2011....The first 3 months

Well, 2011 was quite a year. I started going thru my blog and saw that so much has happened this past year. I'll try not to bore you too much with the babies and crafting and the babies and the crafting:)

 The past year has had its highs and it had it lows*...like every year does. Here are some of my highs for 2011:) I actually just got thru the first 3 months....hopefully I'll be able to blog more later.

*If you want to know about the lows, we will need to meet for lunch....and dinner:)

January: Craftapalooza! My Friend Jennifer learns to quilt!

 Babies!!!

I assisted this family for the 5th time!
Here they all are below:)

...and of course,sewing and crafting!

February brought lots of snow.....

...and babies!!!

I applied for my CPM....

 ...and Jack turned 8!

....and sewing and quilting and crafting!

March, of course, brought more babies......

 ....and CMQG's first quilting retreat.

Plus.......more crafting!!!!

Wow.....so far it was a packed year...more later!

Hi :)

I haven't posted in awhile...been down with a bum tooth. Today is the first day in a week that I work up without pain. YAY! I've been pretty hopped up (get it? Easter? hopped?) on tylonol3's, Motrin and a super strong antibioitic. I'm so looking forward to a root canal next Tuesday...can't. wait.

The flower pic was taken in Florida last month....thinking it would make a nice art quilt.

Have a great day.....its supposed to rain like crazy here today. yay.

Oh, on the up side of having a bad tooth? I've lost 3 pounds.....I'm sure it will find me. As for the rain, April showers bring May flowers...or so they say. Whoever they are.

My CPM (midwifery) application

I know ya'll have been wondering what I've been up to the last week or so seeing as I have no sewing machine......well, here it is.  I've been working on my CPM application almost non-stop for the last 5 days. This morning as I was shuffling thru the stack I realized I need a better method of organizing the papers so I could see what needed to be done. I am very easily distracted...as we all know ;) I would start looking for one paper and end up working on something else so it seemed each part of the application would only get partially done. I would then go back to it and have to spend a few minutes figuring out what was needed. You get the idea, right? So, in order to see everything, I lined in all up on the stairs....Brilliant! Each stack has its own category. After doing this, I felt like I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.....and as my mom likes to say, it isn't an oncoming train;) Tuesday I was ready to throw in the towel and say forget it...its too much work. But I didn't.... I'm carrying on. I know I'll be so glad when I have my CPM in my back pocket. Here's a pic to give you an idea of how much paper I have been filling out. Have a great day! I plan to.....meeting my friend Jennifer for lunch at the Patio....YAY!!!!

....it actually was perfect timing for my machine to go on the fritz otherwise I would have put this off even longer and it needs to be in the mail by March 1.

....and now for my next act...

....Whole cloth painting. I'm so inspired by Judy Coates Perez and have wanted to try her methods of painting and then quilting. Here's a few examples of her work:

I've done a few small pieces like these but want to go bigger.

 stay tuned.....

My ADCD rears its beautiful head.

Tiles. 

I'm now obsessed with tiles. Specifically Mexican tiles in blue and yellow like these:

 .....and these:

....but before all that I found this book to fuel my fire...

So I made this....

....and this....

 and then I discovered the Mexican tiles and made this:

I like how it turned out, but it needs much tweaking....more on that later as I'm making another one right now. But before that I'm finishing up this....

....which I think looks AWESOME!

These are the shoes......

.....I wore to work yesterday.

I have another pair just like them.

They sat by the back door of a birthing mama's home all day, so I didn't realize it 'til I went to put them on to go home. Gramma noticed, tho. She said she had been looking at my feet all day wondering if I had a condition or something where I had to wear 2 different shoes.

Oh, I got a condition alright...it just doesn't have anything to do with my feet.

The madness....

...in panoramic. 

Chuck took several pics and then stitched (he's a quilter, too!!) them together with a program he found on line.
Click on pic for bigger view....I know you wanna see the mess  :)

OMG...just realized if you click on it a second time you can really see the mess!

A Day in the life.....

..of Karen Kells. 

This was nudge #3 from Diana Trout : Take your camera with you for one day and shoot random pics. Copy them out from your printer and glue them onto a journal page.

Try not to be too overwhelmed by how riveting my life is  ;) As you can see, the day was pretty much over by after lunch. 

I'll have to do a journal page on a day I go to a birth....now that world be riveting.

Thanks, Aunt, you made my birthday!!

My Auntie Kath wrote a poem about me!! I love it!

 About Karen

There once was a girl
golden hair , a bit of curl.
A smile so bright and sunny.
She finds lots of things funny.

An apple dress she dared to wear.
Now teasing unending she will bear.
She wore it to look her very best.
It made her stand out from all the rest.

She grew some more.
Different clothes she wore.
She had her own two boys,
and now they are too big for toys.

Her talents, they are so many.
She could make art from a penny.
From fabric and thread, art so fine
You'll be saying "I wish it were mine!"

But wait. There's more to tell you.
There's more she did and can do.

Long ago and so far away
she was heard to say,
"I have a new goal to achieve.
I can do it. I believe!"

She gathered every cent she had
Became soldier lady for dear old Dad.
She studied hard & missed some naps.
All rewarded one day with gowns and caps.

And now she is blessed
with a job that's the best.
She's there when life meets day.
More precious than words can say.

I'm nearly done here
talking about a niece so dear.
Just a bit more.
I hope I don't bore.

She likes coffee and wine.
With hubby she likes to dine.
She likes Sunbonnet Sue.
She likes yellow and blue.
She loves our Lord.
She's seldom bored.
She loves family and friends.
Happy thoughts she freely lends.

My poem is nearly done.
It sure has been fun.
That's all I have to say
Except....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I have succumbed.....

....to cheaters  :(

I recently had my contact RX increased from -5.75 to -6.50 and now I can't clearly see close up

when I'm sewing. Hence, the magnifier glasses. At least they make them in fun colors and you can get them at the dollar store......for....wait for it....a dollar!!

I won!

A Big THANK YOU to everyone I coerced into voteing for me! I campaigned hard and won the public vote by a slim margin of 4....but a W is a W! I had a lot of fun with this challenge and am looking forward to what will be posted on Kim's blog tomorrow at noon. Go check out all the other winners...there were so many great entries.

Project Quilting - Vote for Meeeeeee....PPPllleeeaassssseeee.Thank You.

The voting has started over at Kim's Crafty Apple. Check out the details of all the entries on Flicker. 18 quilters participated in last weeks challenge and there are a lot of really cool entries. I especially like the kite and the binder cover but they are all pretty great.

My new Spring wardrobe

I almost never buy new clothes....most of my stuff comes from thrift stores.....but I was at Target yesyerday and decided to get a little crazy. OMG...love, love those shoes! You can't really tell from the pic, but they're pink!

I like gingham.....Update

Another thing I like is to fold and arrange/stack my fabric after I wash and dry it. Since most of my fabric comes from the thrift store, I have built a rather large stash .For the longest time, I couldn't leave any piece behind (any piece that was cotton that is). These days I'm more picky about what I buy.

As I was separating out all the gingham I had, I realized that every piece came from the thrift store. All my cute little shelves came from there too. Oh how I love thrift store!

....I don't like binding.

On the mend.

Just being home with Chuck and Sophie (and all my crafty stuff) has made a world of difference on my healing.Thanks you two! Especially you, Chuck..... you are my knight in shining armour! and Sophie, I don't know how we got so lucky to get such a loving doggy! I'm one lucky girl!

A few random pics from Florida

It was a little chilly when we first got there, so we crafted the first day...which was fine with me. We went to the beach one day...it was pretty chilly that day too.Hopefully Amy got more pics because this was all I got before I hurt my leg. Which ,BTW, is feeling better very slowly.

Lemme tell ya about my vacation.....

Things did NOT go as planned. I flew down to Florida last Tuesday with high expectations. Sun! Fun! Family! Sewing in the morning! Swimming in the afternoon! Cocktails in the evening! Good Times! That lasted almost 3 days. Better then no days I guess. On Thursday I felt like I had pulled a muscle in my thigh. By Friday, my thigh started to swell. By Saturday my thigh was swollen from the knee up. I needed to go to the ER. OH GOODY ;( My first thought was maybe I had a blood clot and that was Dr 90210's (very young, very cute doctor.....Amy named him that. I called him Doogie Howser) thought as well. But then he changed his mind and thought I was a muscle sprain. They did an ultrasound to rule out clot...ruled out. Sent home. Next day. Even more swelling and pain....have I mentioned the PAIN?!?! I could barely walk. Called my HF doc and he said....no more monkeys jumping on the bed....no wait...he said go back to the ER. OH YAY ;(  This time blood work was done as well as an exray...all negative. Diagnosis: Muscle sprain. (The weird thing about this injury is that I don't remember hurting myself....and no, I don't think it was from too many cocktails the first few days!) He wrapped it up and told me stay stay off of it. For how long, I asked? 'Til its better, he replied. I was glad I went back because I was able to see a different doc (one closer to my age thank you very much) and got another opinion. ANYWAY....I mostly stayed in bed the next 4 days as the sun shined in thru the window and a gentle breeze blew thru. I uncomfortably flew home on Tuesday, but fortunatly,  was able to get a bulkhead seat on the flight because of my pitiful condition. So, I'm home and am happy to report I'm on the mend. I don't think I'll be able to work much before Sunday or Monday as I still don't have a lot of ROM (range of motion). One needs a bit of ROM to drive ones car. The pain has decreased....thank you Advil......and I'm moving around better today but plan to stay off it as much as possible the next several days. So that's my story. No sewing/crafting has been done in over a week and the withdrawal has been as painful as my injury. I may try to sneak up to the craft room today just to look at all my stuff ; )

A REALLY Good Mail Day!

Swap blocks from Auntie,  2 Magazines, my paycheck and no bills. Who could ask for anything more?

Time Flies......

.....really, really fast in the morning. Morning time is my most productive time of the day. Unfortunately, if I'm not careful...which I'm usually not, I'll spend and hour or an hour and a half (or more)on the Internet fooling around.....looking at blogs...searching for clock images .....wasting time on Facebook....I'm sure you all know what I mean. I love the Internet (Hi, my name is Karen and I'm an Internetaholic.....(note to self....must find Internet 12 step program) but I should be sewing at this time!! AANNNYYYWWAAAYY....I made another (very loose) NY's resolution. 30 minutes. THAT'S IT. I get 30 minutes to do whatever on the Internet, then its off to craft. I can Internet other times of the day when I'm not so productive...like after 12p. That is all. I've already exceeded my time limit be 6 minutes.