July 14, 2008
Packing, painkillers and a new house

I’m back from vacation….kidding. The past two months have been far from a vacation for us. We moved. AGAIN! This time we bought our own house so there was lots of fixing up, cleaning and painting. But before that even began there was the packing. Right off the bat I tried to drag a box that was too heavy for me to lift. Well, lesson learned. If it’s too heavy to lift, it’s also too heavy to drag. I strained my back and then hobbled around for days like I was suddenly a hundred years old. I finally went to the doctor and was told I had a bulging disc and he told me no lifting, bending and worst of all… no walking on the beach! So, I haven’t been to the beach in quite a while, but not because I was following doctor’s orders, more because I haven’t had time with all of the bending and lifting I’ve been doing.

Anyway, we are now settled into our new house and we absolutely love it! I finally feel like I’m home. I’m trying to take it easy now and give my back a chance to heal. I did make a few trips out to the beach last week though and I am paying the price. My daughter and her friends came to visit for a week and I couldn’t let them go back to Ohio without a few days at the beach. We had a great time and took tons of photos, but boy was I whipped when they left. I had such a hard time keeping up with them. Maybe its because of the back injury, the exhaustion from moving or maybe because I’m forty-two years old and they are all half my age. But I choose to believe that they are just living way too fast for the pace of laid back Florida living that I have become accustomed to this past year.

Here’s a photo of them enjoying the beach on their last night here. I'll post more soon.


July 15, 2008
The Elephant in the Room

My friend Donna was in town a couple of weeks ago and to take a break from all of the moving activity I went to the local quilt shop where she was learning to work the new long arm quilting machine that she was purchasing. She was so excited and her enthusiasm was drawing me back into the world of quilting. It’s been 8 years since I made my last quilt. I was still sewing during those years, but mostly theater costumes. So, anyway I met Donna at the quilt shop and I was immediately sucked back into the quilting vortex. I bought an easy quilt pattern and precut fabric to ease myself back into quilting mode again. That fabric has been sitting on the table here calling to me for 2 weeks, but I have been too busy with the house and still setting up my art room. Finally these past few days I have just thrown everything else aside for a while and I made a quilt top! I did a lot of seam ripping the first day, but I made it through. I’m so excited about it and now I have it in my mind that I need a new sewing machine. I have had a basic Kenmore machine for 15 years and I have given that baby the business! My trusty old Kenmore made it through bed size quilts, many quilted runners, Halloween costumes, mending, alterations of Heather's high school dance dresses and 5 theater productions. When I look back now I’m amazed at what I was able to accomplish on that machine. But now as I am venturing back into the quilting world I am seeing so many new products and machines that do fancy stitches and some that can sew leather! I needed a machine that could sew leather during my theater costume days! Oh, my poor, sore little fingers! So, I have been researching several machines online this past week and I think I have made my decision. I’m going today to get a demo on the Janome 6600 and I have a feeling I won’t be able to come home without one. From everything I have read online and a short sales pitch last week from Jim at the local sewing and vacuum shop, I believe this is the machine for me. It’s powerful, fast, sturdy and too heavy for me to even lift. I believe this machine could probably sew an elephant back together. That’s exactly what I need a machine that can take anything I dish out because sometimes I come up with some crazy ideas.



This is the last quilt I made in 2000. I designed it for my final project in a Color Theory class that I was taking at the local community college. It’s a traditional Kaleidoscope pattern, but I came up with the sun and moon design and it was all about color placement of over 950 pieces of fabric. The quilt size is 34 inches square and each block is 3 inches. The crazy thing about this is that I took the Color Theory class to improve my quilting skills and color choices, but then I didn’t make another quilt for 8 years. I ventured off into so many other art forms, theater costume design, pottery, bookbinding, drawing, web design, sculpture and painting, and now I have come back around to where I began. It will be interesting to see what kind of influence everything I have learned over the past eight years has on my future quilting and sewing projects.
July 16, 2008
Yes I have sewn an Elephant!

After my post yesterday I realized that I have sewn an elephant. In the early nineties when my daughter was a toddler there was a television show called The Elephant Show with Sharon, Lois and Bram. We watched it everyday and she loved the show so much that I made this elephant doll for her. I came across the doll during the recent move and showed it to her and she said she doesn’t remember anything about The Elephant Show! I bet the Elephant hasn’t forgotten.

July 19, 2008
Her memory is better than mine

I went for a sewing machine demo on Tuesday for the Janome Memory Craft 6600 and I fell in love. My local sewing/vacuum shop dealer threw in a studio package which included a rolling tote, two smaller bags for quilting/sewing supplies, a bag for carrying cutting mats and rulers, 20 spools of quilting thread and 3 extra Accufeed feet. The luggage is all fantastic in case I decide to run away with my machine, but when he started telling me about the extra Accufeed feet I thought my brain might explode from the excitement. I've had my Janome home for 5 days now and I have been having a blast playing around with all of the stitches and features. The Accufeed system on this machine is amazing! It's like a built in walking foot. On my older machine I used a walking foot most of the time so this is handy dandy! This machine also has an automatic thread cutter and a knee lift for the presser foot which is so convenient. Several years ago Steve built me a fantastic sewing table for quilting. It is 48 inches deep and 72 inches wide at counter height with a cut out for my machine to drop in, which makes for a very nice flat space for machine quilting. Just today he took my table apart to cut the new larger opening for the Janome to drop in and I can hardly wait for tomorrow to fire her back up. I think I'll call her Madge.

July 23, 2008
Thread and Butter

Here are a couple of pictures of a tote bag that I made this week. The black fabric has a crocodile texture, which I backed with heavy interfacing. The handles are formed with four layers of fabric plus the interfacing and my new Janome sewed through all of that like it was butter. Now I just have to get my neck and shoulder muscles worked back up into proper sewing condition. Ouch!
Speaking of butter...I really have sewing on the brain this week because at dinner a couple of nights ago I asked Steve if he would like a piece of threaded bread instead of buttered bread.




The tote bag pattern is from the July 2008 issue of Threads magazine, but I altered it a bit by widening and shortening the handles and I added pockets to the lining. July 27, 2008
Chocolate and Bourbon

During a recent shopping trip I came across a special edition recipe magazine by Paula Deen, Paula Deen’s Chocolate Celebration. It’s a magazine filled with recipes all made with chocolate and not just desserts! There are also recipes for Amazing Chocolate Chili, Chocolate Spiced Pork Chops, and Chocolate Flank Steak with Pineapple Salsa, which I’m dying to try. Last night I made the Captain’s Chocolate Pie and it is AMAZING!!
Chocolate, pecans and bourbon, what more could you ask for?
Miss Paula recommends serving the pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and caramel drizzled on top, but I like my pie straight.

July 29, 2008
Taking it for a test drive





Yesterday I was sewing the binding onto the quilt I’ve been making and the phone rang so I stepped away for a minute and left the quilt in the machine. When I returned I found our cat Mickey had snuggled right inside the quilt. I don’t know what it is about cats, but they always know a handmade quilt is the best place to snuggle. Even when I was still in the process of piecing this quilt I found Dale lying on the blocks before it was even quilted. They must have a quilt seeking comfort radar.

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