Happy Birthday Dad....and other stuff

This weekend was my dad's 86th birthday! He won't mind my telling you, he's very proud of the fact. :-) We gave him an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station and the other Air-Thingy piece to attach to his stereo, so he can wirelessly play the classical radio stations in iTunes through his living room stereo. I think the gift was a hit!

The card says "A long, long time ago...." "you were born!" and plays the theme from Star Wars. We had a good chuckle over it.


This is from the previous weekend. Great-grandfather and great-grandson. Clearly they are charming each other!


I finished my rabbits last month for Lynette's Noah's Ark Block of the Month. I love these little stitcheries, they take almost no time to do.


This month is the dove. Ugh...poor choice of thread, it's way to light! Since I took this photo I've ripped it out and done it over. It's much better now.


All my Gardening-In-North-Carolina-Books say that tulips don't grow properly here. It doesn't get cold enough during the winter for the bulbs to set new flowers. I'm here to say that apparently this isn't always true. Look what surprises came up in my garden! Woohoo!



Today I fought with my sewing machine big time. (I shoulda been outside with the tulips instead.) I've been going to the Bernina master classes the last few Wednesdays and we kind of figured out at the last class that the presser foot pressure regulator might need adjusting. Today I came to the conclusion that it definitely does need adjusting! Arrrrrggggghhhh. Lots of bad words today...sigh. I'm working on church paraments and wrestling mightily with the piping. The machine beeps and refuses to go when anything even remotely thick is under the presser foot, so piping is a no-no (grrrrrr). Other than that I have no complaints so far. I guess this Wednesday I'll have to leave the machine behind after class. :-( It's an hour drive to the store in Fayetteville so I'll probably leave it there until the next Wednesday. Sob! Good thing I have a couple of old Singers around to pull out at times like this. The next Orange Crush clue should come out this week and I'll be upset if I can't work on it. And of course! *smack* I can always just hop down the road and use one of Mom's machines. :-)

Uhhh...what else did I do today. Oh yeah....went to the dentist. No joy there. Oh...but I did get my order of thread in the mail! *happy dance* I've got the Bargello Bowl quilt all ready to go on the frame, it was just a matter of waiting for and auditioning the thread.


I spent a chunk of time recently raising and leveling the frame and making new leaders out of ticking. The ones it came with were so flimsy. Ugh. I even sewed on measuring tapes. I also got new Featherlight clamps. Good thing, since my backing should be wider. I watched how-to videos on Youtube and squared my backing properly. The measuring tapes and stripes made it so easy to load on the frame. Whew! I've been practicing designs on my whiteboard and as soon as I get the paraments done tomorrow I'll be ready to boogey. This is one LOUD quilt. The backing is pieced from hot air balloon fabrics. As my dad would say...it'll be so loud I won't be able to get to sleep! *hee hee* I can't wait to finish it and send it off to it's new owner.