my quarterly blog

Its not actually supposed to be quarterly but thats about how often i get to this anymore:-)
SSSOOOOOOOOOO much has happened since July when I last posted, so Ill just jump in and start telling it all. If you get bored, take a break, watch a movie, do some laundry maybe, have a cup of hot cocoa and come back-my blog is always open!
So since I last wrote, I moved! Our youngest of 5 graduated from high school in June, we went on a few vacations, and then I worked like a mad woman in July! Oh it was crazy with my husband already gone ahead of us for a year, having to get everything ready for all the different places we were all moving to nearly killed me! Our middle daughter was home from Italy where she served a mission for our church and she was getting ready to move into a little rental house and we stupidly thought she would be able to move right in since that was the way it had been for all the other people who had rented it from us but nooooooooooo...it was destroyed:-( thats the only way I can describe it.  But I cant dwell on that because my blood pressure goes up. So in addition to finishing packing our house that we had lived in for 16 years and working at the practice every day that I could, we had to get that house liveable.  Oh my gosh it was so hard! I dont think i ever had a moment in the month of July where I wasnt packing cleaning or working or repairing.  On top of it all, we had a 17 year old girl who came home from Italy with Hillary to visit......for 10 weeks!!!!!! I could not believe it-I told her all that we would be doing this summer and tried to get her to come for only 3 weeks, but she had already bought a ticket so, there you go.  So Hillary was moving into the little rental house with 2 other room mates, our youngest daughter was preparing to go off to college and needed to get all her stuff ready for the dorms, that wasnt too bad, but still her stuff couldnt be packed up and taken to the new house because she wasnt going to move with us, she was going to stay in Henderson with her sister and friends until college started! Crazy, I know! But its over now, my hubby and I are living in Herriman Utah...yeah its little but prcious. I finally can sew again, even though my sewing room is in the mostly unfinished basement, I still manage! We are close to our son Vince and his wife Megan, and our son Bill and his wife Jolena and their babies Spencer and Genevieve, and while we are not too close to our daughter Vanessa and her husband Jefferson and their baby Donovan, we are closer than we were! Plus they came and visited in August just the same week I finally got moved in.  Doug had been here for 5 months before me but did not dare to unpack anything lest he put it in the wrong place! So since august i have been here in beautiful Herriman getting used to the small town life, and going back and forth to work in Henderson.  We still have a dental practice to look after and patients to see! But we have a great team there now so while Doug and I are away, they take good care of everyone and everything!
Ok now for the serious reason I have this blog, not to bore you with my tedious life, but to just show a few things i work on here and there.

Most recently, I made a quilt for our new grand daughter Genevieve.  here is a picture of it in progress (its only 4 blocks thank goodness they are so big!) and one of Genevieve with her great grandma Jo from whom she got her middle name! Great grandpa is in the background. Fun block to make and I wish I had a picture of the quilting done by my dear friend Chris.
Next, I was lucky enough to attend the sewing summit in SLC, and it was great-more about that later.  But I wanted to show some of the things we worked on there and while some are works in progress, I have managed to complete a few things! I had 8 classes, and in reality, I have done all the things they were teaching before except 2 things...but it was great review for me and quite honestly, I never paper piece or sew curves or diamonds unless I take a class because its so easy to just do the simpler stuff...but Im so glad I got a push from the teachers! the 2 things I had never done were sewing hexagons by machine, and making welt pockets! Can I just say how cool I felt when my welt pocket turned out so fantastic? And our teacher was so cute and funny and smart I laugh just thinking about her telling us to "press aggressively!" and all her funny sayings.  here is my welt pocket-just feast your eyes and tell me that isnt gorgeous! I know! you cant even tell where the pocket is! Small things make me so full of joy! hahahaha!

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I have to say I'm still a little lazy/scared/trepidatious about the hexagons. The class was so full of information and I only sewed like 6 together so I am not going to show that until I get more done, same with the 60 degree triangles...I know how to sew those so I didnt do much in class but I will finish it, because its for Christmas!
In that same class besides hexagons and triangles, we did diamonds, and while the sample was only like 20 diamonds, I went to town on those bad boys and I am making a full size throw quilt! I am not finished sewing the strips together but I have all the diamonds sewn and here is a sample of that:

I'm loving this one... i hope to get it done this week!
I did a curved piecing sample, those curves are wicked! But I learned a new technique and they are so easy now!

I also got to take a couple of purse classes, this one called the ship shape tote-I have had that feathery fabric for years but it was so autumn-y in color i figured it was just perfect...its a huge tote and big enough to fit 2 chihuahuas....
here are my string piecing and paper piecing samples-such a fun class!

and this cute little metal frame purse: that was really cute and easy to do--think of the possibilities! one lady in class made hers out of deep purple velvet and it was gorgeous.

Now I have to give kudos to my dear friend Patti the only other person I know who is obsessed with quilting  (even more than me) and creating.  She flew in from Henderson a day early and thanks to her, I got all my fabrics cut and ready for classes, and didnt have to go as a loner to anything! Thank you Patti for saving me! By the way, these are her "runway ready" pajama pants that she made in one of her classes! they were the envy of all since she put that cute little cuff on the bottom!
Well that's about enough out of me for a little while! Ill just close with some cute pictures of the grand babies...

Donovan, Genevieve, and Spencer...I guess you could say I like them just a little bit....