Ups and Downs and all around

Life is busy and here at Richard and Tanya Quilts we are behind on what we are doing.  This quilt above was quilted on Jan 9 2014 and almost 3 weeks later it is still sitting in a pile ready to wash and still waiting for its shot at fame here on our blog.   Part of the reason that I am so behind on posting what I am working on is that I have a bad knee.  I don't believe that I have mentioned this and its about time to do such.

About 2 and a half months ago I was taking 2 plates of food from our kitchen to my computer room and while exiting the kitchen I stepped over our baby gate that we had up to keep little Julia out of the kitchen.  Sadly to say I caught the toe of my shoe on the gate and fell directly on my knee (this is Richard speaking by the way).  I though at first that I had just bruised my ego and I sat there on the floor and had a good cry.  I took the next day off from work and just took it easy.

Well 2 months later and the knee has been killing me.  Last week I went to a specialist and I am told that I tore a little of this and a little of that and that I will need to have surgery to fix it.  This has been stressing me out and of course stressing Tanya out.  Well the day of the surgery is now only a couple days off.  I will be having Arthroscopic Knee Surgery Thursday of this week.  I am nervous and as such a little antsy and have not been doing as much sewing as I should be (Just ask my task master Tanya I am getting behind).

Not all things in our life is down, we have many things going up.  For example our little Julia is growing and she thinks that she gets to help mom make rolls.  Here she is getting into the food.  She really liked the idea of helping and you can see she really got into her work.

It was interesting tonight going though the camera looking for pictures for this post.  I found all kinds of fun pictures.  This is another quilt I quilted some time over the last 3 weeks that also has yet to be blogged about (I could be wrong about this as Tanya, I think posted this one already on our Etsy Store) and may have made a post about it though I don't think it has gone live yet.   These HST quilts I stared last year shortly before wounding myself I planned on making 3 new patterns and wanted to make 3 quilts of each of the 3 patterns for pictures.  This quilt is one of those made out of Reunion one of my most favorite lines.

Today while at work I decided it was about time to finally comment on my blog about the real distraction in my life.  I at the time could only think of negative things to talk about.  I hate to have posts that are bad news.  And my knee is bad news.  When I got home from work though Craftsy made up my mind for me on what could be my good news for today.  About 5:30 pm tonight I had a couple emails from sells of patterns on Craftsy.  Then a few minutes later I had a couple more.  Then a few minutes latter a couple more.  It was really a weird thing our Windows Quilt pattern (which we really thing is extremely cute has never really sold).  Within a 10 minute time span we sold 8 of them.  Wow was I excited.  I logged into Craftsy to figure out what was going on and on there Top 20 Patterns list as the above image shows I was there #1 best seller.  I think this is the first time I have ever been #1.

A couple weeks ago I grabbed this screen shot of my Easy Table Runners patter at #4 which generated 5-6 sells while on the Best Seller list (it quickly went away by the way). While the Windows Quilt pattern is now selling and blowing me away.  Talk about making my entire day today I have sold over 100 copies of this pattern in the last 6 hours.  Tanya and I starting this year made a commitment to each other that we are going to be in control and not spend even 1 penny this year on fabric or sewing sewing supplies  more then what we make this year on quilts or and patterns (Quilting Income).

(this by the way is the back of my diagonal quilt.  Tanya gives me grief about doing things on a angle but I think it turned out amazing and almost like it more then I like the front, which I will show off at another time)

So I am sitting here at 11pm writing this post and my poor phone is still making noise over each email about a pattern sale.  Poking around on Craftsy I found yet another neat little item.

  On the side bar of many pages is a neat "Featured Pattern Designer" and I have always wondered what you had to do to get your name listed there (Well I still am wondering and its my name there).  Wow to my shock and surprise I see my picture and my quilt and my story in big bold print.

With out taking any credit for the great pattern (since Tanya wrote it) I do have to admit it is my favorite quilt pattern (I created the idea of this quilt) as it has its roots in one of the first and worst quilt disasters that I ever did.  This pattern is based on a quilt named Train Wrek.  This quilt was quilted for Julia before she was born way back in January of 2012 over 2 years ago.

Reading that post is entertaining.  For one my style of writing and making posts has greatly changed, as well as the fabric I use to make my quilts.  Train Wrek for example was made out of  a Fat Quarter bundle that I bought at Walmart of all places (I don't generally look there for fabric any more).  Its funny I am reading the post and I did not even know that a fat quarter was called such.

Any way for those that are the praying type out there please keep me and my knee (oh and our family) in your prayers this week as I am still a little freaked out about this surgery.  But good thing is after it is done, I can afford to go buy a new bundle of material.  Wonder what other lines out there like Reunion will spark my interest.