Its only been 4 months!

Wow, it's November already!  I haven't been around much in the last few months, we have been so busy!  I did find some time in my sewing room...

July 4th shirts for the girls

A quilt designed by my youngest daughter (there is also a quilt designed by my older daughter, that will be another post)

Another quilt for Baby R (this took about three hours to make)

And a trip out west to visit my Sister in Law

And lots and lots of other stuff ...

Back in the saddle again!

This song is what I listened to when I came back to my sewing room and finally sat down at my sewing machine!  Back in the saddle by Aerosmith....

It felt good to be sewing quilt blocks again, but this time I have a helper, my oldest daughter!  She has made two quilts of her own with some help from me but she wanted one made by mom.  Last year she designed this quilt we called Denmark for her friend as a going away gift.  She wanted her design in fabrics I bought for her years ago and I persuaded her to go with gray for the background and she wanted us to do a tutorial too!  So we have been busy over the last week and will hopefully get things done in the coming week so you can make one of your own!

We had some mix ups and frustrations because she is a lefty and I'm a righty so I had to change everything to make sense for her.  We learned on the Denmark quilt what happened if she has to work as a right hander.

Luckily we have almost made it to the end! 

Finally back!

After a long absence I am back!  April, May and June are so busy for my family.  I have not had much time for quilting or knitting so nothing is getting done with either of those!

There were a lot of track meets...the 4X800 girls team my daughter is on made it to Sectionals this year

We took my sister in law, Jenni, up to St Croix Falls to start on the Ice Age Trail with Warrior Hike

Sean, Brian, Jenni and Natalie

You can follow Jenni's journey from the beginning on trailjournals.com  She had to come off the trail for a while due to some medical issues but she plans on going back in the next few days.

There has been much more going on but I'll keep it short and sweet!

The floor is DONE!

The Brain finished the floor today!

Now all that is left is 

painting the accent wall,

putting in the trim,

waiting for the furniture to arrive,

and getting the house back in order!

Almost there!

On another note...

Earlier today I had to go to Dubuque to order new track/cross country spikes for my daughter and we came home to this!

About 3 inches of snow!  I don't think Mother Nature got the message that Spring is supposed to be here.  I think I will send her another one!! 

Kitty Quilt

Among all the crazy that has been going on around here, I managed to finish my sister's Kitty Quilt!  Her birthday was Saturday and I put the last stitches in the binding around 11 pm on Friday night.

The only place to take a picture,with every other room messed up, was in our entryway.  My daughter was the quilt holder...

The back has kitties too...

Busy!

These last couple of days have been crazy busy!  Yesterday we had madrigal competition, a track meet and a Basketball Championship Tournament, all in three different towns... This is how we ended the day...First Place!

My son

After all this we went out to dinner to celebrate and then to Menard's for more supplies for the living room remodel.

Caution: Under Construction!!!

Over here at the Jeni B house it has been crazy with our schedules, work and everyday life...so why not throw in a living room remodel to make things a little more interesting!  So a couple of weeks ago we picked out new furniture, flooring, an area rug and paint colors and jumped right in!

Here's the before, keep in mind, I have four kids and four dogs!

Then we tore out the carpet and painted...

My sewing room has become a messy storage room!

You can see my new floor in the bottom left!  Hopefully tonight we can start on the new floor, fingers crossed!

Happy Friday the 13th!

Happy Friday the 13th!  All day I had customers complain about it but I think its a great day, after all I was born on Friday the 13th, so it has to be a great day, right?!  I also had the blessing of being born the day before Valentines Day.  That meant every year as a kid, I got gifts that always had hearts and were pink and red!  And I always remind my hubby that they are two separate days, no combining and no hearts for my birthday! 

Anyhow, here is the next quilt top!

  I made this quilt top last Sunday after a marathon of cleaning my sewing room.  It's amazing how a clean, organised space can get the sewing mojo going again! 

  Last Christmas I wrapped up the fabric for my sister and told her she was getting a quilt before her birthday in March...she has been dropping hints for quite a while but I was waiting for the perfect fabric and I finally found it.  I'm hoping to find time to quilt and bind it this week end.  Saturday is busy but Sunday is open with no plans.

This kitty sums up my week...I hope next week is better!  Starting in March our busy week end schedule should be done!  Basketball will be done and the next major event coming up will be my oldest daughters junior prom.  We found a pretty and unique dress so that is crossed off the list!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday

It's clean!

Here is the SCARY before...

 I hope to never let it get this bad again!

And here is the clean after...

 Oh, so much better!

I think now I will be in here doing a lot more sewing.  I even organized my upcoming projects that I want to get done in the next couple of months.  As I cleaned I found more and more things I want to get done!

All the fabric on the third self down is to make quilts for the kids on the reservation and I still have another tote full of more fabric for that.

I even took a couple of hours and organized ALL of my scraps, this is only about half of what I have.  I must admit I did not realize I had so many because they were in so many different places.  I keep telling myself to organize them as I go instead of tossing them in a different basket every time I make a quilt!

 Marley's toys even got a new home beside her kennel.  Hopefully she will keep them in the basket when sh'e not playing with them.  Every time I picked them up she would pull them all out again and scatter them all over the sewing room.  Since Marley and Bella don't always get along, Marley Lives in my sewing room, bedroom and hallway and she protects it fiercely, which is pretty funny because she only weighs about 5 pounds.  No match for Bella at 70 pounds!

Hopefully later this week I'll have some finishes to show!

The Aftermath...

My sewing room is a mess!  I think that's part of the reason why I haven't been able to get myself back into the swing of sewing/quilting.  The aftermath/mess  of the marathon quilting I did back in October,  November and December is overwhelming.  I also did a lot of knitting during those weeks so that added to the mess too!  Then there were the holidays and illness and basketball games and work so I have ignored the sewing room, only going in there for what I need and quickly getting out!  Now I think its time to suck it up and do a deep clean and start with a clean slate.  This weekend is a free one with no basketball tournament and no place I need to be so I WILL be cleaning this weekend!  Do you want to see the mess?

 YIKES!

 How could I let it get this bad?

A batting bomb went off!

It looks worse than this at the moment...I took these pics a couple of weeks ago!  Hopefully on Sunday I will have an update and a clean sewing room!

It has come to my attention...

I need to blog more...I work at a variety store and many customers/family visit my blog and many have brought it to my attention that I haven't been blogging enough, so I will make more of an effort!  So in between all the crazy that is my family/life I will work in more time for posts...until the next one, here is my polka dotty puppy, Phineas Mateo...

I am assuming he's smiling at me

Getting back into the sewing room!

It has been a while since my last post!  It has been crazy busy around here and I had a run in with influenza...

This week I did manage a couple of small finishes.  The first is a matching mini quilt for Baby R to go with the set that I made back in August

The other finish is a hat for my youngest daughter.  I was buying yarn to make my oldest daughter a new hat to match her new coat and this little lady said she wanted one too...I could not say no to this face!

And this is the fabric for the next quilt, this one will be for my sister.

 I'm using reds, blacks and whites for the other fabrics and of course there are polka dots!

I think almost every quilt I make has polka dots somewhere!

This is my favorite kitty!  I'm hoping to find time to sew this week, its going to be a busy one-three basketball games during the week and a basketball tournament next Saturday and I have to work all this weekend!

Linking up with 

Crazy Mom Quilts-Finish it up Friday