My plans for this week is to put the finishing touches on my Christmas shopping and then make the two Shepherds Bush stockings that I have cross stitched for my two great grandchildren.  Wish me luck.  My mom has a few quilts she wants quilted for Christmas so If I have any time left, I will try to do what she wants done.  Wish me even greater luck!!!!!!!

I started last Monday morning and did nothing all week except quilt on this quilt.  I had 3 of the sides done but none of the middle where all the roses are.  I quilted all day everyday and Darling Husband cooked dinner for us each night.  A couple of nights I quilted until midnight.   My finger tips are all raw and the bottom of my feet are sore.  I guess it was the way I sat while I was quilting. 

Friday afternoon about two pm I took it off the quilt frame and went over it and trimmed all the loose threads off of it and I delivered it to its owner Saturday morning.  I am doing the happy dance still.

While I was working on this quilt for the last few years,  I would fold it up and put it away in a plastic bag and for the last few months I had it on the quilt frame in my sewing room.  Sometime while I had it in the bag a moth or bug of some kind had landed on it and got stored away with it.  When I took it out to work on it again, the bug has disintegrated on the quilt.  It left a spot on it that looked like dried blood just above one of the roses.  I tried every thing I knew to do to it and I could not get it out.

It will be a WHILE before I hand quilt another quilt.

This is part of the blocks for my Quilt of Valor quilt.  I will add two borders to it and it makes a beautiful quilt.  Thank you all so much.  If any one wants instructions on how to make the blocks  just send me a message or a pm on the HGTV message board.

This is some of my Christmas sewing/cross stitching I am trying to get done before Christmas.

I have made all my kids, their spouses, my grandkids, and now these two are great grand children.

Shepherds Bush comes out with a new stocking every  year.  One year it is a boy and the next year it

is a girl.  I think I have done them all and some of them twice, if I run out of new patterns.

My goal is to get these cut out and made into stockings before the end of the weekend.

Wish me luck because I still need to sew the charms on them. 

 

I promised pictures of my windows for my vintage camper.  This is the before picture.

 

this is the after

Now to spend a little time on them with some aluminum polish and I think they will look like old old windows that have been cleaned and polished to try to make them look new again!!!!!!

Well, it has been a really busy week.  I have never liked camping.  I only tried it twice and I don't know what it is about me and a tent set up under a shade tree on a river bank and thunders storms.
Both times I ever camped in a tent, just about bed time it always seemed to come up a storm and thunder and lighten like crazy......not to mention raining so hard you would think you were going to be washed out into the river.  After the second "tenting out" episode I made myself a promise.  I said "Self if you ever get home, you will never go camping again" That was about 35 years ago. This promise came after a night of camping, storming, squirrels eating all our food, and the truck breaking down in 110 degrees heat on the way home with two rambunctious boys age 5 and 7.

Darling Husband started in a year or so back wanting to buy a camper. Are you kidding me? You are 6ft 4in over 250 lbs and those campers are small.  It would be like stuffing an elephant into a fiat. I am not "Twiggy" either.  I kept telling him he would not like camping, but in reality it was really me that did not want to go there again. I finally broke down and said yes after numerous trips to look at campers.  He finally wore me down and in the spring time this year we found a really nice clean used camper and began our summer on the lakes.  We camped close to home because we did not know how to work the stove. We knew that if something went wrong we could just lock the door and be home in a few minutes. We have had a wonderful summer and learned a lot of helpful hints about the ins and outs of camping.  We broke down this week and purchased our first new camper.  We wanted something a little bigger because DH is retiring soon and we wanted something big enough to spend more time in.  We have been truly blessed by the Good Weathers Gods this summer also.  We have had one weekend where it was really hot.  The rest of the summer the weather was beautiful each time we camped.

I did not get to work on Betsy this week.  I have been busy cleaning up the old camper to get it ready to sell.  I have been cleaning out a flower bed because we are going to have to use up the space to build a shed for the new camper. I have been trying to catch up on some quilting. I have also been trying to get the outside plants cut back and covered up because it is beginning to get cool here at night and you never know when the first frost might fall and kill my banana bushes.   I have worked some on getting the pool closed down for the winter.

I did finish a quilt today for a lady from Aberdeen.  I did an all over stipple or meander pattern on it in a beige thread so none of the quilting actually shows up on it.  It was quite colorful and must have been a lot of work.  I did some leaf patterns in the borders and she is going to bind it.  I hope to put another one on the frame in the morning.
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I worked for a couple of hours this morning on removing the paint off my window frames.  It says to not use the paint remover if it is above 85 degrees.  I only got to work on it until about 10:00 am. It got hot out there fast.  I got the top layer off.  I will get the second layer off early in the morning.  I got all the old Butty Putty off the back of the windows. That is the gooey stuff that goes around any place on the camper where water could possibly seep in.  (seams, windows etc)  All the windows have little flaps on the frames at the top that keep the water from dripping inside the window.  Those were all stiff and every time I tried to pick them up to clean under them they were brittle and would break.  I hope I can find some of it to replace it. 

I put paint remover on one of my windows and I would let it sit for about 15 minutes and then wash it off with the pressure washer.  I was pressure washing one of the windows and lost my balance and stepped right in the middle of the window.  I will also have to find a new pain for that.  It is a thousand wonders it did not cut my feet when I stepped on it because I was bare footed.  I think the windows are going to clean up really nicely. 

Well, I am still on the lookout for a vintage camper that has a decent interior.  In the mean time I am spending my time still working on the shell of one that I already have.  I spent a little time this week working on the windows.  The person that had it before me painted it green to use in the woods for a deer hunting cabin and the person before that painted it red.  They did not bother to tape off the chrome around the windows when they painted it either.  The window frames has red and green paint spray all over them.  I have already cleaned all the glass now I am working on taking the paint off the frames.  I have two done and 5 more to go.  My grand daughters significant other is going to do some repair welding to the frame for me when he gets through with a building that he is welding on now.
My camera is in the camper and the awning is down really low on the side so I can not open the door.
When the awning dries out and I can get the camper door open I will take some before and after pictures to show.

I will start removing the paint from the sides when I finish the window.  I will keep doing this until the weather cools off a little.  By the time I get the paint off of everything and my welder gets thru with the frame, it should be cool enough to start from the floor up and rebuild back to the way I found it.  It is just too dang hot outside right now to do that kind of work.   

We are camping this weekend but I brought my little featherweight machine with me and made this little doll quilt.  So this week was not a total loss.

I went to TN to get my other camper for the interior but I got 50 miles up the road and called the man to let him know what time I would be there and he told me he sold the camper last Saturday.  Soooo now I am in the process of scouting down another camper so I will have the stuff for the inside.  I could buy it piece by piece but that would take forever.  I also need to take one apart so I will know how to put this one back together.  After all this is my first (and probably my last) project like this.

I cut Betsy's floor into three pieces so I could pick it up and get it off the frame.  There was four layers that made up the floor. 
The top was a vinyl linoleum, the second layer was 3/4 inch plywood, the third layer was a 2X4 frame and insulation, and the fourth is some kind of foam board.  I pulled the foam board off one of the sections to make sure I get a record of how it was made so I can put it back together correctly.

The rats were living between the layers and had made them a home with the insulation.

This is all that was left of the insulation. This had to have been a huge rat.

It is Monday again, and I usually try to work on my camper on Mondays.  Today I took the wooden wall frame down.  John and Jeff helped me take the floor up. The bottom of the floor was covered in some kind of porous board.  I assume it was on there to soak up the moisture.  It is almost like wet paper.  When you touch it, it just crumbles in your hand.  I want to take it off the bottom and see how the floor was constructed before I trash it.  These are the boards after we got them off the frame.

We took the floor off in three pieces.  Two of them are stacked on the ground

 to the left and the other one is leaning on the tongue of the trailer.   The top is laid out on the ground behind the frame. We took it off in one long sheet.  Now I have to separate the pieces so I can store it till I can get the frame ready rebuild it.This is the top.  I tried to pull some trim off the top and the
walls were like paper, the whole thing just fell apart. 

This is another angle of the walls falling in. 

I have all the remains loaded on the trailer.  I have to unload the good parts in the boat shed.

I have to unload the unusable parts on the burn pile.

I need to make a place in the garage to hand my window frames so they don't get bent up.

I still need to get the flooring up and get it on the burn pile.

I need to rake the ground around the frame and get that all cleaned up.

I need to take the top apart and stack the pieces in the boat shed till I get ready to take the paint off all the tin and the window frames.

Then I am going to go buy another camper like this one that has been hit in the rear. I will take it all apart and save the parts of it that can be used to take the two campers and make one. 

My goal is to have it ready to travel to the Houston, TX quilt show which I believe is always in November.  So that gives me 14 months to get all this done.

 

Here are a few ideas for my finished product:

My daughter in law took rolls of brown paper, tore it in pieces, dipped it in polyurethane and put it on her walls in her den.  I thought she had lost her mind but it turned out to look like leather wallpaper. It turned out very pretty.  I went to a quilt retreat in Odenville in 2012 and 4 ladies from Maryland, we called them the Merry Maids of Maryland, came to retreat in a Mini van covered with quilt scraps glued to the sides with starch. It was so cool looking.  I THINK I AM GOING TO COVER THE INTERIOR WALLS IN THIS CAMPER IN SCRAPS OF FABRIC AND SECURE IT WITH THE POLYURETHANE.

I have found some old singer sewing machine cabinet drawers on ebay.  These drawers are a perfect size for the storage bags you buy at stitchers to store all your cross stitching threads in.  I want to make me some kind of frame for them to go in and use them for thread storage. 

My table in the camper will be constructed to fit right over my sew eazi table that houses my singer featherweight machine. 

 I think I am going to have me a quilt block painted on the back under the window like the quilt blocks you see painted on barns across the countryside.

I want to use my little camper to go to Paducah and other places around the country that have big quilt shows. 

Raise your hand if you want me to pick you up along the way!!!!!

I was asked if I was doing this because I was bored?  Bored I am not!  I have always loved the outdoors.  My vocation for 25 years was driving trucks.  I worked for UPS and then worked for Fed EX, and then drove over the road for a while.  When I retired I missed the going.  When I worked for UPS I delivered in Amory, MS and every morning when I went into town and every evening when I left town to come home, I watched the progress being made on the bridge being built across the Tenn Tom waterway.  They built the bridge just north of the old bridge and the new bridge was up in the air above the old one.  It was like you were down on the ground watching the new bridge just appearing before you day after day.  I was fascinated by that and enjoyed the whole process however I was a little afraid the first time I had to drive over the new bridge!!! After retiring and staying at home for the past few years, I get to thinking about all the things I have seen and when I drive to town and see new things being done since the last time I was in town, I feel so left out and I feel like I did not have my wig on and the world just run off and left me behind.   I get to feeling a little caged and I want to roam again.  So to answer the question, I am not bored.  This little camper thing is just a diversion to take my mind away from the hum drum of laundry, dishes, mopping, ironing, ...... you get the picture?

Who knows, I might have just found me some retirement income.  I have found that there is a huge demand for these refurbished beauties.  If I can pull this restoration project off, I might just make a little profit from it.  It will probably be like my quilts though.  When I make a quilt for someone, I don't want to give it to them. I get attached to them and want to keep them for myself. 

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I have picked up a new Hobby.  I will be down to sleeping only 1 hour in 24!!!!
Mike is getting ready to retire and for several years he has been asking me to get us a camper.
I told him he was 6' 4" and weighed ......  It would be like stuffing an elephant in a fiat.

This past spring he started taking me around to look at different used campers that he had found in places.  By early summer we had found a very nice used camper.  We have camped several times this summer and I really love the peaceful weekends on the lake.  He has one more year before he retires and I hope we can see most of the US before the money runs out!!!!

Well I have really got the bug!.  When he said he wanted to go camping I was dead set against it because my only two camping trips 40 years ago was enough for me.  Both trips turned into monsoons nearly washing us into the creek.  The last time we camped the boys were real small, it came an awful storm during the night, the squirrels ate all our food and the truck broke down in the walmart parking lot on the way home.  To make matters even worse there was a 110 degrees heat index. 

Two weeks ago I found this on craigslist.

 

 

 

She almost fell apart by the time we pulled her 30 miles home.  I think I have found out that she is a 1963 Utopia by Winnebago.  I am still researching the history of it but when I rescued her she had been terribly abused by deer hunters using her as a hunting cabin.  They have cut the a frame tongue off of her and added a straight tongue and her axle is broken. The water leaks over the past 50 years has damaged most of the wooden frame and all the edges of the flooring. 

 

I work on her one day a week and this is what she looks like today.

I am going to wrap her in brown shipping paper and then go inside and take a felt tip marker and draw me a blue print of the frame so I will know how to put her back together. 

 

I have found another old camper almost just like her that has been rear ended and the frame is damaged in the rear.  The interior is intact.  I have a grandson that is an expert welder so he is going to take the two frames and the axle and fix her right up. 

 

Wish me luck. This reminds me of working with my dad when we used to fix up old houses for the bank after they had been repossessed and the owners had in some cases tried to burn them down.  

The rose quilt is not done, the doll squares are not done but the bird quilt for the lady in Peru is finished.  Summers here are so chaotic.  Camping, fishing, boating, swimming, grand kids playing ball, soccer, grand kids having allergic reactions to God knows what, etc, etc.  It seems that yesterday was the last day of school and ready for the summer and today is registration for the new year.  Time needs to slow down just a tad.  It was time that needed to slow, not my old tired body. 

I have not got a whole lot done in my sewing room this summer but I hope that changes.  I started to quilt a quilt for a friend of mine and when I got ready to start to put it on the frame I ran into a snag.
Her mitered corners were not done right and the ends of her quilt was about four inches shorter than the width of the quilt in the middle.  I am in the process of straightening out the quilt now. So I hope this propels me into the itch to stitch again.

I hope to post a pic in a few days.

Mr Burton is flying out Friday to visit with his brother in Miami for the weekend so I plan on hibernating in my sewing room all weekend. 

Darling grandson was waiting in line to get to the bathroom at daycare.  He had to go really bad and was jumping up and down.  He jumped up and hit his head on the bottom of the upper cabinet in the kitchen and split his head open.  No swimming, riding bicycle or any other rough housing for a week. 

This is a quilt that I have been hand quilting on for almost two years now.  I want to get done with it so badly.  I have a dear friend from Collierville who brought me this quilt frame this week end.  I had one almost like it but to tighten the quilt on the frame you had to use lock nuts on the end of the frame.  The qrip in my hands is going so it would not stay tight.  This frame is really easy to use.  The quilt stays tight by some wooden cogs on the end.  All you have to do is just turn the quilt.  Thank you so much Marj. 

This is UFO #2.

Good morning! I am working on a quilt for a lady that lives in Ripley this morning.  I need to get it done because I think she is coming home from Peru this week.  She left this quilt with me last November and being the procrastinator that I am,,,,,, Wala!!!!!!!!  I have had this quilt in the quilt frame several times and it has been Frogged several times.  She wants vines quilted on it but she does not want me to quilt over the birds.  Not An Easy Task!!!!!

This is the first of several UFO's that is on my "to do" table.  Several (over5) years ago I took my Mom and two Aunts to Paducah to see the quilt Museum.  While there, of course, we shopped.  My mom purchased an embroidery pack of Southern Belle dolls to embroider.  When we got home she started on them and after a few days decided she must have been off her rocker to think she wanted to spend that much time on them.  We decided to embroider just parts of them and just applique the big parts.  So we fused the big parts down and machine blanket stitched around them.  For a finishing touch she wanted me to put ribbons on them in the places where the ribbons were hanging from the Belle's umbrella.  After several (over 5) years I have three of them done.  This is another project that I have started them, did not like what I saw, and "frogged" them also.  While in Odenville this past week, a dear friend shared with me her crazy quilting skills so I came home and sat down and tried her methods and I liked it.  Maybe in a few days I will have them done.  I did three yesterday. If I do three per day for 8 days I will have them done!  Ya'll root for me!!!!!

I don't post here often. I am going to use my blog for the next few months to get some accountability for all the works in progress that I need to finish.  The list is overwhelming.  I want all the projects that do not belong to me to be finished and out of my sewing room. I am about to make me a spreadsheet and take pictures of all my UFOs.  If I finish one of these a week till the end of the year, I might be able to be free to work on projects that I want to do for myself.

On saturday last weekend I did a Bonnie Hunter Bricks and stepping stones quilt top in RWB for Quilts of Valor and on Saturday night and Sunday I pieced a Yellow Brick Road pattern in RWB's.

I will show pictures of them tomorrow when I finish putting borders on them.

Our HGTV group is planning another trip to Magnolia Park Retreat the end of April.  I put a shout out for any one that wanted to help me make some Quilts of Valor. I asked that they take four  10" squares and make four Double Sliced Layer Cake blocks.  If they each sent in four blocks per month for Jan thru April we could come up with quite a few quilt tops for Ms Elizabeth.

As of this date I have six quilts pieced.  I have the borders already on three of them and I am still measuring out fabrics to make backings with. 

Ellen sent me enough binding to do possible 5 of these quilts.
I will be back in the morning to take pictures of these quilts.

OOPs I posted one pic twice. 

Here are a few more pictures of Rose's quilt tops.

Sorry I lose some of the quilt tops in my sewing room.  I would like for it to be bigger but then I think if I had more room, I would hoard it full of more fabric. 

These quilts came with the presentation cases already made.  Yeah!!!!!!!

I can not believe it has been so long since I have posted on here.

I have stepped off into a new forum for me.  Charitable quilts!!!!  Not really charity or at least I dont feel that way about these quilts.  It is more like Paying forward or paying a debt that is is owed by all of us who can enjoy all of our numerous freedoms.

I have started working on Quilts of Valor.
I was asked to come spend the weekend in Odenville Alabama at the Magnolia Park Retreat Center.
Several of my friends from the HGTV message board gone there several times in the past and spent weekends doing what we love the most. Quilting.  Ms Elizabeth Matthews is the owner of the retreat Center and she and her daughter Kristie and friend Samantha take very good care of all of us.  We have a wonderful time.  Last weekend a group of ladies came together for the weekend and sewed Quilts of Valor for our veterans. 

When I arrived I asked if there was anything specific she wanted me to do or should I just work on the things that I had brought over with me.  She asked me if I would do a project for her.

Last November she and Kristie wnt to a formal awards ceremony to honor the Veterans of the year for the State of Alabama.  I forgot to mention that Ms Elizabeth is the State Coordinator for the state of Alabama for the Quilts of Valor.  She does a wonderful job. While Elizabeth and Kristie were at this formal dinner one of the quilts was stolen!!!!!  She asked me if I would take what fabric she had and replicate the quilt that had been stolen.  I said sure just give me a pattern and I would get started.
She did not have a pattern, all she had was a picture of the quilt.  What a challenge. After taking several deep breaths to calm my nerves I set out to see if I could accomplish this task.

About 15 hours later this is what I came up with.

The middle is a panel with an eagle in the center.  I am about to put it on the machine to quilt it.

I came home with 6 quilts that was donated by Rose from Alabama. I have been busy sorting and measureing backings and making binding for these quilts now for a week.

 

These are the tops that was donated by Ms Rose.