almost to normal and CELTIC IDEAS!!!!!

today we had another evaluation for the public school speech therapy. the first time we went i kinda got the feeling karyssa wouldn't qualify. i was so excited. but today it sounds like she actually will. *sigh* let me just clarify. i am all about early intervention and whatever will help to do it early so we don't have to do it so long. but it felt SO nice to have a "normal" stamp on our passport. time will tell...maybe she still won't qualify and to that i will say "WAAAAAAHOOO!!" even though it means we would continue paying for preschool ourselves. i will gadly play each month if it means we can be tagged "normal".

then i took her to preschool and asher and i had a date at the library. he has recently in the last couple weeks fallen head over heels in LOVE with books. i am loving it as it means he will finally sit still long enough for me to read to him. he would let me read to him in bed but sometimes i would start the first couple pages and then just turn out the lights and say goodnight. he was so squirmy he wouldn't listen. then as he got older he'd listen in bed, if he was tired, sucking on a passie, and moments from passing out. now he'll bring me books all day long. his favorite is goodnight gorilla. especially after my friend gina told me her daughter charlotte, who is a couple months older than asher, had figured out that there's a balloon on every page. the same balloon that gets farther and farther away as the story goes on. asher LOVES this aspect and he now sleeps with goodnight gorilla for every nap and bedtime. last night we couldn't find it so he slept with goodnight moon and woke up at 2am to let me know he was sleeping with goodnight moon and NOT goodnight gorilla. at 2am i don't much care. goodnight ASHER!!

anyway-long tangent to: i took him to the library for some alone time with me and after picking out a book he won't read anyway (as it's not goodnight gorilla) we went upstairs and i found this book in the quilting section.
*GASP* MORE celtic quilting?? where's celtic quilting?? i love celtic stuff. LOVE IT! after i finish my cousin lauren's quilt i have her brother tristan's quilt. and these are my ideas for that bad boy. it's a FUN quilt. black. LOTS of black. i can't wait. it's so manly and gorgeous and i love quilting this stuff so i'll be able to whiz through it. but first i'm doing a quilt for little ole me. can't wait though. his quilt has me quite motivated to keep working.

inside a white block with black thread. oh ya, i'm that bold. can't WAIT.


on a black border with the same black thread. oooo! like a hidden secret with tons of detail. i love surprises you have to search for.


and this along the border of the blocks and along the border of the quilt, somehow intertwined with itself all the way around...gotta figure that part out but i think i have an idea.


can't WAIT. after may, when lauren gets hers, i can post pictures of the finished product. my grandma has already told me lauren won't get to see it until after mudders sees her walk across the graduation stage. so i can't post pictures yet. ok...munchkins are into something. gotta run.

family heirlooms

my grandma, mudders, makes quilts for each grandchild. a couple years ago she finished my cousin's quilt and sent it off to the quilters to be quilted and she just recently found out that they can't complete it. not sure why it took so long to decide...but it did.
so she asked me to quilt it. i'm so excited. it's a really beautiful quilt with fall/jewel toned colors and real earthy. so i headed to the library to get my favorite book, 1000 Great Quilting Designs by Luise Roberts. It's got tons of ideas. but i wandered into the wrong isle and found Pattern Motifs, a Sourcebook by Graham Leslie McCallum. Oh. Dear. if anyone ever wants to send me books-send me books on motifs. it has ideas, not many but VERY good ideas. i can't WAIT to get my hands on my cousin's quilt and get it whipped out and quilted. i've been organizing the house like crazy last week because i don't have any quilt projects and just wanted to take a bit of a break. but now, the basement is 80% done, and all i have left is the front closet (which is a den of confusion, helmets, coats, scarves, board games, light bulbs. you name it, if it shouldn't be in a closet together it is behind those doors) and lastly, my basket of bathroom-ish supplies in our closet. i need to get those sorted out and organized. but seriously-i'm talking 2 or 3 days MAX of naptime entertainment for me.

i thought i would like being a stay at home mom but i was wrong....i LOVE it.

anyway-here's a couple of my ideas for the quilt. my grandma likes the first one. (i'm not really taking votes, just posting because i love to see them.)
sorry for the glare on this one....

i really liked this one...but at a diagonal. however, the quilt is lots of squares so i think this could turn too boxie so i think i agree w/mudders that the one above will be the keeper one:

and then this for the border...but i would tweek it a little. i don't like the way the vine lays. i think the one that falls over the top should fall underneath and visa versa....i would switch it up so the did the opposite....i don't know that i'm making sense to anyone but me though:

anyway-still looking through books to make sure i'm sold on this border. i'll know more once the quilt is in my hands and i get a few stitches on it.

Sweet Pea's Quilt

I'm finally done with Sweet Pea's quilt and she could not be more anxious for it. Too bad she's already in her crib for the night. Here's pics. Sorry I haven't updated the blog this week-a LOT has happened I just haven't had time to sort it out and figure out how to make it blog-appropriate.

If you click on the pictures you can see a closer picture.

Here's some of the detail work of the stitching.



I'm going to go cover her up with it now so she'll be surprised with it when she wakes up in the morning. She's been hugging it for months!

Yellowstone

Everyone's been telling me that I should save Yellowstone for last because it's so beautiful. Well it is beautiful, but even if I went every year for 10 years I could still not see everything there is to see there. It was really beautiful. The first day we hit old faithful and some geisers because i didn't want to get to the last day and not have seen it. we met a geiser groupie and she told us all about this particular geiser. she went on and on and squealed in delight with every spout of steam then begged it not to leave her when it started to dwindle. passionate, yes. odd, very much yes. she was thrilled when i asked her if she was the groupie for that particular geiser and told me she sneaks into the park every chance she gets since she lives close by and times it so she can see it fill up, go off, and drain. she was full of some very helpful information.
then we saw old faithful, which really had me puzzled since it wasn't near as big as some of the other geisers but it was very reliable thus the name old faithful. not old big and faithful.
the next day we went to manmouth springs. paul had been telling me how gorgeous it was and no matter what we did we HAD to go see manmouth springs before we left. it was quite a drive. it's 30 miles between spots and we were staying about an hour away from manmouth springs. i told him it'd better be some spring for the drive because sweet pea was sick and tired of her car seat and it was only the 2nd day. we got up there to find out that it's different week to week, month to month, and year to year. i thought well, surely it's more beautiful from the bottom. let's go down there and hike up instead of hiking from top to bottom. well. um. it was one of those weeks apparently because it was pretty dry. as in bone dry. except for a couple trickles. we did get some cool shots nonetheless. it was kind of a let down to Paul and i laughed and said "is this your central city?" when my parents came out to colorado my dad kept RAVING to my mom about how wonderful central city was. the last time he was there was in the 60's and it has since become a gambling town. it's great for those who vacation in vegas. it's not for anyone else. it was a major let down to my dad when he went as an adult. paul suddenly felt his pain.

in sweet pea news-she did very good. she's a very good traveler. she did get bored saturday on our way between yellowstone and casper. i caught this shot of her, which i can share, when she got ahold of the paper towel roll.

she loved camping and sleeping in the sleeping bag. i wrapped her up in her quilt, then shoved that down into the sleeping bag so she was a little burrito. here's another shot i can share. tatum got to come along at the last minute and she was very certain to stay close to sweet pea. the first night sweet pea slept in the pack and play and tatum slept right next to her. no blanket or sweater. she froze. but would not leave sweet peas side. after that i kept sweet pea a little closer so i could check on her easier during the night.
she did really good every night but one. one night she had some night terrors and screamed bloody murder. i picked her up-she was sleeping right next to me-and talked to her and paul talked to her and finally i turned on the light and realized her eyes were still closed. as soon as she woke up she did fine.
everywhere we went i would hear women cooing and talking baby talk and wonder "what language is that?" and i would glance over my shoulder to catch them talking to my backpack. sweet pea loved it. soaked up every bit of it. one time i heard "oh there's that cute baby again." it was so cute. no matter what nationality you are or what language you speak this baby melts your heart. she learned to smile for the camera this week-which people thought was adorable. and she learned to wave and have people wave back. that was especially a thrill for her. she has started saying "hi" when she waves now, but it comes out as "eye!" it's super cute. but then, everything she does is super cute. so all in all for our first family vacation i wouldn't change a thing. it was sooo sooo sooo much fun.

i'm puzzled

i have brock & liz's permission to show them pictures of violet's quilt. i know that they check the blog so i was afraid to post with out telling them and ruining any surprise. this is the first quilt i've done without a border and at first it felt naked but it's growing on me. the pattern shows the pieces all the way to the binding. i'm putting alot of quilt work into it because the blocks are about 9 inches wide and it just felt so blocky with out something going across the middle of the block. more pictures will follow i'm sure.
(don't forget-you can click on the picture to see more detail of the fabrics.)

delivery confirmation

well...i embroidered sophia's name on the quilt

and packaged it up


and took it to the post office and said "this is a quilt made from fabrics from the 70's from our grandmother that cannot be replaced...what's the best way to send it." we could send it priority mail for nothing shy of my right arm, or we could send it with delivery confirmation and it will get there Monday or Tuesday and we can track it as it goes. We chose the 2nd option for just $9. I realized why this quilt is so hard for me to let go of. Normally I hand deliver my quilts so I get to see the baby's reaction to them and this time I don't get to do that. So it makes it a little extra hard to part with. But now we can click here and cut and paste this number [03080730000008517343] and we can see where it is. Right now it says there's no record but I just dropped it off 10 minutes ago.

As promised...

Here are pictures of Tracie Sophia Bee's quilt. Although I'm waiting for Dan to get back to me to make sure that's how you spell Tracie. After that I'll embroider: "For Tracie Sophia Bee Angelo With Love Aunt Cheri'" I started doing that on all the quilts.

this is what i did on the border...they are supposed to be bees but half way through realized that i didn't put stingers on their butts soooo...i guess that makes them the nicest of all bumble bees.

busy hands

sorry i haven't posted. my hands have been busy. i finished sophia's quilt this week. tonight actually. i'll post pictures soon.
we got our first foster kid. sort of. his name is tommy dean and he's 50-something years old. oh, and he's paul's dad. he has a friend that needed some help at his body shop here in boulder for the next few weeks. since it's 74 miles from his house and roughly 14 from ours we figured it might be better if he just stays up here during the week. tonight was his first night here. tatum has already traded us in for him. she knows how to finnagle her way into the hearts of many. tonight instead of bringing us the ball she would lay it between his ankles and then sit there stalking. jeesh. we can't break her of that. it's quite disturbing if you are the one being watched. i kept telling him he was our first foster kid so he's gotta let us know if he doesn't know where things are and stuff.
tonight we met a woman who has been doing kinship foster for the last couple years and needs a break. and since we need respite, it all works out well. we might watch the girls for her this weekend for a few hours. she was really nice though so hopefully we can help her out and make her feel comfortable. that's about all i can say about that though.
on the work front, i have to say m'lady has been a lot easier to deal with and way more communicative with me. that helps more than i ever knew. so we'll see how long it lasts but so far it's been ok. and i'm so thankful for that.

binding kitties

i found the fabric i was looking for to do the binding on sophia bee's quilt. i went up to loveland, which turns out to have QUITE a bit more shopping than little ole' longmont. i was talking on my cell to missy and i had found some cute black fabric with cherries, but it just wasn't quite right. and then i said "oh here's some cute fabric with rainbow kitties on it!" i was thinking-darn-adea would love this and missy said "well they are kitty people." i hadn't thought of it! but then when i looked i realized all the colors in the kitty faces were the same colors as what's in the quilt...so...here it is. cute huh?

the call

we got the first call tonight. actually. it was this afternoon. at 2:37 pm (mountain time) in case you felt the earth shake. it was a little scary. our home study worker called. she was giggling when she called. she's really REALLY funny. she giggles and you can't tell WHAT she's thinking behind that mischievous giggle. so she goes "it's Kathryn. are you nervous?!" I said "well, yes...should I be?" and she giggled "No. Congratulations, you passed." Whew. Then we exchanged a few pleasantries that I can't really remember because my ears were ringing. But basically we have our social worker, who is Erin. We've already met her and she's super super cool. So she will call us next and tell us what the next step is. It should be that we will now go to monthly meetings because she has too many families to go to everyone's houses. Then we will get respite care phone calls. (respite care is glorified babysitting.) I said "So what age are we approved for?" "0-7...buuuut I can't remember what they decided on the older sibling. I think it's 0-7 and they'll keep it in mind that you're open to that. They debated what to do on that and I can't remember what they decided." see, I told you she was funny. So she didn't call back so that means we are approved for 0-7 and we will get our official certification in the mail soon.
I'm a little nervous. I'm excited. I'm glad they didn't approve us for 0-17 or something crazy. I think I can handle 7. I think. But she did tell me she wants me to still do older kids in respite care. So when they call I need to tell them that we need some older kids. We'll see how that all works out. Pray for us. It's kinda scary to spell it all out.

In other news...I put the border on Sophia Bee's quilt. And I chose a back. It will be black. I know what you're thinking "black? for a baby quilt?" I emailed my sister-in-law and asked "morbid or striking?" and she said you can never go wrong with black. I toyed around with reds, and a watermelon color and some yellows, but they just didn't do it for me. So, black it is. And I'm going to look for some cute black fabric for the binding but for whatever reason all the fabric designers right now have decided black only matches white. why not little cherry blossoms, or flowers? so I've got some time. I have to quilt the whole thing before the binding goes on anyway. oh-and here's a picture of it with the border on it.

Sophia Beeeeee

So Jenn let me show her a picture so DAN IF YOU'RE READING DON'T LOOK!

Scroll down (so I can hide it from Dan)




Keep going...that wasn't far enough.







Just about...



Ok. Here's what I have so far on Sophia's quilt. Click on the picture to get a bigger view and you can see the actual fabrics.

i caved

so yesterday i caved in. i started quilt number 14. this one will be for my neice in michigan, sophia bee. it's waaaay late but better late than never i guess. i can't post pictures because they want to be surprised but i can tell you that it's call dancing sugar plum fairies. i couldn't resist since she was born in december (of 2007....ya...way late.) i'll post pictures soon but i have to finish it and ship it before i can. or just tell dan not to look at this post.

pictures of stuff

i've been working my tail off finishing up the quilt. i just need to finish the diagonal orange and yellow border and then i can put the binding on. probably one full day (sunday maybe) and i'll be done. woohoo! then on to other projects.
here's what i'm doing on the purple border. my friend shweta brought me back that fabric from india. i LOVE it on this quilt.

and then there's the fireplace screen i got today for $0.

and lastly...dun-dun-duuuuuunnnnn!!! baby seats. in MY house. it is making things feel more real. and that much more scary.

chugga chugga chugga chugga

this weekend i got quite a bit done on the quilt work for my boy quilt. it will still take me quite a few months to finish but it's looking ca-ute! i tried to take a picture to show you but it just wouldn't show up in the light. i'll have to keep trying at different times of the day and at different stages of my progress and see if i can catch it.
on good news i actually got a positive o test tonight. today was a crucial temp day BUT guess who started whining to go out at 5:15AM. in my incoherentness that early all i said to paul was "i can't get up or it will mess up my temps. these 3 days are the most crucial days of the month!!!" he quickly realized my panic and took her out. but-it was too late. my temp schedule was messed up. thank goodness for the pee sticks. only 18 days! oh well....wait a minute....18 days! this is a milestone-this is the same day i o-ed last month! do i have a pattern!?! oh my gosh, if i o again next month on day 18 i will be VERY excited. that means i can cut down to just 8 or so o tests instead of my regular 14+ o tests. whew!
i got trout at the store tonight and i can't wait to eat it. i fell in love with trout when i worked at upword and they put me on a fishing trip with a bunch of guys and the loved me. my only job was to cook for them. that's the part where they fell in love with me. then they tried to teach me how to fish. then they realized why it was a guys only fishing trip. i talked too much and had to promise not to talk if they took me out again. but they still loved me and requested me the next year. i think it was because if they didn't show up for lunch, i put their lunch on my back and walked down the river until i found them to feed them. anyhow-that's how i learned to clean a fish. and it really doesn't bother me. but thank goodness, king soopers does it for me so all i have to do is shove it in the oven.

if i ever wear a quilted vest shoot me

today in longmont there is the quilt-a-fair. it was quite the elastic banded lee jeans and walkers vortex. women from all around northern colorado came in for it. i've never seen so much country blue. i also realized i really am out of my element in the quilting world. as much as i love it and everything about it, i'm not quite your typical quilter. i got a couple what-is-SHE-doing-here glances. and when chatting with another woman actually heard the following statement come out of my mouth "i'm not a beginner...i've done carol doak's spinners quilt" with complete and utter annoyance. i think what's scarier is that the woman i said it to knew exactly which pattern i meant. i think that's when my heart stopped for a second. not with excitement like a heart normally stops, but with fear because i realized in order to box out this woman i whipped out my quilters resume complete with the pattern's creater. how quilt-nerdy is that?!
i DID however, find the pattern for my girl quilt. it's not tricky but it's curvy and really beautiful and i can't wait to start it but i will finish my boy quilt first since, in my hopeless state, i feel as if i have YEARS to finish both.
oh-and jpants-i saw your pattern twice and neither one of them came CLOSE to how pretty yours is. why do these people think everything is better in beige and hunter green?

whew!

i finished my quilt top tonight. thank GOODNESS! now i can have my spare time back, and i can do the dishes again, and i might even cook this next week. and, i didn't think this was possible but i finally bored paul out of tv today. he's been watching tv since i started the quilt. normally on the weekends i have a laundry list of things to do and lately it's just been sew sew sew. today he finally said "i'm getting antsy, i want to do something." but then couldn't find anything to do. poor paul. tomorrow we're going to a rockies game so hopefully that will help.

and, i'm so sorry, i logged on tonight and saw 4 comments to post. ?? not sure how i missed them. so sorry! i've been a bad blogger, and again i blame the quilt.

spreading the love

in my quilting days i have spread the love of quilting to quite a few others. my sister-in-law, who taught her sister and 2 more friends. my husband's cousin. a neighbor girl in florida. my neice. and a friend from champaign (erica peters mongelli for those of you that know her) and she made this quilt for her mom as a thank you for everything she did in planning her wedding. she's not done with the binding but didn't it turn out great. this is a VERY tricky pattern because of the curves, so to do this for your first and it turn out this beautiful is amazing.

seeing stars

lookie lookie! i got another row done. yesterday i spent all day (i know, pathetic) picking out fabrics and cutting them for the rest of the quilt. then today i sewed together the 3rd row. now this week i'll work on the last row and then the border. i usually just do solid fabrics but i think i'm gonna give it a little bling. no, i'm not going to use a bedazzler. i'm just not going to make it plane. i'm so excited and i just can't hide it. i know i know i know and i think i like it.
for those of you that haven't been around for previous quilts, it usually takes me a weekend, or at most a week to piece together a quilt top. but since each of these blocks has 48 pieces, i guess i really can't wonder where the time went.

almost tah-dah

here's the top half of the quilt. it has 6 of the 12 stars it will have. it will be 3 across, as you see here, but then it will be 4 down. the only thing is...argh...is that green square...see with the scottie dog tips? it's not completely square and the edges are off kilter. i remember mudders critiquing her own quilts like this and i thought she was crazy for seeing any problems. now i understand. i'll just embrace what the amish say "to make it perfect is trying to be god." that's my story and i'm sticking to it.

third star

here's the third star which means the first row. 3 more rows and i begin quilting it. that will take a LOOOOONG time. if you click on the picture you can see the fabrics in better detail.