The hubby and I went camping in Alabama last week after the hectic past few weeks we have had. Work and quilting obligations have worn us both out, we needed to re-charge our batteries!!

The main activity was relaxing!! We also hiked to the highest point in Alabama - Cheaha. It was beautiful there!! 

Mostly we relaxed, walked to dogs and experimented with cooking over a camp fire.

I did manage to visit quite a few shops during our trip. We stopped at Pale Moon Yarns in Andalusia, which by the way has a large amount of quilting fabrics and many beautiful yarns!! Thimbles in Birmingham carries beautiful heirloom fabrics and quilting cottons. And the last shop we stopped at was Sew Bernina in Montgomery, they have a friendly staff and modern fabrics.

Last night I started a secret Christmas swap project doing improv trees, which is due on Nov 9th at the quilt meeting. More about this later...

The fish bags are done and in the nick-of-time!! I was finishing them up during the last guild meeting - the time they were due, so I don't have any good glamour shots of them - sorry.

The Boo Bat mini quilt is finished and my swap partner loved it! This picture is from the ECMQG site here.

Now it's back to work and more deadlines - gotta make that money so I can play with fabric :)

My Rock'N Rocking Chair (and how I won!)

My husband and I could not agree on the fate of my rocking chair - he wanted to get rid of it, I did not. It was always in the way and no one ever used it. Here's the story...

Sanded and repaired

When I was pregnant with my son (many moons ago) I wasn't working and couldn't keep a job due to severe morning sickness like 24 hours a day seven days a week through out my whole pregnancy to the point I knew everyone at the hospital after the first month and even lost weight - and why do they call it 'Morning Sickness' if I were to name it - it would be '24/7 Puke Till You Tear Your Esophagus and Feel Like the Undead', SERIOUSLY!!!

Money was very tight, we couldn't afford new things. When trying to furnish the baby's room we used an old dresser I had as the changing table and purchased the crib at a second hand store but couldn't find a used rocking chair anywhere. We ended up putting this chair on layway at the local furniture store.

sad rocking chair

It was $75.00, so you can laugh now - but $75.00 was a lot of money back then (even sounds funny to me now too). I paid on it every week and the week before I was due it was paid off and I proudly brought it home.  I spent many nights rocking my little one to sleep, it was well used back then. When our son became a teen it was moved to the office where it was neglected and then spent a good amount of time in the garage where boxes were stacked on it. It had problems! When our dogs were puppies they used the rocker as a chew toy and damaged all four ends of the runners, some of the spindles were loose, one leg was cracked and it made a horrible creaking noise when you rocked in it.

My son was home from college for a few weeks and needed a project (he was bored) before going off to work an internship this summer - well what a great opportunity to have him repair and spruce up the rocking chair. And just maybe I could change my husband's thoughts on the fate of the old rocking chair.

The two of us went off to the hardware store and so began the paint drama (as my son would call it). I love color, really love color and choosing just one color can be quite hard for me.

I first thought - red like this chair...

Glossy Red Rocking Chair by Kim at Newly Woodwards

Then turquoise...

Turquoise Bed to Bench Makeover

Maybe yellow??

Bright Cheery Yellow Rocking Chair by Lou Lou and Oscar

Evan fixed all the problems and even cut and sanded away the chewed ends of the runners. They looked untouched by puppy teeth again! For painting we used tips from Centsational Girl, Brooke at All Thing Thrifty and Anyone Can Decorate (I just love the frame Diana does in the tutorial).

All primed up

I finally decided on a bright green, Tropical Foliage by Valspar. And I LOVE IT!!!

Bright green- so cheery!

It took 3 cans of gray primer and 3 cans of color, then antiquing glaze and 2 cans of clear gloss. Now it's an eye popping accent in our living room. My husband likes it! I won!!

Close up of the antique glaze on the arm

The glaze toned down the brightness but added a lot character.

Close up of antique glaze

I found the very colorful rug on amazon.com which ties it all together - now to make a pillow to sit in my ROCK'N chair :)

Finished :)

Question: If you were going to paint a rocking chair a ROCK'N color what color would you choose?

Something, at least something...

I know, I know I am late posting. And I know excuses just are a waste of time and I could be posting something, at least something....

What has been going on? So far I have completed two more blocks for the Sew Happy Quilt QAL and taken photos, but they alas are still on the camera. I joined a local modern quilt guild the Emerald Coast Modern Quilt Guild - and have to say I am very excited to meet new people with modern quilting interests and learning from them.  A new project that I am working on is a Robert Kaufman Kona Solids Challenge with the local quilt guild. The challenge is to make a quilt no smaller than a crib quilt using one kona brights charm pack and one solid for the background, no prints on the front of the quilt and you can use a another solid for the binding. And I have made 172 hexagons and still need to figure out if I want to applique them on by hand or machine. Would love any advice/opinions!!

(please excuse the blurry camera phone pic)

This picture shows the layout I plan to use. I wanted to create movement and hope this is translating that. The background fabric is kona eggplant and I cut my background squares at 26 inches because I figured this would make it easier to handle if I decided to hand applique. I also plan on making two whole designs and one half or a quarter of the design and then piece the background squares together. Each one of the 'swirls' has 37 hexies in it. Wish me luck getting it done by March 30th.


Work deadlines and family travels seem to have taken all my free time. We visited our son at school and had a wonderful time on a mini vacation. Really enjoyed seen Evan and spending time with our little family. It is just amazing how fast time passes. 


And today I felt so special this morning, see it rained heavy all night and this morning. But the minute I walked out the door to go to work the rain let up and even the birds were singing to me as I got in the car. With this I felt like it was going to be a wonderful day even if it did start raining after I arrived at work this morning!!!


Hope your day smiles upon you!!!

Charity

If you look 'Charity' up in the dictionary you will see :

1. generous actions or donations to aid the poor, ill, or helpless: to devote one's life to charity.
2. something given to a person or persons in need; alms: She asked for work, not charity.
3. a charitable act or work.
4. a charitable fund, foundation, or institution: He left his estate to a charity.
5. benevolent feeling, esp. toward those in need or in disfavor: She looked so poor that we fed her out of charity.
6. leniency in judging others; forbearance: She was inclined to view our selfish behavior with charity.
7. Christian love; agape............................

New Family Member

Introducing Ripley the Wonder Dog!!

She is a 5 1/2 week old Piebald Dachshund. She came to us all the way from Virgina. She is cute and spunky. We named her after the movie character Lt. Ellen Ripley from Alien. Yes, we are crazy - the guys would not let me namer her Tallulah (after Tallulah Bankhead the actress from the 30's and 40's) and I didn't like the names they were coming up with. One night we were sitting down relaxing in front of the tv and one of my favorite movies came on - Alien. We all agreed and she did to!

Happy Easter and here's to 18 more years!!!!!

Easter Sunday was also our 18th wedding anniversary!!!