Here is my zippy pouch.

We had an exchange at our Guild meeting with another Guild.  I didn’t sign up for the exchange as I wasn’t sure I would be able to meet the deadline. I have wanted to make one of these for a while and after seeing everyone’s wonderful zippy pouches at last week’s guild meeting, I decided to try my hand at making one last weekend.

This is the second pouch I made. Let’s just say, the first pouch was a lesson well learned.  The pattern is Zippy Strippy from Atkinson Designs. I used the fusible batting on the first pouch as per the directions in the pattern. I wasn’t thrilled with the results so I used Warm and Natural batting for the second version and heavily quilted it. I boxed the corners as per the pattern instructions on the first version and I wasn’t happy with the results so the second time I cut out a square on the bottom two corners and then pieced together and got a much better result. It could be that my fusible batting was thicker than that used by Terry Atkinson in her pattern so that may be why I wasn’t happy with the results on the first version.

I am thrilled with version number two! Now I need to make another before I forget all those lessons I learned!

Today, our son received his Bachelor of Computer Information Systems degree.  He also made the Dean’s List of Distinguished Students.  (The Deans’ List recognizes those university students who have maintained a high academic standard throughout their course of studies.)

A very proud mom!

Mom, Dad, and Graduate.

Graduate with his sister.

All four of our wonderful kids!

Graduate with my parents.

Graduate with my husbands’s mother.

There are no pictures for this post.  The renovations aren’t yet complete and the house is still turned upside down so there is nothing to take a picture of that is photo-worthy.

The dining room, living room, hallway, spare bedroom (aka The Closet Room), stairwell, and entrance are officially complete.  This means they are freshly painted, laminate flooring is installed, and baseboards and trim have been replaced.

Last weekend, we moved furniture and other items, including pictures on the walls out of the bedroom and started removing wallpaper.  After a few days of trying to convince the wallpaper to let go of its hold from the gypsum board, DH decided that we would move to plan B and put a new layer of gypsum board over top of the old stuff.  The repair that he would have to do to the old wall was likely more than putting up new boards.

So now we are living once again with furniture in the living room that does not belong there.  I live for the day that the only things in the living room are the furniture that belongs in the living room–no dressers, stacks of boxes of items from other rooms, and miscellaneous tools required for renovations.

And so I continue to sort through 33 years of accumulated “stuff”, hoping to live up to the “Less is More” mantra.  There is nothing like removing everything from a room and putting it into a pile to get you motivated to reduce the amount of “stuff”.  And yes, we celebrated our 33rd anniversary in the middle of this renovation on May 16.

And for my information only, the paint we used was from General Paint.

Closet Room and Master Bedroom:  Excalibur (ID CL 3173M)

Entrance and Living Room (one wall):  Ardmore Green (ID 8185D)

Balance of Living Room walls, Hallway, Stairwell:  Moselle (ID8184M)

Today I went to the Langley Quilters’ Guild Quilt show.  These are some of my favorite quilts.

This quilt was amazing!  Each panel was made by a different person.  (See write up below.)

Hexagons are popular now.  I loved how this hexagon quilt was so different than the traditional settings that you see.

This quilt was like a painting.

This quilt was completed as part of a yellow and blue challenge.  I really loved the butterfly quilted into the upper left hand corner.