Quilt, Read, Eat, Sleep.... What Else Is There? discussion

Can you believe it's August already? Three years ago I would have been getting excited about school starting in a few weeks. Since retirement, I'm just excited that it's August! I think fall is my favorite season. I love the cooler temps and the slant of the light.

The good news around our house is the basement is finished - finally! All the repairs have been made and Glenn's computer/exercise room is finished. I cannot believe how much brighter my sewing studio is. I knew the yellowing of the paint and cabinets was taking place, but I didn't realize how dark all of that had made the space. But everything is back to normal, now, and that's a good thing!

Kris has now moved upstairs. Today he totally gutted the hall bathroom. Tomorrow the plumber comes and they'll install the shower "stuff". I picked up all the pieces for it this morning and there were about 10 boxes. The biggest part is the shower unit that has the body sprays on it. It has to have an access panel. Kris thinks that access panel can be put in the closet. I'm thinking ,now, that we can't put the same system into mine because there's nowhere for the access panel. It will all work out, but I really wanted that remote-controlled shower! Kris will know more tomorrow.

Tomorrow my interior designer and I are going to Rapid City, SD, to select and order the bedroom furniture. This should be the last of the ordering. We're also going to meet Jaci for lunch which will be fun because I have a box of quilting things she may or may not want. If she doesn't want them, as I said before, she can give them away or have her cousin's wife sell them on ebay or throw them away.

I finished the blocks for the quilt I started at camp. I really like the looks of it so far. We'll see if I still like it when I sew the blocks together. It's been fun to be sewing again. Now I'm excited about some quilts I've been thinking about!

Judy, what fun to have things come together. Also fun to pickout new furniture. That shower sounds delightful.

Juliann, Uganda! What an adventure. Tell us more!

Ditto what Kathryn said, Juliann!

Have a safe trip, Juliann!

I've been busy today photgraphing all my quilts. I had to buy a new digital camera this weekend and it came with a free book from Shutterfly. Has anyone ever designed one of these books before? www.shutterfly.com

While I've heard of Shutterfly, Sheila, I've never used it. Let us know how easy it is. :-)

I'm having a lot of fun designing my book. Here is a picture of my cover design



Front reads 25 Years of Quilted Memories by Sheila A. Jackson and has a picture of some of my quilts stacked up.

Back reads My puppy Kassan -- Always a generous contributor of white fur batting!

That is so totally cool, Sheila! You have a great sense of layout!

Thanks Judy, the site has all kinds of template pages to pick from and you just fill in the blanks with your own text and pictures. One very cool thing is you can actually use a very faded picture of whatever you choose as the background of a page. (They automatically fade the picture for you!) I have one page that has a faint quilt in the background and I think I am going to take a picture of my mat, ruler and cutter for another faded background page. Lots of fun.

In all my picture taking I am realizing that I have a couple of quilts that are MIA. I'll be leading a search party tomorrow and then have hubby take "staged' pictures of me in the different stages of making a quilt. Probably 1 in my stash picking fabric, 1 cutting my fabric, sewing with my machine and hand quilting. He will love doing that - NOT!

Ninety three degrees here at 5 PM. We'll still eat dinner outside. I went to lunch with a friend today and we visited a quilt store I get to occassionally. One hundred bucks spent in a blink of an eye. Wasn't looking for anything in specific and found all the makings for a couple of projects that I've been thinking about. One is from the book Sew One And You're Done: Making a Quilt from a Single Block. I'm making the quilt on page 18, Best Friends. It will be a quilt for the kitty to sit on while sitting on the leather ottoman. The focus fabric is called My Sunshine by Kathy Doggendorfer for In the Beginning fabrics. Sunflowers, reds, blues, yellows, so summery.

It's all fun, isn't it?

I am in San Diego visiting my mother-in-law and her new hubby. I visited one quilt shop yesterday and hope to hit another one or two today. We went to Sea World where my daughter swam with the dolphins and we got to go behind the scenes. We will be here a few more days and plan on sitting at the beach down at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club!

Sheila, what a great idea. Would you take a picture of one of your quilts with a book on it and some sort of food - fruit, chocolate, whatever and we can use it as our title page picture. That would be so fun! I think what you are doing is wonderful and I hope you find your MIA quilts!

Absolutely Kathryn. I can take that picture, but I'll be forced to eat the Hershey bar!

Here you go Kathryn

I hope this is what you are looking for if not too late, the Snickers is history!

Love it! The banana was the perfect touch!

Check out our home page - very snazzy!

The banana went back to the kitchen, the Snickers went to me!

That's a great picture, Sheila!

Tanya, have a great time in San Diego! I lived there 247 years ago and love that place!

Tanya wrote: "I am in San Diego visiting my mother-in-law and her new hubby. I visited one quilt shop yesterday and hope to hit another one or two today. We went to Sea World where my daughter swam with the do..."

Enjoy our perfect weather in San Diego. What quilt stores did you visit and what did you think? I was amazed at the number of stores in San Diego when I moved back a year ago but I still miss my local store in Annapolis, MD. What do you look for in a quilt store?

My two favorite places to go are book stores and quilt stores. There is a great book store on the Outer Banks in NC that is small, packed tight, but keeps you wandering through looking for treasures. I haven't found one of those in San Diego.

Another very windy day here, but the temperatures are to rise to the 90+ today. So, after breakfast my husband and I headed outside to get the weeding and dead heading of the flowers done. I cut three bouquets of flowers. The bees were not happy with me that I cut 3, just 3, of their sunflowers.

I packed up a bunch of fabric, rulers, and other goodies. I'll be at a Debbie Caffrey workshop tomorrow and Friday. :)

Have fun and give us a report of what you learned when it's over! I envy you! LOL!

Love our new logo. Its perfect. :D :D

I went to The Country Loft in La Mesa which is my favorite, but found very little--just a couple of patterns. I went to the one that moved from Santee to El Cajon recently (I can't remember the name), but did not buy anything there and the same for Cozy Quilts in Rancho San Diego. I bought some small pieces of fabric and a pattern at Rosie's, but I really did not find what I was after...Guess I'll have to shop on line and at my new local quilt shop. I have some baby quilts to make!

As for a small book store in San Diego, I don't think they exist anymore.

Judy wrote: "Have fun and give us a report of what you learned when it's over! I envy you! LOL!"

Debbie Caffrey's workshop was great! She is such a down-to-earth person who is very approachable. This is the 2nd workshop of hers that I have attended. She has only done 2 workshops in Canada, and both of them have been in Beaverlodge, Alberta - a little town about an hour's drive from my home and boasts a fabulous quilt shop.

Her classes are technique classes. You may sew a block or two to learn the technique and then you move on to the next thing. Last workshop, we did a lot on half square triangles. This workshop, it was all about designing your own project. We learned how to analyze elements of a quilt and how to adjust in size or placement, to make the quilt your own. You do not get a pattern and make a cloned quilt out of it. She cares less about a project, and prefers to give you all the tips and techniques she can. She says there is no point for her to watch us sew when we can do that at home. She gave us four blocks that could make 15 projects.

Debbie had a trunk show and lecture tonight that was amazing. I wore my name tag for 2 hours yesterday, took it off at lunch and then forgot to put it back on. When I said goodbye tonight and thanked her, she called me by name!

I'm tired and I'm not sure I'm even making sense. LOL!

You made perfectly good sense, Janice! I think I would like to take classes about techniques. I always think I can do whatever better that I am. You obviously had a great time!

Decided to totally clean my sewing room. It was a disaster. It has taken me 4 days to really go through it but threw out the fabric from 100 years ago that I will never use. Not even suitable for Wrap Them In Love.

Now to start a new project!!

Good for you, Elizabeth! I always work so much better when everything is cleaned out and organized. I'm just not one of those people who works better when everything is out and in sight!

I have been working on the quilt I started at camp. I about have the main part of the top sewn together. Tomorrow I should be able to get the borders on and ready for the quilter. It's too bad I don't know how to count, though; I needed 12 blocks and made 13. I counted those suckers 247 times and still had 1 too many! LOL!

Oh, Elizabeth, I've done the same a couple of times. It feels so freeing to get rid of that old old stuff. The colors and designs of fabrics that are old are so hard to find fabric to coordinate with even. Plus, the new fabric is so wonderful.

Judy, put the extra block on the back as a label. I also done that more times than I care to remember. BUT, one too many is so much better the not enough!

You're exactly right, Kathryn - 1 more is way better than 1 not enough! I've thought of putting on the backing, but that would mean I'd have to make the backing. I may still do that, but I'd rather just let the quilter take care of backing and batting. I guess I'm just basically lazy!

I meant to mention last night - one of the things I did with old fabric I didn't want want any more was give it to the high school FACS (home ec) department. I've also given it to the sr. center. Unless the fabric is rotted with holes, those places can always use fabric!

Okay is anyone getting tired of The Help movie trailer on the front page of goodreads? I'm just sayin' I'm ready for something else and don't let it be the movie trailer for One Day!

I must add my library book club is going to see The Help and I promise to let you know what I think. Has anyone else seen it yet?

I've only heard good things about the movie from various friends. I thought the book was OK, but I wasn't that excited about it. Maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for it at the time.

I never go to the front page of GoodReads, so I haven't seen it.

Oh, I just saw the ad on the side of one of our discussions. Is this what you're talking about, Kathryn? I'll bet the movie company has paid quite a bit to have that ad show up here and there on this site.

I went back to work yesterday and now I am a little bummed! Instead of quilting and reading, I will be tied up with testing, organizing my classrooms, and training our new teacher...Back to school!

Have a great school year, Tanya! While I loved teaching, I can say, without a qualm, that I don't miss it at all!

My mom always told me that the older you get, the faster time goes by. I thought she was nuts at the time, but now I'm a true believer! We are almost at the end of another month! Dang!

In this part of the world, summer must have decided that showing up whenever was better than not showing up at all. We have had temps in the high 90s since last weekend. It's crazy! The week before, or maybe it was the week before that, I had the a/c off and the doors open. Temps were lucky to make it into the mid-70s.

I'm almost finished by the quilt top I started at camp in June. It's quite apparent that I'm not a quilt-every-day kind of quilter. I only have 2 more borders to add, and then it will be ready for the quilter. I may even get it to the quilt shop today. That would be cool!

The remodeling is continuing. Kris is almost finished with Glenn's bathroom. He's waiting on the plumber and the grant right now. I can't remember if I told you that the piece was delivered last week but the kitchen and bath place had sent the wrong measurements; the granite people had to re-cut it. They said it would be in yesterday or today. Since I haven't heard from them, I guess I should call and see if they're coming today.

Other than that, I've just been reading and doing the odd chore here and there. All the teachers went back to work this week, so my DH has been going crazy with all their "whiney" (his words, not mine) complaints about their computers. The kids start back next week. I will think of all of them as I sit on the deck and read the paper and drink coffee in the morning - unless it snows! LOL!

It is 97 degrees outside - HOT!!!!! My sewing room really warms up with the iron plugged in. I made a batch of the no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies this morning, went to the eye doctor (found the cutest pair of new frams with rhinestones on the side) and filled up our Bookshelf with LOTS of book this afternoon.

Yesterday I saw The Help with my library book club. It was a fabulous movie. Whether you've read the book or not the movie is well worth seeing.

School starts here the 31st. My dogs have just gotten to used to no school bus in the morning and afternoons. Now that's about to change!!!

Judy I am glad to hear that your remodels are on the downhill side. I can not imagine dealing with remodeling as long as you have.

I know, Nancy, people keep telling me that most marriages barely survive one remodel let alone 4! Glenn gets a little testy at times, but they he calms down and everything is OK.

Today, Kris and I cleaned as much out of the garage as we could so there is more space because Glenn kept complaining about it. Kris made 2 runs to the dump with his pickup because the trailer they use was somewhere else. I took all the stuffed animals to the cleaners to be clean and put in acid-free boxes. We'll see how many they can actually clean.

Kris was having trouble with the shower in Glenn's bathroom. He called the Moen company today and they think some is wrong with the electronic valves, so they're sending a new control panel. It should be here on Wednesday. I think the granite will be here next Wednesday, or maybe Thursday, too, and I believe the shower doors will be right behind that. His bathroom should be finished soon. One can only hope!

Our first day of September is going to be a lot cooler than it has been lately. Today was in the high 80s; tomorrow the high is suppose to be 72. We haven't had a hot summer, but the past 2 weeks have been in the mid to high 90s. I'm ready for some fall weather as long as it doesn't snow. I'm not quite ready for that! LOL!

Judy our summer has been truly nasty. We had a month of 90s and 100s with no rain. I have almost forgotten what rain looks like. I am really ready for cooler temps and even some rain...although "arther" doesn't much like the rain. We didn't even get showers out of Irene.

You are going to love the jets in your shower. We put jets into the downstairs shower when we renovated a couple of years ago. They are great for sore achey muscles.