Now Sell, Dammit!

I can't believe it's only been a week since I last posted....usually it's about once a month if I'm lucky!  But here I am again...and with some cool news.  No, we haven't sold the house yet....that would be AMAZING NEWS....this news is only cool...to me, at least!

Back in 2004, I took part in a local quilt shop's monthly Block of the Month program (BOM)...you purchase the first block for $5.00 and sew it up.  You go to a mini-meeting the next month, listen to a short infomercial, show you made the previous month's block, and walk away with the pattern and fabric to make the next block.  If you don't go or don't get the block made, you pay $5.00 for the next block set. Theoretically you can make 12 blocks for only $5.00 if you attend every meeting and make each block. You can either purchase a kit to put the blocks together to make a quilt or use your own fabric and design to set them.  I usually purchase the kit each year.  This particular year, 2004, the choice for size was a crib quilt, a lap quilt, a queen quilt, or a king quilt.  I really, really wanted to make the king quilt but neither of us were working at the time and I could not justify the $100.00 it would have cost to buy the kit.  John told me that if I bought any kit other than the king-sized one, I would never be happy about the finished product. (He knows me so well!!!).  He said we would find the money when the time came to get the finishing kit.  And so I signed up for the big one.

I made each of the blocks that year and purchased the kit....fast forward to autumn of 2013...the quilt still hadn't been completed...it was a huge quilt, larger than any other I'd ever made, and required a lot of concentration and precision to compete.  I set a goal of completing it once John left to move to Utah.  In fact, he said that once I finished the quilt, the house would sell and not before.  You see, we'd agreed that this quilt required nothing less than custom quilting done by my very talented quilter here in Missouri.  So I set about getting everything done so I could send it to her...gave it to her in February and it took her about 4 months to quilt it...now the only thing left to do was to tack down the binding and it was done.  John kept reminding me that the house would not sell till the quilt was done.  Today I finished tacking the binding on this monster quilt. And I give you:

The Latte Quilt - Now, Sell, Dammit!

I am so proud of this quilt....it's been a long time coming and it will proudly be displayed on our bed once we get settled in Utah. And if John is right, we should be getting an offer on the property soon!  I hate it when he is right!

Thanks for stopping by. 

September Wrap-up

So this summer's quest that I set for several people has ended and I have received almost 75 patterns from all over the country and Ontario, Canada....23 people came to my rescue and braved their areas in search of patterns and licence plates.  I decided to make a mug rug for each person who went out to their local shops and obtained patterns for me.  I chose embroidery patterns for each of them and put their name on the rug as well.  I have spent most of today addressing envelopes and affixing stamps to 17 of them, 3 have already been sent, and I'm waiting on 3 more sets of patterns to arrive at which time I'll finish the mug rugs for those people and get them sent off. I tried to hide the names of the people who might be reading this so your mug rug is a surprise...if you see a name, there's a good chance that person doesn't read this blog.  I could be wrong about that and someone might see theirs here - sorry I spoiled the surprise.

It's now been a year since John went out to Utah and tomorrow marks 1 year since he started his job. I can't believe it's been that long.  I have a tendency to look at things in the perspective of deployments (we did 17 of those while John was in the Navy)...so some of you will understand when I say this:  When John left, the Mule (the farm cart I bought John when he turned 60 years old) had a full tank of gas...today I checked and I have a whole year's worth of gas left in the tank...I let you think about that for a while.  Yes, in 1 year, I've only used 1/2 tank of gas - that's using it every single week to take trash out to the bins, check on the water softener under the house, check on the orchard, run down to our neighbor's house, etc.  I surely do hope I don't have to wait another year before I can empty the tank and ship the Mule to Utah....I would love to 'waste' the gas left in the tank and move sooner than later!

The weather has turned cooler here in the Ozarks.  We've had a bit of rain in the last 10 days and a bit more expected this next week.  And it's predicted the temps will rise a bit also this next week.  But Autumn is definitely arrived!  I had to turn the furnace on a couple of days already...but today I have the a/c going.

Well, enough rambling...I'm off to read for a while before it gets dark and I settle down with some hot chocolate and a movie.

Thanks for stopping by.