The new toy

The man was downright giddy with excitement! He actually got one of those Black Friday TV deals. He thinks it was meant to be. There were none left on the shelf, but he happened on one in the box on the floor somewhere.





The girl was just about as excited as the man!





This is serious business.



Now I have to admit that I really did enjoy watching the Nebraska game on that new TV. (Do not ask me what I think about the digital signal cutting in and out, in and out!)

The directions on the remote say that fluorescent lights interfere with it. So, of course, I make the connection (or should I say disconnection) with government outlawing incandescent light bulbs and government mandating digital TV. How crazy is that! Perhaps I'm missing something.

No dress, but a tree

I did work on the dress Amy wants for Thanksgiving, but we ended up doing this instead.





And a little of this.





The sun came out briefly while we were getting the tree. It was a chilly, but acceptable 50 degrees or so and not raining. There were hardly any people there the day before Thanksgiving. We decided to take advantage of the day. Friday it's suppose to be colder and there's a possibility of snow showers.





Dh decided to start a new tradition--note the Hawaiian shirt. It's his job to put the lights on the tree. He also puts the hooks on the ornaments. Amy & I do the beads and place the ornaments. The last thing we do (no picture, for some reason) is put the star on the top. That's Amy's job. Dh used to hold her up to reach it, but now she's tall enough to reach it by standing on the stairs. (Children really do grow up so fast.)





The final product just in time for Thanksgiving. ;-) Yes, we're a bit early.

A new doll dress

Here is Joan modeling what I've been working on the last few days. One of my blogging "friends" made the pattern because I asked her to. I think she mentioned she was thinking of making doll clothes patterns to sell, although I don't remember for sure. There are so few Kit-style patterns, so I jokingly asked if she'd make one for me. And she said, "Yes." She sent it to me and asked me to critique it. I made notes as I went along. I'm pleased with the results. :) The fabric is from my stash...

Which just grows. It's very difficult to quit adding to it. You know how that fabric just jumps into the cart. I went to Joann's for this and ended up with more fabric, a remnant that had to have something to go with it for a doll dress and Christmas fabric that was 60% off.

If you clicked on the link you should have seen the Dritz Quick Turn tools. They are amazing at turning those impossible to turn tubes!! You've got to get them if you sew often.

Amy informed me tonight (Tues.) that she wants to wear the dress I'm working for her on Thursday for Thanksgiving. I'll see if I can get to it tomorrow, but since we're going to get our Christmas tree tomorrow, I'm not sure. No promises. It's almost to the half-way point.

My goal is to finish quilting (by machine) the basketweave queen quilt by the end of the year. I just need to start doing it. First, the back isn't together yet, but I did figure out the measurements, so now I need to cut and sew that. Then the quilting, then the binding. If I can get the quilting done the binding can wait until January.

Happenings

Dh was out of town last week until Thursday. He was supposed to get in very late, so I suggested we postpone Friday's date night until Saturday night instead. That way he and Amy could "relax" with Star Trek Voyager on Friday after work. Then on Saturday I remembered that Amy wouldn't be home on Sunday night, so we postponed date night until Sunday and spent Saturday night together as a family.

After church on Sunday Amy went home with the J family so she could get video with T on Monday. Dh and I had a wonderful date afternoon and evening. We ate, went to the mall (where I found great deals on Lands' End stuff) and came home to watch UP. A funny story about that...Amy & I went shopping last week and bought UP and Tale of Despereaux. We said to each other that dad would probably buy them then we'd have two. Sure enough! Fortunately, he only bought UP. Now some lucky family member will get UP for Christmas. :)

While we were home watching our movie Amy sent me a text about a movie they were going to watch, turned out to be rated R! :( Dh then made a phone call to Mr. J saying he didn't want Amy watching R rated movies. Mr. J promptly took care of it. (I'll probably have another blog post about it.) We were both disappointed. I need to talk with Amy about how to handle something like that in the future. I'm very glad she let us know and we were able to help, but that won't always be the case.

Monday rolls around, I've got the whole house to myself for an entire day! I got lots done like vacuuming, a little laundry, on-line Christmas shopping and other on-line stuff. I had plans to get some sewing done and was heading in that direction. I first needed to iron some fabric before cutting out a couple pattern pieces. I got that much done, but when I went back to the iron the light wouldn't come on when I pushed the on button. I waited a little bit and it seemed to be working, but no light. It turns itself off in about 15 minutes, so I left it and came back well after that amount of time and it was still on. Broken iron=no sewing. I wasn't too happy about that.

After supper on Mon. I went to pick Amy up. In our discussion on the way home I found out that she'd fallen off a horse and had a little visitor show up, so she was in pain from both pretty much all day. They did get a lot of video, so she had a successful day.

Tuesday: Unplanned, but necessary visit to the chiropractor who had no time available and got her in anyway. He's so good!

Wednesday: Amy's feeling a little better from the fall. :)

Today was also co-op day. I was supposed leave at 1:30, but the coordinator called at 1:15 saying the truck might not show up today. Our delivery was at 2:00, he had to be off the road at 3:00. We ended up meeting him at his hotel where we unloaded the truck in their parking lot.

Let's see what else? My wonderful mouse quit working :( but it turns out it just needed new batteries. :) When I got home from co-op there was a huge dog in our yard; he thought he needed to follow me to the garage. Now I like dogs, ones that I know, and this one I didn't and he was BIG. After making eye contact with him I knew he was friendly, but I really didn't want to get out of the van with him there. So I went into the garage and closed the door. Eventually his owner came and picked him up (the Fedex guy--another story--must have got a hold of them).

Oh and I've got myself a new iron. It's really something hard to live without.

Basketweave Quilt

Here it is!




It's nice to have helpers. :)

Fall pictures

Here's what our yard looked like before all the leaves fell. Very pretty.

Today I put more of the quilt rows together, so it's started to look like a quilt. I've got three rows left, one is pieced, two are not. I hope to get it all done tomorrow. Then will come the quilt sandwich and the machine quilting. That's my least favorite part, but it's also way, way cheaper than having it done somewhere.

Sewing and quilting

Thought I'd better make a post so you know I'm still here. I've started putting the quilt blocks together in their rows. The first two rows are also sewn together; the third row is done. I'll try to get the forth row done tomorrow.

I also started on a dress that Amy had cut out. She's a bit gun shy about sewing lately, since her formal dress experience. I think she just needs to slow down and concentrate on doing a good job and she'll be fine.

I bought a snap-together quilt frame made from PVC pipes. It's set up in place of the puzzle table, so I can hand-quilt the Avalon. I decided to do circles and used a cd as a template. I hope it looks good when finished in who knows how long. :) I'll post pictures after I take some.