Shirley Anne’s Heart

Posted By drsao on June 5, 2008

At Leanna’s middle school today is DRESS FOR SUCCESS DAY!  The 6th graders were promised EXTRA CREDIT if they wore a tie.  

Leanna’s Poppa  does not wear ties (at least not one that Leanna wanted to wear)…..what to do – what to do.   My THRIFTY DAUGHTER didn’t want to spend money to buy a tie for a ONE TIME USE!

So ….. Leanna’s Great Grandparents in Kansas City, Missouri came to the rescue…..they sent Leanna one of my daddy’s ties.  (He must have attracted a lot of LOOKS when he wore this tie!)

Last night Leanna rehearsed…….(Poppa pre-tied the tie!)  It is a beautiful – and bright – pretty pink tie……yes, she looks dressed for success, but we will have to lose the pjs!

AND….ta da….here she is this morning – ready for school.  I am sure she will be successful with her Vera Bradley bag and the fancy ITALIAN tie!  HM….maybe she should lose the shorts and sweatshirt!  (She had to dress out for PE!)

I know the tie will bring her good fortune – today is Social Studies SOL testing.  Don’t all successful young women carry cats when they wear pink ties?

Oh well, just for luck, let’s kiss the cat! (If you heard a THUD, it was my daddy falling over and fainting in Kansas City!  Germs – what germs?  Surely a sweet little kitty would not have germs!)

 

Thanks GG and Pop JB for sending the tie all the way from Kansas City, MO to be worn on DRESS FOR SUCCESS DAY in Midlothian, VA!

   

The little “PRECIOUS MOMENTS DOLL” is baby Leanna in 1997 being held by Great Grandmother (GG) with cousin Harry on his 2nd birthday (HE IS NOW 13 YEARS OLD) being held by Great Grandfather (JBA) – the former owner of the beautiful PINK TIE!  (I just had to include this picture!

I hope it is a successful day for everyone…..remember to wear a smile with your tie….that will surely bring smiles in return – and that is what I call success!

Category: SAO's Family, SAO's Grandangels | 1 Comment »
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Posted By drsao on June 4, 2008

 

Sarah (8) was so excited when she saw me making YO YO flowers for my BIRTH OF A SAMPLE QUILT (pictured above)…….that she wanted to make one too…..and so she did (and she wore it in her hair to school today.)  I had a PINK CAT BUTTON that we pinned in the middle of the yo yo flower.  Sarah was so proud! 

I am so proud that I got my vines and leaves on my BIRTH OF A SAMPLER QUILT!

Leanna (12) made a two-story house out of an orange juice container tonight.  She and her friend (and sister too) came in to SHOP for fabric to put on the outside walls of their houses!  Where else does one go on a CRAFTY AFTERNOON to get supplies but to Grandma’s stash!

On the wall of Leanna’s ORANGE JUICE HOUSE is a JONAS BROTHER’S POSTER rendering!  Nanna also sewed a sofa (with a cover that can be changed) and a pillow….and she also sewed a tiny bed and pillow.  She does a great job with my BROTHER DUETTA!  Since I was gone for the dance TECH rehearsal tonight, Leanna’s dad was in charge of standing by in case Leanna sewed her finger to something!  🙂 This is a fabulous testimony of the FUN that one can have with an square inch of material….or a tiny strip of fabric (note the rugs on the floors of the house!)  The bed, pillows and sofa are STUFFED with bits of leftover quilt batting!

LILIES AND BIRDS

I had to take a picture of our first lily in bloom.  THIS IS AN AMAZING STORY.  A year ago (December) our house burned to the ground.  The house rubble and surrounding ground was BULLDOZED – – and a year later the yard was landscaped. 

These lilies SURVIVED (I bought them at QVC – Roberta’s Farms – and I would say that this is an AMAZING TESTIMONY of the hardiness of these lilies!)  Look at how TALL this one is!!!! (There are 12 more on the side of the yard that will bloom this summer!)

  

Have I mentioned that QVC is on my LIST OF FAVORITE THINGS!  I love everything that I have ordered from QVC!  What could be better – you can lie in bed and watch tv – shop – and the UPS GUY delivers presents to your door a few days later!!!!  :):)

BIRDS

Now you may be thinking “WHERE ARE THE BIRDS?”  And no wonder because all that is in view is the BIRD HOUSE – our hanging fern.  The birds have built a nest and there are four very cute eggs inside…….and there is another nest under the mailbox!  (You can’t see it – but it is there – and it sure saves us from getting JUNK MAIL FLYERS!)

   

ORANGE CRUSH AND PINEAPPLE CRUSH MYSTERY QUILTS

I debated

and debated

 and debated

(it was a difficult decision) about whether or not that I should go ahead and put that orange fabric into the ORANGE CRUSH MYSTERY QUILT….but today I finally decided to go ahead and move forward with the orange – it is an ORANGE CRUSH MYSTERY QUILT after all.) 

I figured that even if it turned out to be an UGLY quilt that I could use it as a PRACTICE for my first quilt that I machine quilt!  I also rationalized that an ugly quilt could be used for picnics and every quilter HAS to have a picnic quilt!  Right? 

The orange is so BRIGHT that I might even be HAPPY to have it get a little bit dirty (to tone down that color!)  But after seeing Bonnie’s finished quilt (with orange in it) I think that I might end up liking it.

So here are all of my Step 5 ALBUM BLOCKS and HALF ALBUM BLOCKS for the Orange Crush Mystery Quilt – and also I have included a photo of my PINEAPPLE CRUSH MYSTERY QUILT blocks for Step 5. 

This afternoon Bonnie K. Hunter of Quiltville.com posted the final step – putting it all together.  THE MYSTERY IS SOLVED.  So……it is onward with these two quilts!

   

Dancing Fun

Tonight we had TECH REHEARSAL for ACT ONE of the Dance Recital Saturday.  Sarah is in two dances in Act One – they did a good job at rehearsal…..here are a couple of photos of Sarah!  The pictures are fuzzy – not perfect lighting in the theatre.  Sarah is the blonde with the braid in her hair.  We had lots of fun!

 

     

Category: Birth of a Sampler, My Favorite Things, Orange Crush Mystery, Pineapple Crush Mystery, SAO's Grandangels | 1 Comment »
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Posted By drsao on June 1, 2008

I just finished testing a pattern for the second quilt in the COZY QUILT SERIES designed by Susan at The QUILTER’S CORNER.  (The first one was the BEACH RETREAT – the beautiful blue and yellow one that I wrote about previously.) 

This one is called the SWEETHEART QUILT and it is a combination of appliqued hearts and pieced blocks in luscious pinks, yellows, and greens from the April Cornell for MODA line.  It will be available in kit form at QUILTER’S CORNER soon….and they are starting an online store this month too!  It was so much fun to make – and it only took five days!

I was so happy that the cutting was complete – and I had my strips hanging from my wall coat rack – I just had to take a picture – or two !  It looks like I am drying pasta strips (but alas quilting has taken away from my culinary activities – and those talents were NEVER that well developed even BEFORE I started quilting  LOL!)

            

I had to develop a new way to STORE my pieces that I had sorted into blocks – my neatly stacked blocks kept getting UNSTACKED!  Our three cats kept SITTING on the stacks of blocks…..I sometimes wonder why cats LOVE to sit on whatever work one is doing!  They just LOVE to be right in the middle of things.  Our little cat CUDDLES TINKERBELLE actually got some fur from her tail sewn into one of my blocks because she just leaped up to say hi at an inopportune time!  Cuddles even has to help me when I am changing purses!

To solve my block stacking problem –  I made a little BLOCK HOUSE! It worked great!

The first blocks are complete!

  

Everything in this pattern is so precise that everything just FITS TOGETHER like a puzzle – no tugging or stretching to match corners!!!  Don’t I just LOVE IT when that happens.  Here is the quilt without borders.

And here is a close up with the small green and the larger pink print borders on.

I dropped it off at the QUILTER’S CORNER today and I felt somewhat like a surrogate mother who had carried a baby for nine months and then gave it to a new mother!  (That is possibly a bit over-dramatic.)  LOL 🙂  Some quilts you just grow attached to.  Maybe I will have to make another one – Grandangel Sarah says she REALLY WANTS ONE LIKE THIS!!!

A NEW ADDITION TO MY QUILTS COMPLETED IN 2008 LIST!!!!

I finished the Hawaiian OHANA Log Cabin Quilt at the Sit N Stitch, Friday, at the QUILTER’S CORNER.  Valerie at A NEEDLE RUNS THROUGH IT did a fabulous job on the quilting – HAWAIIAN FLOWERS pattern – and the back of the quilt I did in a Hawaiian sandy colored HIBISCUS pattern……thanks to Susan at the QC for selecting the fabrics (only she knows what this quilt could have looked like – because she saw the fabrics that I picked out before she very subtly introduced “other choices” to me!!!)

I have it folded to show the borders, the back and the binding.  Another UFO bites the dust!

Now I will tell you the measure of a TRULY OUTSTANDING QUILT TEACHER!  Sherry Whitford (she is teaching the NINE-MONTH class on the BIRTH OF A SAMPLER QUILT at the QUILTER’S CORNER) e-mailed me LATE Saturday night in response to a frantic plea from me.  It appears that I couldn’t figure out how to make bias vines for my next border on my quilt (even though she had included VERY NICE COLOR PHOTOS in her instructions!)

Sherry went to all of the trouble to DRAW me step-by-step diagrams – and at 1:30 AM this morning I had my MASTERPIECE.  I am so happy with this!

 

I had some really cool TOOLS! The little bias tape maker helped me thread my strip of bias fabric right under my iron – and I got some fusible webbing strips that I ironed onto the wrong side of my bias strips (all of my tools are from the QUILTER’S CORNER.)   

You can see that I have ironed WONDER UNDER fusible web onto the wrong side of some fabric strips that I am using for leaves.

 

I am really excited about this because this is something NEW that I learned and LEARNING SOMETHING NEW is on my LIST OF FAVORITE THINGS!

The border is on – I really like it.  I am going to learn another NEW thing in the near future (because I am going to add flowers on the vines after it is quilted – and so I have to learn to make YO YO flowers!)  I am glad that I had such a GREAT TEACHER who helped me in the “MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT”  so that I could accomplish this vine and leaves border!

THANKS SHERRY WHITFORD!

THIMBLEBERRIES

This month, our Thimbleberries LAKESIDE Quilt assignment was not humongous – but I learned something new – I made four BEAR CLAW BLOCKS.  Here they are!

I don’t know how I could have done this without my QUILT IN A DAY ruler that I used to square up the half/square triangle blocks.  The ruler made it so easy and my points all came out just the way they were supposed to!

 I had a great time at our THIMBLEBERRIES CLUB meeting today at QC.  It is fun to see what everyone else has been making – in addition to our assignment.  Our “refreshments’ are always TO DIE FOR!

GRANDANGEL FUN

Exciting things have been happening in the LAND OF THE GRANDANGELS.  Leanna‘s sixth grade team had a picnic – and we sat on a blanket and watched them eat (the poor things have LUNCH at 10:30 am because they start so early – so we were only hungry enough to WATCH!)  CONGRATS TO LEANNA 12 FOR BEING STUDENT OF THE MONTH!  HIP HIP HOORAY!

  

Leanna’s friend Camryn, is giving her a hug.  I have to make a mental note to make sure I make a quilt suitable for picnics!

And Sarah and I attended a breakfast at her school to celebrate the end of the MORNING WALKING PROGRAM.  Sarah won three charms (little colored feet) for jogging three miles – pretty good accomplishment for a 2nd grader.  YEAH SARAH 8!  I was pretty impressed – and also delighted that not one – not two – but THREE BOYS from Sarah’s class came to sit with “us.” 

Sarah also officially became a GIRL SCOUT this week – and all of those patches sewn onto her Brownie Vest – HM – I wonder if anyone has ever made a quilt from Brownie patches!

The fun just never ends.  I went to my first ALL MALE hair cut happening with Cooper!  It was like a SPORTS BAR – with TVs and SPORTS STUFF everywhere.  It was pretty cool! 

Cooper 4 is quite a conversationalist and he TALKED the entire time – except when he was giggling….he thinks getting his hair cut tickles!

Life is good – and tomorrow holds more excitement – I am subbing in the clinic – so I get to administer ice, routine meds, Bactine and Bandaids to the little angels both with real and imagined maladies!

This will be a busy week – the BIG DANCE RECITAL is Saturday (two performances) so all week we are having lessons,  regular rehearsals, tech rehearsals, dress rehearsals and the REAL DEAL.  Christi and I are helping in the dressing area – lots of fast costume changes and hair dos to touch up.  Sarah is in three performances (jazz, ballet, and Irish Dance)  this year and Leanna is in a modern dance performance for older girls.

WHO KNOWS – I MIGHT EVEN FIND A MOMENT TO DO SOME QUILTING THIS WEEK! 

 

 

 

Category: Birth of a Sampler, Hawaiian OHANA Cabin, My Favorite Things, Quilts Completed 2008, Sweetheart, Thimbleberries 08 | 2 Comments »
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Posted By drsao on May 26, 2008

It is amazing how much fun that can be squeezed into a three-day weekend! 

Here are some highlights…..

Grandangel Vincent had his 8th birthday in California (we sang to him on the telephone.)  He was SUPER-SIZED excited!

My Great Nephew and Great Niece celebrated their birthdays in Kansas….Preston is now 3 and Tara Lynn is 1.   Birthdays are so much fun!  We should all get this excited over balloons!

 

Sarah and I went to a yard sale early Saturday morning…..and was that ever TOO MUCH FUN!  We actually made it home on foot – without a wheelbarrow!  Sarah was really excited over her butterfly bulletin board – still in its original wrappings!

The FIND of the day (week? year? century?) was a chenille bedspread in A-1 shape that had belonged to the grandmother of the yard sale hostess….and she sold it for $1.00.  ONE DOLLAR.  Now what am I going to do with it?   I could make little rabbits out of it…..or use it as a back to a quilt?  HM…..I have no clue what I will do with it, I just know that I have always wanted one and that I love it!  Here it is on my bed.

Since Sarah and I found a candy making machine at the yard sale – we just HAD TO MAKE CHOCOLATE CANDY.  whoo hooo!  Leanna looks like a “mad scientist” pumping the chocolate into the molds!

Grandangel, Sarah was SO EXCITED.  We finished her first CAT QUILT over the weekend.  I showed her how to tape the backing down and then add the batting and quilt top.  Here is Sarah pinning the layers together! 

Then she chose decorative stitches for her quilting!  She loves my Brother Duetta sewing machine…..she put a different decorative stitch on each line of quilting!  You can tell by the look on her face that she is totally thrilled with this project!  We cut around the edges with pinking shears (I figured traditional binding might be a stretch.) 

Sarah’s WEBKINZ CAT, “Meredith,” seems to like her new quilt!

 

Our holiday also included a barbecue with friends.  Oh, did I mention that Spiderman and Darth Vader attended our party?

And going to the opening of the swimming pool is a must on MEMORIAL DAY….hm…..except that everyone else had the same idea……so the pool party ended up in our back yard with a new slip and slide and ring sprinkler.  I think that ended up to be way more fun anyway!

Sliding, hula hoop fun, backyard baseball games, croquette games, popsicles, pizza, and water gun fights……it doesn’t get much better than this!  Now if ONLY I could have had some HOME MADE ICE CREAM…..then I would have thought that I had died and gone to heaven!

   

This is the view LOOKING UP from our backyard hammock (REALLY!)  I just had to post this – the sky was so pretty and the weather was perfect!

AND WHAT DID I SEW?

Quilting – well – I did get a start on my Step 5 of the ORANGE CRUSH and the PINEAPPLE CRUSH…..and yes, I CHANGED THE ACCENT COLOR AGAIN on the Pineapple Crush – this is the THIRD and final change – because now the blocks are partially completed!  LOL

TA DA….Here is Step 5 – Album Block of my PINEAPPLE CRUSH MYSTERY QUILT  (I like this.)

And here is my Step 5 Album Block for the Orange Crush Mystery Quilt  (yikes – I wonder if I will ever in a million years grow to like these colors?)  This may be my FIRST AND LAST time to go scrappy (of  the everything but the kitchen sink variety!)

I am not trying to guess what the MYSTERY QUILTS will look like – but I added the previous blocks in a little arrangement – just to CONVINCE MYSELF that I might like it….::)

Pineapple Crush..Step 4 Spinning Stars with Step 5 Album Blocks……it is pretty calm and subdued and my accent color (the red plaid) is similar to the red check……but…….I really think that  I am going to like this one!

And now for the Orange Crush – Step 4 Spinning Stars Blocks with Step 5 Album Blocks…..oh dear, this sure is BRIGHT…..I may need to wear sunglasses to work on this one!  Do I like this?

 

THANKS TO THE FOLKS IN THE MILITARY!

It has been a nice holiday …. and I have enjoyed watching some of the special programs on the HISTORY CHANNEL the past few days that have called my attention to the wonderful heroes, past and present, that have and are serving in the military.  I am grateful and am in awe at some of the stories of bravery and valor.  Since I am related somehow to Robert E. Lee, I was especially interested in the special program that featured Lee and Stonewall Jackson!

And now….back to the REAL WORLD…..how many of us will think that Tuesday is Monday all day tomorrow!  🙂  Happy 13th Anniversary to Christi and Greg May 27!  Here is a SILLY family picture……and like I always say, “A MERRY HEART DOETH GOOD LIKE MEDICINE.” (Just for the record, this isn’t my original saying!”)  🙂

 

Category: Orange Crush Mystery, Pineapple Crush Mystery, SAO's Family, SAO's Grandangels, Sarah's First Cat Quilt | 1 Comment »
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Posted By drsao on May 22, 2008

Here is my follow up report on the fate of my HEART HEAT BUDDY anniversary gift to Max.

Max loved it……he even CREATED a fake need for using it.  It smelled so good warming in the microwave and it stayed warm for quite awhile.  Now I need to make myself one, my daughter wants one, and my parents need one too!   A new quiltville friend, Amanda, from the UK suggested using a small scented one for migraines (sounds good to me.)  I am going to try to find both a lavendar and a rosemary plant so that I can dry them and then add to the rice – both of those aromas are fantabulous – oh yes, and in addition to the cinnamon, I must try cloves too! 

What have I gotten myself into!!!!  A simple little anniversary REVERSE APPLIQUE anniversary gift and now I am PLANNING an array of multi-fragranced HEAT BUDDIES.   Now I will have quilt UFOs, HEAT BUDDY UFOs, and I am TRYING TO IGNORE the knitting UFOs lurking behind closed doors…..I think I have 3 sweaters and one afghan in various stages of completion, and a couple of crocheted rag rugs……..oh yes, and my scrapbooking UFOs for the grandangels pictures……..yes, I will have plenty to do for fun this summer.

Who said UFOs were a BAD THING anyway?  I am going to declare it a sign of enhanced intelligence and creativity.  I should do some research.  I wonder if there is a correlation between number of UFOs and fantastic personalities.  (I am starting to convince EVEN MYSELF!  LOL)

Ok – so back to our 20th anniversary.  🙂  My daughter took a picture of us – and she got a close up of my new anniversary earrings….I LOVE hoops and the sparkly diamond chips in them aren’t bad either!

 

 

We had dinner at the HOT TAMALE and the dessert was the best part…..Max had flan and I had fried ice cream – the best that I have ever had….the ice cream was covered with coconut, chocolate syrup and was sitting on a fried flour tortilla sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

Fried ICE CREAM (or any kind of ice cream, for that matter) is on my LIST OF FAVORITE THINGS!

Here we are enjoying dinner!

I hope I didn’t gain 20 pounds at dinner tonight – but then I just had a few bites of each of those desserts and Max took care of the rest…..and even if I did gain 20 lbs, it was worth it!  Life is too short not to celebrate once in while!  I try to celebrate daily!!!!!

Category: Life Comments, My Favorite Things | 1 Comment »
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