Quilt Studio!

Real quilters have quilt "studios". Untill 2009 my quilt room was in my closet next to my bedroom. I finally felt so claustrophobic that I couldn't sew. I tried moving my sewing machine to the kitchen but everybody complained, not to mention that food kept getting all over my projects. So I sold the airhockey table, got rid of the big TV and kitchen cupboards that were in the basement and turned it into a studio!

This is my giant design wall made of styrofoam insulation covered with flannel. Oh yeah, that is my Doodle quilt hanging there, awaiting borders.

Jim, my favorite (and only) husband, built these shelves for me. Oh how I love a man with talents! I wrapped my fabric on things so that it looks like a mini quilt store. The tupperware containers have the smaller pieces of fabric divided by color.

Just another view.

Another view that shows my New Joy "Magic" quilting frame. My talented husband and son moved it from my bedroom to here and made it 10 feet instead of 8 feet. The really wonderful thing is...I had them make it 12 feet and decided it was too big for the room, so they had to take it all apart and make it smaller. They are so awesome.

My sewing machine, allready with fabric piled on the table, and my cutting table in the corner. I nned more light there. My machine faces the TV so I can watch old movies while I sew. Ahhhhh, life is good for a REAL QUILTER!

Grand-pairs

My grandkids mostly come in pairs. Not Twins! They each have a cousin that was born within a few months of them, with one exception.

Cj. Cj is the oldest by a couple of years. She had to start the ball rolling all by herself.

Livy and Kaitlyn came next.

Then Brynn and Jeston

Mia and Addy are our Drama queens. Actually, I could say that about all the girls and half the boys.

Sam and Jared showed up, we were happy for more boys.

Then

Porter and India.

Then Luke and Xander

Then Reid and Ellie.

Finally, Mirabella and Brigg. They are a little farther apart than the other pairs, but I still count them.

I took most of these pictures during dinner at the cabin, and some of the kids were not willing to tear themselves away from the food for a pic. I'm not 100 percent sure I got the pairs right.

I have 1 more grand-pair coming this year, one in March and one in June. Which

reminds me....at the cabin, we have to be careful of the water, there just isn't enough when there are a lot of people there. The rule is "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down" . Inspite of that, we ran out of water. Poor pregnant Val was morning sick and came out of the bathroom apologizing because she just threw up and could not flush it down. Russell asked what color it was, if it was yellow, there was no problem!

More cabin fun

We organized a little family "War" at the cabin. We divided into Porters and non Porters. If you were born a Porter, you were on Team Porter. Otherwise you were a non-Porter. That meant couples were split up and children followed their fathers. It was fairly even numbers.

This is Team Porter. Little Porter Anderson (center front) was on this team because of a technicality. He was born a "Porter". This is their fort.

This is Team Non-Porter. (We have to think of a better name.) Our fort has a face and a personality. We had planned to have an all out snowball fight, but it thawed, rained and froze overnight and left us with ice forts and ice balls to throw. We decided in the interest of safety to take turns trying to destroy each others forts, the last fort standing wins.

We had some interesting attempts at destruction. Scott tried a flying kick which nearly broke his leg.

Kendall put his whole body into it, we nearly had to use smelling salts to bring him around.

Val tried a little karate "Crane" kick. Keep in mind, the forts are nearly solid ice. After everyone was injured they finally decided to use "Tools". It no longer mattered who won, it was the principle of the thing---we had to destroy the forts! They used picks, shovels and axes and finally demolished the forts to ice cubes. I didn't get a picture because when the axes came out, I went inside.

The most interesting thing was how competitive everyone was. There was talk of midnight raids on the other teams fort. There were secret strategy meetings. It was a riot. Next time we divide into teams, we might need to keep couples together so that the women can control their men. Everyone knows wives are very "controlling".

Winter Wonderland

We just returned from spending time at my Mother's cabin in Idaho. All 31 plus my mom (32) of us were there. The cabin only has 3 bedrooms but there is a heated loft above the garage that has a bedroom and a living area. Can you see a problem here? We let the families duke it out for possesion of a bedroom and Jim, Mom and I got a motel.

Not here....................................................

Here, at the Bears Knight Inn. It was as much fun as the cabin. Us old people actually got to sleep and shower everyday. Due to crying children and bad water pressure, not everybody else did.