Some questions answered Part 1

Hi Everybody,

I'm happy you're here on this cold day (at least in the Northeast it is)!

I read a great blog post by Sandy and it was a real eye opener to see her answering those questions. Since most of us live in blog land and mostly blog about our quilting passion I thought it would be fun to answer these random questions. I know I'm the kind of person who is curious about other people and like to know what's going on with them. So maybe I'm doing it for me, or those who have the same personality as I do.

Now get ready, because it will be a rather long and text heavy blog post! I'm doing questions 1-5 right now.

1. List 20 random facts about yourself

1. I went to music school through 8th grade by the recommendation of my kindergarten teacher
2. I played the piano, recorder and clarinet in aforementioned school
3. I was in the school choir and went to places like Germany and Canada for contests
4. Won the spelling contest in 8th grade and as a reward I got to say the graduation speech
5. I have very good language skills and pick up languages very easily
6. My  now Fiance moved in with me the first day we met in person (over 12 years ago)
7. I did not speak any English when I came to the US 15 years ago
8. I prefer tea over coffee even though I started to drink coffee a few years ago, but still not friends with mocha flavored anything
9. I'm very good with numbers and could calculate in my head pretty quickly
10. I'm an organized person when I have enough room to put things away :)
11. I learned to embroider from our neighbor who was 18 and pregnant at the time and tried to make some extra money by selling her things. My Grandma has all my masterpieces :)
12. I used to knit sweaters when I was in middle- and high school, I did knitting for hire
13. I'm obsessed with log cabins :) My dream weekend is to go to a snowy part of the country in a log cabin, have fire in the fireplace and watch the snow falling outside
14. I also love snow :)
15. Never lived by myself, although I'm an independent person
16. I can change a flat tire :)
17. I am a procrastinator...  Always leave things to the last minute (bad  habit, I know!)
18. I'm a morning person rather than  being a night owl
19. I used to be a dog person until one of the cats we started to feed in the backyard had babies and abandoned them. THEN I became a rescue person and babied 2 of the kitties that were still alive, one of them only made it for 3 days :( The other one became one of the helper cats... Now I'm a dog AND a cat person :)
20. I haven't been on the Subway in New  York City by myself  :)

2. Describe 3 legitimate fears  you have and explain how they became fear

1. I'm afraid of the dark. My parents used to leave us alone with my sister on the weekends when they went out and because of that I was afraid of the dark. Still don't like to go on the street in the dark by myself. I used to stay up until I heard the key in the lock turning and knew they were home.  There were no babysitters in Hungary that time (talking about the '70-s)
2. Tornadoes. I used to babysit for an Indian family watching 2 kids. One of them were taking tennis lessons and one day while we were at tennis a category 2 tornado came through (Hawthorne, NY). I've never seen destruction like that in my life. The building next door collapsed. It was in July and we were stranded for several hours outside in the sun, no shade. Since then I'm terrified of tornadoes.
3. I have a fear of heights (which my Fiance says is rather a fear of depths). I'm getting better at it, but have that block inside me that says if I fell I'd be paralyzed. I think it comes from me being overweight through most of my adulthood and I know I can't hold my own weight when it comes to hanging off things. My arms are too weak.

3. Describe your relationship with your parents

Sooo..... I was always a Daddy's girl growing up. He used to travel for work quiet a lot and I was always eager to have him come home every time. I used to run to open the gate for him to pull in the driveway. My parents were fighting a lot and I think on the edge of divorce when He suddenly died at age 36 when I was 14, sister was 10. I was devastated and kind of lost for years. Somehow I never had a good relationship with my Mom, I never felt like She loves me. I always compared her to my friends' Moms and was expecting her to be like the others, and She never was. We're still distant in a way. When I finished high school I couldn't wait to go to work to be independent financially so I never went to college (which I highly regret now). I think my Mom was never the house wife type, She's not the best cook in the world and doesn't bake at all. I think because of this I'm trying to be the opposite (I bake a lot and somewhat  like to cook) Her being the way She was with me definitely shaped me into the person I am even though I still catch myself being like her sometimes. I'm always fighting with that part of me. Now I know She loves me, just in a different way. I'm still not sure if I could be with her under the same roof for a longer period of time. That lad me to leave everything behind when I was 25.

4. List 10 things you would tell your 16 year-old yourself if you could

1. Listen to Mom, she always wants what's best for you
2. Spend more time on studying so you can go to college, work can wait!
3. McDonald's is not the coolest place to hang out...
4. Don't let your future boyfriend tell you what to do
5. Keep taking German lessons, it never hurts to speak more languages
6. Make your bed every day, you never know who's gonna drop by
7. Always clean up after yourself
8. Stop drinking diet soda, it doesn't do any good for you!
9. Go back to playing volley ball, you're good at it, doesn't matter if you're too short!
10. Sweets are not part of healthy eating :)

5. What are 5 things that make you most happy right now?

1. My virtual quilting friends
2. The sun is out
3. Our kitties
4. I have 3 days off!
5. Our heat is working and don't have to use electric space heaters to warm up the house... it's brutal cold outside!

There you have it! Next time I'll do  the next 5 questions that are on the list.

6. What is the hardest thing you have ever experienced?
7. What is your dream job, and why?
8. What are 5 passions you have?
9. List 10 people who have influenced you and describe how.
10. Describe your most embarrasing moment.
11. Describe 10 pet peeves you have.
12. Describe a typical day in your current life.
13. Describe 5 weaknesses you have.
14. Describe 5 strengths you have.
15. If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
16. What are your 5 greatest accomplishments?
17. What is the thing you most wish you were great at?
18. What has been the most difficult thing you have had to forgive?
19. If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why?
20. Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.
21. If you could have one superpower, what would it be and what would you do with it first?
22. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?
23. List your top 5 hobbies and why you love them.
24. Describe your family dynamic of your childhood vs. your family dynamic now.
25. If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be and what would you eat?
26. What popular notion do you think the world has most wrong?
27. What is your favorite part of your body and why?
28. What is your love language?
29. What do you think people misundertand most about you?
30. List 10 things you would hope to be remembered for.

Hope you had fun and if you feel like playing along please leave a comment and leave  a link for your blog post so I can read your answers too! I'm always eager to learn about others! Thank you! :)

'Til we blog again! :)

Q1 Finish Along 2013 goals

Hey Everyone,

I'm happy you're back! 

I haven't been blogging in a while because I keep on marching through Easy Street. It's a long street to be strolling on, but I'm starting to see the end of the tunnel. I was stuck for a few days because I only have 1 kind of black&white fabric left and would need to make some patches with at least 2 kinds. Luckily I had my birthday this week and I got to order some fabrics from the Fatquarter Shop and hopefully they'll be here next week. Until then I keep working and managed to finish all the pieced triangles, and last night finally  all 9 block "B"-s! I have to say some of them gave me a hard time because I had to pay very close attention to which way  the patches go and the first block was ripped and ripped again maybe 3x by the time I got it right. AND by block #6 I realized I had to re-trim all my 4 patches because they  were a hair too big and I had to do a lot of easing while I was putting the blocks together. Now the last 3 was a lot easier to finish. All those things I can remember in case I want to make another one which may or may not happen in the future.

I also started to look through my quilting books and got inspired by 101 Fabulous Rotary Cut Quilts by Judy Hopkins and Nancy J. Martin. It's an older book, but the patterns moved me in a way I haven't been moved in a while. It'll be time to scan my newer fabrics and play along in EQ soon. Which takes me to...

As I was reminded on Twitter today is the last day to link up your goals to the First Quarter Finish Along hosted by  She Can Quilt. She has some wonderful stuff to finish and I can't wait to see her end results! If it's not too late  you should join us.  She has some cool sponsors and prices to give away at the end.

My list  is gonna be very long, but I was thinking to put everything I have out so I have all my UFO-s/VIP-s in one place, so just bare with me!

Chocolate pink monkey quilt:

Plain squares (the kitties are fighting over this one already)

Double wedding ring top for kitties

'N Blu

Craftsy "D"

Easy Street corner triangles are all done:

Set-in triangles all done:

Block "B"-s all done:

Some block "A"-s:

And the rest lined up, ready to sew:

Tote bag with no handles

I think I'll need to do an inventory of how much batting I have on hand. I have a feeling it's not gonna be enough for all the tops I have lined up. I decided to use wool batting on the Easy Street quilt since it's for me and I'd like it to be puffy. Might throw in a cotton batt also for good measure :)

Oh, if  only I could have at least 48 hours a day that would be grand! :))) I  have so many ideas in my head and I haven't even sat down to play with the computer designs. That's life, right?

Finally 2 bonus pictures of our babies:

Sleepy in one of his favorite drawers enjoying "nature"

Smoky

'Til we blog again! :)

Lucky Stars BOM January block

Hi Everybody and Happy New Year!

Since you could read it in my last blog post you know it by  now that I managed to sign up to another BOM project for this year. This one is called the Lucky Star BOM hosted by Elizabeth Dackson @Don't call me Betsy.

She emailed the January block yesterday and I started to work on it, but had to put it aside and I finished it after I got home.

I'm gonna try to follow her color suggestions which happened to be yellow-orange-red this month, very similar to the one I made for the test block blogged here.

I'll keep working on my Easy Street mystery quilt and in order to do that I'll have to go back to previous weeks' instructions and cut the required fabrics to finish it up. I didn't do the pre-cutting when Bonnie suggested it since I knew I was using a different method to sew the blocks (not the Easy Angle rulers) and to do that I had to cut my fabric patches to different sizes every time we were making shapes other than rectangles or squares. I didn't want to end up with my patches pre-cut just to find out I needed a different size. Now I'm paying for it since I'll have to do the catch-up cutting all at once :)

They are the following:

• Part 2 requires 64- 2" x 3.5" rectangles out of black&white prints
• Part 3 requires 2- 3" green squares cut into 4 half-square triangles
• Part 4 requires 145- 3.5" squares out of the green fabrics
• Part 6 requires 128 double brick 3.5" squares, I only have 33, so need to make 95 more when my b&w fabrics arrive
• Part  6 also requires  19- 5.5" green squares  cut into quarter square triangles
• Need to sew the 64 rectangles to the flying geese
• When it's all done I'll just have to follow the block instructions to put everything together. Piece of cake. NOT! :)

Now  that I've put all my cards out on the table it's time to go to bed.

'Til we blog again! :)