Sewing room is officially closed...

I am finishing up some last gifts and have to close up the sewing room as it will be used for storage while we are away for 18 months.  A daughter and her friend will be renting two bedrooms during our absence. This requires moving lots of stuff into the sewing room.  

One of our friends is selling a house that his family friend lived in.  She passed away and he brought her quilt frame to me complete with a partially completed quilt, hand quilted.  It is beautiful, but I cannot work on it till we return.

What a gift!!

I started this wall hanging a while ago and wanted to complete it before we left to donate for the Festival of Trees which is held in Boerne to support Hill Country Family Services.  I debated about adding more quilting on it, but my dear sister in law said it was great just the way it was. Yeah! I will donate this week.

Last is a gift that will soon be given, but took h-o-u-r-s to quilt, so I will share it.

The sewing room is officially closed!!!  Now back to packing!!

It is August already???

Getting ready for the mission mostly, but I have done some embroidery in between. Trying to figure out what I need for 18 months is not easy, but in a way it is good because it forces me to sort thru everything.
I have to empty the MBR because the youngest daughter will move in while we are away.
How did I get so much stuff :-)
23 days till departure!!!

This was a job that a friend asked me to do after seeing Suzy's:

I have two wedding receptions and this is one set of towels I monogrammed for a gift:

The next set needs to be done by next week.

New / Old Singer featherweight 221

                                                                                                                                                                     We have been traveling for the last month and saw almost all of the children and their families.
We also got to welcome two new grandchildren. They are the cutest! I especially love snuggling the newest ones.

While traveling, we spent several days with my father in New Jersey. He was trying to clean out years of Stuff in his garages and my step sister Betsi took me up to her mom's studio to show me what she was working on. While we were up there, I mentioned my interest in anything related to sewing and surprise, she brought out two antique sewing machines. One was a Singer Featherweight!! I have been looking at these machines for months as they are a favorite with quilters. I was so excited. I'm not sure if Betsi was wondering about me at that point!
The machines plug and foot pedal wiring was almost completely disintegrated but, lucky me, Jim replaced the wiring and still was able to use original foot pedal and plug into machine saving ordering one.

I tried to upload a video of this machine, but I need to figure out how because I could not get it to work :-(

Latest projects .....

I am constantly working on sewing, quilting and embroidery projects.  Suzy will be teaching Chinese immersion to fourth graders next year and asked me to create some banners for her classroom.
The problem is I do not know Chinese and needed some very specific instructions on creating.
After some trial and error, I came up with these. Now I just need to hem and create a way to hang them.

One says Respect and Wisdom and the other says: Faith, Hope, Love. One of my friends saw these panels and had hired me to make three new panels for her daughters birthday....

Last year, Camden had me embroider the back of a tie for her Dad, so I decided it would be a wonderful gift for my Dad this year for Fathers Day.

 This baby boy quilt is for a grandson due August 26th.  We will not be here, so I needed to get it done early.  Notice the quilting...I am practicing on my new HQ Sweet 16.

For Memorial Day and the Fourth of July I embroidered this:

Interesting two weeks...

We traveled to NJ for my step mother's funeral.  She has been a part of our lives for 44 years.  She was 94 years old and wanted to live to 100!

The happy part of attending a funeral is getting to see and visit with many family and friends we have not seen for perhaps years.

 This is my Dad(on the left) and his brother, Uncle Peter.  They enjoy each others company so much and you can sure see the family resemblance.

 Amy came up with her children and they enjoyed meeting new cousins and being entertained by the ipad during the 4 hour viewing.

 These are Jane's three daughters. From left to right: Margi, Zan, and Betsy. We helped with many things on Saturday in getting ready for the viewing on Sunday.

 This picture is at Dad's house and includes Jim, Dad and Amy.  We had a wonderful visit together.

 Jim and I stayed at my sister, Cindy's house with her husband Peter.  Across the street neighbors had a new golden retriever puppy we went over to visit. It was so fun, such a cute puppy!

Cindy had made a trip to the Lenox outlet before I arrived and bought this lovely serving dish for me!!

 About the only sewing I did this week was to add a balancing strap to this gown for my neighbors daughter who is attending the Air Force Academy and will have a ring ceremony this coming week.
I was a little tough for me, because I did not want to damage the gown and it had a lot of beading in the places I needed to sew....but she was happy with the way it turned out and thats all that matters, right?

The biggest news of this week!!!  We received our mission call to the San Diego, CA Mission serving as military specialists for the Marine Corp Recruiting Depot!
We are very excited to serve the Lord in this capacity and know we and our loved ones will be blessed as we serve.

Fun with the grandsons! and some shopping too!

I spent the last week in Arkansas with Becky's family (hopefully being helpful).

The boys are very active and fun!

This little guy has no fear! He is only two, but keeps up with his older brothers.

While I was there, I also got to do a little fabric shopping.....They have two very nice quilt shops and one is very close to Becky's house. Its called "Village Quilting" and I remember going there when she first opened and I was not sure she would make it in that area but she is very successful and told me if I wanted to escape and sew, she had lots of sewing machines in her shop and I was welcome to use them on a drop by basis.  Maybe thats why her business has been so successful!

I am always looking for more baby quilt fabric and I just loved the red, black and white fat quarters with sewing prints.  It would make a wonderful wall hanging quilt for my sewing room.....

Been a while...still embroidering and quilting....

My sister, Cindy, loves cats and has been spending lots of time taking care of our Dad and Step-Mother in NJ.  I decided she needed a special gift so I made her these embroidered towels.

I keep thinking I should put them in the mail, but the way things are going, I maybe visiting soon....

The other day I was quilting and looked out the window and saw this little lizard sitting on the windowsill.  He was there again today. Maybe I should give him a name....

 Latest, job for the Stake Relief Society... I love that everyone wants matching aprons!

 We found out last week that we will have two more grandchildren that are boys this summer... I actually have more girl fabric than boy, but I put together one that is currently being quilted and on the design wall is the other...I like to keep it up and consider whether I need to change it before I actually start sewing..I got the cute airplane fabric for the backing from a garage sale that a friend was having.
It is so appropriate since grandpa is a pilot....

Cannot post current projects....

I have been very busy this week, but some of my projects will be future gifts and I cannot give away the surprise....

On Sunday we had an open house for Hermana Moyer as she leaves very soon for the Mexico City MTC.  We had about 50 people and I think it was wonderful for her to have a chance to visit with everyone.  I had easy foods and a special treat, Shrimp!! (special treat for me, but all seemed to love)

I am posting this little onesie that I embroidered for the newest addition to our ward.  The Winnie the Poo design was from a CD Paul gave me for my birthday last year. There are so many cute designs.

Oh, I forgot, I also completed my physical for the mission.  Now just dental check next week and the papers should go in by the end of the month!!!

DIY ironing board and a funny!

When I am putting many little quilt pieces together, I used to have to jump up and go to the other side of the room to the ironing board to iron each piece.  I watch sewing shows on PBS like: "Its Sew Easy" and "Sewing with Nancy".  They always have a little sewing surface right next to the machine and I thought that was a great idea. Then while exploring YouTube, I found that my favorite gal, Jenny Doan at Missouri Star Quilt company had an easy DIY video for making my own.  Jim went to the hardware store and got the underlayment and cut it for me. All I had to do was make the sort of pillowcases out of towel and fabric and this is the result.  I had this cute fish fabric that I was not sure how to use and it is bright and happy!

I also made this Texas apron for a friend who wanted to give it as a gift.  I had the outline and a bluebonnet and used my Embrillance embroidery program to put together and size to fit.

Finally, a friend sent me this picture and it made me laugh so hard! I think Jim can relate!!

A Real Job plus a gift!

I got a call this week to embroider 10 more scrubs for the local vet.  I used to do their embroidery in exchange for some vet services, but now that our two dogs have gone to heaven, they are paying me!

We have a friend who is leaving soon for a mission for our church. She is going to Honduras.  I wanted to embroider a gift for her.  I have never embroidered on vinyl and did some research to make sure I would not break my machine or my needle.  I also embroidered a hankie...because it is white on white it is hard to see, but it has her initials and a rose.

Now I just need to research ideas for a farewell open house!  

Todays project just for me!

Today I just wanted to have a little fun.  I have had this bag for a little while and was exploring what I might embroider on it.

Since Valentines Day is coming...I told Jim it was my present thus the heart on one side.
Then I tried the fleur-de-lis on the other side and really love it......