Well, my hand hasn't been this sore since the time I used a circular saw to cut up a 6x6 to make a platform bed. But it was worth it because we're now home mortgage owners! The closing actually went off without a hitch. We met at 4 and at about 5:15 I started to breathe again for the first time in a month. Chloe spent the time getting acclimated to her new school and when we picked her up we got Chinese from the place next door and went back to the new house for a carpet picnic.

Here are Daddy and Chloe (and her huge bunny) heading up the walk to our new green door!

The most common view of a toddler, walking away from you. Here Chloe and the bunny are off to explore her new room (also her new closet, her new bathroom sink, her new a/c registers, Mommy's closet, and several light switches).

We have a bona fide ornamental cherry tree in our front yard and it's still got some blooms on it. Steve and Chloe stopped running around long enough to pose in front of it. Kinda. She's halfway through struggling her way out of his grip and off to the rest of the back yard but we held her still long enough to snap this.



And here is the intrepid suburbanite himself, bringing in the necessities. MREs, caffeine, and the binoculars so he can see if the zombies are invading.

During the closing the lawyer brought out the documents where they detail any aliases you might have. Usually it's just middle name and middle initial and stuff but Steve has the same name as his father and a name with a couple of common spellings so his was a bit more involved. They even presented him with a spelling we'd never even dreamed of.

Lawyer: So I'm assuming based on the paperwork that your name is not spelled Steven.
Steve: No, it's not.
Lawyer: And you're not Steven R. either?
Steve: No. That's my father.
Lawyer: How about Stehin? Does anyone ever call you Stehin?
Steve: Nooooo. I have occasionally wished to be called Allejandro, but no one ever took me seriously.
Lawyer: *confused blinking*
Me: *pleased I married him*

Now it's time to start moving the fabric! Also, making a thank you present for our darling loan officer who made this a smooth transaction for all. Yay!

We had a super productive weekend. Got most of the big basement cleaned up so that we know what to put on craigslist, what to give away, and what to trash. There are even some things going with us. I got tons of boxes packed upstairs but until I can get them staged downstairs I won't really know what's left to do.

The allergies kicked my butt in the basement, though. And I think that knocked down my last defense against the Spring allergies. I woke up Sunday feeling like I'd been hit with a brick. Steve was an angel about getting Chloe out of the house for a while so I could keep being productive. Got some cleaning done upstairs and some more packing and even more packing.

Chloe and I took a three hour nap (not together, that would have been nice but she's not much of a snuggler) and then after we got up I set in to finish some stuff. I finished her Easter basket (plan from Moda Bakeshop), I finished my first Million Pillowcase Challenge project (adorable, still needs the threads snipped) and one other one that we'll get to in a minute. I made good progress on a couple more blocks of Chloe's fancy schmancy quilt, that's lots of hand sewing and very relaxing. And here's the little darling herself:




Barefoot and wandering around the backyard at Grammy's house. I love that dress on her, it's smocked and I have a serious addiction to smocking.


And here below is the other project I finished:

I taught myself to do Cathedral Windows after Mom and I got frustrated at not being able to figure it out (I don't deal well with that, it becomes a matter of principle at that point!) and made a 14x14 pillow for the spare bedroom at the new place. I think it's 4 windows by 4 windows. It turned out to be a GREAT way to use the Delft Remix stuff from Studio E that I got for Christmas. They're all such wonderful prints but hard to put together because they all blend into each other. I love how they're displayed in this pattern. The pillow needs the threads clipped, I hate that job, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

The other thing that happened this weekend is that I got sucked into Knockoff Wood. I spent hours on the site, on the Facebook group, and in the Flickr pool. I've decided on my first couple of projects, and to support me my husband got me this:

That's right. In my family we say love with nail guns. Three of them. And an air compressor. Nothing says love like a gun capable of firing a 2 and a half inch nail.

The good, the bad, and the toddler.

After reading a completely familiar account over at Amy's place about taking her boys to a quilt shop, I got to thinking about the last time I took Chloe in to a quilt shop. She's pretty good in the Joann's because we're mostly only there for supplies so it's a short trip. Actual quilt shops? That's another story altogether. I suppose it's unfair of me to even hope she'll behave. She's two. She's not a bad kid, she's just two. And when you're two you don't look at baskets full of jellyrolls and charm packs and think "My, aren't those pretty. Perhaps I will just admire them from afar." No, you think "Oooh! A basket!" and then you grab it and carry it around with you, putting things in and taking them out as you go.

C-'s local quilt shop is the completely wonderful Webfabrics.net (I know, I'm horribly jealous too) and we paid a visit the other day. The first half of the trip was a nightmare. Chloe was just a total pill. Grabby, knocking things over, struggling so hard I couldn't hold her, all that good stuff. C- said "She's being a good girl." I said "No she's not, she's being a butthead. The fact that she's so cute is the only thing keeping her from being nothing but a strange smell coming from the attic."

The staff was horrified. Either that or deeply amuse, I couldn't tell. Anyway. The second half of the visit was a dream. Why? This:

Coloring books, Lego's, little chairs, lots of books, a little kid haven. I still couldn't leave her completely alone but at least I could scan the nearby pattern racks without wondering if Chloe was pulling the rotary blades down on top of herself. Thank you, nice ladies at Webfabrics.net for making it a little easier to be a quilting mom. (Thanks also to the ladies at Artful Quilter who have a comfy couch with a Mr. Potato Head and a gigantic stuffed iguana that Chloe loves to cuddle).

In an environment where it is so easy to just stay at home and order off the web and lose the great tactile sensation of a brick and mortar store, it's things like this that keep me coming back.

This can't end well

Busily folding my fabric on to comic book boards. I just can't tell you how tickled it makes me to see it all even and compact and organized.

There's something wrong with me, isn't there?

AQS Lancaster Mission Debrief

OMG. Feet. So. Tired. But worth every second! Mom, C- (bff) and I went to AQS Lancaster last weekend and shopped until they kicked us out. We stared at the displays and drooled over longarms and even squealed a little over some nifty patterns. And we learned some lessons. Here's what we learned at the Lancaster Quilt Show this year:

The First Step to Recovery is Admitting You Have a Problem

Now, granted, that's the haul for all three of us but still.... I think we may have a problem.

C- went a little nuts with the oriental fabrics, she's dreaming of a bargello.


Me? I just grabbed up stuff I'd been drooling over. I also stocked up on the John James Gold'n'Glides which are hard to find around here and ridiculous to ship for something that weighs less than a penny. I got some fabrics I'd been thinking about but wanted to see in person first, and some that just made me smile. And I got a stack of 100 4" squares of 30's repro prints. I have NO idea what I'm going to do with them but they're making me happy. Here's my haul:


And see this stack of Riley Blake Bloom and Grow? Mine! All mine! No idea what it'll be but it's stacked up next to my sewing machine being wonderful at me.



Oh, and there were quilts, too. Here's the Best in Show beauty. It's just this amazing swirl of colors and detail and painstaking precision.


And here's my favorite. I just wanted to crawl inside it and fall asleep on the window seat.



I have inspiration and fabric and goodies and tools and all kinds of ideas. I also got some quality time with two of my favorite people in the world and the best sandwich I've ever had. A rousing success!

I'll leave you with this view. I like this shot because it makes it look like the fabric stretches on forever... ah, if only.

So I've had pictures for a while but the only working SD card reader is at home and for the past week I've been ready to just fall down, not get online and deal with photos. But now it's Friday and work today is data entry and so... picture time!

The scrappy circle quilt is finally finished. I need to pick out about 8" more of stitches from the failed decorative stitch but by Monday it will be ready for Steve to give to his department head, the proud new mother of a baby girl.



I pieced the back with a row of patches left over from the front fabric. I love working with this white, it's so soft and it has that lovely worn feel.




For the binding I picked a fabric that doesn't show up anywhere else in the quilt but it made me happy just to look at it, and I figured that was reason enough.



The other thing I finished last weekend was my baby pinwheel quilt with prairie points. I snagged the pattern from the Moda Bakeshop and picked A Breath of Avignon for the fabrics. It's like this great summer pop. I love it. It's on the way to live with my friend Ronnie.

No in-progress pictures because I whipped it out really fast. Steve and Chloe were having some time with Grandpa and I was home with my favorite sewing buddy and we just moved really fast on some stuff. I guess that's what happens when you're not responsible for wiping someone else's butt. ;)



Can you tell that I love these fabrics?




This weekend we're house hunting so I'm not sure how much sewing I'm going to get done, but I love this pinwheel so much that I want to make it out of every fabric I have. My next one will be all oranges. We'll see how it turns out. If nothing else I can use it to stop up the draft under the door.

I had a very nearly perfect weekend. Saturday there were hugs and cuddles with Chloe and then a whole afternoon and evening to MYSELF! Sewing! Cleaning! TV shows no one else likes!

I pulled out the Breath of Avignon charm pack that came last week and decided that the colors just made me too happy to put them back in a box. So I started cutting for one of the Baby Pinwheel quilts from the Bakeshop. They came together so fast! By Sunday night it was done with the binding ready to fold over and sew down. Should have it ready to go to it's new owner on Wednesday. Pictures to come!

At some point my bff showed up at we went shopping. Not girlie shopping, we're not that type. Home Depot shopping. I love how that place smells. We picked out some MDF and a nice thick dowel rod for Operation Make My Own Extension Table. While we were out we also test drove sewing machines for BFF. She and I have the same problem, we've done all our sewing on old (extremely reliable) mechanical machines. I think until I got my new machine in January neither of us had a machine younger than us.

I got to drive the Bernina 820 on the Inspira frame. BFF drove the Aurora 440QE. To be honest? We didn't like them. The BSR got in my way on the 820 and wouldn't let me move as fast as I wanted to, and the action on the Aurora wasn't as nice as BFF wanted. Plus? We currently are using our kidneys and can't sell them to pay for either of those machines.

Across the street from the Bernina dealer is a dealer who sells both Pfaff and Viking. There were test drives of the Sapphire 850 and the Grand Expression 4.0 QE. She walked out with the Pfaff. Well researched, well deliberated, and money well spent. She kept giggling as she tried out new stitches.

The one thing I didn't get done was the templates for my mariner's compass blocks. I had the absolute joy of taking a class on hand piecing that block from Jinny Beyer. What a lovely delightful woman. It was snowing like crazy during our class and she kept reassuring everyone that she had plenty of crash space. Plus, she had the most sympathetic look ever when she told me I'd sewn two of my pieces on upside down. Nothing warms your heart like hearing your idol say "I hate to tell you this, but they're upside down." :D

Anyway, I have plans for a quilt with hand pieced blocks and I keep not getting my templates cut out. Maybe tonight. The blocks I'm going to make are versions of the local Quilters Quest blocks from last year's quest. With 12 blocks to choose from and include the finished quilts are gorgeous. Here's the one hanging at Jinny's shop:



I love it so.

Ok, time for work so I can do binding at lunch. Pictures of pinwheels later!