote notes to remind me how to do it and still this month things didn't quite come out.  They are going to work for what they are, but grrr!

 Here are the first three blocks.

Linking up with the Rainbow BOM!