Independence

One of the decisions that my hubby and I have made as parents is to raise our kiddos with lots of responsibility at a young age. (My 12 yo, Olivia, is raking with her dad as I write this.)

We wanted our kids to learn to do daily tasks so that they will be prepared for living on their own.

But, there is a downside.

How do you decide when a kid is ready to tackle certain tasks?

Meet Sophia.

She's my ten year old and part of her responsibilities is kitchen duty every other day (she switches off with her older sister). Part of kitchen duties is cooking.

Meet Sophia's burn. WARNING!!!! Icky picture ahead.

She sustained this burn on her right leg when she was transferring cooked noodles from the stove to the sink to drain them.

So, I feel bad that she has a burn that hurts. It's healing well, but partial thickness burns are very painful.

And, it makes me wonder if she has too much responsibility...or if she's just a klutz (which she kind of is).

Ahhh, the joys of parenting.

Glamour Puss

Design Wall Monday - June 25, 2012

On my design "table" this morning is Todd's Wedding Quilt.

Yes, I know that Todd already got married in June, but I'm going to get it done by the time his younger brother gets married in August!

So, of course, I have a wedding quilt to do for him as well, lol.

Make sure you check out what's happening in everyone else's studio! Head on over to Patchwork Times and snoop around!

Finished!

I finished Madison's quilt yesterday. I tried a little different swirl pattern. I'm sure you can't tell the difference, but I'm not sure I like it as much. I'm sure that if I work with it a little more, I'll feel more comfortable with it, but I'm not sure I need to since I am already comfortable with a pattern that is so similar. What do you guys think?

Olivia won Reserve Grand Champion with her quilt she entered into our 4-H Achievement Days. I'm so proud of her!

Believe it or not, her quilt is the same pattern as the quilt I just finished for Madison. They sure look different, don't they? But here, I think, you can see they're the same block.

I have a full day to work today. Home all day, I hope! I'm going to try and get a couple of quilts finished that I only have binding, or borders to quilt, or some other such small job.

Hope you have a quilty day!

Fantabulous Friday

I'll be working on a quilt made by a 13yo girl in the Kid's Quilting Camp we had earlier this summer. I hope to finish it before noon.

She's a young lady that was in Quilting Pals with me this last year and this is her third quilt!

I'm going to quilt it in an all over pattern using color 614 The Bottom Line thread by Superior.

She's coming over next week to learn how to put on binding. Can't wait to teach her that skill.

I also got my Customer Worksheet finished this morning. (I've been up since 2am. Couldn't sleep!)

I'm really excited to start quilting more quilts, so if any of my faithful followers out there are interested, I'll sure accept your shipped quilts! :-)

Hope you have a quilty day,

Hooked Up to an IV

I'm sitting here hooked up to an IV, so I thought I would write and
see how everyone is doing!

I have rheumatoid arthritis and I'm on Remicade which has to be given IV (in the vein).

Tonight, I get to go to Stitchin' Sisters and hang out with my best buds. It's so wonderful to have a group of quilters that you can hang out with. I LOVE Stichin' Sister nights!

I plan to get some things finished up tonight so I can spend the next few days quilting.

Can't wait!

Hope you're having a quilty day!

Design Wall Monday

One my design wall this morning is the quilt I am quilting on Emily.

It one of the first quilts of one of my good friends.

I LOVE the thought of doing a person's first quilt!

This is a friend that I am attending a beginner's quilting class with. I had planned on taking the class with my daughter because the quilt that they were doing is a sampler quilt that I really wanted to do. I knew that she wouldn't go if I didn't go alone to a beginner's class, so I invited her to go with us.

She is SO excited!

After the first class, she bought fabric so that she could make another sampler quilt at home at the same time.

THEN, she decided that she wanted to do another quilt, so I gave her a fat quarter pack and she started a Yellow Brick Road quilt (which she has almost finished).

Anyway, I hope you check out what everyone else is doing at Judy's blog and I hope you have a quilty day!

Saturday Quandary

I have a dilemma today. What to do, what to do.

I'm trying to decide what to do this morning.

Should I travel to 180 miles to Fargo to go to a guild meeting, or should I stay home and work on customer quilts? he he he

Lazy Sunday

What a wonderful day.

We started out going to our church. We go to Evangel in Bismarck. My kids LOVE it and so do we.

The three younger kids are in children's church for two of the three services. My oldest goes to a special service at 8:30 and then to the main service at 10:00.

Dana and I have already been to the main service at 8:30 and so we get to go out to breakfast...a date every Sunday! How wonderful!

We then go to pick up the kids and take them to lunch, do any errands we have and then come home to laze around the house.

It's wonderful!

I did get some quilting done.

I put the binding on one of the quilts I finished yesterday.

Hope you had a quilty day!

Working on Lecture

On Monday, I'll be teaching a class to ten beginner quilters.

I cannot wait!

Today, I'm working on getting my Power Point presentation ready...Nothing like waiting until the last minute, lol. But, I've done this before, so I have an idea of what to say.

I had a Power Point presentation from the first class I taught, but it's on a computer that is sick, so I couldn't access it.

I'm glad, though, because it forced me to start over and rethink everything.

Teaching is a passion for me and I can't wait for the chance to infect more quilters with Quilt Pox.

Hope you're having a quilty day!

So...What Do You Do For a Living?

I spend a couple of days this week in an online marketing class.

I've never really been to a business class, but now I have my own business, so I need to learn how to market it.

Being a quilter located in the middle of farmland in rural North Dakota has many benefits...but...it is in the middle of nowhere, lol.

One of the exercises we were encouraged to do was the Elevator Pitch..."sell my idea, business, product or service in 30 seconds or less (the time it takes to go from the first floor to the top of a building in an elevator)."

(Actually, there are very few buildings in North Dakota with more than one or two floors, but you get the idea, lol.)

So, I got to thinking. What is it I actually do for a living?

Well, first of all, I'm a wife and a mother.

Secondly, I homeschool my kids.

Thirdly...well...I just started a quilting business. It's not a long-arm quilting business. Some people do understand that when you say it. My quilting machine is an in-table machine. And, I don't know exactly what to call it.

Anyway, I guess I need to do some work on my Elevator Pitch.

I have been busy otherwise.

I finished a couple of customer quilts the last few days.

This one is the first quilt of one of the beginner quilters I've had the privilege of teaching.

This one is the second quilt of her granddaughter, who is one of my 4-H members!

Here's a close-up of the quilting I did on the Rail Fence Quilt.

I did a swirl in the border.

And Kari embroidered Madison's name on the back.

It turned out cute!

One last photo...

Here are the goats relaxing in the shade. They're so silly!

Hope you're having a quilty day!