Leadership

You know during Christmas we're supposed to give gifts of love and friendship.  Apparently, people find their personal agendas more imporant. 

It amazes me that someone would take time out of their own lives to orchestrate the demise of someone else's livelihood.  How could a man who is a parent himself plan, manipulate and scheme to ruin another person who is a parent and a single income family at that...what is that all about.  I just have to remember that at times like this there has to be a reason that would cause them to be bitter enough to ruin another person's life.  Crazy!  I guess I should pray for the other person as well as the person they hurt...because they have some serious issues!

CCN Cottage SAL

My pattern and fabric are here for the Cottage SAL I joined thanks to Vonna.  I'm excited to get started.  I have to get a few more colors of floss before I begin.  Excited!  WOOHOO!!!

Sewing Monday

A Good Monday

Took today off.  It's nice and quiet in the house.  Sewing away and enjoying some favorite movies.  Lovely day!  Hope you're having a good Monday too! 

Progress

Picture belongs to Nikki at CCN                         

I haven't posted anything on the progress of my friend's mother's quilt because on the invite I received it said 'no gifts please'.  So, I may wait until Christmas to give it to her.  I did join an SAL The Cottages Stitch~A~Long we will be stitching Country Cottages which are completely adorable.  I'm so excited  Thanks and a shout out to to Ma over at The Teakettle Corner for leading me to Vonna over at The Twisted Stitcher whose grand idea it was for the SAL!  WHOOHOO!  I'm itchin' to get stitchin'!  Notice my beautiful little links!  I'm learning!  YAY me! 

Quilt for a Friends' Mom

I have a very dear friend who's mom is battling cancer. She's on the last stages of chemo and they are having a surprise birthday party I asked Mary over at /http://mollyflanders.blogspot.com/ for help on a pattern to make a quilt my friends' mother's birthday. She came up with Manchester Rose.  Of course, Mary picked the perfect pattern for the fabric I chose.  Thanks Mary.  Have a great night All!

Rainy Day

On my way out the door this morning, I grabbed my jacket from the coat closet, spied the umbrella and thought 'do I really need that'.  I did.  It's raining.  I guess I'll be making a mad dash for my car at the end of my work day.  We had a plan to take Fia to the pumpkin patch, but the line was too long and her dad didn't want to wait through it.  So...I planned to write about it and include pictures.  Oh well...it was a nice weekend just the same.  Had dinner with friends, played some Wii American Idol, went to a birthday party at the Grizzly Rose and worked on cleaning my sewing room.  I'm up to three bags of trash.  Take care and stay warm and dry.  A

Sewing Room

I've been working on getting my sewing room in order. I finally realized that my sewing room is like my desk at work. When I have so much crap on my desk I can't focus on one thing I know I need to clean it. The same thing has been happening in my sewing room when I go in there...so I've been working on cleaning it. I am also grateful to have a room that is dedicated to what I like to do. Let me rephrase that...What I LOVE to do! I've been working on it and I decided I'd show you what it looked like before I started cleaning it up. ACK! It's super messy! Here goes! Stay tuned to the same Bat time and the same Bat channel for the new and improved sewing room. ;)

Okay Here's the Deal

I always intend to sew and craft when I get home from work. The issue is when Martin gets home, I just want to sit with him. If he's out and about doing things I'm okay with going into the sewing room and sewing. When he comes in though...out my butt goes to plop in my chair. On the weekends I am more apt to be in my sewing room, but these days our weekends are so busy I'm not even home. I have a quilt I need to cut out, I haven't been able to because he's been home. I'm hoping to get something done. I have a lot of Christmas gifts I'm working on, but not getting done. HELP!!!!

Giveaway!!!

http://owensolivia.blogspot.com/2011/09/fabric-friday-poppy-seed-fabrics.html

WIP

Things I'm working on. No pictures. =(
A quilt for my great niece Lauren
A quilt for my friend Sharon
Two scarves for Christmas gifts
Curtains for my granddaughter
Wall hanging for my friend's daughter
A quilt for Landon
Oy! I love overloading myself. Truth is I have ADD! I get started on something else and then I say, "Ooo look over there something shiny" and I move on. Hopefully I'll get a lot of it finished within the next few weeks.

September is National Sewing Month

Lost Quilt

http://blog.craftsy.com/2011/09/craftsy-offers-5000-reward-for-return-of-lost-quilt/#comment-3176

Craftsy offers $5,000 Reward for Return of Lost Quilt

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Stefanie Japel

Have you seen this quilt?

We are offering a $5000 reward for its return.

If you have any information as to its whereabouts, contact info@craftsy.com immediately.

If you’d like to be kept up to date on the status of the lost quilt, keep an eye on Janet’s Craftsy.com Kaaterskill page, and post any updates, sightings, or just leave a note of encouragement for Janet.

Most importantly, spread the word! Click the “tweet” and “like” buttons above to let all of your friends know about this tragic loss, and how they can help in Kaaterskill’s recovery. If you’ve got a blog, let your readers know about Kaaterskill, and link back to us.

Here’s what happened:

As any artist knows, a work of art is a piece of the soul, and there’s a piece of Janet Atkins’ soul that’s mysteriously gone missing. “It hurts a lot not to know where it is, and I’d really like to see it back,” Janet Atkins, creator of the award-winning quilt “Kaaterskill,” tells the camera in a brief interview with The Times Union.

Janet’s quilt was lost earlier this year after winning numerous awards and gracing the cover of Golden, Colorado-based Quilters Newsletter for its June/July issue.

The quilt was last seen on Feb. 16, when it was picked up by a UPS driver at the Golden, Colo., office of Quilters Newsletter after a photo shoot. The package is reported to have been picked up, but not scanned, and is now lost.

To read more about the mysterious disappearance of this amazing work of art, see links below:

• Quilt stuck in UPS limbo
• Cash no substitute for missing quilt
• Award-winning quilt vanishes, leaving creator with mystery

Four years in the making, the loss of this quilt is a tragedy for its creator.

Janet Atkins has been crafting her entire life, starting with knitting and later moving into sewing. She is a person who loves to work with her hands. In fact, Kaaterskill was entirely made by hand. The quilt is hand pieced, hand quilted, hand bound.

Kaaterskill has come away with high honors from four juried shows, so far, including last year’s Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Virginia, best hand workmanship; the Quilt Odyssey in Hershey, Pa., best hand quilting; and the International Quilt Festival in Houston, where the quilt was awarded an overall third place for handmade quilts. Click to read more about the amazing hand quilting that went into the creation of Kaaterskill.

We here at Craftsy can only imagine how heartbreaking it must be to lose such an irreplaceable labor of love.

REMEMBER: If you’d like to be kept up to date on the status of the lost quilt, keep an eye on Janet’s Craftsy.com Kaaterskill page, and post any updates, sightings, or just leave a note of encouragement for Janet.

Most importantly, spread the word! Click the “tweet” and “like” buttons above to let all of your friends know about this tragic loss, and how they can help in Kaaterskill’s recovery.

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High school Cliques.

This post is going to be confusing and since I'm realtively sure no one reads it...it's more for me to put things down they way I see 'em and maybe get some closure for myself.

When I was in high school, I was an average girl. But I didn't really fit in anywhere. You know I knew the jocks and had friends and a couple of boyfriends who were jocks, but I also knew nerds, geeks, stoners, etc. I married a guy who was quiet and hung out with the same few guys his whole life. Where did that put us, as a couple you ask, pretty much in limbo. Most people move on after high school and apart from my husband's friends and a girlfriend or two of mine we did too. But after a while we got back in touch with some friends from high school. Over the years we were accepted into the group made up of all the different types of cliques. It was interesting to see the dymnamics removed. Until something happened. There were several things...actually that led to the end result. A falling out with one of the women who used to be one of my best friends, something this woman did caused two other friends (who are married)something that could have been extremely detrimental, I stood up for the two friends and now it seems we are on the outs with all. We still get invited and stuff but it's not the same. And truthfully, it's sad. The couple that had been harmed (in my mind) during this whole thing...didn't feel that it was an issue and so I left it at that. The man of the couple had once told me, when I was having issues with my old best friend, that he would always be my brother and be there for me. But that he'd always tell me the way it was straight up. Now, as you women know you judge men and they way men treat you by your daddy or the daddy figure you had in your life. I had a step dad and we didn't have much of a relationship with him...so I judge men by my husband. My husband may I start out by saying is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I'm saying that because all the rest that follows makes him sound as if he is and we all know that's impossible. My husband is honest,trustworthy, loving, giving, a hard worker, dedicated, loyal, and loves God. He never says something he doesn't mean and if he gives you his word...it's as good as gold. He's strikingly handsome and a good kisser too! Wink, wink! With that said, after all that this man told me I found him to be not like my husband and all. And truthfully this is the most disappointing of the whole situation. I put him up there with a man in my life who has rarely let me down when it counted. And he didn't deserve to be up there. I'm not feeling badly about that woman who used to be my friend because she was very manipulative and controlling and I could see after awhile of getting back in touch with her that she wasn't sincere but just a selfish, bitter, unhappy person who put on a big fake front to fool herself. I'm truly wounded and sad about that man though because there are very few men in my life I have faith in. It's a great loss and one I'm not soon to get over. A valuable lessoned learned. I put my faith where it deserves to be placed.

The Hands of A Grateful Nation Comfort Our Soldiers!

I was reading one of the great blogs I follow when I followed a link on her page http://modafabrics.blogspot.com/2011/03/just-one-star.html (I'm not very good at putting things like this in my blog). I am going to do this. Several of my family member were in the armed forces and I am proud of them, our Nation and all of our soldiers. I'll try to put up a picture of my star. I hope you'll join this wonderful project.

Pinkeep Hearts - Love this pattern

I've been looking for a pattern for a pinkeep for some time now and finally found this one made by Renee. It's too cute and I'm going to think of Renee every time I use my beautiful pinkeep. http://goosiegirls.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/embroidered-pin-case-pattern/

Compassion

I am known in my family for being a big cry baby. I am a Hallmark commercial crier. If a sappy commerical comes on instead of watching the TV my family will pivot on a dime to see my reaction and they are rarely disappointed. Big fat crocodile tears will fall from my eyes at the drop of a hat. Last night we were watching the dark comedy Sunshine Cleaning which was also a 2008 Sundance Film festival hit. Have you seen it? If not, do. It's great! Alan Arkin, Emily Blunt, Amy Adams, even Adams' son played by Jason Spevak aren't playing parts they are real people. It's basically about a single mother, Rose Lorkowski, who is having an affair with a married man who happens to be a cop. She's in a dead end job trying to eke out a living when the cop tells her that crime scene clean up is a very lucrative business. Rose decides to give it a try with her sister Norah(Blunt). They go into homes where people have committed crimes or have "offed" themselves and make it all nice and new. The scene that really had me going last night was when Rose and Norah show up on a scene and there is an distraught elderly woman waiting on the porch with the keys to the house in her hand. She tells them where the house the area is that needs to be cleaned and very uncomfortably asks if they want her to show them. They say they'll find it and Norah takes the cleaning materials in the house. Relieved that she doesn't have to go inside, the woman tells Rose that her son-in-law is coming to take her to Howard Johnson's for lunch. Rose sees her anguish and pain and asks her if she wants company while she waits. They sit down there on the porch, the woman looking down completely heartbroken and Rose reaches over and puts her hand over the woman's hands. The woman then puts one of her hands ontop of Rose's. I'm welling up as I write this. Compassion...that's what it is that gets me everytime. When I see those commercials or movies and I cry more often than not that's what it is...it's so touching to see compassion. In movies, commercials and even yes...life.

Hospitality

I am, by nature, a lover of parties! Dinner parties, card parties, baby showers, Christmas parties, birthday parties...party, party, party. And I'm usually the one initating the parties. I host the party, plan the party, and purchase supplies for the party. Thankfully, I have a great husband and a best friend who help me prep and clean up after the party. I love dishes and so my parties rarely involve paper of any kind, even paper napkins. I prefer cloth napkins, glasses, silverware. I go all out. I have even talked to my husband about changing houses because ours isn't conducive to entertaining. The issue is that we are rarely asked to others homes in return. I don't give parties or invite other so that they will invite me back. That being said it gets a little pricey always being the one putting on the parties and so I've cut way back. It would also be nice to be a guest rather than the host all the time. I feel sad about it and I'm hoping some time that I feel differently. That is all!