Fan Day - LSU Style

Dear blog friends from UGA, Auburn, Clemson and Alabama, You can quit reading now. This post will not make you happy. I've been taking photos for months, but have yet to post them to my blog. Definitely, superstitious:) Allow me a few minutes to CELEBRATE with all LSU Tiger fans, especially those of us who live deep in UGA 'Dawg country. 


This past year, I've made many trips to Baton Rouge. My Dad is in a nursing home near my brother's home. (Lafayette is our hometown) I try to visit him every other month. This year one of our visits just happened to be on LSU Fan Day.   

 While Dad napped, DH and I made a trip to the LSU campus to savor LSU Fanaticism.

Tiger style Moonwalk

 the Defensive team entering the room

 signing autographs for fans

 a table of quarterbacks

Special Teams

The longest line for autographs and photos was for Coach Les Miles.

a variety of spirit wear

but my favorite is the one from "Swamp People."  Choot 'Em, Liz (if you haven't watched Swamp People on the History Channel, you're missing out. My favorite part is the subtitles because the Cajun accents are so strong:)

And just when you think that you've seen everything, a child's potty chair awaits you in the LSU Store:)

Definition of a FANatic

His

Made for Him by Her

His

His and Hers

Hers

Hers

His and Hers

His

Hers

His

Hers

His

Hers

Rusty's

Rusty's "Tiger"

fa·nat·ic

   [fuh-nat-ik]

–noun

1.

a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal

–adjective

2.

fanatical.

Geaux Tigers!!!!

Dad's Bag

Today, I'm on the road driving to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to visit my Dad. Dad will be 87 next month. Dad is no longer able to care for himself. We moved him from our hometown last month to Baton Rouge where one of my brothers lives. My brother and his family are visiting Dad daily and helping tend to his needs. He is in an assisted-living facility, but there are still areas that he needs additional support.

This Friday is one of our teacher furlough days in my county school system. Monday is a holday so I took this opportunity to drive to Baton Rouge to give my brother and his family a break. I'm bringing one of my portable sewing machines to make some adjustments to Dad's clothing. I'll have my "knitting" and a novel. I'm hoping to visit a quilt shop or two in the mornings. My cousin's wife Niki gave me a wonderful fact sheet about quilt shops in south Louisiana. Dad is no longer an early riser so I should be able to shop and run errands in the mornings.

I've packed my LSU T-shirt to wear while watching the LSU/Florida game with him on Saturday. This is the wheelchair tote I made Dad to hang on the back of his wheelchair to carry his mail and other goodies.

I'm guaranteed great meals. You can eat most anywhere in Louisiana and get awesome meals.

Tigers Win!!!!!

I'm a bit late with this post, but yes DH's beloved LSU Tigers did win the College World Series. Three great games of baseball were played by both teams - LSU and Texas. Of course, we weren't in Omaha for the game. This photo is from the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate website.

Geaux Tigers!!!

Geaux Tigers!

My husband is an LSU sports fanatic. Living away from Louisiana, we depend on wonderful sports coverage on television. The past week we've watched awesome LSU baseball. We've been watching the College World Series from Omaha. Last night was the first game in the finals. What a game! LSU vs Texas! The game went into overtime. Our Tigers pulled it out in the end. Game 2 is tonight. Guess where we will be?

A New Year...

"Create each day anew." - Morihel Ueshiba

I thought I would begin the year with a new look on my blog. One of my goals, not resolutions, is to try new things on my blog, my quilting, my reading, relationships... in all of life.  Today is the one year anniversay of my journey in blogging. I'm so glad that I accepted the challenge and began a blog. It has truly improved my writing skills. It has helped in reflecting on my day and life in general. Thank you friends for taking the time to visit my blog! Thanks especially to those who take the time to comment. It's one of my favorite things about blogging.

We are taking it easy and quiet here today. We were invited for lunch with friends and begged off. I needed a bit of down time especially since I have to return to work tomorrow. My "boys" don't return until Monday. 

Marion and I stayed up to watch the Chick Fil-A Bowl last night. Geaux Tigers! Our LSU tigers played an awesome game against Georgia Tech. It's been a painful football season for us with some disastrous losses so last night was balm to our football souls. We do live in Atlanta with many Tech fans so winning is sweet. I plan to wear my LSU hoodie to work tomorrow : )

Getting Back to Normal

Today was an absolutely gorgeous Fall day here in Georgia. Our son is a senior in high school so we did another college visit. We drove about two hours to central Georgia to tour one of the colleges that he is interested in attending. The drive was beautiful. The leaves are finally beginning to look like Fall.  The college visit was a good one. Our son liked this school. He has already applied to his first choice, but needs a back-up plan just in case. The competition is rather fierce at his fist chocie, UGA in Athens.  I worked on binding for our Christmas quilt while we were driving. I love the handwork sewing down binding. This one is close to being finished. I also worked on it when we got home. My husband loves football especially college football. I put clothes washing and sat with him to watch the Georgia/Florida game. Since we are big LSU fans , it didn't matter to us which team won. LSU lost to both teams this year. Guess we would have liked  for both Georgia and Flordia to lose today, but.....   Anyway, I'm almost finished sewing binding on this quilt. That means we will have our first Christmas quilt this year!!! 

It's been nine weeks since my hip replacement surgery. I'm finally beginning to feel normal again. I always felt good, but thinking and doing complex things was a bit difficult. But that has past and I'm thankfully doing most everything. Since my energy level has improved, I'm hoping to do some sewing and blogging this week .

Take care! Hope to be back soon!

And they do grow up......

My baby is growing up. He will be a Senior in high school this year. He's a big kid. He's 6' 2 and still growing. He wears a men's size 15 shoe (expensive and hard to find)  All these factors have been easy for me to see and accept. This past week's events have hammered home that my "baby" is a baby no more. 

Last week, he had his wisdom teeth extracted. The very same day he was offered his first "real" job. He has done lots of pet-sitting for neighbors and even worked at my school for my boss last Summer. This is a "real" job where he had to interview with several folks. Because his job is several miles away, we had to buy a car for him to go to and from work. Black shoes had to be ordered from Zappos.com. Friday was his first day on the job. I had to stay close to home. Of course, I worried and worried and worried. He is so excited about this job at a video store. His passion is video games.

Last week, we did his first college visit. Michael was psyched. He thought the place was awesome. I was actually proud of my hubby. He was so grown up. As we were looking at the football complex at UGA and they were raving about the Gym Dogs, he managed to keep quiet. I was waiting for him to add "And who won the National Championship?"  For an serious LSU fanatic visiting another SEC school, my husband was quite the grown-up.

Geaux Tigers! Omaha, here we come!

I don't watch much television. In an all-male house, it's easier to abdicate and let them have the TV. Sunday evening, I joined my husband in the family room. I had binding to sew. He always has one or two TV's on. I didn't even know that  the LSU baseball team was on ESPN. It was a fabulous game.They had a disastrous fourth or fifth inning, but came from behind in the 9th to win the game. Well, last night I grabbed my quilt and was ready to watch the entire game. Living in Atlanta, it's a treat for us to see LSU sports on TV. Last night's game was an LSU fan's kind of night. The Tigers scored so many runs tht EPSN switched to another game. GEAUX TIGERS!  I'll have to check the game schedule for this weekend when the games start in Omaha. I'll  prepare the other quilts waiting for binding. I have a baseball game or two to watch this weekend.

And this is fun?

Yesterday was one of those days. For a short period of time, I began to wonder why had I ever begun to quilt. Piecing quilt backs is what did it. Remind me to over-estimate when I need to purchase a quilt back and to Avoid directional fabric.

 The first problem child was the backing for the LSU quilt. I found a great tiger print online. Of course, I ordered it several years ago when I started piecing the top.  I ordered only the amount needed for the back. Yesterday, I decided to use some of the tiger print for my binding. It will make great binding for this top. Of course, now I don't have enough fabric for the back. I pulled some purple from my stash and some of the left-over LSU print. Well, the LSU print is directional. There's where my problem began. I kept sketching the dimensions, playing with my yardage. Finally, I put the quilt on the top of my bed, pieced some backing and just kept adding until I had a big enough back. In spite of all my turmoil, it does look rather nice. I like it! Of course, this took lots longer than I had planned. 

I moved on to the Christmas toile. Several years back, I purchased some flannel when a shop was going out of business.  Of course, this quilt is HUGE, I didn't have enough for the backing. On one of our shop hops, I purchased  some yardage to coordinate with the first piece for the backing. Since both fabrics were flannel and the top is cotton, I washed the flannel fabrics. DUH! They shrunk  lots. Now I don' t have enough fabric. I again sketched the dimensions, put fabric on the floor. Somehow or another it finally lots like it will work. What really worries me, is I had some fabric left-over :) YIKES!  I think I'll bring it with me when I bring the quilts to the long-arm quilter on Saturday.  

At this point, I decided to go to bed and read. LOL!

Stash Busting Report

Finally! I had two quilt tops that just needed borders. Borders are not my favorite thing to do.  Today, I unexpectedly had all day  to sew. I had planned to begin sewing  a rag quilt for a gift due  in late June. I decided to work on the quilts needing borders instead. My stash busting goal this year is to finish at least 12 UFO's.  I was feeling a bit behind on my goal since I had not finished a top in May. Christmas Toile is a big quilt. It needed to be pressed, then borders added. It is DONE!  

My husband requested an LSU (Louisiana State University) quilt. He is passionate about his LSU tigers. I started this top two or three years ago. It was the only LSU fabric that I could find. It's so "boxy".  I didn't like the way top looked. The border fabric that I planned to use looked all wrong. I packed it away. Finally, last fall I took it out again and shopped for border fabrics for the third time. These two fabrics make the quilt. The inner border is a textured black tone-on-tone. The outer border is purple with black squiggly lines. These fabrics look like they belong with this quilt. Thanks, Gretch and Karin for helping me find "the right" fabric. The backings fabric is tiger stripes. It's perfect for this quilt.  DONE!

I still have to piece the backing for both tops. It was on my list for today, but I'm out of time. Maybe, tomorrow....

That makes two UFO's out of plastic containers. Two projects to check off my list of tops to finish. That makes 7 tops finished this year! That's a record for me! Of course, there are still lots and lots of UFO's still needing some TLC.  :}}}

Fun Day!

It started out pretty innocently, an e-mail from my friend Melisa, the owner of Sweet Home Quilt Shop in Conyers, Georgia. She mentioned receiving new fabric. Ok. I'm not going. When reading blogs and/or e-mail  this morning, my friends Gretchen and Karin both mention a possible road trip to Sweet Home. All resistance crumbled. I'm on the road. I did plan my trip. I began an LSU quilt top for my husband. I didn't  like my border choices so I canned the project for a time. I've taken it out several times to shops, but couldn't find the right borders. We did today!!! We changed the inner border to a black textured tone-on-tone and found a purple fabric with black lines in it. This is good news. I can now proceed with this one and get it finished. He can use it this Summer as he naps on the screened porch. It will be ready for football season. Go Tigers!

I also found a fabulous neutral print for the borders of my SIL's neutral quilt for this Christmas. I also picked up several fat quarters for my Patriotic Quilt.  Life is good:)

I picked up the next BOM in the stitchery BOM. It's called Ring in the New by Kathy Schmitz. I have never done stitchery. This will be new learning for me. The February block has two hearts. Looks like fun. I'd like to prep these so I can stitch in the evening on the screen porch.

A fun day with quilting friends! Thanks, Gretchen and Karin!