Stash Report Week #31

Whew!  What a week!  It began like this.  Then we took a road trip to see DH's family in Dallas.  On the way there, we found a new quilt shop call Minding My P's and Q's.  What could I do but buy two yards of beautiful fabric, especially after DH, with no prodding from me, came to a screeching halt on the highway to get to the quilt shop?  Black music notes, star batik, and star and pink for the girls.

Saturday, I intended to spend the afternoon sewing and watching the kids so DH could have a break too.  Then our realtor called, saying the woman who was supposed to come see our house while we were in Colorado (but didn't...) wanted to see our house in ONE HOUR.  We had been home for less than 24 hours, so we still had trip things to put away, but we hadn't made too big of a mess, so we scrambled to be out the door in 50 minutes.  That is the fastest clean up I have ever done (with DH's help, of course)!

Saturday, my sales tax ID arrived.  Now to get a business license and start preparing for a craft show...  I did make a hat with ear flaps.  My sister has been begging for one for a while, so I at least have a prototype.  I made a fuzzy hat too, and some more flowers.

Bear Cub Q is not mostly recovered from his not-strep throat infection.  I'm not sure I've made up the sleep yet, but, then again, I never do!

I finished pin-basting my UFO for the month, which is what I wanted to accomplish.  Now to finish my table runner for the monochromatic challenge before my month runs out!

Check out the other stash reports at Judy's place.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Yesterday... the day that could have been worse

Yesterday… the day that could have been worse…

Allow me to elucidate…

Bear Cub Q did not sleep well Sunday night.  At all.  He was running a fever, he couldn’t nurse well, he was coughing.

            But it could have been worse.  He could have been vomiting.

I wake up from a night where I spent half the night awake and call the doctor for an appointment as soon as possible.  We would be going in at 9:20, leaving me just enough time to have the doctor see Q and then rush to the dentist with the Assistant.

            The doctor could have been booked solid.

I take Q to the doctor with the girls in tow, as we need to go straight to the dentist after.  Q has no ear infections, but a cold and a bacterial infection in his throat.

            My baby isn’t dying, just sick!

We stop at home to let DH know I need him to pick up the prescription since I will be driving to the other side of town.  The Screamer opts to stay with Daddy, but Q has to come with me as someone is coming to clean our air vents of accumulated dust (which includes lead).

            We could be broke and have no money to get the ducts cleaned.

We stop at my mom’s house to leave Q.  DH calls and says, “Is Katie there?  She was supposed to be at the dentist at 10:30.”  It’s 10:33.  Oops.

            My mom could live 20 minutes from the dentist instead of 2.

The Assistant has her drilling done.  Remind your kids to floss.  My turn, on a tooth that was decaying from the inside out.  The first dose of Novocain doesn’t take, but the second does.

            My dentist could have started drilling before I was numb.  A previous dentist pulled an extra tooth without Novocain, so I’ve been there.

We go to pick up Q, who had just fallen asleep, so we stay at Mom’s.

            He could have been awake and screaming.

We return home, to find DH just returned home and the air duct people leaving.  DH says the dining room is dirty, and I think, “Oh, no.”

            He could have said they broke something.

Oh, wait, it was worse.  The entire house was coated in dust.  Nearly every vent had a pile of debris around it.  One vent, in the kitchen, had been removed, but not cleaned, and not put back.  I couldn’t get it back on either.  And everything – every curtain, bed, floor, flat surface, even the walls were dirty.  And the men from Givens Cleaning Contractors were gone with our money.

So I load up the kids and go to JoAnn’s and Sonic to get out of the house while DH calls the main office and tries to get some resolution.  Oh, yeah, and he starts cleaning.  Q falls asleep after JoAnn’s (no fabric purchased!).  When we arrive home, the Assistant, instructed to unbuckle Screamer, unbuckles Q, who thereby wakes up and is screaming when I come back to the car.

I could have bought fabric!  Okay, just kidding.  I could have no kids, and this all would have been a moot point.  I love my kids.  Our van could be broken like our truck, meaning the kids and I would have been stuck at home in the dust… lead-laden dust, even.

This book was left behind Sunday night after bedtime stories.

Oh, look!
Imagine the floors any everything else this pleasant shade of dirt!

The men are supposed to come back and look at the house.  When they arrive, the basic response is “Uh…”  Suffice it to say, they do pretty much nothing (30 minutes of vacuuming one room does not count as doing anything).  No refund, no offer to help clean or pay for it to be cleaned.  DH finds a maid service that won’t charge $300/hour to clean our house that night.  AND my sister-in-law calls and says, “Come over.”  I remind her Q is sick, and she says, “So what?  You’ve got to get out of that house.  Come over.”  I pack a bag for the night, just in case (we might need a hotel room), load up the kids again, tell DH he’s my hero, and head out.

Hannah could never have called at that moment.  Every maid service could have refused to come.  It could have been worse.

An example of the mess left around one vent.

I just cleaned the walls two weeks ago.
Here's what DH got off ONE wall.  I would have gotten that much off one whole room.

Let’s speed up the story, ‘cuz Tom and Hannah were saints to take us in.  DH thought he missed the maids, so we thought we were back to square one, but it turns out he didn’t.  They came.  Tom and DH told me over and over how amazing their cleaning was, and how reasonably priced.  Hannah fed us dinner, we bathed the kids, my house is immaculate.

            It could have been worse.

So, kudos to Wichita Maid Service, the only maid service I will ever do business with again (not that such a situation is likely to arise, but, hey, who knows?).

And, to Givens Cleaning Contractors, you should be ashamed of the mess you made in our house.  If you are not running a scam and it just happens that your employees are incompetent, you should fire them and refund us the money we spend on cleaning our house after you didn’t.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis, 

katie z.

Design Wall Monday

Oh, the world for no fever!  My poor Bear Cub Q has been roasting between internal high temps and sweltering outdoors (yes, I have been keeping him inside, but do you know how hot it has been here? 105 with 110+ heat indexes.  Murder on the AC).

Do you know they are saying possible 100+ weather THROUGH SEPTEMBER?  I just need a few days respite!

I have made progress on my three table runners, but it is doubtful that I will finish all three this month.  As long as I finish the blue one, I am still on track.

Quilting detail

I am finished with 1/7 of the hand quilting on my version of Judy Laquidara's Peaches and Dreams quilt.  I had to buy more safety pins so I could finally finish basting it (it was about 4/7 basted when I ran out of pins!).  I will consider that UFO satisfactorily complete for the month if I can finish basting it.

We will be traveling again this week, so my hope is to finish my Scraps to Treasures top before we leave.  I also made the backing for my Scraps to Treasures quilt, all out of small bits of stash.  This quilt, by my estimation, is going to be a whopping 8 yards out when it's done.  Yes, there are lots of small bits.  Lots...

While we are gone, I would like to finish hand quilting to color wash table runner, but someone needs to get well first!

Check out the other design walls at Judy's place.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Stash Report Week #30

I'm not going to bust more than I bought this year.  At all.  In fact, hell would freeze over first.  There is no excuse for this, but as I have been reviewing our budget for the coming year, it's a good think I have surplus, 'cuz next year I won't.  DH is not coaching cross country for the school next year, so we are taking a $110/month pay cut starting September 15.  That means no frivolous fabric shopping for me, no matter how spectacular the deal.  No fabric extravaganza during the shop hop.  And that is fine by me.  I don't want quilting to be all about collecting fabric and not using it.

Besides, who needs more after all the lovelies I've bought this year?  Here's a view of the last few months (yes, I have been a bad blogger):

I did visit a very lovely shop in Colby, Kansas, called the Interior Connection and Quilt Cabin.  If you are ever passing through Colby (it's on our way to Denver), the Quilt Cabin is an easy 1/2 mile north of I-70.  The inside is beautiful, if a bit maze-like, and I saw bolts and bolts of fabric that I want to have for my own (but I will have to restrain myself, won't I?).  DH loved that the owner hunts, and there was an elk she had shot on the wall.

DH insisted on taking this picture as we entered the Quilt Cottage.

On returning home from a visit to the mountains, helping my sister move, and a stalled van in the mountains (it was terrifying), I found the following produce, first for the summer:

tomatillo, zucchini, and Armenian yard-long cucumber

 It is hotter than... well, it's hot here.  105+ every day.  At 9 pm last night, it was still 103 outside.  Due to the baby developing a cough and sweating profusely at night, we have turned on the air.  Still high, but better than 92 at bedtime, at least for him.  My tomatoes look scorched, have blossom end rot, and my pumpkins are already almost ripe.

Look at these cuties, who posed while we were in Winter Park.

I think I need to go sew now.

Go check out the other stash reports on Judy's blog.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Cute new things for Zana's Ninis

Notes for when I send out an order...

Clearance at JoAnn's... 

$.25 wooden buttons and cute flowers...

Happy things...

A visit from a quilting friend (thanks!)...
Family...
The mountains...
Summer's first harvests (tomatillo, zucchini, and yard-long cucumber)...
My husband (happy birthday tomorrow, dude)...
My kids...
A not-broken-down van after a scare in the mountains...
Bikes...
Homemade cherry limeades...
New fabric...
Old fabric...
Time to quilt...
Frozen blueberries...
Fans (it's 105 outside... still no AC for us!)...
Quilt blogs...
Deadlines...
Good family doctors...
Ice...

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Day the Second (and the third)

An event from the night before… C. bet that Alzbe would say some variation of the following phrase at least 250 times during our two day trip: “I’ve got to get a picture of that.”  By day the second, we must be at least at 50.  Because, as you know, that’s how it is on a Voboril family vacation.

We broke our fast by sharing scrambled “farm fresh” eggs from our neighbor south of Purgatory Ranch, bacon, and biscuits (some “baked” over the campfire a la C., others finished on the stove by Mom), and lots and lots of fruit.  Alzbe twisted her ankle running over to check out the biscuits in the campfire, but fortunately I am always over-prepared for disasters, so I had an ace bandage rolling around in the van for her.

One group opted for Church tours in the morning.  M., can you leave a comment to tell us about it?

Alzbe’s crew and mine opted to return to Thresher’s Machine Canyon, as that was her one wish to find and photo it for the entire trip.  (A few “I’ve got to get a picture of that opportunities would present themselves, surely!)  Our first move was to ask the park ranger for advice on finding TMC.  Her first words?  “Don’t go.”  Well, we really like to, so care to tell us why not.  “Snakes are on the move.”  Yeah, so, what?  Snakes are on the move unless it’s cold.  “It’s not mowed.”  Again, so?  Finally, she pulled out a map and showed us, but warned us that their had been vandalism – we promised not to vandalize.  All we wanted was to snap some pictures, ‘cuz that’s how we roll on a Voboril family vacation.

Our first stop, in an attempt to follow her unclear and unreliable directions, let us to a canyon without carvings.  At least it wasn’t so long of a hike, but it certainly wasted our time.  Back to the van, driving on, stopping, running… we found it!  Too bad we were nearly out of time… Alzbe snapped pictures of dates including 1859, 1865, 1892, and 1991.  Guess which one didn’t belong?  Anyway, the kids all came and did well.  We smelled deer (I think part of the canyon was a deer bed), saw no ticks and no snakes.  If Alzbe had had sneakers instead of flip flops, we might have gotten a few more pictures, but maybe someday we’ll go back!  Twice, incidentally, I thought a heard/saw a truck oncoming on our narrow, one-lane road, so we had to scramble to avoid that… but he never came back in the time we were out there.

Minute to Win It could have a series of posts to itself, but I am now more than two weeks behind, so I’ll make is short.  C. II, thanks for hosting and planning the events.  We played last man standing, so each round, someone was eliminated:

  1.     Streamers... (Zana) which led to impromptu birthday decorations and singing to Mom.

  2.     Bobble Head (Betty) I have never laughed so hard…

  3.     Cookie (wiggling your head until you get a cooking from your yelid to your mouth (Grandma)

  4.     Marble and Shot glasses (Dad)

  5.      Apple Stacker (J.)

  6.     Cup Stacker (Daniel)

  7.     CD Dominos (M.) M. is the queen of CD dominos this was a shocker!

  8.     Egg and Light bulb (C II)  Did YOU know that you can stack a raw egg on top of a light bulb propped in a slinky?  I had no idea.

  9.     Tic-tac-toe with ping pong balls and cups of water (C.)

  10. Quarter bounced 15 feet into a small container.  While I lost this, I am the reigning champ!  Craziness!

Lunch was at Guch's in Hays, where Daniel was pleased to watch the Yankees vs. Rockies game.  The pizza was great.  I was delayed with my kids, and they were all asleep when we arrived, so I didn’t actually eat there.

One group went to the water park, where Anni and CII had a blast.

The Church tour was a disappointment.  The one building that, when closed as a parish, had been reopened as a shrine that was ALWAYS open from 8-8 was CLOSED.  Bummer.

We attended Mass at Antonino’s at 4 pm.

Dinner was unbelievably scrumptious pulled beef, Volk’s style.

M., J., and my clan returned to the lake to swim and it was so much fun!  The mud did, especially at first touch, feel like baby poop squishing between my toes, but I got over it.

Daniel, J. and C. played Frisbee.

End Day 2

Day 3?  Anni woke up at 4:30, so her parents and I were in need of more sleep.

We enjoyed granola for breakfast.

Everyone except Alzbe drove to the bluffs.  C and CII made M a little nervous with their exploring in flipflops, and I regaled Daniel with an explanation of in-law politics.

Packing ensued, and then it was lunch at a microbrewery in Hays.  The Volks headed back to Colorado, we headed to the Sternberg Museum to check out some dinosaurs… and I tried not to fall asleep.

Mom drove home for me, and we saw at least 7 dead deer… the wind was pretty wild, and it was hot when we got home.

I apologize for the sparsity, but I am preparing to go to Colorado, and if I don’t finish this now, I probably won’t ever.  ‘Cuz I am a Voboril, and that’s how I work.

I am so blessed to have been given this weekend with my family, even if I did miss DH while we were apart.  It was a blast, and let me tell you, even if we go to the “Middle of Nowhere” we have fun wherever we’re at.  ‘Cuz that’s how it is on a Voboril family vacation.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

Design Wall Monday

It's hot.  Most of my time is spent thinking about how to keep myself cool with the sewing machine spewing heat, how to keep the kids cool, especially Bear Cub Q, who only likes to nurse, currently, and how to keep the kids from destroying the basement as we stay down there to keep cool.  Whew!

I've got my Scraps to Treasures project rolling right along.  I'm planning to have the first half of the top complete before we leave for Colorado.

My first table runner is almost to top stage.  The picture is lumpy and wrinkled because it's pinned into rows.  I plan to baste it and quilt it during down time on our trip.  (Don't laugh too hard.  I can dream!)

My hand quilting project is progressing, but it is too hot when it's 100+ outside to sit under a quilt!  I am almost done with the first strip of border.  A little more circles in the border and I will be able to tackle the main blocks.  That means straight lines, which I can do mostly without marking.  I abhor marking because it either doesn't come out or doesn't stay marked long enough.  I do love hand quilting, and now that I am making progress, I am feeling better about this quilt.

Check out the other design walls at Patchwork Times.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Stash Report Week #28

Progress has been made!

One quadrant of my scraps to treasures quilt is totally pieced and pressed.  Some of the pieces are sewn for the others, so I am about 3/8 done with the top.  My goal is to finish the top by the end of July, but I'm not sure that's going to happen!

I have made an executive decision to change the way I am quilting my Favorite Things quilt (aka Judy's Peaches and Dreams patten).  Around the border, I was doing circles, but I am NEVER going to finish the quilt if I have to continue tracing thousands of circles.  SO the borders will be circles, and the main blocks will have Xs quilting through the rectangles.

One table runner is in rows.  I hope to finish piecing it and its back by Tuesday so I can baste it and bring it on our trip to Colorado.

Guess who's coming into town Tuesday?

We have a well at Purgatory Ranch!  It pumps 150 gallons a minute... I think that's a bit fast for my taste, but it will be lovely to know there will always be good water pressure.  We also finished digging the main batch of potatoes.

Check out the other stash reports at Judy's place.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

We've got a winner!

Congratulations, Team Thompson!!  Please email me in the next 48 hours to claim your winnings!

Thank you all for entering and for getting my facebook page to 100 likes!  If you aren't following my page yet, head on over there to see fun updates as I work on new hats and quilts and don't forget to check out my etsy page using the link on the right!

Design Wall Monday

I was going to take some great pictures of all the fabric I cut Saturday.  Then, Sunday, I left my purse *with the camera in it* at my mom's house.  I'll pick it up later today and maybe get a few pictures... or not, it's going to be a crazy day!

My design areas have a few things going on... fabric for 3 table runners (this month's color is BLUE!)... my Scraps to Treasures project, as I realized I should have the top done by the end of July if I want time to hand quilt it (I may have to go with machine quilting, since I'm traveling this month)!  It's going to be the month to get friendly again with my machine, as I hardly used it in June, but there's no way I'm hand-piecing all of the above AND making any progress on my UFO!

Happy Fourth of July!  God bless all those who have served or who are currently serving (or those who will serve, and of course all of their families!).  We're hiding out in the basement... partially because we're not turning on the AC this summer and partially because the fireworks sound miles away instead of next door.

Check out the other design walls at the Patchwork Times.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Stash Report Week #27

Whew!  I'm not sure I did much of anything this week, other than tried to stay cool in the basement.  Although, thinking about it, I may have to take that back...

I did find a very old-dead mouse when I was rearranging my canning jars yesterday.  He was even covered in dust balls.  I remember smelling a mouse several months ago, not being able to find it, and therefore determining that I had mouse on the brain (you remember my mouse house, right?  It began last July!).

I AM hosting a giveaway, since I have 101 fans on my facebook page.  The giveaway is a crocheted hat (any size, even adult), so if you want to join in, please leave a comment over here.  Even if you don't want to enter, you should go take a look, as my lovely sister put a picture up of each of my kids in the banner (even the Screamer, BH [before haircut]).  Did you know facebook has crazy rules for giveaways?   I found out they do.

I packed up all the pieces to my June UFO, which was never intended to be finished in June (in fact, it was impossible to finish, as I don't have all the fabrics I need!).  I have organized it, made progress, and collected more fabrics.  Victory!

I used the last of my Hobby Lobby gift card to buy some Kona solids.  Yum. (2 yards)

DH painted the trim in the hallway and girls' room.  There are a few touch ups, then on to Bear Cub Q's room, which will take longer.  DH did a very nice job.

I have pulled the fabrics for Judy's monochromatic color for the month: blue.  I am actually going to make 3 table runners this month, a blue, a blue-green colorwash, and a lovely turquoise/aqua/green table runner.  Why three?  So I can delay thinking about my UFO for July, a queen-sized behemoth that is barely begun in the hand-quilting department.  Yup, yup.  Still no AC for us (and it was 120 in my dad's car today... in the garage... 107 outside), so I don't want to sit under a quilt.

Anyone have suggestions for stove-top meals or other meals that don't require much cooking?  It is simply TOO HOT to use the oven, but sandwiches and pasta get old.  We had tacos tonight, we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Check out the other stash reports on Judy's blog.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.