Bunches o' Bitties! And a great swap all finished up!

Lots of bitties to show off, since it's been so long....

This is for my friend in Brazil, Sil, she chose doors and windows for her month in the bee swap- I made her a little tree trunk gnome house, the doors open up to reveal the occupant.

And her other one is a taller block, a screen door that opens on to a nice beach.

In the bitty block swap, we did chickens one month- these are mine, everyone got to choose their color. 

 And one month, we did bees- this is my bee. 

 And in the interest of keeping it real and showing what a dumb butt I can be- I give you this- a perfect example of how reliant I have become on spell-check!  I made this block for the Sept banner for my perpetual calendar and after making it and writing the words on the test and giving myself a big fat red A+, I realized the next DAY that I had spelled "committee" incorrectly!  I showed this to my husband and we both
had the best laugh we'd had in a while!

 I ended up remaking the tiny notebook so no one would be able to rub my nose in it forever.  And then, I ended up putting the tiny pencil right over where the mistake would have been, anyway.  Geez.  I hope you're laughing at me, I know I would be if it was YOU!

Then, Ruthie picked Harry Potter for her bee month- I made her Luna Lovegood's SpectreSpecs....

 ...and Harry's cupboard room, under the stairs.  This pattern is from fandom in stitches, a great site full of fun free paper-piecing quilt patterns.  I shrunk it down to fit a 3.5" block.

 And I made the door 3D.

 And I received this wonderful package of goodies in our swap- FLiRTS- a quilted tote bag made by Julie, jgmehlin at Flickr.  She went crazy making me the most wonderful things in the whole swap!  Tote bag, sketch book with quilted cover, tissue holder, a piece of manatee fabric, just so much great stuff!  Thanks, Julie!

I love both sides of the bag!  Little cats are all over the place!

 The top zips shut.

 Inside, my initials!  No, I'm not into S & M!   And pockets, 4 of them!

 Sketchbook with pencil!

 The bag hadn't been out of the package for 10 seconds when Bizbee jumped into it!

 And this is what I made for the same swap, for my friend Kimmie.  She wanted a sewing machine cover really badly, and loves Wizard of Oz.  So my friend Jennifer thought I should adapt the Sew Out Loud block by badskirt amy block and make it a ruby slipper instead of a boot, a brilliant idea on her part, and that's what I did.  And I love how it turned out.  We had found some great pin fabric in TX in January and we knew that this would be the perfect use for it. 

 Pockets on both sides- in the rainbow spectrum.

 And the little electrical cord attaches to scissors and they store in the purple pocket. 

Kimmie really likes it and it fits her machine so all is right with the world of quilting and swapping.  :)

Thank you all for the nice words about my mother.  I was over there this morning and gave her a shower, she now has a really cool sliding chair/bench that sits half in the tub and half in the bathroom, making bathing so much safer, it even has a seatbelt.  My brother and her caregiver Nancy were both there, too, so we all had a nice visit after the shower, while Mum napped.  We kind of wore her out.  

Sorry for the marathon post and million photos! I think I'm caught up now, so I won't put you thru this again!

The Perpetual Project- :)

 Long time, no blog!  Life's been a little busy around here lately, my mom is not doing very well, she's 92 and having major issues so I've been spending a lot of time over there helping out my dad, and trying to help her.  She's had appointments and exams and an MRI and a neuro-psychological exam.  Still waiting to see the neurologist, but the preliminary diagnosis is Alzheimer's, but maybe with Parkinson's thrown in.  Home Health Care is doing a great job by sending over therapists to help us learn how to deal with the physical issues and troubles with swallowing, weakness, etc.  It's very heartbreaking to see her going thru all this and it's exhausting for all of us.  Needless to say, free time has dwindled away so while it seems like there isn't too much to show off right now, I haven't blogged in so long, that there turns out to be quite a bit.  

Here's the newest big project, I started this a couple of months ago- a perpetual  calendar using some of my precious bitty blocks from the group I'm in on Flickr, The Bitty Block Committee.  I made one big background piece and then made a monthly banner for each month and an extra one for birthdays.

 This is how I'll denote special days, with a wire embellishment.  I need to add some beads to it!

 I had so much fun with 2 girlfriends when I was with them last, going thru all the bitties I have accumulated and picking out 5 for each month's banner.  We were up til about 2 AM going thru them over and over, then willowing the bunches down, it was wonderful seeing all the bitties together like that, I have hundreds and hundreds of them, and I broke up a lot of sets but it's worth it. 

I'll make a new post soon to show you what else I've been working on in my sparse free time.  I received a great package in a swap called FLiRTS- Fab Little Random Treasures Swap, where we pick a difficulty level and then choose 5 things from that level that we might like to receive, then our partner picks one thing and makes it- I SCORED big time and got a great tote bag, I'll show you soon!  Can't tell or show you what I made yet, as it's still in transit.  

Anyway, I hope you like my calendar!  I have it hanging in my office near the computer and I love looking at it.  It's an original design, I kind of made it up as I went along and built it from the inside out, to fit the banners.  Big thanks to all my fellow Bitty Blockheads, I couldn't have made this without them!