we will never forget

Ten years ago life as we knew it would change forever. Our children will never know a trip on an airplane without taking off so many articles of clothing. Our children will never know freedom from fear of being attacked and terrorist warnings.

New York was my home state for almost half my life and it's sad to say that I never visited the WTC. It was always there and why would I think any differently? Reminder to self: nothing is forever.

Tens of thousands of service men and women have sacrificed their lives for our safety and freedom. Whether you think the war in the Middle East is right or wrong, the fact is that our men and women are there working hard every day and risking their lives for their country. God bless them.

garage sale goodies

Boy, I can't believe the SCORE I had at a garage sale today. Someone in a neighboring town was having a crafts sale with all new merchandise including a slew of quilting, crocheting, knitting and other needle arts books. Each book was $3 and they had tons of other sewing and craft related items. I picked up 4 books and templates and do-dads for all of $20. The biggest score was a Supreme Slider for 25 cents. Those things are expensive in the retail stores and I might just have to give it away as I am already using a diy version of it and it's working out pretty well for me. I'll have to think on that for a while.

ack! christmas is only 105 days away

For the past two years I have made Christmas wall hangings for the Holiday Bash the "anonymous" program I belong to puts on. It gets auctioned off along with other types of gift baskets and is a great way for the program to raise money. I can't just make one, however. I make several to give away to friends and family. I really thought that after the mad dash to the finish last year that I would be more on top of it for this year's Bash. HA! I just found out that I need to have it done by November 2nd. Oh boy, I'm in trouble. I haven't even decided what I am going to make yet. On a positive note, I scooped up a bunch of holiday fabric last year after the holidays at a deep discounted price.

I think I better get a move on it. Once again, too many irons in the fire!

my sister's quilt aka "the tula pink obsession"

This is my current quilt project in the making. That's not to say that I don't have several others in the works. I do. At least one too many, but this quilt is the attention of my quilting focus. It's for my sister, like so many others before and those in line after. I have yet to make a quilt for myself. It seems that the decision making process (pattern, fabric, size) is far easier to accomplish when the quilt is for someone else.

This quilt started out as a charm pack of Tula Pink's Full Moon Forest three years ago when I was attending a family reunion in Maine. It has taken me all of the three years to decide what I was going to make with the fabric and acquiring various other Tula Pink charm packs. Unbeknown to me (duh), fabric lines go out of production and can no longer be purchased through conventional quilt shops. Thank god for Etsy and ebay. If it weren't for these addictive sites, I would not be making this quilt; I'd probably be selling the charm pack of TP's FMF at a lucrative profit. However, I love my sissie and I love making her things. I WILL love making this quilt once it's done. For now, it stares at me every time I pass by the sewing room (aka my son's bedroom) and begs me to spend just 15 minutes a day working on it. I have successfully ignored these pleas for the past 3 days. Maybe tonight I'll get a burning desire to sit and sew. Or not.

I just want to say that there is something perverse about sewing a whole quilt top together only to cut it all apart again. My sister loved the top pre-cut and wasn't thrilled with the notion that I was going to cut it all up to make a twister quilt pattern. Maybe good was good enough? I thought it looked boring as plain squares and always intended it to be a twister quilt. I think it's coming out okay and I hope my sister thinks so, too.

best friends

Best Friend Quotes: Who's Your Best Friend? (clipped to polyvore.com)

Random thoughts

It's Wednesday and it feels like Tuesday, but I wish it was Friday. Confused? I love three day weekends but they really mess me up when it comes to figuring out what day it is. It is Wednesday though, and that means 2 more days until I can do things around my house that I want to work on. Namely, a quilt I'm working on for my sister.

Three years ago I went to Maine for a family reunion and went shopping with my sister to a quilt shop in Windham. My sister fell in love with a charm pack of fabric by Tula Pink called Full Moon Forest. I didn't look at that fabric again for over a year. By the time I decided I wanted to make something with that charm pack, the fabric line was out of production and not be found anywhere - believe me, I tried. I even contacted Tula Pink herself to see if she had any connections that could hook me up with more charm packs. I then had a brilliant idea that I would make a quilt out of several of Tula's fabric lines: Plume, Hushabye, Flutterby and Prince Charming. That idean turned out to be more difficult than I thought at the time. Apparently, my timing is way, way off. I scoured ebay, etsy and online quilt shops on a regular basis (like over a year) until I was able to acquire all the charm squares and yardage I needed to make the quilt.

I decided I wanted to make a twister quilt with her initial "N" embedded in the fabric layout. I shuffled fabric squares until I thought my OCDness would drive me crazy trying to get the layout perfect. The thing with sewing together 5 1/2" squares and then cutting them up and sewing them together again is the potential of creating a real resentment over handling the same fabric over and over again. I'm almost there. With the resentment, not finishing the quilt top.

My sister fell in love with the preliminary quilt top (pre re-cutting the twister blocks) and loved the size (very large). She wasn't real thrilled with the idea that I was going to cut into the fabric and potentially ruin what she thought was a pretty quilt. To me it was boring just having large squares sewn together, so I convinced her it needed to be done. I should have kept my opinions to myself. I've cut and sewn 9 rows together with another 18 to go. Yipee!!!!!!!!

What I've discovered now that after some rows are sewn together is that it is going to finish smaller than I thought. I knew that I was going to lose inches in the re-cutting process, but until I could actually see it, it's hard to imagine how much smaller it's turning out. I now feel like I need to add a 4" border to increase it's size. More fun and money!

2 years later and then some

I love reading blogs, especially those about quilting and sewing. I am also a newly addicted "pinterest-er". I can get lost for hours and hours looking at my blogs (through google reader) and my pinterest account. I also find that I have a lot to say, mostly to myself. And while this blog started out as a way to chronicle my life (kind of ala PW), I want to take it in a different direction. I don't know exactly where it's going to wind up. Hell, in the end, this might just be an exercise in improving my typing skills - something that really needs improvement. Anyway, this blog might contain sewing/quilting information about my progress (or lack of) on my current project(s), a rant or two or plain old monkey-mind rambling thoughts.

When I first started posting, my husband's death was new and raw. I had a lot of anger, frustration and trauma surrounding his dying and I thought blogging would be a good way to chronicle what was going on in my life and how I got to where I was - I was reliving my past, mistakes and all, via blogging. I am leaving my old posts up for now, but I may decide to delete them in the future...

Not too long ago, my son said something to me that jarred me out of my pity-pot stupor. He basically said that we have a choice in either letting our past become or define our lives (stuck) or just accepting that there were incidents or things that happened and move on. I realized that I was becoming the woman who's husband died of alcoholism and I am much more than that. And that's that.