by Karen on April 30, 2009
in quilts
I thought I only had food and clothing to pack in the motorhome today but god, I have made I don’t know how many trips back and forth from the house to the camper with my arms full of stuff. You would think we were going to be gone for a year!
Some people say oh throw a couple pair of shorts, jeans and t-shirts in and your ready to go. I’m afraid I do a little more than that. What will the weather be like at this time of year – will it rain, will it be cool days on end or warm. I put in t-shirts, sleeveless t-s, jeans, Capri’s, a couple sweatshirts, a rain jacket, several pair of shoes — the list goes on and on.
Then there is the house – clean out the freezer (put in camper freezer) toss food that you don’t want to bring and that will go bad (not much there, I planned ahead), do laundry, run the dishwasher. Make sure the bills are paid, stop the mail, give girlfriends a tour though the motorhome (one had seen it the other hadn’t – say goodbyes). Make sure little brother has the key to the house to be checking on things.
And of course there is the quilting things – didn’t double check that I think I 3 or 4 times checked to make sure I didn’t forget anything important. And books to read for those nice days when you are reclining outside under the awning. Movies to watch on rainy evenings, scrabble and deck of cards.
I’m I allowed to scream!! Finally after two days of going through things I think I have remembered everything and then I bet two or three days from now Mike will say “where is —-” and “I will say didn’t you pack it?” and he will say“didn’t you 
” and then Wal-Mart with their low prices or some other close by store will come in handy and we will be helping the economy out!
Did I say how glad I am that we no longer have small children traveling with us? Pets? I would still be running back and forth! (adult children with their spouse & children and pets would be a different story because they would have to have their own motor homes and meet us some place which would be fun and they would pack their own stuff!)
I will write and post pictures when I can and check in on all the blogs I like to read. I will be quilting on the road for the next month (actually piecing and applique but what the heck we will stick with “quilting on the road”)
Adios
I got my car back from the shop today – it was a small fix and didn’t even cost much! I was right it doesn’t even say in the manual that the rear differential fluid needs to be changed every so often. The mechanic had to call the Honda number to find out and as soon as he told them the problem it was like oh you have to change the fluid every 60-90,000 miles. Why wasn’t it on the maintenance schedule? We have no local Honda dealership so take care of regular maintenance here at quick oil change places. The trip is on schedule — now if it would just stop raining!! I have a motorhome to load up and it is raining off and on all day. Mainly I have clothing left to put in the camper and some food. Not too much but it always seems to come down to the last day and then I am checking off one list after another. It will get done.
I managed to finish the quilt! one down and how many to go? “Walking the Primrose Path” though is done the rest will wait. I think I have 2 small quilt tops to quilt and a wallhanging. I’m not even going to try to baste one of them to bring with me to quilt. I have 3 projects packed and that is plenty. I will get around to these smaller quilts when we get home.
I got one more pineapple block finished the other day for a grand total of 4 six inch blocks done -
hum I wonder how many for a queen – probably 150 or so maybe it will be finished 5 to 10 years from now!
Mike took some before and after photo’s of how he redesigned the closet and the cabinet area of the bathroom in the motorhome, here are the photo’s of the closet. The before picture of the closet is on the left. Couldn’t get the whole closet in because of such a small area to take the photo, there is one more rod to hang clothes on at the top. Here is the after photo on the right. The very bottom has room for shoes and the pull out plastic containers will be great for fold up clothes. I have pant hangers for the top rod for jeans and jackets although we have enough other space to spread clothes out here 
and there as well.
For the bathroom the medicine cabinet although looks roomy is very narrow so he added one 
more cabinet in there. On the left is the before and on the right is the after. We need to figure out where to hang the hand towel holder so it isn’t in the way of the sink. We will take care of that tomorrow – or while traveling, he has his bag of tools with him and we have the towel holder that he took down to make room for the cabinet. The holder had not been in a good place as when the towel was hanging it was over the light switch.
As always click on any picture to enlarge. Someone on one of my quilting lists asked for a photo of the outside of the motorhome – Diane this is what it looks like here on the left. This photo is from last summer on our first outing with the motorhome after we got it. See it is small, but we love it. The really neat thing about this small home is that the drivers and passenger seats turn around so it becomes the living area when parked adding much more useable space.
“Walking the Primrose Path” is just about done! another one bites the dust I will post a picture of the complete quilt in a day or two. I machine stitched the binding down tonight and will start the hand stitching in just a little bit and will work on it off and on all day tomorrow. I do want to get one thing done before this trip. I have been so slow at this one sometimes taking weeks off from working on it. I hope to be done with it by tomorrow night and be able to toss it in the washing machine and dryer and photograph it before we leave.
We took the car in this morning to get the work done on it and should hear back from the mechanic tomorrow to find out how it is going. He was very, very busy so we are hoping he will find time to get it done by Thursday so we will still be able to leave on Friday. We will see. It won’t be a problem though to leave at a later date so not worry there.
Today Mike got done with his remodel project of the motorhome closet and I will hopefully post photo’s tomorrow of the before and after. He also made a small cabinet for the bathroom under the medicine cabinet for a little more storage of bathroom supplies.
It rained yesterday and washed some of the pollen out of the air and the trees ect. it is much better outside without quite so much of the pollen dusting everything but my allergies were acting up today anyhow.
What was supposed to be a day of hard thunder storms and heavy rain turned into a fairly good day. Little rain here although we might get it heavy tonight I guess and chances throughout the week. I got two more squares of Dear Jane – “Insanity” quilted earlier today and I will probably get to work on it some more this evening unless I find another project to work on instead.
We might get off on our trip a couple days later than planned. Our vehicle that we tow behind us is going into the shop tomorrow – making noises = must be looked at. So glad to get this taken care of before we hit the road. No reservations are made until the middle of the month when we would be in a heavily populated popular area so no schedule to keep right away. It doesn’t matter if we are a few days later in starting out. We have kind of planned this trip to be more relaxed and not have reservations except at one area. At this time of year, before school lets out it is not as busy as some places. Now when we go to Wyoming later this summer to the Yellowstone/Grand Teton area we will have reservations as some places because of how popular it gets.
The sun is out for the evening it looks like – really it has been cloudy all day so this is nice. I might even go sit out on the porch for a little bit before I start to work on Insanity. I have not started the tedious preparation work of those 56 berries for the Christmas block. I don’t know if I will or wait until we get home. The pattern actually says you can skip the berries if you want to, but I think it will look nice with them. I might not put them all on it – we will see.
by Karen on April 27, 2009
in quilts
Judi at the Green Fairy is holding another give away. Go see what she has and if you leave a comment tell her I sent you as I will get another chance as you will if you send anyone to her also.
Row E blocks 5 & 4 left to right finished. I got these two blocks quilted this evening. Do you ever have the feeling that you have accomplished nothing in a day but yet you do know that you were busy all day?
I did grocery shopping this morning and picking up some necessities for the camper – paper products are a necessity when you know you will be at some campgrounds with no hookups and making due with a full water tank means you want to make sure you have plenty of water for washing up and toilet flushing — I do not walk to the campground bathroom in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning!! I draw the line someplace Paper plates, paper bowls and paper cups will be used and aluminum foil for cooking outside – the less amount of dishes the better – I don’t want to waste water on washing dishes – I need the water for the toilet LOL. Normally I try to be green and not have to much paper trash and plastic trash. I will use my regular dishes and pots and pans at the campgrounds where I have water hookups.
Other than grocery shopping and then putting a few things in the camper I am trying to remember what I did today! Ok, while the evening news was on I quilted for a little while on the “Walking the Primrose Path” quilt almost done with two of the final borders – that quilt just might be coming with me to get it done!
I also sprayed the pollen off of the porch – it was so covered I couldn’t stand it any longer. Ok I guess I did do a bit today – it just didn’t feel like it for some reason. You should have seen the yellow green water running off of the porch – I even sprayed the furniture down – it looks so much better now. Still pollen in the air and some dust – but we are expecting rain tomorrow afternoon and night and maybe Tuesday too so a lot of the rain will wash the pollen out of the trees and the air.
I have managed to go through a few more of the blogs on the quilt festival page (link found in one of last weeks posts) – I continue to be amazed at how many are listed, I think when I looked earlier today it was at 570– I am up to about 430 I believe. I want to look at all of them as I had so many that looked at my Stain Glass Dragon it isn’t fair for the blogs listed after post 300 or whatever to not get looked at! there are just so many I’m sure some people gave up looking at them.
I guess I did accomplish some things after all today
Between last night and tonight I have the next Baltimore Christmas Album block glue basted in place — that is all except the 56 little tiny berries!! This block is titled “A Berry Christmas”. The construction is just a little different in that the leaves are not cut out individually – the leaves and stems are in groupings of 8 and they are cut together like a snow flake pattern if you know what I mean. If you look closely at the photo (click to enlarge) you will see what I mean. I will put the berries on after all of this in the photo is appliqued into place as some of the berries go in the areas were seam allowance needs to be stitched under – they would be in the way if I do it now. The berries will go in a zip lock bag and if I get around to them on the road then they will be handy.
Awhile back I wrote and showed a picture of the quilt “Little Brown Bird” that I am interested in working on. On a blog that I read Carol Mosey– Michigan Quilts she pictures a quilt that I’m sure is using some of the patterns from that quilt. It was at a quilt show in Michigan. Look at that beautiful applique!
Today instead of getting things ready in the motorhome for our upcoming trip we drove into North Little Rock to see our daughter (From Scratch) and son-in-law – we brought them the 3 large houseplants that they are going to care for while we are gone. While we were there we went to the Farmer’s Market that is only open on Tuesday and Saturday mornings and we have always missed seeing it. Today we made a point of getting there early enough to wander and buy a few fresh veggies. It was nice.
We need some rain to wash away all this pollen!! We hate it and we have it every year, if it does not rain tonight I will sweep it all off of the porch and then spray the plants down to get it off of them and then do it again later in the week. If I remember I will take a photo so you can see how thick it gets. Is it like this in other states — a yellow/green pollen from the pine trees, it will last at least 2 weeks if not longer, it covers everything outside. I do not ever remember seeing this in other states we lived in even though I know there are pine trees all over – maybe it is of a particular variety here in Arkansas?
More on “Insanity”, I was busy last night and this evening. This triangle starts off row E (5th 
row). I also got some of the blocks started. The blocks are # 3, 2 & 1 from left to right row E (#5).
The green/yellow pollen from the pine trees is getting really bad at this time of year. There is a dusty coating of everything outside with it and I had the windows open earlier today and the wind started up before I realized it and the pollen started to come in the house and I had to spend part of the afternoon dusting and wiping it off of furniture! I hate that stuff. It gets so thick here and it will cover the cars and outside furniture and plants for a good two weeks or so before it goes away. I had to shut the windows and put the air on as it got up into the 80′s today and it was getting warm in the house – too warm to sleep comfortably.
I haven’t worked on my Dutch Treat quilt blocks in ages and started to go through them while I was putting together some of my Dear Jane (Insanity Revisited) blocks to take in May on our trip. I decided to take some of the DT blocks with me and maybe I will get back into it. Not really sure though. I have 37 blocks done and thought maybe I could do something with an even 40 – a wall hanging maybe. We will see. I think I will get one of the Christmas Baltimore Album blocks glue basted also and bring it with too. Little variety is good for the soul you know! I’ll probably come back with only about half of the things done that I bring along. That is normal for me, we get so busy taking walks and seeing things and exploring that we don’t sit around a lot.
The sun was out, it wasn’t raining, the flowers are blooming, I even cut the grass. I’m so glad that it was pretty out today. The largest of my azelea bushes are producing such large blooms this year. The bushes themselves are bigger than ever. I had to cut some to bring in the house and mixed a couple iris in with them.
I finished quilting the end of row D and got the 2 triangles on that end finished and cranked the quilt down again and now starting on Row E — 2 rows to go and I will be half way done!! Amazing. I was going through some of my quilting things 
today trying to figure out what I will take with me in the motorhome. I think I am figuring things out. I’m sure I will be ready to get back to work on “Insanity” though when we get home after having about a month break from it.
I am still wandering through all the blogs on Amy’s Quilt Festival blog. Would you believe it is up 526 blog entries!! I am up to #400 looking at them. I have left comments on some of them, but there are way too many. I don’t know how Amy is doing it. She must be on the computer off and on all day. I know she said she wanted to look at all of them and leave comments. There are so many beautiful quilts and I have gotten ideas for more quilts from them! Thank you to everyone who has left me a comment on my blog admiring my Stain Glass Dragon.
One more shot of my flowers in the vase.
I managed to get 3 more squares quilted over the last several days. I have the corner triangles to finish by row D and then it will be time to give the quilting frame a crank or two and start on the 5th row #E. This photo shows Row D #13, 12 & 11 left to right.
I have still not made my way through the whole quilt festival list of blogs. I think I have gotten up to about # 240 or something like that. I will be looking at it for days to come.
This pretty little wall hanging was given to me by my Dear Jane Secret Pal. This is a yearly group where we do not know the name
of the person that we receive gifts from until the the end of the year. Once a month we receive a small package with quilting goodies in it from our “Secret Pal”. This month she sent me a small wall hanging. Isn’t this cute. She machine quilted it variegated thread. She always sends too much stuff! She sure can stuff a box there was more than this wall hanging in it.
I have not had time to make any more pineapple blocks. I have worked on “Walking the Primrose Path” quilt a little more and have one border almost completely quilted. I’m almost tempted to not work on this one so I can bring it with me in the motorhome but I know I will have plenty of other quilting things with me to work on if I finish it before we leave. I am bringing two rows of Dear Jane blocks to hand piece for the second Dear Jane quilt that I am working on “Insanity Revisited” I also decided to bring several of the Dutch Treat blocks to work on also. I have not touched that quilt since November. I have 37 blocks completed and thought to do some more so I will have enough to do a wall hanging at least or a couch size quilt. Well decide that later.
Next week will be very busy as I will start to pack the motor home with all my sewing stuff and things I won’t need in the house. I will have more lists going then I will be able to keep straight!! One would think I was going to be gone for several months instead of 3 to 4 weeks
We had a very nice day yesterday for our drive up to northern Arkansas to see my mom. Lunch at Red Lobster and some shopping at a nice outside mall up there. No time to see any quilting stores or anything. Mom is in a wheelchair and really as most of us know quilting stores are just so crowded and normally small that it is difficult to manuver a wheelchair in them. This is a pet peeve of mine and wish they thought of that kind of stuff. Surely there are a lot of quilters out there or people like me who would like to take an elderly mother with them to see the stores and can’t because they are not handicap assessable.
