Please vote for me! yes, I'm begging....

I entered my Potato Chip Quilt in the Babylock Facebook contest Are you Eleanor's Biggest Fan? The grand prize is to go to a retreat with Eleanor Burns...how fun would that be? So if you are on facebook and would like to help me win this contest, just go here and vote for me!

Today I am back to school, starting with an all district breakfast/new school year kick-off. I'm not ready to give up my days of sewing, but I guess I will get back in the swing of it quickly once I get there. At least this year I don't have 350 boxes to unpack! We are starting out the year in our temporary school and will move back to our remodeled building around Christmas. So I will have to pack and unpack the library again as that gets closer. Not really looking forward to it, but the new media center should be wonderful, so there will be that to look forward to.

Don't want to be late for my first day back...better go!

UFO Saturday and a whole lot of sewing!

 There is always lots of sewing on UFO Saturdays. Everyone brings a project to work on. Elsie brought her almost finished puzzle quilt. She worked on another project, but wanted us to see it.

 Diana finished not one, but 2 blocks from her Sampler Club, so she was very happy! Her quilt is all in reds, blacks and grays.

 Laura is working on her Sampler Club quilt too. She is using Asian fabrics.

 Dianne was also working on her Sampler quilt...her block has a flower center.

Kim is making the pieced border for a BOM she did from a local quilt shop. It is a lot of work, but will be so pretty when finished.

I am still packing at school. We ran out of boxes for a day, so I worked on some furniture yesterday. Took apart some metal shelving, then had to figure out how to ready it for the move. I also cleaned out the last of the closets and cupboards. Not very exciting, but it's done now. We got boxes in so today will be back to packing books.

Long weekend....

It has been a busy, crazy week. No new pictures to share, so I thought I would post this one of my daughters and me, a long time ago. The toddler in the picture is 28 now, so yea, it's been awhile ago.  We've been going through old pictures to put on a dvd for my folk's 60th anniversary...my niece is making it for us....and it's been fun!

I worked on some receiving blankets for gifts one night, but forgot to take pictures of them. I have also been having back problems for the past 2 weeks, so have been going to physical therapy. My sacroiliac joint is out, or off, or something that happens when it doesn't all line up like it is supposed to.  It is better, but still sore. Keeping moving helps it, not hurts it, so that is good in my job!

The school district is installing a new library software program for us (Follett Destiny) so there have been some things I had to do to get ready for that, too, this week. Plus we won't be able to enter any new books into the system until it is completed, which could be several weeks, so I have been trying to get as many of my new books in the computer, with cataloging, as I could before yesterday. Doing this in between kids, I didn't get as much done as I would've liked, but it will wait.  Then we go 2 days without any software, but checking out books anyway (yea, I am nervous about that) and have a full day of training on Thursday next week. Not sure why they didn't just let us close for 3 days, (believe me, I have enough work sitting there to keep me busy for several weeks) and then start up right, but I guess this way will be more exciting!

I am off til Tuesday so hope to get some quilting & cleaning done. Notice which one is first.

Back to school for me & a finished top

It's back to school for me today...we have a big welcome back district meeting this morning then it is on to school to work. The kids come back tomorrow.

I finished this quilt top yesterday before class and will post a better pic when I get one. I love the secondary circular pattern that you get with this block. I also finished sewing the binding down on the new quilt I will be using for Beginning Quilting...a Double 4-Patch. So I got it hung on display last night too. Whew! 2 handsewn bindings in a week...that is a lot for me!

Lazy weekend

I really did nothing much over the weekend, not even sew. My SIL Denise did make me go with her to our favorite quilt store in Plattsmouth, Ne, Seams To Be Quilt Shoppe on Saturday. One of the best things about this shop is that besides having great fabrics of all kinds, they also have a sale wall ($3 & $5 a yd), and sale FQs. They were having a great sale on the sale Fat Quarters....94 cents apiece! So we went digging through them and managed to come up with a few. I was happy to find some more dots to add to my collection and found some lighter, mostly blueish colored batiks too.
This beauty was on the sale wall...so I had to get a piece! Isn't shopping for fabric sort of like quilting prep?
I think the reg. priced FQs are on sale all month too, but we didn't get that far, as we only had about an hour to shop.
I have been working on these blocks off and on for a week or so, so want to get them sewn together today. This is my first time at using the kaleidoscope ruler by Marti Mitchell, have to say it made the cutting very easy to do. I will be doing a class on it at some point, so went with just 6 fabrics ...though I know it would be pretty scrappy too. I hope to find time to do that at some point, too.

I have classes 3 nights this week and go back to school on Wednesday....not ready for this...lol..I am as bad as the kids!

School's out, school's out!!!!

Today was the last day for students in our school district. I have to work Tuesday, then am out for the summer too...woo hoo!!!

Thursday is for finishing...

The first day of school went well. It is always fun to see them back in their new clothes, so excited. I got a lot done in the library too so that was a plus.

I worked on getting the binding on my nephew's flame/cars quilt tonight and finished it. I have it in the dryer now, so can call him tomorrow. It is a very simple "quilt" (I use the term lightly) but he will like it...all those cars and flames. What is it about boys and flames?

Wednesday is back to school day...

Yesterday I started something with some of my vacation fabrics and some geisha girls I had. It is just bits and pieces of asian fabrics with girls and the kimonos which is the main reason I wanted to make something ( I had to buy the geisha girls--they were the last on the bolt & were calling my name). I think it is going to be 3 separate pieces that can be hung together. I will probably do some quilting, then add beading to it, so it may never be finished ( like the Mermaid) as it is hard to know when to stop!

I love my job at school, but it is so nice to have the relaxed summer schedule, too, with only quilting classes to worry about. We had a beginning of the year gathering for all 1100 odd employees of the district. It was nicer that usual, we sat around banquet tables with coffee and rolls. The speeches weren't too long and our new superintendent is actually a motivational speaker. This is her second year, so guess she is not new yet, but she told us today that we saw improvements last year, but our work is not done, we have to try harder this year.....

Once I actually got to school I spent the day putting the library back in order and laminating for the teachers. Tomorrow is our first day of kids, so they will all arrive with new books, clothes and best of all NEW CRAYONS!!! I love the smell of new crayons, and still remember the thrill of it from when I was a kid. The library won't be open for a week or so, as I have to update and enter students and other not so exciting stuff, then I have to do a short orientation with each class. Then we get down to a regular schedule. I have 7 classes that I read to, the rest of the kids just come and go when they need books. It is a great way to do it, though sometimes it gets sort of busy. But I like that. It is never boring, that is for sure.