Pastel Rails

If I remember correctly, this one was made for a granddaughter! So cheerful!

This one is QUILTED with Bubble Meander (freehand)

Sept 1 brings about a renewal of time-committment for me. After having a more free-float summer schedule, it's time to figure out how to mesh working at home AND outside the home with homeschooling. It's a juggling act to be sure.

It'll be my last year homeschooling. Bi-polar feelings galore over that one! I truly love planning the subjects, learning or relearning things along side a child, but the best part of it is spending time with my favorite people in the world.

I'll miss the one-on-one, the side-tracked, heart-to-heart talks that burst forth spontaneously during school time. But I'll admit, too, that there's a small part of me that's excited by the prospect of reclaiming that time. Enormous amounts of time going into thinking it all through before & during the school year, the endless grading, keeping one step ahead of reading subjects like Chemistry or Anatomy/Physiology to aid in somewhat intelligent conversations with a daughter, researching supplements that go with lessons (like field trips or other experiences), gathering all the curriculum & learning how it can run and then deciding how it'll run for us. It's like an gigantic jigsaw puzzle. OMGosh I love it!!! 

I've been helping my kiddos with school for 20 years! Even the years they spent in "real school" took enormous amounts of time: adhering to schedules, studying for tests & plays, shuttling to/from activities or sports, making sure uniforms/bookbags/shoes could be found. Just think how much time it all takes! Our entire days revolve around those school schedules. 

And next year mine won't. 

Autumn Arrives

I'm exceedingly happy Fall seems to be happening this year, with a proper cooling down period & not this hot-to-cold stuff we've done the past couple years. The sweatshirts have been needed for most of the early morning dog walks, and I'm thrilled to be wearing Pink sweats today! I love my bummy clothes!!

In other news, we seem to have found our homeschool rhythm, which has me a bit calmer about how to combine working from home while also effectively homeschooling. It's still quite the juggle with many days leaving me wanting more hours in the day & more energy in this middle-aged body! I've been utilizing my crock pot a bunch... so helpful when we're all starving but left with depleted energy to deal with cooking.

Here's what I've had to work on in the Quilting Realm: 

 Green Rail Top; QUILTED with Branchy Spirals (freehand) 

 Garden Twist Top; QUILTED with Leafy Swirl (freehand)

Patriotic Star Top; QUILTED with Stars & Loops (freehand)

I hope you're all enjoying a Slow Sunday! Reading, writing, sewing, sitting, Mountain Men, and football are on the agenda for today...

School starts & Quilting Continues!

Yep, our 11th grade homeschool year is under way, but the quilting doesn't wait! I'm happy to announce I've added to my clientele the piecers at Carolyn's Quilt Shop in Tamaqua. If you haven't been to Carolyn's yet, you should make a trip to visit her:  lots of beautiful fabrics, a vat-full of kits to choose from, and samples abound. There's definitely something for everyone!

The Orange/Green Retro top is quilted in Bubble Meander:

And this Brown Chevron top is also quilted in Bubble Meander: 

Aside from quilting for Stitch & Craft & Carolyn's Quilt Shop, I've been working on a few of my own projects. This wall hanging is really a multi-generational project. My maternal Great Grandmother (Gamla Mor Mor) who lived in Finland started it, and from what I understand she probably did the majority of the handiwork. My maternal Grandmother who came to the USA as a young woman worked minimally on it but held onto it & then passed it down to my mom. Eventually my mom hinted that perhaps I could finish it for "some birthday". 

All the flowers are made from yarn wrapped around small, plastic rings, and the stems are stitched by hand with yarn as well. These were all done when I got it. I just finished it by hand-quilting in an echo pattern & binding it. 

Thanks for visiting me here :) I'm way behind in blogging & have much more to show you! 

Till next time...

Jumping into June

Just a few of the recents...

An Autumn Cross-stitch Top; QUILTED with Swirly Curl Freehand:

A Princess Top; QUILTED Custom (Freehand & SID)

Purple & Blue Rails Top; QUILTED Bubble Meander Freehand

Gold & Blue Cross-stitch Top; QUILTED with Swirls & Curls Freehand

During non-quilting hours I've been busy wrapping up the end of our homeschool year. The evaluation & portfolio for this year which just ended are done, and the paperwork is compiled to be notarized for the upcoming school year! I'll hand it all in this week & can begin planning the subjects for the upcoming 11th grade year. Hard to believe we're down to two more years of this homeschooling journey!

And though I've spent many hours already out at the pool, I've only ventured partway in once as the water is still too cold. Smokey the lab has gotten many hours of use though!

Talk to you soon!

May Madness

BAM!! May was done in a blink of an eye! 

Our homeschool year has come to it's official close, and now there remains the portfolio compilation, having it evaluated, turning it into the school district, and I'll have our next year's Goals & Objectives ready & notarized to be handed in at the same time. No use making two trips!

I can't believe I have an 11th grader again! Oy vey! I do like a couple of this year's upcoming subjects better than last year's. We're going from Geometry & Biology to Consumer Math & Chemistry. Woot! HATE Geometry & Biology. I like Consumer Math & LOVE Chemistry. 

English is the constant subject I love with a passion & is so easily taught to & accomplished by my daughter. She & I love to read & write, so it's hands-down the most enjoyable subject.

While homeschooling in it's active form has winded down, homeschooling planning is about to go full throttle. Each subject takes a good 3-5 days just to plan about the first 6 weeks. Once I get that much done in every subject, I go back & add to the plans & must constantly work on it before & during the school year. 

It's also the time of the year that quilting steps up a notch, while piecers anticipate the holiday rush. I try to plan a week's vacation here & there throughout the year as the schedule allows, but I'm missing the years of having the summers off with the kids! 

So here are the last few quilts in May...

T-shirt Top; QUILTED in a Freehand Meander

This pic is just for my BFF due to it's content :) 

Shout-out to you, Kathryn!

A Scrappy Rectangle Top; QUILTED with Single Reverse Loop Freehand

Pink Floral Cross-Stitch Top; QUILTED with Leafy Swirl Freehand

Any grand vacation plans? None here, but we feel like our backyard pool is like a daily mini vacation, so we feel spoiled in that regard. 

Happy Summer!

Goodbye Spring!

How has springtime been treatin' ya? Besides some itchy eyes & sinus headaches, I've enjoyed getting outside a bit more. 

Here in Lancaster, PA, we've said goodbye to spring & have gotten Slammed with Summer this week. Sounds like a bad romance novel! The kids & the lab have enjoyed the early pool weather.

In other news, I'm almost past this stretch of time that nearly sends me over the edge every year. Springtime for me is on par with the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays. 

*Three family birthdays in May ~ one of which included my eldest turning 21!! Really, I can't possibly by THAT OLD?!?!?

*Mother's Day ~ while I'd love to tell you I look forward to this day & being pampered, it'd be a lie. I don't. It never feels "right" or completely joyful when my heart aches & it hurts to breath from missing Montie. I did have a terrific day, but maybe that's hard to understand? I still love being a mom. I still found enjoyment when my girls, their boyfriends, my hubby, and I went for a hike, and then they treated me to Sweet Frog & showered me with unexpected gifts. Plastering that smile on my face was hard, though, & took a conscious effort. And it was exhausting & so I was relieved on some level when it was over.

*Wrapping up a homeschool year ~ here in PA we have to have our child's schoolwork evaluated by a professional, then hand in a portfolio proving "appropriate learning" took place, then turn it into the school district. I have this pretty down-pat, but it still takes a great deal of time to attend to all the organization & compiling of materials.

*Planning for the upcoming homeschool year ~ need to have subjects & books picked to go to the CHAP curriculum fair in May and also prepare the affidavit to hand into the school district legally notifying them of my intent to homeschool in the upcoming year. Again, I love perusing curriculum & books, but the time factor can be huge if you don't use the same curriculum year after year (some I do & some we change up).

*This spring brought two added challenges in the midst of the craziness ~ my younger daughter was practicing to take her driver's license test AND she interviewed multiple time & has since been hired for her first job! These are definitely exciting events, but man, so much time involved!! And can I just admit that I HATE practicing parallel parking with a teen!! BLECK. Boring. Rifled & peppered with unhappy outbursts mixed with laughter. It's quite the bi-polar experience.

*And finally the crazed-spring-frenzy wraps up with Montie's birthday. He'd be 15 tomorrow, Monday, June 3rd. How I miss my little man... though I guess he wouldn't be so "little" anymore and more of a lanky teen.

I have managed to get some quilting done in between everything else in "swiss-cheese" fashion. It goes against my nature to do things in this manner but thems-the-breaks!

Red Floral Attic Window top; QUILTED in Bubble Meander freehand:

30's Scrappy Rectangles top; QUILTED with Daisy Meander freehand:

Red Labyrinth Top; QUILTED with Loops & Stars freehand:

Baby Rail Top; QUILTED Bubble Meander freehand:

Just had to show the Minky backing... quilts beautifully & so soft!

Geometric Blue top; QUILTED with Jilly panto:

Brown Batik Labyrinth top; QUILTED with Single Loop Reverse freehand:

Thanks for sticking it out till the end of this lengthy post! Hope you're enjoying a Slow Sunday :)

Ode to Spring & Personal Projects

The weather has finally sprung

yes, in PA, spring has finally released her fun

Gone are the dreary of doldrums

now for the outdoor walks & slow runs

Hiding inside like a hermit no more

Fresh air, sunshine, and warm breezes galore 

trying to ignore all the red eyes & sneezes

still yearning for swimming, BBQs & more!

Has spring sprung yet in your neck of the woods? It spurs in me desires to clean out the car, take up running again, pull out my bike, go for a hike, ready the pool, clean out the 3rd floor, reorganize the house...

... really you could just lump them into two categories: head for the hills & clean my brains out. 

In reality, I'll probably work on few of the items floating around in my head until summer kicks in. Not only does springtime bring about half a dozen birthday celebrations for us, as well as Mother's Day, but there's lots to do to close out our school year as well as preparing for the upcoming year. 

 I spend time researching, picking out & buying all the curriculum for next year's homeschooling adventure, so I have it all on hand for planning over the summer. And then there's all the busywork of the paperwork involved with legally homeschooling in PA. (PA has the most laws in any state governing our right to homeschool our children. I don't want to debate with anyone why this is or why this isn't a good thing for my kiddos. It's a pain~ period.)

Anywho, I'm off on a tangent here...

Spring is busy. Should I have just left it at that perhaps? And then isn't EVERYONE busy? All. the. time. Okay, so enough boohooing about busyness & onto some doodads I've made recently...

 Fabric "Catch-all"

The pattern is by Liberty Weaver (www.stores.ebay.com/libertyweaver.com), and it gives instructions to make different sizes. Mine is currently being used to hold threads & small scraps of fabric left over from various crafting endeavors.

Fabric Postcard & Ribbon Work Garden Pincushion

(classes I took at Stitch & Craft)

 This stitchery might be one of my most favorite creations of all time. I can't wait to hang it in my bathroom & wait for the revelations!! (stop laughing at me)

Last but not least are my Winter & Spring blocks for the block swap I did with friends at Stitch & Craft:

Happy Slow Sunday!

A Tribute to 25 Years

When we met, I was 15 & getting ready to start my sophomore year at Dallastown High School in York, PA, and he was 17 & getting ready to start his senior year at the same school. 

When my girls each hit 15, I looked at them with my head cocked to one side & couldn't believe I was that young when I met my husband. 

When they each hit 16, I thought back to my 16 year-old self walking in my house to show off an engagement ring, committing my heart to this young man, and wondering why my Dad was so up-in-arms... 

When my oldest reached 17, I thought, "Married?? Wow, she looks so young."

I was one month shy of my 18th birthday when we got married, much to the consternation of my parents. Oh, our wedding had been anticipated, to the extent that August 5, 1988 had already been engraved on the inner rim of my waiting wedding ring; yet that's not the date we got married. (That's a story for another day).

We dated for two and a half years before getting married and had already endured a year and a half separated by long distances while he was in the Marine Corps & I was finishing high school.

We'd lived in those days for daily letters & old-fashioned phone calls. 

When we married, I moved almost three thousand miles away to join Marshall in 29 Palms, CA, where he was stationed. I still remember getting off the plane  & the balmy air hitting my nose for the first time. But I remember crying, too, for missing everyone & everything I'd known. 

We spent the first two and a half years of married life out in that dessert. My cats chased a scorpion through my family room once, we found beetles as big as tennis balls, and I almost walked into a huge coyote on my front porch on my way out to work. We ate a lot of eggs & Dinty Moore stew back then & spent a lot of our "extra money" on renting VCR tapes & Sega Genesis games (esp Blades of Steel & Zelda) I loved it there.

Yet when Marshall's four years were done in the Marine Corps, we headed back east to Baltimore, where we lived in the city for the next nine months. 

A job change led us to Monroe, MI, where I had Maegan in May 1992. One short year later, after we'd moved back to PA to be closer to family, I lost a second pregnancy at twenty weeks. Our first son is buried in Prospect Cemetery in York, PA. 

Marshall started law school at Widener & I was going to York College working on my Nursing BS degree. In the midst of all this, we had Morgan in August of 1996. It was a crazy time... both of us in school, buying our first home, a preschooler, a new baby, and then...

Montie joined us in June 1998! My brood & I hunkered down with this thing called Marfan Syndrome. At first we barely survived the weekly trips to Johns Hopkins, hospital stays, learning how to suspend drugs to make his medication, breathing treatments, PT, OT, learning about aortic dissection & it's warning signs, learning to put hard contacts into a six-month- old's eyes & finding them when they spontaneously popped out, being diligent to put the back brace on for more hours than not, and on and on~ All the while trying to just love on everybody the way a Mommy & a Daddy want to. 

Slowly, we found our way, began homeschooling, became experts on all things "Marf", moved twice, built a couple pools, got gym memberships, gymnastics, basketball, book clubs, ballet, park days, soccer practices, more PT & OT sessions, Boy Scouts, and life kept moving along at break-neck speed...

...until it all stopped on March 19, 2009. I wasn't sure we'd survive when Montie passed away. It hurt to breath, hurt to leave the house, it hurt to wake up & have to "remember" what we were dealing with wasn't a bad dream.

Thanks be to God who sent us angels on earth to feed us, wash our clothes, share the memories, let us cry & helped us laugh. People left their own families & children to help us through, to get us groceries, helped us gather for a celebration of Montie's life, and stayed with us after...

Four more years have happened. Our girls have gotten older, and somehow, almost surprised, we look at them in awe: smart, beautiful, funny, witty, compassionate & loving with deep hearts & old souls. 

In the blink of an eye, we're here 25 years later, and we wonder at us...

March 5, 2013 ~ Happy 25 Years to Us!

Some February Finishes

Is it just me, or does February seem to be flying by with the greatest of speed?? It doesn't seem that long ago we were celebrating the start of the new year!

It's the time of year when our days become a bit more of a struggle. After the long Christmas break with the mile-long to-do lists (for the holidays & also catch-up tasks, it's hard to get "back on that horse". 

The melancholy moods & uninspired days can become downright depressing if one isn't watching out for it all! I'm *trying* to get enough sleep (even though my bod won't cooperate too often). I *try* to watch what I eat, but the coldness & dampness have me hedging toward comfort foods. And we're *trying* to get back into the gym regularly. I NEVER feel like going right now, but I always feel good afterwards for having gone. 

Our homeschool schedule remains the same as far as timing goes, but a couple subjects have changed content with the start of the new semester. The changes seem to have breathed enough fresh air into our learning to have removed the stagnation felt at returning to our school schedule after the holidays.

So along with passing my days in a blur of schooling, working out, cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, I've also gotten some quilting done:

Orange/Brown Top: QUILTED Branchy Spiral Freehand in center & Oak leaf Panto on borders

T-shirt/Flannel Top; QUILTED with Wide Meander Freehand

Spring Rail Top; QUILTED Bubble Meander Freehand

 Pink Crazy Patch Baby Top; QUILTED Bubble Meander Freehand

Blue Sailboat Baby Top; QUILTED Water Stipple Freehand

Autumn Crazy Patch Flannel Top; QUILTED Leafy Swirl Freehand

I don't do a lot of piecing right now, but I think I'd like to make the quilt right above this paragraph for hubby. It can be difficult to find a "manly" pattern & this seems to do it for me. It looks simple enough that I may actually get to piece it during weird spans of free time, it's warm & soft in flannel, AND it doesn't look especially gender-specific, which makes me think it'd be nice for the man room or our family room! So what I'm wondering is if this is a pattern or if this is just making crazy patches & lopping them all off at the same dimensions & applying some sashing/borders? Anybody out there can shed some light for me?? 

Happy Monday!