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 :)

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).

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 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.