It has been a long time!

I can't believe it has been two years since I posted my first blog entry. . .wow, time sure flies! These past two years have seen plenty of changes;

#1 my sister moved in with us to help me with my mom, six weeks later my mom died. She was 85 years old and very tired.
#2 My oldest son and my grandson moved in with us and he and his wife divorced.
#3 I quit driving a school bus to stay home and take care of our grandson, Max.
#4 My youngest son moved back home from college and his girlfriend moved in too. They had a baby girl, Sophia this past June. Both new mom and dad are still going to college and doing well.
#5 Our middle son and his wife divorced and he moved back home too!
#6 About the same time the middle son moved in, the oldest son and grandson moved out.
#7 Number one son got married to a wonderful lady and great step-mom to our grandson in December 2012.
#8 Youngest son, girlfriend and grand-daughter are in the process of moving to Wenatchee, WA so he can attend the Radiologic Technologist Program at Wenatchee Valley College starting in April of this year. Can you say REVOLVING DOOR? I am exhausted again just writing this.

I took some time off from genealogy and quilting to just recover and deal with all of the events in our lives.

But now I am back! I made a Day & Night Quilt for my grand-niece.
The pattern is from Eleanor Burns "Quilt in a Day". It is made with powder blue and dark blue batik fabric.

Then I made a chevron quilt with a pattern from a tutorial at Missouri Star Quilt Company
This was a gift for my youngest son's girlfriend.
I made it with a layer cake of Kona Snow by Robert Kaufman, and a layer cake of Good Morning! by Me and My Sister for Moda Fabrics. I love how it turned out, and it went together so quickly. I currently piece my quilts but I do not quilt them. I send them out to Celia Benzel in Spokane, WA to have that portion done. She does a wonderful job on them. Maybe someday I will attempt that, but not now.

I have made a few more, but I'll save that for next week.

Now I am working on block's from the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt. I have made 11 of the 90 that I am going to be making to complete my top. More on this later. . .

I hope you have a great day and week! Happy stitching!

My First Blog

Over the course of my lifetime I have had many varied interests and hobbies.  Often I tend to become so absorbed in one of them that I exclude the others so this is my attempt to incorporate them all and find time to work on each one of them for at least a few minutes a week. My main loves besides my husband and children and their families are: Quilting (actually sewing and patchwork), Genealogy and Scrapbooking.

I became interested my genealogy in 1983 when I was pregnant with my third child. I concentrated on that until about 1988. Then my daughter Karen, who was 4 at the time, had health problems and died 2 years later. I was wrapped up with that and learning to deal with a new "normal" for my life.

I did a lot of scrapbooking from about 1994 to 2004. Then I took up quilting for the last 7 years. I love each of these hobbies with a passion and want to be able to enjoy time on all three of them.

My goal since August 2010 has been to not buy more fabric projects to quilt with until most of my "ufos" (unfinished objects) were done. I have actually been doing very well on this.

Since I had to take my sewing machine to the shop 5 days ago, my current goal is to organize my genealogy so that it is easily accessible and easy to understand just how far I have come. I also would love to write brief historical essays on each of my great-grandparents.

My next goal is to get back into scrapbooks, since I now have a grandson, Maxwell who will be one year old tomorrow! Happy Birthday Maxwell! I love you! I have so many pictures of his dad and mom that I want to get into a book, so he can see what they looked like as children and when they were first married.

I thought that if I start blogging about my goals and see them written down, as a visual learner, they will become more real to me. Also I want to journal more, so that relatives who come after me will understand why I do the things I do!

In organizing the genealogy, I am combining my mother's work (she concentrated on her lines), and mine (I took my dad's side and my husband's side). Plus scanning old documents and photographs so there are digital copies of them before something happens to them!

Well, I do believe that this is enough for one night, especially since we are having Max's birthday party at our house tomorrow! Thanks for reading this