Tomatoes, tomatoes...

It's been getting a tad cold here overnight lately....like, below freezing. So I decided I should pull all the tomatoes off the plants before they freeze there. I filled 3 mixing bowls of green tomatoes!! Now, of course, I have no idea what I'll do with these, but they'll sit here just fine in the sink overnight until I figure it out :)

A Horse Show

This past weekend DH and I were asked to take pictures at a horse show being put on by a friend of ours. Well, DH took the pictures, I gave treats to the horses and did PR to the attendees :)

Here is Lee Anne, the owner of the farm. She is riding Gwendolyn and is already in her costume for the Pas de Deux performance. She borrowed her son's Marines coat for the event.


This is our friend, Audra, riding Caesar. She and Lee Anne did their performance together. Both horses were getting spooked by the windy conditions of the day and they didn't do very well, but it was very fun to watch.

Here are the winners of the day. Marsha and Cindy took first place - they did a great job! Audra's dad made the halters for the winners.

This is Mascha and Alexandria. They dressed up as zombies and painted skeletons on their horses. They took 2nd place for the show. Mascha is an exchange student from Germany. You could tell these two practiced a lot!

Here is Evie and Karlyn, a mother and daughter duo. They took 3rd place for the day. They were thrilled and did a wonderful job :)

Let's see....something sewing related...well, I've started getting the last 19 blocks together for Candied Hexagons. Just basting paper pieces right now. I should have a good start on getting the blocks together in a week or so. We'll see how that goes.

We are finally having a memorial service for my sister, Laura next week. We were waiting for the police to release her body to us, but they don't plan to do that until the trial for her killers is finished, so we're going ahead with a memorial service now.

A Knitting Blister!

You can't see it, or I would have taken a picture for you. But it's true - I have given myself a blister from knitting!

It first appeared on Tuesday, a sharp, small pain on my index finger. It felt just like a wart feels. But I haven't had a wart since Junior High!! My first thought? Ugh, I hate getting older. I even talked to my Mom about it when we went to the farmer's market that day. She agreed that getting older sucks! LOL

So, Wednesday evening, I sit down to do some knitting, as I hadn't touched it since Monday night. I had done quite a bit between Sunday and Monday night football games this past weekend. I start knitting and I hit the wart - again and again. The exact same spot that I use to hold the needle while sliding more stitches up is where I'm getting a wart? Great.

Then I thought about it a minute. That just seems too coincidental. A wart, which I haven't had in over 25 years, in the exact spot I use repeatedly while knitting? Yeah....it's not a wart, I've given myself a knitting blister! LOL

Guess it's time to take a break from the afghan and get back to work on the quilt :)

Halloween Rug?

Another project I started this summer. You all know those fabric bowls everyone is making using cotton clothesline? Well, I made a few of those this year, and decided the technique would make a wonderful rug for the kitchen.

I started pulling all the fabrics I didn't really like from my stash (you know, the ones that people gave you that you just can't figure out what to do with?) and cut them into 1/2" strips. I started with the purple pile, then got through the orange and green piles, too. At that point, I decided I'd better start actually sewing the thing before I cut any more fabrics.

This is how far I've gotten to date. As you can see, it has somehow morphed into a Halloween rug. Huh. Not exactly what I was planning - but what can I expect when I only pull oranges, greens and purples?? Yeah...I should have seen it coming.


As you can see from the closeup, I cut up an especially horrendous Charlie Brown green Halloween fabric, thinking the technique would disguise the design....I'm not sure it did.

Oh well, I'll still use it. It's going to be a rug for goodness sake - it's not like it will stay pristine very long. It's meant to be used and used up. And I'd better get back to work on it, it's not nearly large enough yet.

Felix's new favorite chair. Anytime I'm in my sewing room, he's keeping my sewing machine chair warm for me :) Looks like he's working hard at it, too :)

Candied Hexagons..

I finished all the pieces tonight to square up Candied Hexagons. I didn't snap a new pic though. However, I did measure it on the design wall and it's an odd size. It's 53" wide by 52" long. Very odd. I was hoping to make a large lap robe, something about 63" by 78". Ok, so a 5" border would fix the width issue....but I've got 26" to make up in length! I measured the height of 2 rows and found they are 15", so I think I'm going to make 2 more rows of blocks, then add a 5" border all around. That should get me to the size I need....so, 22 more blocks to go! LOL

Ugly Fabrics..

When I first started quilting 15 years ago, I remember being told that I needed to use 'ugly' fabrics in my quilts so my 'favorite' fabrics would shine. The concept, apparently, was to keep the competition down. I also remember being told that you can't use all 'favorite' fabrics in a quilt. Hmm...not that I necessarily agreed with this concept, it just never occurred to me to question it.

I didn't actually go out and buy 'ugly' fabrics for my quilts. In fact, every fabric purchase I have ever made were all 'favorite' fabrics. And I noticed that the trend in fabric usage has changed in recent years. I read blogs all the time that show absolutely gorgeous quilts where the maker claims every piece of fabric is a 'favorite' to her. I'm thinking specifically of the Australian quilters right now. They just have a flair for bright, happy, gorgeous quilts. And there isn't an 'ugly' fabric to be found. Of course, this isn't limited to Australian quilters, we have lots of quilters around the world that are making quilts that are filled with 'favorite' fabrics.

So, what's this got to do with anything? Well, I've finally finished all the blocks in my Candied Hexagons quilt..


I'm currently working on those last 6 side pieces to square it up. At least, I think I'm done making blocks...it turned out a lot more square than I had anticipated. Anyway...I'm rearranging blocks every time I stand up and I'm realizing I have an 'ugly' fabric in the quilt. I'm not exactly sure how it got there. Notice the 2 whole hexagons on the bottom row? The pink roses on the brown background? I think I was hoping the roses would stand out more. And being that the fabric colors fit the quilt colors, I figured they'd just blend right in. They're not. Those 2 blocks are the first thing I see whenever I look at this quilt.

Oh wait, there are 3 of those blocks! I just realized there's one on the top, too. And another bit of this 'ugly' fabric is in one of the pieced blocks. I think I can handle the pieced block, but those 3 large hunks of 'ugly' fabric are driving me to distraction.

What's the consensus? Should I take them out to follow today's trends of "No Ugly Fabrics Allowed" or follow the trend I was taught in the beginning of "Use Those Ugly Fabrics to Allow the Gorgeous Ones to Shine!"

I don't know...

Here's a close-up of Felix sleeping - seems like that's all any of the pets are doing these days since it's started to turn cooler. I actually turned on the furnace yesterday just to get the chill out of the house. It's been alternately raining or sun shining here today, so a perfect day to get a lot done in the Sewing Room :)

A Little Catching Up..

This is what DH and I were doing on September 11 - celebrating DH's brother's 30th birthday. His girlfriend organized it to be a surprise lunch for him - she lives in another state and came to visit unannounced, surprise #1, then got the rest of the family at the restaurant and brought him in for surprise #2. She did a pretty good job of organizing it, too :) We all had a great time and DH got to spend some time with his family. They live 3 hours away, so we don't get to see them as often as he'd like.


Here is Candied Hexagons on the design wall. I think this picture was taken at the end of August. I have a LOT more done on this quilt. I counted the empty spots on the wall this morning and there are only 12 more spots to fill. Of course, after I get all the blocks made, then begins the rearranging process, followed by the actual assembly of the quilt. But who cares! I'm almost done! LOL

This basket has been holding my Candied Hexagon blocks for me - one glassine envelope per block. That basket is now empty! Woohoo!!

One last shot of Nika. We rescued her from the pound 14 years ago and she was a joy in our lives. We loved how the neighbor kids would talk about her on Halloween night, as she loved to sit on the stairwell banister in front of the door and watch all the activity. Being a black cat, she was quite the hit! We'll miss you Nika. Have fun in kitty heaven.

Well, this was supposed to be at the top of my post, but it showed up here and I'm afraid to move it for fear it might lose it's ability to play...

Anyways, this is my nephew Kendrick (the one I made the Big Boy quilt for last year) and niece Haley (she was visiting us from NC). DH and I took them both to the zoo right after we learned about Laura's death - we needed something to get our minds off it. Anyway, you can see that Haley was having a ball hovering around Kendrick. I was trying to get him to not be afraid to hold the tame birds we were feeding - but whenever a bird touched him, he jumped and they wouldn't stay...looking back, it looks like he was having fun, though :)

RIP Nika

At the risk of making my blog a funeral one, I want to say that we lost one of our kitties today. She was a rescue from the pound 14 years ago. She died in my arms in the back yard, how she would want to go, I think.

Nika

1996 - 2011

Life is running slow...

Things have been fairly quiet around here the last couple of weeks. I think it's God's way of letting us heal after losing Laura so tragically. She's all over the news in Michigan, North Carolina, Texas and Iowa... But like I said, things are staying pretty quiet in our neck of the woods.

I've been working mainly on my Candied Hexagons quilt and the Circles applique quilt lately. It's been waaaay too hot to work on Mom's tablerunner. That particular project has been pushed back to a Christmas gift (I missed her birthday deadline). We've been dealing with temps in the 90's and above for a few weeks and even the air conditioning isn't able to tackle that. The humidity is just horrid, too. I keep telling people I've become an expert sweater this year (sorry if that's too much information).

We had DH's birthday party this past weekend. It was nice, we had burgers on the grill and corn on the cob. Our neighbor brought over 2 cakes! A chocolate and a peach upside down...they were both wonderful :) I got a sunburn, but I blame it on the meds I'm taking for the rosacea...I was only in the sun for 15 minutes, honest!!! LOL

I've been spending some time this past week going through the drawers and places in my sewing room that I don't normally go through...you know those places that collect things you don't want to get rid of, but promptly forget about once you put them away? Anyway, I've collected a small pile of things that I have no use for, or haven't used since I've bought them and am planning to have a give-away soon. I've got to get pics taken of them first. Can you tell the picture-taking is my least favorite part of blogging?? If only my photographer DH was more interested in taking pics I ask him to take....oh well.

I guess that's it for now...I hope you are all surviving the Heat Wave of 2011, too!

RIP Dear Sister

Laura Jean Ackerson

April 30, 1984 - July 13, 2011

You will be missed little sister

We all love you very much

We will watch over your little boys for you

Full Disclosure...

At the risk of shocking some of you, I've decided to post how many projects I have floating around the house in an attempt to motivate myself into finishing some of them (i.e. shaming myself into finishing them).

You see, I had been having the urge to work on something cross-stitch for a couple of weeks now, and thought about starting a new design. I have plenty of fabric (a post for another time) and plenty of floss (you've seen the pictures here), so I could start something with very little outlay of money. I even went so far as to go through the filing cabinet where I store all my cross-stitch patterns and pulled out the three that seemed like the best option. You see, I couldn't decide which one was the best option, so I pulled out three to peruse for the next few days to decide which was the best.

As I sat there perusing, I realized I have this large box where all my WIPs live (Works In Progress). It's a copy paper box - it holds 10 reams of paper...it's not a small box. And no, I don't have a picture to show you of that - someday. Anyway, I remembered this box that I had relegated to the back corner under my working table and decided to pull it out. Let's see what projects I have already started that I might have forgotten about, maybe one of these would be the best option right now....

Yeah. I have a total of 27 bags of projects in this box!! One bag per project. And 24 of them have stitching on the fabric!!!!! This is ridiculous. 24 started cross-stitch projects?? And I'm thinking of starting another?? Yeah....nix that idea. So I pulled out every project I had that was close to being finished. That was, um.....4. Yeah....24 cross-stitch projects started and only 4 can be considered close to being finished. This is ridiculous. Oh wait, I've said that already.

I did find a 5th project that I no longer wanted to stitch, and was very near the beginning stages of stitching, so I'm currently frogging all those stitches. It's going pretty quickly and then I can say I only have 23 started cross-stitch projects!! Yay!!!

Then I remembered I don't only cross-stitch, I quilt and knit, too. Argh. Ok, so how many knitting projects do I have started? That's easy, 3. Three knitting projects? I'm not even an avid knitter, why do I need to have 3 going? But at least it's better than the cross-stitch projects.

Ok, on to the quilting projects. Hang on, I haven't actually counted these yet (I'm kind of scared to...). Let me do that while you wait...

Counting...

Counting...

Fainting...

Ok, I've woken up again....I currently have 22 quilting pojects started. That means it is somewhere between the stages of having either cut fabrics or begun stitching something, and it doesn't have a binding on it. Four of these projects are piecing, 8 are applique, 2 are English Paper Piecing and 8 are in the hand-quilting stage. Whoa....

So, I've decided that I need to get each category (cross-stitch, knitting and quilting) of WIPs into the single digits, under 10. I have no idea if I'll be able to accomplish this or how long it will take, but I'm hoping that by posting about it here, I'll be more accountable about it.

I thought I'd add this picture of Felix. This is how he looked after he got done helping me clip coupons this weekend. I think he's on coupon overload :)

A Framing Happy Dance

I've managed to frame a piece I stitched over 5 years ago. It is Emie Bishop's Warm Christmas Wishes. I found the frame at Salvation Army for $3. It didn't have any glass, and I wouldn't have been able to fit it in the frame if it had. That's ok, this piece has beads on it, anyway, so glass would have just smooshed them.

I found some red vellum at Hobby Lobby when I picked up the foamcore and pasted that underneath the hardanger sections of the design. I wish I had found a better shade of red, as I think this is too bright....oh well, it coordinates with the highlights on the cranberries.

We had our oldest nephew over for the night a couple of weeks ago. He found the piano and just loved to sit at it and play and play and play...boy were we glad for the quiet when it was time for him to go home! LOL

Here is Kendrick and DH playing together. As you can tell, it was a very hot day, so he went around in is diaper for a while...Kendrick, not DH!

Oh yeah, you can see a bit of Pips in the picture, too....He's sneaking a peek at what might have been forgotten on the table....sneaky dog....

And to prove how hot it's been lately, here's Felix melting off the buffet. DH claims he stayed like that for an hour after he got up for work....very unusual, as Felix is normally following us around like Pips (he thinks he's a dog, you know).

My Favorite - No Longer

There is a very popular Italian restaurant that I love to eat at. I love their salad, their breadsticks and this dish - Chicken Con Broccoli. Doesn't it look wonderful??

On Monday, my darling DH took me to this restaurant on our way home from visiting his parents for the day. I ordered my long-time favorite dish, only to be told they no longer carry it!!! I've been ordering this dish for over 10 years!!! How can they stop making it??? I was flabbergasted.

The server suggested a dish they called Chicken Scampi as a possible substitute - which turned out to be very close...but it's just not the same, you know? I asked her to substitute the red peppers in the new dish for broccoli....the sauce tasted very similar...and the chicken was good. Maybe if I ask them to substitute the linguini for the bowl-shaped pasta I want and to serve it in a bowl with extra sauce, it will seem like the same to me??? Who knows....at this point, I don't plan to go back to that restaurant anytime soon....DH is devastated. No more Pasta E Fagioli soup for him...

Amazing Music

Have you seen this??



I think it is just beautiful - enjoy!

Pineapple Quilt Progess

Just in case you thought I'd fallen off the earth, nope, I'm still here. I've been spending some time at my sewing machine this week (very unusual of me, I know). You see, I've gotten very bored with the hand-quilting of Mom's tablerunner (which is supposed to be finished by July 14)...so I've been bouncing between projects right now, trying to do a little bit of something and then going back to the hand-quilting. It's not exactly working...

Here are my working stacks of fabric next to my sewing machine...I know, the creams are washed out by the light, I'm a horrible photographer...

I tried to take a shot of me sewing on one of the blocks - how do you ladies get these kinds of pictures in focus??? You can tell from this photo that these blocks aren't large - only 5 1/2" finished.

Here is the beginning of a block...boring to start..

But look what 9 finished blocks looks like!! I haven't sewn these together yet, they're just pinned to the design wall right now. I'm liking them more and more :) I've finally gotten it down to about 1 hour to sew a block, from the 1 1/2 hours it was taking me....I think this is going to be a quilt where you either love the process or you don't make the quilt...

One last shot of Felix. He likes to sit between our legs if we have our footrests up. He doesn't bother my sewing - too much. If I happen to dangle a thread within his line of sight, he'll attack it, oh yeah. Doesn't he look like he's just waiting for that to happen? LOL

Have You Used the Bathroom Yet??

Ok, so that might be a bit more personal than you'd like. But it's the question on my mind today. Why, you might ask?? Well, our water has been turned off for the majority of the day. You see, we are having road construction on our street this summer to replace the water/sewer lines and today is the day we get hooked up to the new water line. Yippee!!! Unfortunately, that means they have to turn the water off to our house while they do it. And apparantely, they've decided to do 3 houses at the same time, so it will be most of the day without water.

Have you used the bathroom yet? LOL

I just hope it doesn't end up like the last house they hooked up last week...I shot this video after they had broken the water main - not fun... Oh, and the phone ringing at the end? That's my mom calling, she always picks the perfect time to do that.. I shot this video out our front picture window on Thursday..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sHAIkjrEnQ&feature=youtube_gdata

Memorial Day Weekend

DH and I spent the day at my sister's house having a yard sale. We did better than we had expected to do, so both DH and I were pleased. And I made enough money to have some mad money for the community sales happening in my hometown next weekend! Yay!

The bowls I showed you in my last post didn't sell, though. Apparenly I had them priced too high for a yard sale or nobody was interested in them. That's ok, I'll just keep them handy for gifts.

I finally got some pictures on the wall today. If you'll recall, we had painted the living room this week, and I wanted to wait a while to put the pictures back up. For some reason, the walls grew in size when we took down the wall of curtains!!! LOL We replaced the curtains with roller shades (very temporary until we can afford to get the roman shades we want), but now I have more walls to put the same amount of pictures on. They sure aren't going far! I need to look for wall pockets to add to the ensemble and have Mom help me compose some nice settings. She learned this wonderful trait to put together wall settings when she sold Home Interior years ago. At least someone in the family has some taste! LOL

Some pictures today..

I finally got around to taking some pictures of my activities these last couple of weeks.

Yesterday was taken up by painting our living room, as I mentioned in yesterday's post. Here is an action shot of DH putting on the second coat of paint. As you can see, he's quite focused on his work - and he does a great job, too :)

Today I found this lovely in the mailbox. Notice where it came from? Hint - Australia! But wait - I'm not expecting anything from Australia....Hmm...well, I did just send a package to this person back in March, but I wasn't expecting anything in return...

So this pile of loveliness was completely unexpected!!! 9 skeins of Silk 'N Colors flossies!!!!!! And do you see the cute card she included? How sweet :)

The main project taking up my time these last few weeks has been Mom's tablerunner. Here is a full shot of it as it dangles off the side of the table. I've gotten the entire center blue section quilted, as well as the top left portion of cream. I am working my way back to the center on the top section. The blue triangles at each end will ultimately be chopping off.

Here is a close-up of the feathers I quilted into the center section. You can't see them very well, but they are a 3-pronged feathery frond kind of thing. Each pattern filled half of the space, so I flipped it for the other side.

Here you can see the design I am quilting into the cream sections of the tablerunner. I'm quilting in the ditch around this design. I love how the wool batting is making the designs puff up nicely, even before it's been washed.

Here is a shot of my Candied Hexagon quilt - in process. You can see the piles of fabrics in the upper right of the picture. The bowl of glassine envelopes are the quilt blocks waiting to be pieced. Each quilt block gets it's own glassine envelope. I learned that trick in a hand piecing class I took with Linda Franz. Once you get all the pieces to a block cut out, they all stay together in their own envelope and don't get mixed up. Very tidy.

The bottom of the picture shows my styrofoam working space. Another idea Linda Franz offered was to have a flat working space that can support your work, and can be pinned into. I found a spare piece of styrofoam in DH's shop and cut out a 7" square - perfect!! And still room for a kitty to sit in my lap while I'm working :)

Below is the design wall holding all the completed Candied Hexagon blocks. I was wrong, I only have 2 rows finished so far, not 3.

Below are 3 bowls I've made this week. The dark purple one is the largest one I've made so far. The blue one is my attempt at a square bowl. It's also a little shorter than I had wanted. The light purple one has become my go-to size/shape of bowl.

Here is a shot so you can see the heights a little better. Sorry the camera decided to focus on the jar of threads rather than the bowls I spent so much time on.....stupid camera....

Ok, that's enough from me for today. I won't have much to post about for a while, but at least you are now all up to date.

Am I still here???

My life has gone on hyperdrive since my birthday last month. I've now become the official back-up babysitter for my sister's 2 boys. Which is taking up a fairly good amount of time. And Kendrick has hit the stage where he is testing to see how far he can get away with things..and he doesn't seem to like his little brother, so there is a LOT of hitting going on. Good thing Grayson is so laid back about it. Anyway, life is very full with this new responsibility - and I've only watched them 5 days out of the last 3 weeks - wow, it seems like it's been a lot more than that! LOL

I've also discovered the fabric/clothesline bowls craze that was going around a year ago or so. Man these things are addictive!! I made a couple for my mom and sis for Mother's Day and am now trying to build up a small stash of them to offer for sale at the yard sale we're planning to have this weekend. I currently have 3 made - hopefully at least 2 more will join the party.

I also spent today painting the living room with DH. Talk about hard work!! I was in charge of trimming the ceiling and baseboards so DH could follow with the roller....which meant I was up and down the ladder alllllll day. And did I mention we have 10 foot ceilings in our house? That's a long way up!!! The first time I went up the ladder this morning I thought I was going to have a panic attack (I have issues with heights) and DH would have to to the ceiling bits. But I finally conquered my fears and didn't look back. We now have a lovely green living room and we even got 2 coats on in one day!! All the neighbors were impressed (yes, we had to show it off to someone!).

Let's see....oh yes, I'm also working on a surprise gift for Mom for her birthday in July. I had some blue and cream log cabin blocks floating around my sewing room for years. I had originally bought the fabric to make a log cabin quilt for my little brother and his first wife. He's now on to his second wife and I never managed to finish the quilt. In fact, I only had 6 blocks made. So I got this bright idea to round out the number of blocks to 8, and sew them in 2 rows of 4 blocks to make a tablerunner. I'm going to cut the corners off to make the ends pointy and am in the process of hand quilting it now. I'm about 2/3 of the way finished with that and am still on schedule to get it to her by her birthday. And I repurposed the blue and cream fabrics to make my pineapple quilt.

I've also been working on my pink and brown Candied Hexagons quilt blocks. I've got 3 rows of blocks completed and on my design wall. I'm waiting until I get all the blocks pieced before I decide on an actual layout. In the meantime, I'm placing them in position the same way the quilt I'm following for the pattern has the blocks placed. I'll rearrange to make the colors flow right once they're all made.

I was able to get my grandmother's sewing machine fixed recently, too. Apparently the ceramic plate in the foot pedal had cracked, which made the entire machine not usable. The local quilt shop's father (a retired electrician) replaced the foot pedal for me for only the cost of the pedal. How awesome was that!

I've had another interview since my birthday rejection. And they didn't want me this time, either. My mom and sis think I need to dye my hair. I went gray really early - first one found in high school, major additions in college. I'm really starting to think they might be right...sigh...

Now that I have access to my blogger account again (I was locked out for a week or so) I hope I'll keep up with somewhat regular posts....but we'll see.

It's My Birthday..

And I'm another year older. I'd like to think I'm a little bit wiser, too, but really, who knows? I don't dare ask DH - I don't know what he'd say in response. I'm not sure I want to know! LOL

It was a very nice birthday - as birthdays go. It started with a phone call from the out-laws...a very pleasant call it was, too. Then DH took me out to dinner at my favorite restaurant with my Sister, BiL and 2 nephews. We followed that up with a visit to my Mom's house for cake and ice cream...and visiting. At about 8:00 we decided to head home and I found lots of wonderful birthday wishes on facebook and in the mailbox.

Although I did find a rejection letter in the mailbox for my latest job interview....oh well.

I can definitely say this was one birthday I enjoyed. Thank you DH and family for making it such a nice one.

Lots and Lots of Green..

I've been caught in the cross-stitch fever this past couple of months. To be specific, the Teresa Wentzler cross-stitch fever. You know I stitched her Unicorn piece throughout the last fall, followed by a quick stich of hers - You Were Hatched.. Now I'm working on her Woodland Faerie piece. You can see the entire design here.

I'm really enjoying it. Lots of green to combat all the white snow outside my window. Here is a pic of where I was on Friday last week (2/26/11).

The top section of this picture constitutes 1/6 of the overall design. Let me tell you, that flowery border section is not fun! It's the most fiddly bits of stitching I've ever done. But it is so worth it in the end.

Of all the different greens you see in this shot, you wouldn't expect me to be coming up short on any one of them. However, I'm currently 1 strand of floss away from needing a new skein of 522. I can't believe I went through an entire skein of that already! Yeesh! Good thing green is my neutral ;)

I'm hoping I'll be able to get all the 'boring' green bits done before the snows disappear for the year. Then I'll have all the interesting animals and flowers on the bottom of the design to work on throughout the spring...we'll see how successful I am. Especially considering spring and summer seem to be my season to work on quilts....I know, I'm crazy. Winter is supposed to be quilting season! Who knows...

Another Happy Dance

I finished another Teresa Wentzler design last week. This is called You Were Hatched... and was a limited release in 2000. Unfortunately, I missed it back then, but thanks to a wonderful online friend that loaned the chart to me, I was able to stitch one for myself :)

I started this on 1/16/11 and finished it on 1/27/11. I plan to finish it as an ornament for our tree next Christmas. I stitched it on a scrap of hand dyed linen I found in my fabric drawer. I am NOT a fan of linen after this project. It wasn't so much the different size fabric threads that bothered me, but the lack of oomph in the fabric. I had to really watch my tension while stitching on it to make sure I didn't distort the fabric.

We are finally dug out of the blizzard of 2011. DH, The Insane Gardener and I spent about 8 hours total digging out our driveway, our elderly neighbors driveway and a few neighbors sidewalks. In fact, DH is back out there again cleaning up what the road crews just threw back onto the sidewalks....the neighbors all call DH the crazy snowman. In fact, a couple of them are blaming the blizzard on him, as he just loves playing with his snowblower so much...too funny :)

An Honest to Goodness Happy Dance!

I haven't had a happy dance in so long, I'm not sure I remember how it goes!




I finished Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn this week and I just love it! It's a very muted piece in terms of color, especially since it's on a black fabric. I expected it to "pop" more than it does. It just goes to show you that Teresa knows what she's doing ;)

DH helped me with the photography this time, I hope it's better than my attempts have been.

It's Been A While - Again...

I know it's been a while since my last post. The only excuse I have this time is the Holidays...they just fill up the calendar so quickly!

But I have been working on something in between all the Christmas events. I've gotten Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn to the point where I can start working on the unicorn itself! I left the unicorn for last as an incentive for me to get it finished. I got the entire lower right-hand side of the piece done in the last 2 weeks.

The picture is a bit blurry, but I'm not the photographer in the house, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.


The next shot is of my cousin Jennifer opening gifts with my nephew Grayson. He is 6 months old in this picture and it appears he isn't very impressed with his gift! LOL Maybe next year will be a better year for him.. (He did go home with some toys, don't worry)...

This next shot is one of my other nephew Kendrick at Thanksgiving this year. He is 2 1/2 years old and this is the first time he had seen Rudolph and he was enthralled :) Oh, and those socks? Kendrick's absolute favorite thing that day. He insisted that he wear them all day - and they had to be OUTSIDE his pants, so he could see them, of course!

This last shot I took last night. I had to include it as it is just so cute. The men in my life, sacked out and snoring together. DH doesn't know I took this picture, and Felix was so tired, he didn't even turn his head at the flash. I think it is just waaaay too cute.