FlossieBlossoms

Coolest Clothes Pins EVER! And some bitties, of course....

2012-01-13T10:07:00.002-06:00

When we were in FL at cousin Joan and Charlie's house, Joan was hanging laundry on the line using these really cool wooden pins. (I get such a feeling of nostalgia when I see a clothesline, I just love them.) They had a metal clip on the side which means you never have to worry about cleaning off the actual line itself or having it transfer black lines to your clean laundry. I tried to find some on Ebay but had no luck, not knowing their brand name, I looked many times and never found any. So I was thinking that we could make some like them and Joannie kindly mailed me one to copy. She didn't have too many, so I knew this was a big favor! Well, they are really clever and special and much nicer than the clips you can buy today, as you'll see in the close up shots.

Anyway, I lucked out and found some on Etsy! And then I found more in an antiques place, online, so I got a package for Joan and 1 for me to share with the Mumster. Woot!

This clips over the line. Bring it inside every night with the clean, dry clothes and it should last you forever!

This is one of Joan's old clips next to a modern day one. See the amazing woodwork involved and how much heavier the spring is? Not to mention the very cool metal clip on the side.....

This is a shopping COUP! I just love when a search has a happy ending! A box of 12 plus her loaner are on the way to Joan and now I have another little gift for the Mumster, too. I gave her some plastic bird shaped clips for her birthday, they are fun and cute and silly.

On to the bitties- this month had 3 themes- red/white on point, Valentine's and Retro Toys.

I made red/white cats, they came out pretty cute. I let the printed text fabric do most of the work for me this time. By carefully placing the head fabric, it made them pretty interesting. I kept Sweet Pea for me. :)

The Valentine block was fun. I stitched "Be Mine" in most of the hearts. One special one for my buddy, Kimmie, whom I love to tease.

Retro toys- I started out making a paddle ball toy, then I made a huge mistake.

I made myself one of these and showed it to the man. He LOVED it and insisted that I make 11 more, one for everyone in the group. Argggh! Men! Well, he flattered me so hard, I fell for it. I'm not calling him by name so as not to set off any copyright alarms, I saw where one blogger had to remove her felt guy because of a threatening letter from the company. Boo hiss. Anyway, he came out cute. I gave him different colored glasses just to give the girls a choice. Blue and green were the most popular.

So everyone in the Retro Toy group is getting 2 blocks from me this time.

I made 48 blocks this month, I didn't make any extras for side swaps, I felt rather over-extended as it was. :)

So? Who all hangs laundry outside when the weather is nice? I need a new line as a heavy snow killed my last one. I drape things on the verandah, so if anyone drives down our drive, they'll really think we're hillbillies! :)

Birthdays, Bitty Blocks and Hummingbird Ornaments...

2011-12-23T11:12:00.001-06:00

My mother turned 91 yesterday! She and my Dad live about 10 miles from our house, in a patio home at a retirement center. It's close to a few stores and she can walk over and get groceries and prescriptions, hardware, sandwiches, etc, very convenient for them. Anyway, I thought I would show her off a little, Mum is a fun lady and always good for some laughs. Pops takes real good care of her, too, which is just great. We took her a few presents but didn't stay long as she had an appt at the doctor's for a minor thing. Isn't she CUTE?! We call her The Mumster.

My friend Gayla had her annual ornament party this past Tuesday, another fun successful swap of ornaments and stories and ideas, it was a great evening! These are the ornaments from this year-

They are all so cute and fun and different. It's always fun to find out what your friends have been making and Gayla throws the best stinkin' parties! All the food was delish and the girls were all so much fun, and you can see for yourself how cute the ornies are! One can even be worn as a bracelet, the blue wire one, how cool is THAT? And the ball of yarn with the needles, love that, too. Actually, I'm thrilled with them all, what a nice assortment!

While I was in TX recently, 2 of my friends (Jennifer and Lisa) and I made these little hummingbird ornaments. They are made with peanuts and are from a Birds and Blooms pattern. We think they came out even cuter than the pattern. :) We made lots of extras so we could all have some to hand out to our friends. Because of the fun shapes of peanuts, they all turned out different, all 45 of them! And we changed them a bit- We used red nail polish for their throats and then added some glitter to them, and used shiny ribbon for the wings instead of tulle or netting. And black beaks. They were fun and easy to make and everyone that has seen them, has liked them.

Oh, look! Bitty Blocks! LOL The theme was winter and I made icy thermometers and cardinals. The red part of the thermometer is red plastic from a container lid.

I forgot to get a group photo of the cardinals, rats!

So that's what I've been doing- I hope you all are ready for the holidays and have a safe and happy one!

Hardback Book Cover for E-Reader... a mini tute-

2011-12-04T11:41:00.001-06:00

So I have this e-reader and I really want to take good care of it. The thing itself is a tiny bit slippery and I'm worried about dropping it or having a cat stand on it and break it. I needed to make something that would protect it and also make it comfortable to use at the same time. I love books. I love holding books and turning pages, and I kind of missed that. So I thought it would make it a book-like holder. I went to the local thrift shop and browsed for an hour to find a hardback book that was in good shape, not too ugly, the right size all the way around and in thickness and one that wasn't TOO good to demolish. I found the perfect book, and it's not fabric, which is good, it won't get dirty.

I cut the pages completely out with an exacto knife, in 2 big cuts, the pages all lifted right out. Then I put fabric over the spine area to give it a finished look and some additional strength. I used tacky glue but a watery one would have been easier. Then I made the pocket piece that will support the e-reader. This was the fiddliest part.

I took a long piece of fabric, an inch wider and about 5" longer than twice the length of the book back, folded it WST and pressed the crease. Then I put the reader on that and marked where I wanted the pocket to be, right below the little buttons. I pinned that fold to one layer of the fabric. I then turned it RST and sewed one long seam, catching that fold in place. Turned it out, tried it on the book and put the reader in it, determined where the other side seam needed to be, turned inside out again and sewed that other long seam. I left the top open. Turned it right side out, pressed it, and top stitched that pocket into place, after I was sure everything was fitting the way I wanted it to.

Then I put it on the book back, determined where I wanted the elastic to be, sewed that down and then tried it on again. (See why you couldn't really make this for other people? You'd have to have their e-reader in your hand to make this all fit right.) I adjusted the top, folded it down, pressed and top stitched again, all the way around and thru the middle so nothing can slip around later. Be sure to try it on the reader before you sew down the elastic- you want it snug but not so tight that it wants to rip it off the book after it's glued down.

I glued most of this piece down with more tacky glue but I didn't glue the pocket piece down. In order to get a snug fit on the reader, this piece has to stay loose. So the bottom inch or so is free.

I covered the left inside piece with the same fabric and more glue. My stylus fits nicely in the spine.

It feels perfect in my hand! Reading in bed is so much easier now, I can just prop this on my blanket and read like I used to do. I don't worry so much about dropping it either, if I nod off while reading. I usually feel it when the book slips out of my hand. And I always feel it when it hits me in the head! lol

Nosey Parker supervised the entire project, which didn't take too long, except for the glue drying time. :)

I made a closure with more black elastic and a cat collar clasp. I punched 2 tiny holes thru the back of the book where the elastic was going to be and sewed thru it to keep the little belt in place, I can't lose it that way. I used a hammer and small nail to do that. A drill might have worked, too, but I have had drill bits grab onto fabric before and twist and wreck it, so I thought the nail was the better plan.

Parker is giving it 2 thumbs up! Well, she would if she had thumbs! :)

I'm going to make myself a few more of these so I can change them around for the seasons. I hope I can find something while I'm in TX, next week. I would love to find a funny title. Then I could read the book AND tear it apart. :)

Christmas Mug Rugs- Sent and Received!

2011-12-01T06:47:00.002-06:00

Monday, I went to the PO to send the following 2 mug rugs to Ruthie-

When I was a kid, we lived on the Milwaukee River, in Thiensville, right on the end of the park. We could put on our skates, walk thru the snow to the river and skate on the bumpy stuff down to the area where the city shaved a couple acres worth of ice and maintained a warming hut. I purely loved that part of my life, it was so fun to skate at night and see the big fluffy snowflakes drifting down thru the lights they erected so we could see to skate. We would bury bottles of Coke in the snow to stay icy cold, I remember when twist off tops were brand new, that was so convenient for us! Yeah, I just told you my age, didn't I? lol I had the cutest skates, too. They were very white and kind of chunky, which was the style in shoes at that time. Most of the skates you saw were slender and very pointy, but not mine, they were rounded off and looked very different. I loved them. I remember my mom scowling at me when I insisted that I had to have them, she wanted to get me some used skates (there was a big market in used skates) but somehow I managed to convince her that I really had to have those rounded ones and I remember wearing them long after they were waaaaay too tight because I knew I'd never con her out of another cool pair.

See the binding? That it what it looked like when it would snow at night and we were skating. We weren't usually allowed out after dinner on school nights, but when the river was frozen, we were allowed to skate. So we LOVED winter! Now, I would freeze to death and die.

The ice fabric started out a bright blue and silver metallic, but I bleached it out to this dark aqua color, so it would look more like ice. A piece of fabric gave me the perfect selvage for the title of this little mug rug. It says "Tidings of Great Joy" and I thought it was just right on this, plus that big expanse of sky really needed something. Jim kept telling me to leave well enough alone because he knows I can crap something up in a flash. :) I think the selvage title is just right, though.

I also sent her this one-

"Merry Christmas" was modeled after a painting designed by Sandi Strecker, I found it as a free

download at Artist's Club. The holly leaves are the label, as shown in a previous blog post. I got the candy cane binding fabric from uberstitch. Like in the painting pattern, it seems just right on this. I stitched each letter down in matching thread and then I went around each letter with black, to make them stand out a bit more on the piece. You can't really see it in the photo, but it was very effective. Some more straight line quilting and it was done! It needed something in a corner and I needed a label, so the holly leaves were just perfect. The red bells/berries came off of cat collars, I have about 50 of them from back when I used to buy cat collars at Wal-Mart, before I started making our own.

And when I got home, look what I found in my mailbox, waiting for ME! Made by Ruthie, one of the very best quilters I know....

"Reindeer Pausing" (we're sure they are up to no good!) Isn't this the cutest thing? The doors open, there is snow on the roof, candy cane poles by the door, an adorable Santa Elf inside the door, buttons, snowflakes, 2 rascally reindeer, and the coolest tree that ever was! The amount of amazing quilting and all the details really make this a special mug rug/wall quilt. I purely love it!

And lucky, lucky me- she also sent me this one- "NP Elfementary"! Nosey Parker thinks the NP is her initials so she thinks this is for her, but she's wrong, it stands for North Pole. In each window is a little elf hard at work, making gifts and toys for good little girls and boys. It's another work of art, sheer perfection, MAYBE I'll bring myself to use it, but it's awfully precious and fun. I love everything about it, just like the other one.

So another swap is done, over, finished..... it was a huge success as far as I am concerned! I had a wonderful partner and she sent me 2 fabulous mug rugs and I think she liked the ones I sent her, too. Thanks again, Ruthie, for making me 2 little works of art!

Color me flattered- sort of a mention on Pink Chalk Studio's blog-

2011-11-30T17:21:00.001-06:00

Pink Chalk Studio did a little blog post round up of the little wallets of Valori Wells and one of mine is in there, amongst many really pretty ones. It's in the top row, middle. It even got called out in one of the comments by a lady who really liked the fabrics I used. All Kaffe Fassett fabrics, of course, that's why she liked them, because they all work so well together.

The little wallet was an extra I included along with a mug rug for one our swaps. It's a great little pattern, I've made many of them and given all of them away as gifts, except for the one I use myself. I like to add a little loop on the side and a lobster clasp so it can be clipped on to something if need be. I use mine to hold all my credit cards and store cards, library card, ID, etc. I don't carry an actual wallet, just this little one. My money is in a zipper compartment in my purse so this is just perfect for me.

This is the mug rug I sent that time- one of my all time favorites.... My partner liked circles a lot.

Anyway, I just wanted to toot my own horn a little. Please forgive me!

And I'm going to draft up instructions for the e-reader prop/stand one of these days, for those of you who wanted it. I just need to get some ducks in a row and get organized, having my husband home everyday, all day, is seriously messing up my sewing schedule. It's NICE, don't get me wrong, but it's weird.

Turkey, E-Reader Stand and a Peek for Ruthie...

2011-11-26T15:12:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving! Jim was sort of laid out on the sofa trying to recuperate from a nasty bout of sciatica, so I spent most of the day in the kitchen cooking and we watched some shows about Alaska at the same time. I can see him from the sofa so it's like being together without having him underfoot. It's OK, though, his dogs more than made up for it, if I said "get out of the kitchen" once, I said it, loudly, a thousand times. Dogs, argggg! Anyway, the bird came out nice, didn't it? I love that rack/pan combo, too, got it several years ago at Bed, Bath and Beyond for a mere $20, and got a rebate which made it end up costing about $7. Gotta love that and the fact that it's non-stick, clean up was a breeze!

I got an e-reader a couple of weeks ago since our local library is now loaning e-books which will save me trips to the actual library. I got a Sony PRS-T1, the new wi-fi version with a touch screen. I like it a lot, it does a lot of cool things and the librarian was very impressed with it. She's seen a lot more e-readers than I have and said this one was super user-friendly. Yay, I need that! Anyway, this is what I was doing when I was eating lunch, propping it against books and Jim's rubbery glasses case. Not terribly convenient, ya know?

I decided it deserved better and since I had made a pouch from some fabric selvages and then decided I didn't like it, I had taken it apart and kept the pieces for something. THIS project was perfect for those pieces! I added a little more to the top, adjust the angles on the fabric and sewed up a pyramid shaped base which I then filled with ground-up walnut shells for weight. I made a little bumper for the bottom to hold the bottom of the reader and voilá! A perfect little stand!

I actually had to remake the bumper thing twice to get it to hold the reader at the right angle for me to sit and read, but still, it was a quick and very satisfying project.

And here's a little sneak peek of the label for Ruthie's mug rug. I had to photograph it now because it'll be hard to see once it's attached to it.

Can you believe it? A blog post with no mention of bitt........ well, you know! Next time, for sure.

Consider yourselves warned. :)

Mug Rug Received, bitties made and how to track an errant cat...

2011-11-12T11:53:00.001-06:00

This is the cute Halloween mug rug I received from Jeanette/scrapnchick, I just love it and I'm still using it even though it's almost the middle of November. I do love bats!

And one of November's Bitty Block Swap themes was science/biology. I decided on dissected frogs.

Close-up-

And we're doing a side swap of calendar blocks- I was assigned April, so I went with Easter bunnies. I found an image by Googling and thought this was adorable. I had some perfect fabric for the background and so I made these. I added blush to the ears and noses for some color. This is not my artwork, but can't find it again to give the proper credit.

And one of our cats, Beeswax, has been scaring us to death, going off for 2.5 days at a time, worrying us sick. He finally showed up one morning and then disappeared again that night for another 2.5 days. This time, I was ready for him! I got some surveyor tape and wrote our phone number on it in case he's going to someone's house or barn. I don't think he'd let anyone touch him, so I wrote it big so maybe they'll call us if he is going to their place. Our nearest neighbors are a long walk from here, though, so there's no real telling where he's going or what he's doing. Beez is 8.5 years old and has been neutered since he was very young, so it's not girl-trouble. Anyway, he stayed home for a solid week, so we thought he was over this meandering thing, but then last night, I guess he took off again, he didn't come home for breakfast. It's a very full moon, I guess the lure was too much, whatever it is. I just hope he's careful and comes home soon. We love our Beeswax so much, he's the coolest cat and LOVES to sit on Jim for hours. The other 4 cats are being very good and hanging around in the house, because it's chilly outside and quite wet, we got almost 5" of rain last week. (Updated to add- he's home again, he was gone 3.5 days that time and then again for just 2, now it's cold and wet and he's staying in, yay!)

That's all that's happening here, except for a new Christmas mug rug swap that I'm trying to decide on what to make. I can't tell you any of my ideas because it's not a secret swap this time, my partner is Ruthiequilts and I don't know if she ever looks at my little blog. She's an amazing quilter/crafter though so I am feeling some pressure!

Bitties, mug rugs, Halloween and a rabbit in the kitchen?

2011-10-09T09:11:00.001-05:00

A while back, we made modern/solid bitties. This one on the left was my contribution but I wasn't happy with how it fit in with all the others, so I looked for ways to change it so it looked better with its friends. :) I know, it's a cute block, but trust me- it stood out from the others which were more free-pieced and subtlety colored. So I added black fabric to 2 corners, which eliminated the yellow and green and it really helped.

Then I added more to the other corners and thought that was really cool, too. Striking.

Then- I tried using the original block and just adding strips around the sides, I like this one, too. So it's amazing what you can do to an existing block if you're not happy with it. Don't pitch it, change it!

Our current swap is themed Doors/Windows. This is what I made for my windows- damsels in a castle window. Each one is different, either the dress or the hair or the background, no 2 are alike.

And for doors- I did cat doors. You may not be able to tell, but there is a plastic flap over each cat, that is the cat door. :) Jim and I had fun coming up with names for them.

I made a few extra ones for private swaps- this is my favorite- the Outhouse. OK, I hate outhouses, in real life, but this one is pretty enough to like. :)

Inside-

My mother's favorite site in the early morning- the school bus leaving. With us on board, of course!

And I used some cute caveman fabric to make these-

They crack me up. You can pivot the rock to block off the cave entrance. :)

Halloween Mug Rug Swap time! I made 2 for my partner- a round one that is functional and a rectangular, reversible one that is more decorative, but she can do whatever she likes with it, I'll never know. :) Also a bat/moon pin she can wear or leave on the mug rug or put it on her purse. Some fabric scraps, too.

The backs-

And for weird crap I can do without- our Price Pfister Pfaucet sprung a leak. Part is here- Jim is not. He'll get to it soon, I'm sure. Anyway, I wrapped it up to control the drippage and it looked like a bunny, it made me laugh. Or an elephant with a toothache, you decide. :)

Hope everyone is having a nice autumn, we are having the NICEST weather and I've been outside more in the last week than I was ALL summer long. Too bad the mosquitoes are huge and eating me alive out there.

*Slap*

Been Sewing- Just a Bit(ty)!

2011-09-10T11:27:00.001-05:00

While in Louisiana recently, I picked up some fabric to make a man's apron for our friend Lisa's husband, Richard. We all picked out the fabric together, Jen, Lisa and I, so we're pretty sure he'll like this. He does a lot of the cooking so it ought to get some use if it's not too hot in So. LA to wear it! This side, modeled by my husband, is shrimp and crawfish and onions and peppers and all things spicy/Cajun, it's pretty fabric. Has a nice big pocket for guy stuff, too.

And the reverse is alligators! Lisa and Richard live right on the bayou, so a gator in the yard would not be unheard of! Eeeek. I like her ducks, better! :) Richard is a wonderful host, as is Lisa, and Jen and I hope he likes his pinnie! Enjoy it, Boo!

I got all my bitties finished up, too. A dozen toasters....

A dozen citrus juicers....

....and a dozen luna moths.

Just for fun, I paper-pieced a blue lady bug, too. This bug measures 1 5/8" wide x 1 7/8" long.

Now it's time to make some things for the Etsy shop, ugh. I would rather sew for fun, ya know? Making a dozen sewing organizers and a dozen crap caddies isn't all that much fun. But, ya do what you have to do.

The End of 2 Swaps, I'm so sad! Back from vacation, too.

2011-08-31T09:43:00.002-05:00

Sad that the swaps (and my vacation) are over, THRILLED with what I received! :) Vaca was great, lots of fun, new experiences, so many laughs and good times. Back to reality, though, which lately hasn't been too bad! See the photos!

This is the doll quilt that I sent to my friend, Dena Wayne in New Mexico, and she really liked it. I call it "The Wheel of F#@&(*% Fortune" quilt, because I did a lot of cussing while trying to line up points and seams. A LOT. Dena understands the title, because she "gets" me. That's why we get along so well, we are kindred sisters. :) The only reason I didn't abandon this project is because I knew Dena would love it and appreciate all the hours that went into it. It was one of the most complicated piecing jobs I've done, but paper piecing it really helped me to get those seams to line up. That and about a million pins! :)

And this is what I received, from my partner Silvana, aka Silort on Flickr. I totally love it, the quilt is one I had been lusting after as I watched her make it, she showed a lot of progress shots and I really loved what she was making, not ever dreaming it could really be for me! I knew she was in a different group than I was, but the sneaky swap mamas played a trick on me and it turns out, it WAS for me after all! I got home from my vacation to find this waiting for me- look at all the fun extras she sent, too! That book is wonderful and very inspiring. The chocolates are delish and so creamy and rich and they made it here in the summer without melting at all, I have no idea how she accomplished THAT! lol

These tiny suns are just amazing, as is the rainbow border that she pieced. Those little squares are 1/4"! Just amazing the amount of work and skill that went into this little beauty! Thank you so much, Sil! I will treasure this forever! Don't you love how she quilted it?

The mug swap is over for me, too. This is what I sent to my friend Edy, in New Mexico. She sent me the longest, funniest thank you note and it was heartwarming to read, what a sweet lady! I knew she loved red, birds, cats, nature and humor, so I tried to cram it all into one little mug rug and it actually worked! :)
Her Haiku-
Puddles are okay
but your cup of tea beckoned.
Some privacy, please?

And this is what I received from my friend Jules, chickenjulie on Flickr. At first I was a little befuddled- it's a great colorful string mug rug, love that, but what is that brown puddle on it? Then I read the Haiku, which was our theme for this swap and it made a little sense, it was gravy.

The Haiku-

Gravey on mug rug

is totally better than

Gravy on mug rug.

OK. Still a little odd, but OK. lol

THEN, I flipped it over to see what fabric she had used on the back and there was GRAVEY! Our little chubby girl, Gravey! NOW it all makes perfect sense!

Bwahahaha, how clever is this?! Gravey is depicted sitting on the mug rug itself, it's a picture in a picture, totally clever and cute and it has my baby on it and I love it to pieces! She did her usual excellent job with choosing a design, great fabrics and wonderful workmanship. Her binding is incredible and of course, the cat steals my heart! And the extras she sent are great, too. A little rainbow package of fabrics, a spool of turquoise thread and a package of chocolate covered sunflower seeds, yum! Thank you so much, Jules! This is of course, going up on the wall to be treasured! Gravey has finally made it, she's officially famous now.

And no post is complete, lately, without some shots of bitty blocks. :) This upcoming month's themes are insects/bug and kitchen gadgets. I'm signed up for both. I made Luna Moths for the insects. This is my prototype and I don't plan to change a thing, I'm happy with this as it is.

And for kitchen gadgets, I'm doing citrus juicers ....

.....and toasters with real pop-up toast made from card stock.

I've seen some photos of what the other ladies are making (paper pieced butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, silk beetles and blenders, measuring spoons and mixers, etc) and it's going to be a fun month, getting all the great little beauties in the mail. I'm addicted to these bitties like some perverts are addicted to porn, so when my husband brings in the mail, he calls out "porn call!" if there are obvious envelopes with bitties inside. If the day is a bust and there are no bitties, we sadly sing "Porn Free" to the tune of "Born Free". Yeah. We're a little warped like that. :) He likes to look at them as I open them and we oooh and ahhh over them together. It's fun!

I hope all of you survived the storm OK and are having some fun as summer dwindles down.

Girl time is the BEST time!

2011-08-16T08:26:00.001-05:00

Time for a get-away! No, not to the beach, but I'm heading down to TX to a GF's for a week or so. We're jumping into the car again to head to Louisiana to another friend's house, to hang with her for a few days.

Here we are a couple of years ago at the beach- Jen, me, Lisa and Kate. (Kate won't be with us this time, though.) It was so cold and windy but we didn't care, we were on vacation!

Lisa and Jennifer, 5 AM, I am a task-mistress! Get up, get up, get up, we have a long way to go today, fun awaits! Jen has on her shrimpy Mardi Gras beads and Lisa is wearing her Star Trek communicator so we wouldn't lose her. lol

Our friend Tiger made us all scarves that trip! The light above Jen's head looks like a big gold bow, bwahahahah!

So we're off to have more fun, see ya when I get back!

Finished the latest scrappy mug rug...

2011-08-11T09:58:00.001-05:00

I had shown you a sketch, earlier, and I was actually able to make it work in fabric, surprisingly enough. Yes, I always doubt my own abilities to translate an idea into an actual object.

I tried a new-to-me technique- weaving strips of fabric together that have fusible webbing on the back, to make the tablecloth. That was fun and very easy to do.

Here's a close up of raw-edge appliqueing.

The finished mug rug- the binding is a red with pale gray dots.

The label is the tea bag paper thing. I added the napkin to help make the cup and saucer stand out from the tablecloth more, it adds a nice 3D touch, too.

The back is called "Round Robin" by Michael Miller.

I still have to decide on the Haiku poem to go with this. I'll write it on a card and include it. I hope my partner likes this. It's not very practical, really, but I think it came out pretty well. Now I just to make her a little something extra and it'll be ready to mail when the time comes. :)

Thanks for looking at it!

Nosey Parker Looks Good in Lime Green......

2011-08-07T06:27:00.001-05:00

When I signed up to do a bitty swap titled "one color plus white" and got lime green as my assigned color, I was flummoxed! What's lime green and white? I was drawing a mental blank. Then NP walked by and I thought, Nosey Parker in the grass is green and white!

I woke her up to get this photo, she isn't too thrilled with me here. :)

My usual process to get ideas and patterns is to use Google. I Google the subject, like in this case, "cat coloring page" because I like fun patterns that translate well to fabric. Clicked on "images" to see hundreds of cats. After deciding that I wanted to piece a cat rather than applique it, I changed that search to "cat quilt block", where I found a photo of a free-pieced folk art cat. So I sat down with paper and pencil and drafted out a pattern so I could paper-piece my block, knowing that if I tried to free-piece it, they would just get bigger and bigger as I went along and that won't work when you have only 3.5" to work with. 3", really, because you can't use the outer 1/4" all the way around, that's left for seam allowance.

After a few trials and errors, I ended up with these- after finalizing the pattern I printed out half of them using the mirror image option and offered my swap partners a choice. Most of them didn't care which one they got, so they're all packed up and ready to go, along with the ship in a bottle blocks.

Oh, I gave them little green eyes, too. I had added pink noses, but tore them back out, they looked stupid. And my friend Jennifer likes them better without eyes, says it's like NP is walking away from her, which is more like the actual, busy NP, as far as Jen is concerned. LOL The eyes can be removed with a snip if the recipient wants to take them off.

Now I'm getting ready to start my partner's mug rug, the bird in the teacup. I pulled fabrics yesterday and if I still like them this morning, I'll get going on it. I just love having a project!

Finished Doll Quilt, DQS 11, and some more bitty blocks.... and some thoughts on swapping.

2011-08-01T14:17:00.001-05:00

I finished it this morning and I'm as pleased as pleased can be! It measures out to be 17.5" x 14", finished. It's adorable, if I may say so. I would love to keep it, but I made it for my partner with her in mind the whole time and I just can't bring myself to "stiff" her like that.

This is the back of just the top, you can see all the seams here- there are a bunch of 'em!

This is the back of the quilt, with the label and my partner's name blocked out. I made this using a leftover bitty block from the month we did "text", this was one I made and it is perfect, I think, for this label.

Close-up.

And a close-up of the quilting. I can honestly say that I worked harder on this little quilt than I ever thought I would. And it paid off, I think. All the cussing and ripping and re-doing was worth it.

Thanks for looking at all the photos!

And here are the bitty blocks I made for this month's group- Jars. I took the liberty of making bottles, actually, but no one in the group seems to mind.

Ships in Bottles-

Close-up of ship in bottle-

This is my third attempt at paper-piecing and I'm liking it!

And at the risk of offending some people, I'm going to have a little rant, because this is my blog and I should be able to say whatever I want to here, right? I don't want to hurt any feelings, but I think someone should be able to say what I think an awful lot of people are thinking.

Some swaps require you to state a skill level when you sign up, that helps the swap mama to make proper match-ups. Some swaps don't have that skill level taken into account. Regardless though, all the skill-matching in the world won't mean a thing if people take the easy way out.

When I see people making fabulous things for swaps that obviously took hours and hours, even DAYS, I am in awe and so appreciative of them. Yes, I do it, too, and I know it's voluntary- I spend a lot of time making things for swaps because I am a perfectionist and I only want to send away my best work. So when I see people showing off what they made and it obviously took them about 10 minutes to make what they are sending out, it pains me. I have to wonder how in the world they justify that and feel like it's fair?

As an example, and I'll just make this up- say the swap was "wonky houses". Most people would piece or applique or embroider several different fabrics to make a wonky house, from scratch, and they would all be different and unique and so clever. And a couple of people would search out fabrics that had wonky houses on them and cut them out and stitch them down onto another piece of fabric and call it done. I don't consider that to be very creative. Using novelty fabrics to consistently do all the work for you instead of creating something from bits of nothing, I disagree with that. Every now and then, in my opinion, it would be OK, especially if the perfect novelty fabric was framed by pieces of other fabric, but to just use the novelty fabric and maybe add a few beads or something, that seems like taking the easy way out. It's not very creative and I don't think it's in the spirit of the swap to do that. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE novelty fabrics and buy them all the time. But I rarely use them except as background fabrics when I'm creating something, or like the ship in the bottle, I used the ship as a feature in the block. I realize that time constraints play a part, too, but a person should know their limits and only sign up to do what they think they can really devote themselves properly to.

So I wish swappers everywhere would ask themselves this- "Am I putting enough effort into what I'm making to be fair to the others in the swap, considering the efforts they put into it?" If your answer is yes, then that's wonderful. If it's no, then I am sad.

And that's my rant for the day. Please play fair.

Progress on the Doll Quilt and a Mug Rug Sketch...

2011-07-26T13:40:00.000-05:00

I made some progress on the doll quilt, I'm doing a "Wheel of Fortune" mini quilt for my partner. Hopefully she'll like it, it was a challenge to do with 96 little triangles, each triangle has 4 pieces of fabric in it, that's a lot of seams and this little puppy weighs a lot! Here you can see the size difference between unsewn triangles at the bottom and 4 sewn ones at the top. All the seam allowances shrink it by about 25%.

All sewn together- it measures 10.5" x 13.75". I'll add a white border and then bind it with a pink, maybe a scrappy binding.

A close of one of the stars. Getting these little strips to line up correctly was a pain in my butt, some of them I unpicked and resewed 3 times. Grrr!

It's still not perfect, but it's acceptable, I think.

Gravey seems to approve of it! :)

And here is my sketch for the Haiku mug rug swap. It's a bird, bathing in a cup of tea. Pretty whimsical, but I think it's funny and the poetry possibilities are good. :)

Family is in town this week! Too bad it's about 100º here and dry. Lots of stay-inside time, I predict.

DQS 11 ideas.... Wheel of Fortune

2011-07-13T07:54:00.001-05:00

We're starting a new doll quilt swap, round 11. We've changed the rules a little for this round. A more traditional quilt is required this time, one that is more like a miniature of a full sized bed quilt, not an art quilt. So this means- teeny, tiny piecing! Good thing I recently learned how to paper-piece! That's when you sew your fabrics to a paper foundation, using the lines that are on the paper to guide you. I did my wonky stars using that method and it was great practice, so now I'm going to attempt to make a Wheel of Fortune miniature quilt. It's similar to a spiderweb quilt, like I did a couple of rounds ago. After stalking my partner and learning a bit about her, I think that she'll like this if I do it up in white with scrappy bits of pink and orange and red. If she doesn't, maybe I'll have to keep it! I think I'm going to like it a lot. :)

On the personal front, it's been hotter than heck here, over 100º every day for the last few weeks and no rain, just scorching hot and still humid, go figure. Finally, today, we're getting a few drops of rain, I hope it's enough to revive the drooping bushes and thirsty trees and parched grass. NW Arkansas is a beautiful place but we typically have dry summers and when we get rain in July, it's such a treat!

All the cats are fine, they lay around most of the day and night, because it's just too hot to do anything. The hummingbirds are eating like crazy, but have slacked off the last couple of days so I suspect they're sitting on their second nest of eggs right now. We have 4 big feeders out and I was filling them every day, but now I can actually go 2 days! So that little break for me is nice.

I hope you're all having a nice summer!

Happy Fourth of July to the USA!

2011-07-04T07:50:00.000-05:00

Happy Fourth of July!

I finished up my set of red birds- spring, summer, autumn and winter... Autumn looks very patriotic, doesn't he?

I had made 2 of these little birds a while back when the bitty theme was birds- I offered a choice of the spring or winter birds. Then I decided a set of 4 was in order so I made a couple more, summer and autumn. I had some time to work on them on Friday and so I pulled some fabrics and got them done. Each little mini measures 7" square. I think I need to add a falling leaf on the autumn one as his leafy bits aren't really showing up too well, it's overpowered by the red and the dark blue. Other than that, though, I'm pretty pleased with these. :)

It's nice to actually be getting things done for a change, I need to do this more often. Seems like I start a lot of things, but don't finish them in a timely fashion.

None of you guys would ever do that, right? lol Yeah, that's what I thought! I'm in good company!

I actually made a THING, but I did it with..... BITTIES! lol

2011-06-30T14:10:00.001-05:00

From this ugly thing.... (already disassembled, sorry) ...given to me by my mother-

To this!

Made with bitties from the sewing theme- this is the other side of it-

The bottom- the straps keep it from opening up too wide and putting too much stress on the corners of the tote at the top. The little straps are sewn to the bottom of the bag, just tacked in the middle to keep them from drooping and dragging on the floor when it's folded closed.

Inside- a long gathered pocket divided into 3 sections and a strap for carrying. Lining is Amy Butler fabric, just soft and lovely to work with.

The 2 sides- pinks on one side, yellows on the other....

All folded up and ready to tote!

I'm really pleased with how this came out. I finally got to use some of my accumulated bitty blocks and for such a useful item, too. I was going to use the old cover for a pattern but it was so complicated once I got it all apart that I decided it would be easier to start from scratch. Plus- I was only able to get one piece of the dowel loose, which made it even harder to recover. It was just easier to start anew.

Our new theme is Modern/Solid blocks- these are what I made. The black bit is raw edge appliqued, I couldn't piece anything that small with curves. The blocks are 3.5" square.

And the other group is Clothing/Accessories- I made little ponchos with hangers. I had a poncho in the 70's that was my favorite thing to wear, next to my jeans. :) I still have it, too!

And my little helper, Gravey!

So what are YOU working on these days?

No, She Doesn't Worship Me, It Just Looks That Way!

2011-06-16T21:54:00.001-05:00

Nosey Parker spends a lot of time outside these days and it's really hard to get photos of her when she's on the move all the time. Tonight, though- she's parked herself on the bed and she's loving our new "quilt" from Target. *Did a dozen of you just faint and fall over? TARGET? A store-bought quilt? Yes, we needed something new and we needed it now. I've shopped for weeks and the only thing I found that I liked was at Target, and it was faster than me making a king sized quilt that wouldn't even fit in our washing machine later. So hush- I like it and I couldn't make anything for the $80 this cost. End of disclaimer. * ;)

Anyway, Parker hasn't budged since we put on clean sheets and this quilt- she's hogging the bed and having the best pre-nap nap. :) That's what my mum calls a nap before nap time. She is still as cute as ever and is even wearing a matching purple collar, not that you can see it... She still occasionally comes to me in the middle of the night and asks for a cuddle. She stomps around on me until we both find her just the right position and she throws herself down and then we snuggle for an hour or two and I whisper in her ears and she gets all wiggly and cuddly and purrs and slobbers on me, it's so adorable and makes me feel good. Used to be every night, but now it's just once a week or so, which is better for my sleep.

Gravey is usually asleep on her daddy's ankles. He loves that. Gravey is funny, you can move around all you want, once she stakes a claim to a spot, she won't move all night. Not so with Parker, if you mess with her, she's out of there, she has 10 other places she likes to sleep in our room.

And there you have your Nosey Parker Unusual Sleeping Position of the Day. :)

Here's a first from me- a cooking success story!

2011-06-10T09:01:00.003-05:00

OK, so don't get too used to this, you won't see too much from me in the cooking or cleaning dept, because I don't really enjoy either one unless I have a real purpose, like company. But, I got this recipe the other day in the little magazine that our local electric co-op puts out every month and it sounded good and looked OK and I decided we should try it. (There's no indication of who wrote this recipe, sorry.)

Spinach Artichoke Pizza-theirs looked good, but ours looked better- bigger, thicker, beefier!

Here's their recipe and then I'll tell you what I did differently.

Spinach Artichoke Pizza

3/4 cup spinach artichoke Greek yogurt veggie dip

1 prepared pizza crust or homemade pizza crust, 10-12"

1 cup packed baby spinach leaves

1 cup canned artichoke hearts, slivered

1 cup halved cherry tomatoes

1/3 cup pitted and halved Kalamata olives

1/2 cup crumbled Feta cheese

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400º. Mist a pizza pan with non-stick vegetable oil spray. Pre-bake crust for 8-12 minutes or until golden brown. Baking times vary, for different crusts. Spread artichoke spinach dip on hot crust. Cover with spinach, artichokes, tomatoes, olives, feta cheese, and pepper. Bake again for 5-7 minutes. Cut and serve, serves 6.

OK, here's what I did differently. I used pita bread for the crusts- I took three of them, oiled them up with some nice olive oil, sprinkled with oregano and baked them until both sides were brown and crusty. Then I spread on the only yogurt/spinach dip I could find in our store, it wasn't greek or artichokey, but I made up for that later. It's really tasty though and has water chestnuts in it which adds a little crunch, fun! Covered that with spinach, added pepperoni slices, piled on diced tomatoes (I'm too cheap to buy cherry ones) and then lots of artichoke slivers and slivered olives and lots of cheese and pepper. Then baked again. We quartered them for ease in eating.

So I didn't do a lot differently and they turned out yummy! Jim ate 1 3/4 and I ate 3/4 of one and then I zapped the 2 remaining quarters for lunch the next day and it was scrummy, even better than fresh out of the oven. Served with salad, it's a feast!

Edit- GOAT CHEESE added on top of the spinach dip, but under the spinach, makes an amazing addition to these pizzas! Also, some slivered red onion. :) Our pizzas are now coming out of the oven about 4" thick with goodies! They're getting better and better, too. Also, if you can find the mini pitas,the pitettes, what great little appetizers these would be!

We'll have these again and they'll be great for summer entertaining, you don't have to have the oven on for very long and a clever person could probably figure out a way to do them on a grill, too.

So there you have my one and only, probably, bloggy food recommendation. :)

Scrappy Mug Rug 4 is complete! And some.........bitties, who'd have guessed? lol

2011-06-05T11:56:00.001-05:00

Another mug rug swap is finished- this is what I sent- a mug rug, a small wallet pattern and a wallet made from it, some round paper clips and a FQ of lime green, lime fabric.

The wallet is made from Kaffe Fassett material, which my partner, messygoat/Elaine, just loves. And she also loves circles, so everything here has a circular theme to it. :) She had commented on the mug rug as I was making it so I knew she'd like it. I waited forever for that pattern to arrive so I could make her a wallet and give her the pattern, too. (Please notice I didn't say I "gifted" her the pattern. I hate the new, over-usage of that word, it just sounds pretentious to me and it's one of my few pet peeves.) I'll give it or get it or receive it, but I'll never gift or be gifted with it, ugh. OK, mini-rant over, sorry!

Anyway, she was happy! And it made me happy to make her happy! And I got even happier when I opened the package that came to my house the same day my package was delivered to Elaine's! :)

Look at what I received! My partner was freezeframe03, her name is Ann and she lives in CA. She is crazy talented and just the best sewer/crafter I've ever "met". And she's sweet, funny and very entertaining and knowledgeable, too.

Not only did Annie make me the most perfect mug rug, she added all sorts of wonderful things, too. Little rubber stamps with a sewing motif, buttons, a decorated envelope for the whole package AND the card, and a NP postcard! I love all the goodies, what a great fun package to open.

The mug rug is sheer artistic perfection. She fussy cut the word fabrics for the borders, quilted it with NO backstitching, just buried knots and thread tails, did a fabulous job all around and I love it! I liked this so much when she started posting sneak peeks and I had been hoping it was for me and I kept worrying that it would show up at someone else's house because I would have been disappointed to not get it!

And she made this adorable postcard that looks just like Nosey Parker!

Isn't it wonderful? I adore this so much! Lucky, lucky me!

The back of the mug rug is beautiful, too!

I am thrilled with this swap, I had great partners both coming and going and you can't ask for more than that! My swap mama, Kandra, did a great job! Thanks, Kandra, and for going to Hobby Lobby for me, too. :)

I am making Wonky Stars for the bitty group this month- My first batch is done- I did a set of 14 in shades of the rainbow. They look pretty snazzy on the solid black background! The swappers got to choose which color they would like. I really hate to break up the set, they look so good together, I think.

And Jim and I went to a Fireman's Appreciation picnic the other day, put on by the local business association, and they did some door prizes. Jim's ticket won this- a great pottery candle holder. It's really pretty and matches some pottery I already have, how cool is that? It has a neat metallic sheen on one side where the glaze got smoked, I love that! Paradise Pottery, outside Eureka Springs, if anyone is interested. :) (And I think it was the best prize given away, too, woot! It was fun to jump up and claim it, he gave me his ticket to watch while he schmoozed with some other people.)

So all in all, it was an outstanding week! I hope yours was too.

Mr. Manatee Comes to Visit..... and more bitty blocks!

2011-05-31T09:04:00.002-05:00

We did a special swap, Alphabitties. My letter is M. Some wanted blocks for children's quilts, others for a more mature audience, so I did 3 different ones. Monkeys-

Mermaids in a margarita glass-

And Mr. Manatee, with seaweed M's. The swappers got to pick which one they wanted. I like them all, if I ever make the quilt up, it'll be hard to pick which one I use. Since I didn't make me a monkey, though, that'll make it easier. :)

And earlier, we decided to do "Fairy Tales Gone Wild" where we each picked a fairy tale or fable and gave it an evil twist. I decided to make Chicken Little. I had seen a cartoon where a chunk of sky had fallen on the chicken and decided to use that for my block. We are a group of 13, so I made 13 of 'em.

I thought it was too subtle and wasn't sure it was going to please everyone, though, so I made up a Rapunzel block as a test, slightly taller, and the twist was armpit hair. :) So it's called "Ew, Rapunzel!" Fortunately, everyone loved Chicken Little so I went that one. I'm glad I didn't have to make 13 of the Rapunzels, as it turns out, because it took too long to make and used up a lot of my soft fuse material. That translates to expensive. :) So I made 4 of them and will give them to my buddies that I owe a special block to, as a thank you.

I can't wait to see what the others come up with for this swap, so far from sneak peeks, they're a riot.

And a friend in CA, Marilyn aka Spiced Coffee, sent me a birthday package- a manatee with a Hawaiian shirt, he's so cute and soft and cuddly! He's made from Minkie fabric and his name is Minkee! I just love him, he's very kissable! Thanks again, Marilyn! Look at this FACE!

Ready for a dip! Oh, she included that cool water fabric, too, so he wouldn't dry up on the journey to my house! What a pal. She thinks of everything!

Yes, I had a birthday, May 22nd. I turned 54. Spent the day goofing off, sewing, talking on the phone, it was great. We'd gone out for a nice lunch the day before, so I felt very special and happy. :) Spring birthdays are just lovely.

I haven't been blogging, but I have been sewing!

2011-05-14T11:58:00.002-05:00

The Bitty Block Swap is still so much fun for me. This month the themes are mod/retro/60's and April Showers Bring May Flowers. I made lava lamps and funky old television sets with a test pattern on the screen for the mod/60's groups. I was in 2 groups so I needed 2 sets of 12 blocks. I usually make 16 though, so this month I actually made 64 of these little blocks and mailed most of them away.

The funky shape and the rabbit ear antenna remind me so much of my childhood. And the wire legs, seems like a lot of furniture had wrought iron in it back in the 60's. I used scrapbooking brads for the knobs.

This is one of the ones I made for April Showers Brings May Flowers. Little tulips holding umbrellas to protect themselves from the rain.

And I am particularly proud of this one as I think it's pretty clever- if you can read the tag it says "From April S." and obviously the bunch of flowers is delivered to May. The flowers are tiny circles of fabric sewn down with a seed bead and the tag is paper, loosely tied on for a 3D effect. The rainbow fabric gives the illusion of ground, grass and sky on the horizon. I only wish there had been room for the red to show, too. But 3.5" blocks aren't very forgiving like that!

Remember when I showed you Alexander the Grape? Well, here he is with all buddies. The Carroty Kid, Beety Boop, Dr. Pepper, Lima Minelli, The Black Scallion, Billy the Kidney Bean, Melon-y Griffith, Ludwig von Beet-hoven, The Squash Buckler, Tina Turnip-er, The Grapeful Dead, Pablo Pea-casso, Alex and Abraham Linc-corn. :) Aren't they a fun bunch? These were all from the spin-off swap we called Out of Our Gourds. We had so much fun with these! No, I haven't made a quilt out of them yet, but I'm going to. I bought the perfect fabric for the back, but I can't remember the name of it, it's all funny veggies on an aqua background. Each one of these was made by a different person and she made 14 of them and mailed 13 of them away.

I was also in a pouch swap, I made this (with a lot of help from my friend Marilyn/Spiced Coffee on Flickr as she sent me all the linen fabrics that I used, I didn't have any of my own.) My partner liked it, as it reflected her tastes very well. This is the back......

This is it, closed. It's triangular shaped at the bottom. A hair elastic loops over an old mother of pearl button while a snap holds it closed.

And the lining, a cotton fabric.

And I made a mug rug for the newest swap for my partner. I haven't sent it yet, so I can't say anything about her. :) She's going to like it, though, it's right up her alley.

The back has my flickr icon on it for a label. No words, it's speaking for itself. :)

Other than sewing, not much new around here. My husband is off fishing in Colorado and house-sitting for our friends Mike and Iku, taking care of their 2 dogs while I'm here taking care of our 3 and the 5 cats, too. Our 28th wedding anniversary was yesterday, so we'll go out for a nice dinner at a local Japanese Steakhouse when he's home, which will be soon. Yes, we got married on a Friday the 13th, because for some reason, he was OK with that, but not April 1st, like I wanted. lol Goofy men. The years have flown by, though, and neither of us can believe it's been so long. I picked a great guy to marry, so Mom was right, practice makes perfect! :)

Finished Swap Quilt, Swap Til You Drop, or STUD, as it's known...

2011-04-16T08:28:00.000-05:00

This is what I was talking about yesterday- I made a small quilt for my parter, Cindy, who made that fab Nosey Parker pirate quilt for me. Cindy's favorite things were -

So I made her this-

The label rolls up and goes into the little rum bottle and hangs from a small hook on the back of the binding.

Since one of her favorite things is her cat, Took, I incorporated him (slightly tanner than his usual color) and his favorite things into the quilt, too....

He's snoozing in the sunshine, dreaming of canned cat food, his litter box, his favorite scratching post and his MOM... Most of which he has, right there on his island, the biggest litter box in the world, but all he really wants is his Mom...

So he's floating her off a message for her to send the boat to come and get him,

that he's ready to go home now. The boat is on the way, Cindy was missing her littlest of boys!

And I added a few little things to her package. It's been delivered and well received, apparently the whole family likes it. :) And that makes me really happy!

This was a fun swap and a challenging quilt. It measures 9" x 12" and it was a bit fiddly to work on. I messed up the first cat I did, so the whole thing nearly went into the trash after 2 days of working on it, but my husband convinced me it could be saved, so I spent about 3 hours picking out 5000 little stitches and I redid the cat and added the towel and it made a huge difference in this quilt. There are a couple of things I would do differently if I was doing another one like this, like I'd leave off the seagull because I don't think it's adding much to it, but otherwise, I'm pretty happy overall.

Doll Quilt Swap 10- Received and Sent and more!

2011-04-15T08:38:00.002-05:00

I received a most wonderful doll quilt from the DQS 10 swap! Louise, aka lululollylegs, lives in Melbourne Australia. She made and sent to me a fabulous flamingo quilt with 3D feathers and it is just the most wonderful thing ever! Each of those feathers was made individually, carefully placed and then layered onto the bird and sewn down by hand. The entire thing is hand quilted with the most perfect of stitches and if you click on her link, you can see the details better than my photos show you. The quilting in the water around the flamingo's leg is just incredible and so fun!

Look how well it goes with our stuff on the verandah!

And she sent me wonderful extras, too! Aboriginal art playing cards, Australian fabrics that are just divine, and a great note.

The back of the quilt is gorgeous and she made a fun label for it, too. Love her drawing of a flamingo! I have a real thing for flamingo and actually go by that name at several message boards (which she didn't know) so this quilt is just super-extra-special to me. Thank you so much, Louise! You are a sweet lady and I am thrilled that you made this for me! I can't leave it on the verandah all the time as I don't want it to get dirty, but I will hang it here occasionally when we have company over, so I can show it off! The rest of the time, it'll be upstairs in my work room area so I can see it all the time! Thank you so much, again!

And now I can show you what I sent to my partner in the swap, Monika, in Germany. This is the complete Rainbow Village. The houses and the rainbow are removable so she can move them around, rearrange them, etc. The sun spells out her name, an idea that I got from my friend Pam at uberstitch. She did that on a small quilt for another friend and I asked her if I might use her idea on this quilt and she very graciously didn't mind.

Close up of the sun-

And here is the entire package of what I sent Monika- one of my patterns, some text fabric, some house fabric (which is like the back of the quilt) some perle cotton thread in variegated colors, a snail tape measure and some tiny metal tags that say "made with love". Since I was sending it so far away, I went to a box store and purchased THE most perfect box! It was 20" long and 6" wide and 6" deep, so I was able to loosely roll the quilt and place it in the box, along with all the other stuff, too, with room to spare. That was so much better than tightly rolling it and shoving it into a tube! This way I could include some extras without damaging anything.

I had a lot of fun making this quilt for Monika and NO stress, because I consider her to be my friend already and it's so much easier making things for people you know as opposed to making for a "stranger". She sent me the nicest thank you note, too, so I'm really happy that she likes it.

And- I was in a STUD swap- that stands for Swap Til You Drop- my first time in this swap. The theme for this month was "My Favorite Things" and I told my partner, Cindy aka CASharp, that my favorite things were bright colors, tropical, my white cat Nosey Parker, pirates, and the beach. (I think those were the 5.) Rules are- you must use at least 2 of the things in the quilt. Well! I think she used all 5!

She made this wonderful pirate cat quilt, titled "Arrrr, I Be Nosey Parker!" lol LOOK at how cute this is! The cat is soft and fuzzy as she used Minkee for it, wow! And she's wearing a blinged out eye-patch over her beautiful green eye. There's even a treasure chest pinned on! How adorable this is!

I love everything about this, even the back is gorgeous! The quilting is a great split leaf philodendron, my favorite tropical leaf! It measures a nice 18" x 18". Love that patchwork border, too!

And she sent SO much loot with this- a wonderful quilted snap bag, a tiny quilted pincushion, matching pins, a flamingo bookmark, and....

... a mug rug that spells out my nickname, Sooz, in Scrabble tiles! :) How fab is that?! Cute little hula dancers, huh? Love all this stuff and her fabrics are so fun!

I am such a lucky girl. Cindy really spoiled me. Thanks so much, Cindy!

Of course, I made something for her, too. Her favorite things are sunshine, clear bright colors, laughter, her little cat Tookie and blue skies. I can't wait to show you what I made for her! She might get it today, so I'll show you soon. Stay tuned. And thanks for looking at all my show and tell stuff!

I have the nicest friends, they send me amazing things they've made....

2011-03-17T09:10:00.000-05:00

For the pincushion swap, my friend Jo , who lives in Scotland, made me the most amazing treasure chest! I didn't know that she was making this for me, but I was very hopeful when I saw her sketch and the plan and then in really short order, the pincushion in progress! This lady doesn't mess around, she gets an idea and just goes with it! I was getting more and more excited about it when she threw out some info that had me convinced that this was NOT for me, after all, and I was so disappointed. So imagine my thrill when I opened a box and found this pincushion inside! As you can see, I like pirate things, another friend made me this quilt last year.

The pincushion even came with it's own map! It's stitched and burned and is just adorable. Jo also included some great pieces of fabric, parrot pins and mini teacup pincushion, too. WHAT a fabulous package, I am over the moon with it all!

Look at all the booty in the treasure chest! And there's a felt needle holder, too. It's got it all. The workmanship is amazing, all the handstitching, just so time-consuming and I am so flattered that she did all this for ME! Wow. What a nice, talented lady Jo is! Thank you so much, Jo!

I also received a wonderful mug rug in our swap, from my friend Sudi-Laura. She and I have made things for each other before, placemats, so we are a good match, too. I love this mug rug, all the colors of the rainbow, which everyone knows I love and my nickname and a great black and white binding along with perfect sewing- another big hit! Thank you, Sudi-Laura, aka isaacsmama!

And, I am so spoiled- 2 of my swappy friends sent me mug rugs just because I had admired them so loudly! Spiced Coffee sent me one that commemorates the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rabbit. Isn't it great? I have in on my desk, it looks wonderful in the office. See how it goes with the rug (that needs to be vacuumed)? Perfect! I love it, and she sent me more of the cool fabric and some hula girl fabric, too! I feel so rich! Look at the embroidered bun-bun!

And, I received this from my buddy, Kimmie- because I threatened to cry if it didn't come to me! lol (That worked great, I'll use that line again!) Seriously, Kimmie and I goof around a lot together on Flickr, pretending that we don't like each other, but I think it's obvious now- she can't help it, she loves me. :) She also sent me a great snap bag and a cool, bright tin full of stick-on shapes, very fun package to open!

I just have to say that I appreciate everything that people send to me, I'm just not very good at blogging about it in a timely fashion! I have more to show, too, something I can drink copious amounts of wine out of! :) I'll save that for another day, though. Thanks to all my swappy buddies, you're all so good to me and I know it!

Rainbow Village, the doll quilt....

2011-03-13T09:52:00.000-05:00

I don't know what I would do without all my helpers. Godzilla, aka Nosey Parker, wants to rid those houses of their antenna. Monster! I have been locking this quilt up for weeks to keep it safe at night!

I managed to finish it, though, finally, with a little time to spare. I can't show you what is under the sun in case my partner is peeking in. *wavies, hi there!* It spells something out, though, I'll show you after it's been received because it's a really cool effect and I copied it from my friend, Pam/Uberstitch, with her blessing.

Anyhoo, Rainbow Village. It's not dull or boring, it's just as vibrant, I'm afraid, as it appears. In retrospect, maybe it's too vibrant, but it's done and it is what it is. I hope my partner doesn't get sick of it too soon. I matched the binding to all the fabrics on the sides of the quilt, as nothing I had in my stash was auditioning quite right.

The houses all have little metal plates sewn to the back and on the back of the quilt are little pockets with very strong magnets in them. That makes the houses removable and interchangeable, so she can rearrange her houses any way she wants them.

In the pond- a small, subtle fountain. A vintage button plays the part of the sprayer. Tulle netting tones down the white of the fishie fabric.

A rather ordinary label, name blocked out to protect the surprise. I love the tiny house fabric for the backing. I was lucky enough to stumble across that online a while back and knew it would come in handy!

I think she's going to like this, at least I hope she does. I did have fun making it. It turned out almost exactly like I had pictured it in my head and in the sketch, with a few changes.

Castle Teacup Pincushion, for swap....

2011-03-13T09:31:00.001-05:00

I was lucky enough to get a really fun partner in the Scrappy Pincushion Swap at Flickr. I decided to make her a castle in a teacup. :) I had a teacup pattern that I got from Jodie at Vintage Ric Rac and used that as a starting point. I drew this sketch for inspiration and everyone seemed to think I should go for it, so I did.

After a couple of blunders which I won't subject you to here, but can be seen in my Flickr photostream (think pornographic! eek) this is what I ended up with. Wisteria Castle.

The roof comes off and so does the tower, so you could actually put it back together like this short, stubby version. :)

Under the false floor are small polished stones to give it weight and stability. Please note the manacles on the dungeon wall! See the tiny lock on the door?

Find the tiny key under the tiny mat! The door flips down over the moat, but that's purely decorative.

Details of the wisteria on the castle tower.

The flag needed a Coat of Arms. :)

And EVERY castle needs a faerie princess, right? She is a pin-topper.

I hope you like it, I had so much fun making it. The castle tower is a heavy cardboard tube and I wrapped the fabric around it and sewed it down, then glued the excess at the top and bottom into the tube. I made a puffy bit for the actual pincushion part and glued that into the tube from underneath. I got some great advice from a fellow Flickrer when I botched my first roof attempt and with her help, I am 100% happy with the new roof and the whole thing, actually. I wanted to keep this, very badly, but the horrible kittens had their eyes on it and I knew it would be safer in some other household.

Hellooooo, Gravey!

Doll Quilt Beginnings.... Mug Rug Ending ............. and something to keep!

2011-02-15T08:47:00.000-06:00

Murphy helped me pick out fabrics! He voted against both of those blues, in the end. I think he didn't like them being brighter than his blue eyes. :)

I'm going to make a village with a snow-capped purple mountain backdrop. It's going to be a rainbow village, with the blue sky on top, going down to purples, then red, orange and yellow houses on a green grass yard with a small pond with a fountain. There will be some things in the sky, probably a sun and a cloud or two and maybe a curving line of flying geese, in a rainbow of colors, that will get smaller as it gets farther away. (For those of you who don't quilt, flying geese are triangles of fabric.) I'm making the houses right now, that's my today project, getting them done.

It feels good to have gotten started on this and I hope my partner will like it.

This is what I'm sending to my mug rug partner- 2 mug rugs, a scrap of hedgehog fabric, a chocolate bar, 2 cocoa mixes and 2 postcards of our area. I think she'll be pleased.

And here is something I made to keep. 3 birds on a wire, with butterflies. I hung it on the wall in my craft room, inside the ironing board cabinet. I'll see it a lot there. :)

Fantastical Flight for Max.....

2011-02-03T06:31:00.000-06:00

This is the mini quilt I made for my partner for the Mini QT swap- it's called "Fantastical Flight" and it's totally taken from the artwork of Cecelia Rebora. I changed a few minor things and added a couple of things in hopes of not offending the artist too much, but when I saw this, I knew I had to do it in fabric for Max. It just seemed like him! We had been chatting about dragons and he likes space flight and Star Wars and red and black and this was too perfect. I added a moon and changed the wing and the houses just a bit, but there's no way I can take credit for more than the actual putting it together. :)

The back- it's aMAZ(e)ing! LOL

I used glow-in-the-dark filament on the front between the moon and the dragon's tail to spell out his name in french knots. They don't shine as nicely as I had hoped they would, in the dark, but they are there if he looks fast when he turns out his light at night!

I had fun making this for my new friend, Max. And I certainly love what he made me, see the earlier post of yesterday for that. :)

Bitty Block Busyness! And a quilt swap completed....

2011-02-02T11:03:00.000-06:00

The theme for February in the Bitty Block Committee was text/word or trees on a white background. I had this cute cat/dog background fabric so I made cat and dog blocks.

The fabric was too perfect to not use!

I tried two on this fabric but it was too finicky to make a dozen of- I was covering up the best parts of the kitties! So I kept the one for me and I only had one to swap. :)

I knew I wanted to do spring trees and when they were done, they were too plain. So I cleverly (I thought at the time) added a swing to each one. Little did I know, so did a couple of the other swappers! I'm not nearly as clever as I think. My husband told me to add a tire swing, but I thought that was too boyish. lol I should have listened to him! DON'T tell him I said that!

They came out pretty cute, though, I think.

We're doing a side-swap too, of the "Out of Our Gourds" fruit and veggies- spoofing on famous people who have names similar to fruits and veggies! Ones like "Ludwig von Beet-hoven" and "Beety Boop", not to mention "The Grapeful Dead", "Lima Minelli", Pablo Pea-casso, etc. :)

I made Alexander the Grape.

We all had to make 14 of our guys/girls.

I've got 2 more sets to finish- another set of trees and one of words. They'll be done soon, just a little handwork left. That'll make 62+ bitty blocks I've made this month. Phew! (I usually make a few extras for side-swaps or to keep for projects like you're about to see below.)

I used one of my left over red bird bitty blocks and made this mug rug, but I suspect it'll end up on a wall instead of under a cuppa. I love how it turned out. I'm doing another one right now with one of my little kite-flying hedgies. If this one is winter, the hedgie is spring.

And I was in another swap, the theme was "Take Flight" and my 8 year old partner, Max, made me this wonderful "The Flight of the Rainbow Balloons" mini quilt. I absolutely love it and I hung it up on the wall just the left of where I sew upstairs. Every time I turn my head, I am delighted by it! 8 years old, can you believe it? He's going places, that Max! Such talent. His mom is amazing, so I am sure he gets it from her. You might know her- she goes by lolablueocean at Flickr.

The back is wonderful, too, look at that great label!

I sent him a quilt of a dragon carrying a little boy over a castle town, in the night. I think we were both pleased with our swap! He's a great kid and I hope to swap with him again, but I know he's going to be in high demand!

So that's what I've been doing, along with making things for my shop. I need to get those listed! Off to the salt-mine!

Nag, nag, nag...... and a rant.

2011-01-20T16:23:00.000-06:00

So you're tired of looking at ornaments, eh? Fine, look at this instead while I listen to my husband shovel snow and call his idiot dog who has learned how to climb over our fence and took herself off for another romp in the woods, chasing deer and turkeys. I swear, she's worthless and I'm not getting any fonder of her the longer she's here. If someone has to tell me 20 times a day that she's a good dog, it makes me wonder who the heck he's trying to convince, me or himself? Yeah, she's good. Good at grabbing at you with her teeth, snapping at you when you reprimand her, good at climbing fences and standing up on her back legs with her front ones on the kitchen counter. She's good at climbing OVER the other dogs to be the first one out and she's good at shrieking for an hour if you let her. She can eat a bowl of food in about 4 seconds and then she just wants more. This dog has issues and I am not real happy with her here. She's disrupted the whole house and I wish he'd never had that chip put into her. I keep telling her if she runs off again, don't bother coming back. But she always does, dammit.

I want to love this dog, but I don't. I love the other dogs and all of the cats, but this dog is a sociopath, just like his black dog that died a couple of years ago. It's the same dog in a different color. Not lovable. Annoying, stubborn and bullheaded. We both call her "him" all the time because there isn't anything feminine or dainty about Quigley. And Mr. Softie who usually has nothing but good to say about her is actually contemplating a shock collar. Like the remote for the TV, I want to hold onto the remote for a shock collar, too. Heh.

Thanks for letting me rant.

OK, onto happier things that might convince you that I'm not really a monster- A mug rug for my partner in the swap. I made this yesterday and last nights snowfall made for a really pretty backdrop. This is the chair on my little balcony off the sewing room. I won't be sitting out there for a while!

Hopefully my partner will like it. I think it turned out pretty cute. Red and aqua are so pretty together and such a popular color combo these days. On the back are a slew of little hedgehogs. Now I'm busy making more bitty blocks and contemplating what I shall make for my new partner in the doll quilt swap. I'm thinking of doing something in a rainbow village type setting. Like this- blue sky at the top, turning into purple mountains, a red/orange/yellow village and then greens at the bottom. All the colors of the rainbow. Hopefully I can pull it off. I'll probably do most of it with raw edged applique and just piece the turquoise stars in the sky. We'll see! At least I have an idea, that's a relief!

The Ornament Party and Exchange 2010

2011-01-09T11:44:00.001-06:00

I'm a little late showing off the "take" from this years ornament party. 24 women are involved, typically, and we all make and bring 24 ornaments to exchange. We also bring good food and eat first. After we're done eating, we do the exchange, play a couple of games and draw for a few door prizes. We always have a wonderful time at our friend Gayla's beautifully decorated, comfortable home.

This year, one lady crocheted us all a potholder/hotpad that looks like a reindeer head! Incredible and so much work!

All the others were actual ornaments, made from wood, wire, paper buttons, feathers, crystals, wool, communion cups, yarn, etc. One of my favorites is from our newest member and she made these darling tiny cupcakes out of clay, they each have a tiny cherry on top that rides up and down its little stem.

See how precious it is?

I made little reindeer bags, an original pattern but inspired by some tiny wool bags I saw on Flickr. So tiny that I was just able to slip a Dove Promise piece into each one to give it some heft.

I used felted wool from a local shop, it's a pretty brown that has several other colors woven into it, like green, red, gold and blue. The black eyes and glittery red nose are brads from the scrapbooking dept at the store. Chenille stems for handles and the ears slide onto them. I had the tiny wired holly.

The girls seemed to like them. We had a wonderful time, a few women weren't able to come so we had a smaller, more intimate crowd and that was actually nice because we were able to visit better, it was a little quieter. Lots of laughs, though! Another great party at Gayla's and I already think I know what I'm going to make for next December. :) Not telling, though!

More bitty blocks made...

2011-01-03T07:47:00.002-06:00

Oh, the Scrappy Mug Rug Swap is up and running again. This is round 3.

More of the little blocks for swapping/making mini quilts-

Little red birds- some in the winter, some in the summer, just for fun. The swappers got to pick which season they would get. These go along with the other birds I made, for the bird theme for December's blocks. The other ones were roundish/oval birds sitting on a wire, if you recall. Rainbow colored.

I'm really pleased with how both of the birds turned out.

January's blocks are for Whimsical/Woodland. I made some flying squirrels. I used a q-tip dipped in a weak water/bleach solution to fade out the tummies.

The first photo is the most accurate, color-wise.

We have flying squirrels here and see them occasionally, usually when some cheesy cat catches one under the bird feeder and drags it into the house. My gosh, are they ever cute and soft and because of their excess "wing" skin, sort of sloppy/droopy/adorable! I just want to keep them and hug on them and put one in my pocket, but the little buggers have been known to bite! I wish they'd bite the cats so the cats would leave them alone. They are so precious!

And the little hedgehog - he was so popular in the castle quilt that I thought a dozen people would like to have one of their own. I know I wanted one! I hated sending that mini quilt away! He is also for the woodland/whimsical theme for January, 2011. The swappers in the group got to pick which one they'd like, as the kites are all different.

So that's what I've been making- I'm also working on a swap mini for my young partner, Max. I'm almost done with it, I'll post some sneak peeks next time!

Christmas with the parents and other fun stuff!

2010-12-28T08:10:00.001-06:00

We had a really nice, stress-free holiday this year, again. My parents came over for a dinner of prime rib, roasted potatoes, broccoli, warm rolls and spiced peaches. Key lime pie for dessert with real whipped cream made by my husband. He also cooked the meat to perfection in our convection oven, that convection feature really sears the juices into the meat. And he was so helpful around the house, too, getting ready for company, he dusted and cleaned the chandelier and did dishes for me. I have such a wonderful husband and I know it. After we ate, we played a game called "Fact or Crap" and it was fun and informative. We all had a great time. Sent half the leftovers home with the parents so they were set for dinners for a couple of nights.

We were also dealing with a sick kitty- Gravey stopped eating around Tuesday and we took her to the vet where it was discovered that she had a fever and was sick to her tummy AND she had round worms. A shot, some antibiotics and a topical de-wormer, along with 3 days of us force-feeding her watered down baby food, and she finally started eating on her own late on Christmas day, which was a huge relief for us, we were very worried about her. She's still getting her antibiotic, but is obviously feeling back to her sweet, rascally self! Yay for that. She found a folded up, unfinished quilt to rest on as she recovered.

I finally put together one of the mini quilts made from swapped bitty blocks. These blocks finish up at 3" square. This is the circus set, I only made the one in the bottom left corner, the guy falling off the trapeze. :) The other 8 were made by friends. I did a simple quilting on it and I really like how it turned out. Currently we're swapping birds, that's going to make a really cute quilt.

You can see the quilting better on the back.

I also made a couple of special order sewing caddies for a friend to give her moms for Christmas. She sent me the fabrics and this is what I came up with. Almost identical so the moms won't fight over them. :)

Inside-

I finished up one of my 2 hexagon quilts and gave this one to my mother for her 90th birthday that she celebrated last week! She likes it, she's all about color, too. That is obviously where I get it from!

I hope everyone had lovely holidays, too, I know we did. Have a great New Year's Eve, too!

All Presents and Accounted For... Mug Rug!

2010-12-05T08:34:00.001-06:00

This is what I sent to my partner in the mug rug swap- A stack of presents with labels that spelled out her daughter's name- her daughter was born last year right before Christmas and Angela (Tweedledee Designs) says she was the best present ever. So the little red present on the left hand side-

is actually a cover for a window that holds a photograph of said adorable child! Here she is in her Halloween costume, but I'm sure Angela will get a more Christmasy photo to put here. :) Making this was fun but I darn near melted that plastic a half-dozen times. Phew. I sure didn't want to have to pick that part out and re-do it, in my experience it's never as nice if it's fixed.

Bad enough that the stripes of words on the back got off-kilter and looks like crap! I sent it anyway and Angela is nice enough to say that she loves the wonk.

As a consolation, I sent her these 2 mug rugs also. Myrtle and Myron, decorating the tree. She also got an ornament for the tree that will hold another photo, a couple of drink mixes and a crap caddy pattern. :)

Parker and Gravey playing in the messy desk. Got yer tail!

And some bird blocks I did for our itty bitty block swap group- these are 3.5" square.

And the same for our rainbow blocks- 3.5", I traced off 7 circles on fusible backing paper, fused them to 7 different fabrics, cut them into 7 wedges and then fused the little wedges into a circle shape to make 7 blocks of rainbow wedges. (I did this twice to get 14 blocks. Actually, I did it 4 times to make 28 because I screwed up and sewed the first 14 with black thread, as you can see on the bottom row and my husband gave me a big thumbs down on that, so I redid them all.) This was the idea of my friend Ruthie, to make my block like my Flickr icon, which is a mini photo of the ticker tape color wheel that I made. I think these came out super cute, once redone.

Now I'm busy working on another set of different birds for the other group and then I have some special order sewing caddies to make for someone. That's next on my list of things to do. Busy, busy! Hope everyone is staying busy, too, but aren't stressing out!

Scrappy Mug Rug Swap- The Holiday Edition- Completed!

2010-11-29T16:53:00.006-06:00

I got the most wonderful package in the mail from my friend, Friedazzzzz, in TX. She not only made me one mug rug, she made me 2! And one of them has Nosey Parker on it, isn't it adorable? She's under a tree, with a mouse and some presents, I just love it. AND she included a coordinating mug and a hanging, twisty penguin, such a wonderful and cute set!

The other mug rug is also exquisite, the ornaments on it are pieced and just so perfectly, too! I just love this whole set and my husband was marveling at it, "Even the tissue paper matches" he said, a few times. lol Her quilting and all the little touches she added just make this mug rug a piece of art!

Even the backs are stunning! I love these fabrics she used!

Thank you, Frieda, for making our 2nd mug rug swap such a huge success for me! I just love everything you made for me and sent to me, you are a peach!

I'll have to do another blog post to show you what I sent, I have more trouble using IE with Blogger.... and my computer guy doesn't want me to download Mozilla, which I LOVE. Grrr. This has taken me twice as long as it should have and I got only half of what I wanted to post, to show. lol

Furze Castle Kite Festival- the mini house quilt I made...

2010-11-20T04:51:00.006-06:00

Furze Castle Kite Festival-

My partner has received the mini house quilt that I made for her, so now I can show it to you. It is so funny- she and I were both working on castles at the same time, but neither one of us knew it! How's that for being in-tune with each other?

Hedgehogs are also known as Furze-pigs, hence the name of the castle. A small moat surrounds the castle and it's guarded by man-eating, venomous manatees. OK, not really- but that sounded really tough, didn't it? There is a kite festival going on all the time and you can catch glimpses of the kites in and amongst the mushroom trees in Flyagaric Forest.

This quilt is 12" wide and 13" tall. I know, I can't quite seem to stay in the guidelines, but I needed that extra inch at the top. :)

The door flips down to expose the interior of the hedgies' living room. There's a fireplace, a comfy chair, a floor lamp and a clock. The door itself is held closed by hidden magnets and a metal piece inside the door. Chains, of course. :) A spiderweb in the upper window.

Close up of Mr. Manatee, one of my favorite features in the entire quilt. His face turned out even better than I had hoped since I botched it up initially. By making that 3D piece, it not only saved his face, it made it! His eyes and nostrils are 2 different sizes of seed beads. And blush always brings life to a critter, I've found.

I had a helper when I was working on the label. Nosey Parker doesn't seem too thrilled with it, does she?

The label. I was kind of stumped as to how to make a fun label for this. So I drew a little map of the area and tacked it down at the top. When you flip it up, you can see the personal info of who it was made for and by whom, where, when, etc.

Did you know that Nottingham was really known as Snottingham, originally? They eventually dropped the "S". And Flyagaric is another name for Amanita mushrooms. Hence the Flyagaric Forest. Hedgies love watermelon, so I gave them their own patch. And what castle doesn't have its own maze?

I added a festive bunting to the castle at the last minute, but I'm not sure I would keep it on there if this was mine. Karen is welcome to remove it if she'd like. It's almost too cluttery for me and you know how I love color! It spells out "go fly a kite". :)

Thanks for looking at my mini quilt.

And this is the mug rug I'm making for my swap partner in the Scrappy Mug Rug Swap 2, Holiday Version. I'll be putting letters on the tags to spell something out, but can't show you that until later. I couldn't think of a good way to quilt the white parts, so I stitched gold snowflakes all over it, by machine.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Mini quilt swap- Fabulous House Mini Received!

2010-11-18T10:23:00.004-06:00

I got the nicest, cleverest mini quilt in a swap the other day! The theme was "house" and my friend Karen, Fun & Comfort Quilts, made me a super-cool POP-UP sand castle, is this neat or what? May I present "The Cat Pirates' Sand Castle"?! If you click on her name, you'll be able to read about the process of making this little delight.

This is the back, the fabric and the label are just wonderful! Oh, did I mention the dimensions? It's a mere 6.5" square when folded up! Amazingly small and precious! Making small things is much harder than making large things, if you weren't aware of that fact. Your own fingers can get in your way so much, it's very challenging.

And she included ALL this booty! Flannel skull fabric, which I love, a cute card, a rubber stamp set of a bird house and 2 sweet birds, CHOCOLATE, and some lovely fabric scraps and borders. I love it all! See the little sand castle there in the middle, folded up? NEAT!

When you open it, it's like magic! Oh, see the rock path? I've used that same fabric in the mini I made, too. In fact, Karen asked me for a tiny piece to use in this, I had no idea how she'd use it, but it's perfect here!

In each window is a different cat in some kind of swashbuckling, pirate-y pose. This one is my favorite- he's swilling grog, man. lol My kind of cat.

They're all super-cute though and one is in a dress, that's Nosey Parker! She looks like a pirate's wench, too. :) If you look at my Flickr photostream, you'll find photos of all the wonderful cats in the windows. Karen printed them out onto fabric and sewed them in, she's just a wonderfully creative lady!

Here it is again, for your viewing and drooling pleasure! I just love this, it incorporates everything I love so much- castles, 3D, cleverness, cats, the beach, pirates, I swear I almost hyperventilated when I opened it! I can't believe that people take all this time to make me the most wonderful of things! Thank you so much, Karen! I will treasure this forever!

And since it's a swap, I've made a little quilt for her, too. I can't show you yet, but I will soon, it's on the way to her now. Here's a little peek, though, of one thing that's in it.

I couldn't be happier with what I got from Karen, she put a lot of thought, time and effort into this, thank you so much, sweetie!

Placemat swap is over- again!

2010-11-02T07:52:00.004-05:00

The placemat quilt swap is over, again. This time, my partner was Julie and she made me TWO fabulous placemats and a set of matching coasters! They are just wonderful and so colorful. We decided to both make wonky, liberated placemats out of Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

Here are the two she sent me- I wasn't expecting two, that was a shocker! How generous of her!

And this is the back of them-

I'm really pleased with these, they suit our kitchen/dining area just beautifully! Thanks so much to Julie! I love 'em!

And this in the ONE I sent her- I feel like a cheapskate! I did send her 2 fat quarters of KF fabric, I hope that counts for a little something! This is the front-

And this is the back- the leaves are the label and they snap off so when you lay it on the table with the other side up, there won't be 2 lumpy spots. The funky birds are taken from an image I found online.
Edit- I was just informed that the bird image is from the work of http://mrsmoenpatterns.blogspot.com/2010/02/funky-fowl-pattern.html

I need to go check her stuff out, I like her quirky style!

The solid color is a shot cotton and it's soooo pretty! Made by weaving hot pink and turquoise threads together, it changes color and it's just too cool.

I had fun making this, and making it reversible MAYBE makes up for it not being 2 placemats. That sneaky Julie! lol Another successful swap, yay!

Happy Halloween, shriek! Don't look, Lynz! CSI-Stairwell, again....

2010-10-31T07:10:00.007-05:00

Trick! or Treat?

I'm out of yellow crime scene tape, thank goodness we still had chalk. ;) It was a busy night for those boy cats, apparently. Thankfully, dragging these in through one cat door and up a half of flight of stairs wore them out before they actually got them into the house. 2 dead rats and a shrew on the garage steps. Dang. Busy, busy. And so lovely to wake up to on Halloween morning! I know the girl cats are innocent because they are locked in the bedroom with us at night, they are not allowed out after dark. So this is a boy thing.

I wouldn't really say that it's becoming a habit, but it has happened before. Last time it was just mice. The boys have expanded their horizons, I guess.

Sammie, Beeswax and Murphy are very good hunters and would-be providers. Ugh. lol It's that time of year, though, when the rodent population seems very large, but I think it's dwindling as we speak. :)

I had a little helper this week, as I was making little quilt sandwiches.

The best place to play is where Mom is trying to get something done.

And she can't mind when you're THIS adorable. Gravey can go from zero to 60 in 2 seconds! I did get 2 of these sandwiches made, though, now I just need to quilt and bind them so I can give one to my Mum and keep the other on the sofa for me to use when I'm cold, which is pretty much always.

But that does tend to take it out of a girl. Plays hard, sleeps hard. She's a really good girl, though, stays close to the house and doesn't think that being outside is really all that exciting. That might have something to do with being abandoned at that cemetery when she was about 4 months old, bless her little heart.

She and Nosey Parker are really good sleeping/grooming buddies, now. They groom and tussle on the bed for about 30 minutes every night and then sleep together there, smashed up against me and try to cook me and then shove me right out. I love it. lol They're good little buddies for me, too.

Happy Halloween, people! Hope your morning isn't as gruesome as ours!

Ready for Breakfast! ....and now I can show you....

2010-10-21T11:28:00.006-05:00

Parker woke up hungry. Note to self- bleach the towels, geeze. lol You wouldn't want to lie on the countertop without a towel, though, it's COLD. I'm actually going to quilt a small cover for that island, I have some Folklorica fabric just for that purpose!

Anyhoo, these 2 mug rugs were just delivered to 2 girlfriends, so now I can show you! One side is "normal" and the back refers to funny things that happened during our week together. I drove down to visit Jennifer and help her arrange her newly remodeled kitchen and Lisa drove up from Louisiana, we had a marvelous time and so many laughs!

My friend Jennifer is eating a lot of apples lately, so she got a cute apple fabric for her mug rug. She is normally a very lady-like person. She sneezed one day, while she driving. Unfortunately, she had a mouthful of chocolate/toffee popcorn at the time and her hands were occupied and she spewed bits of popcorn all over her dash. Sounds gross but her reaction to it was priceless. A whole lot of "OMG, OMG! I can't believe I did that, I couldn't help it!!" And with 2 witnesses, no less! So the back of her mug rug says "Achooo" with a spray coming out. I wish now I'd spelled it "Ach...ewwww, but I wanted to use the popcorn shaped "ooo's", to tie it all together.

On the apple, the little reflection thing is actually a silver tag that says "made with love". Awww! I do love her, she's like the sister I never had and just a beautiful person, inside and out, even when she spews bits of masticated, ground up food all over the inside of her car. Into the sun. Where it really showed up great! lol Bwahahaha. We'll never let her forget that, will we, Lisa?

Lisa is a big coffee addict, so she got a coffee theme fabric and I just had to use skulls and ladybugs together because it makes me laugh, just like Lisa makes me laugh all the time. She has the funniest, drollest sense of humor and acts out her little stories and makes funny faces and is just so fun to be around. Even when she's mad, she's funny. And sarcastic. I just love her. She's a Cajun girl and has the great accent to prove it. Her little tag is in the saucer. I'd like for her to be my other sister. :)

She was telling us about her very comfy relationship with her hubby. How they are soooo casual and that they don't even bother to take their socks off anymore when they ... you know, have sex! Well, we had more fun with that! And then she told us she wears dark socks! AND, they have no curtains, the bedroom faces the bayou. So we're ribbing her about her sock-clad feet waving around in the air and how fishermen in the bayou are probably laughing their butts off while watching this from the snake-infested swamp. So the back of her mug rug is red with a hot tub on it, 2 sock-clad legs sticking up in the air and a tiny bit of a head with a snorkel sticking out of the water. They just bought a hot tub and I thought that would make it easier to explain the legs than if I had made a bed! SEE how nice I am?

But what's REALLY funny is- her mother was visiting when she received the mug rug in the mail. Her hubby carried it in and she opened it in front of them both and then had to explain the back. ROFLMAO

Lisa and Jennifer. This was last year when we went on a girls-only road trip to FL, had the best time ever! If I had known about mug rugs then, there's no telling what I could have blackmailed them with!

New swaps to sneak a peek at, kitter cats and poached eggs, too!

2010-10-20T06:16:00.006-05:00

I haven't shown you too much of Gravey, she's not as photogenic as Nosey Parker and I never seem to have a camera handy when she's doing something cute. ! They are getting along really well, though, playing, sleeping, exploring, all together but separately sometimes, too.

I love these kind of shots, where she's puzzling over something, it's such a cute look!

We are very pleased at how NP has accepted her. They sleep slammed up against me and try to cook me every night. It's great when I'm first in bed and cold, but dang, they're hot little heaters! I wake up around 2 AM just melting.

I'm in the Mini QT swap again and this time the theme is "houses". I have a really fun partner, Fun and Comfort Quilts, a really talented lady named Karen, and she and I like the same kind of whimsical, fun stuff, fortunately! I can't show you much, but here is a peek at part of what will be in it. The whole thing is only 12" square, max. This is just a tiny part of that.

And I'm in the last placemat swap that Sarah is going to run. I did the last one, too, remember the beach houses on stilts? Well, this time, my partner, Julie, and I are doing liberated (wonky) placemats using Kaffe Fassett fabrics, which are the colored fabrics in this photo.

This is just a sneak of one side, I'm making the other side today.

It's going to be appliqued, I think.

I've done a few other things this last week, too, but I can't show you just yet. Mysterious, huh? Not a really big deal, though, it's nothing major, just a couple of surprises in the mail.

And I don't think I showed my new egg poachers- little silicon cups that float in boiling water, you cover it so they steam from the top, too and then you pop them out and voila! Poached eggs, aren't they cute?

Blurry shot, sorry, it's not your eyes! I like the little dome of egg that you get. I found the cups at Bed, Bath and Beyond, on sale for $6 for the set of 2. What a great price! We love poached eggs.

I received the most wonderful mug rug in our swap!

2010-10-10T08:01:00.003-05:00

I am so lucky! I received the most beautiful, involved, detailed mug rug from my friend Angela, Tweedledee Designs, the other day! Not only did she send me an outstanding mug rug, she also sent a stack of beautiful Hawaiian fabrics, 2 drink recipe cards trimmed with cute lime ribbon (I love limes, how did she know?) and a very sweet note. The girl has wonderful handwriting too, something no one will ever accuse me of. lol

Looks great, doesn't it? BUT WAIT, there's more to show you! See the orange striped towel on the left side? It has a secret! I love secrets!

There's a person in shorts, laying half under a multi-colored umbrella, with flip flops and abook, on a cute towel. Star fish and frothy bubbles at the beautiful waters edge. Another umbrella to his right and then one to his left. If you lift up the towel.....

...you'll see NOSEY PARKER!!!!! She would LOOOOOVE the beach! Biggest litter box in the whole world, if you asked her! Easy to dig in, pirate treasure to be exposed and brought home to Mommy, etc.... Seriously cute, isn't it?

And here it is with my new coffee mug- it says SUNSHINE all over it! How perfect is that for the beach? Angela did such a good job on this. Not just in the construction of it, but in the "what would she like, really like, that says I took the time to find out about you and then went that extra mile to make it for you so that you would feel really special?" THAT is what Angela did! And by so doing, she touched my heart and I'll never forget it! Thank you, sweetie, for making this first mug rug swap a HUGE success for me!

Adding my cat to it- sheer genius, if you ask me! I've gotten 3 things now that have NP included or featured and I will treasure them all forEVER!

I can't get over what nice friends I have. I am so lucky.

Pincushion Swap- what I made and sent....

2010-10-08T07:34:00.009-05:00

Here is the whole package that I sent to my friend Ruth in the Scrappy Pincushion Swap. I was so lucky to get her as my partner to make for because as soon I saw that I got her, I knew I was going to make something that had a Wizard of Oz theme to it. She is a big fan of Wizard of Oz and that made it so easy for me! The problem was in the sneak peeks- I could only show small bits of the house, I couldn't show the yellow brick road, or the legs or the witch's hat pin (it's on the back) or any of that dead-giveaway stuff! If Ruth had seen any of that, she's have KNOWN it was for her, as it was she seemed very confidant that she was getting it. (Of course, Ruth sparted darn near every quilt in the DQS9 round, too, so maybe she just likes everything!) LOL

Because I wanted to show it off a bit and also because it is so much fun teasing certain people, I enlisted the help of her "twin", QuiltinKimmie in a prank. Kimmie is a huge Oz fan, too, so this could work! I pretended to send the pincushion to Kimmie and I emailed her photos to post to her Flickrstream as if she had gotten it in the mail. Because Ruthie was a swap mama in that swap, I knew that she had access to info that would show that Kimmie and I shouldn't have been partnered up, so we had to get 2 of the swap mamas involved in our cover up and a few friends were in on the prank, too.

(Ruth took the following outstanding photos, after she actually got it.)

Ruthie fell for it- hook, line and sinker! Yay! While she didn't get as crabby as I had hoped, Kimmie assured me that that is just because Ruth is a fine, kind lady, not a big crybaby like me. lol

You can make out the top of the hat pin in this one....

Kimmie posted photos like this bad one below- decoy photos to make Ruth think that she wasn't getting this pincushion and we hoped that she would be jealous and pouty. :) I even wrote a card to Kimmie, so it would look really authentic and on the up-and-up. *snork* The black and red fabrics weren't actually part of the swap, they just look like something Kimmie would have gotten from a real partner. So, on Saturday Kimmie posted that she rec'd all this. On Monday, it actually showed up at Ruth's house, 2 days before her birthday, she was 29. Again. :) So Ruth really only "suffered" for 48 hours.

The pincushion sits in a green oatmeal glass custard cup and all the felt is wool. The yellow brick road is embroidered and everything is handstitched. I made the witch's legs by taking skinny chenille stems and wrapping them with embroidery floss, red for the shoes and black/white for the stockings. Then I dipped the shoes in white glue and red glitter, let that dry and then varnished them so the glitter wouldn't ever come off. By indenting the base of the pincushion with a needle and thread in the middle, it made the perfect place for the legs to nestle in. The pins were made with plastic beads and I thought they added a bit of Munchkinland weirdness to it. The little bushes are unraveled perle cotton and fray check, on a pin. For a size reference, the posts holding up the porch are toothpicks, cut way down.

I also made her a Dorothy faerie and sent her a pink chair pincushion that I had made a long time ago. Ruth was making something similar and I wanted her to see this style, too.

This was a fun pincushion to make because I knew my partner would appreciate it and love it, it's just so HER. And big thanks to Kimmie for all her help in pranking Ruth, she sold the story like a professional actress!

Cats, dogs, pincushion swap- fun and games at the zoo!

2010-09-26T05:44:00.007-05:00

The cats and kitten are settling in. Nosey Parker is enjoying playing with Gravey, mostly in the morning and then right before bedtime. They get pretty wound up! The baby is putting on weight and seems very happy here. She gets to go outside for about an hour every afternoon and I follow her around to keep tabs on her. She needs to learn where she lives, how to get in, how to climb a tree, etc. I hate this part, but there's no way to keep a cat in all the time here, with us opening the doors a thousand times a day for the dogs. So she needs to wise up, as much as I hate it.

Yesterday, she and NP chased a green walnut around on the driveway until they were both exhausted.

After playtime is over- a nap is a must. And it's usually right where I need to be at the time, too.

Somebody figured out that the safety net is great for playing and napping in. She feels so funny, all waffled up like that.

Beeswax would just like to pretend that this is all a bad dream. lol He doesn't like his routine altered at all. But he fits great in the rolly-ball toy!

Quigley, the puppy, is driving me insane. She has no manners and Jim has had company for several days and she's acting out. I had to take her down to the floor yesterday to calm her, she was shrieking and leaping about like an insane dog and was just out of control. She spends a lot of time on her 2 back legs, standing up and leaping on people, I hate that. I did that Alpha dog thing on her and it helped for a bit, may need to do it a few more times, though. She has the attention span of a gnat, unless there's food involved and then she's very determined and obnoxious.

I'm hoping that Jim can drum some manners into her during the next week, I'm heading to TX to visit a friend and he will be in total charge of the zoo.

Swap-wise- I received a lovely pincushion with a bonus mug rug and fabric and thread and Chenille It from my friend, Nannette/Nanotchka over at Flickr. What a great swap! She made me a mug rug kind of by accident, lol, and then decided to make me the pincushion to match. I just love all of it, the fish pincushion has a 3D fin that is actually a needle case! VERY COOL! Thank you so much, Nannette! I love it all and really appreciate it. She also made me a card with a bird on it, this is such a keeper of a card!

Next post I'll show you what I sent my pincushion partner. :) She's already gotten it and seems to like it.

More madness, how much more can we stand? lol

2010-09-17T16:55:00.005-05:00

So 2 weeks ago he brings home Quigley, the yellow lab pup. One week later she was spayed and 2 shotgun pellets were removed. While we were at the vet's picking Q back up, I spotted a calico kitten in a pen, needing a home. Well, 8 years ago, nearly to the day, we had our calico, Tess, put to sleep. We loved that cranky girl! This little girl was so sweet and affectionate and darling, I fell in love with her, too. Mr. Meany said "NO, no way, no how, we don't need a 5th cat!" Oh, fine. He can find and bring home big ass dogs, but I can't have a puny little kitten that was abandoned and found in a cemetery? No fair! I groused about it all weekend but then I got over it and resigned myself to dealing with the current chaos.

Quigley's stitches didn't look so great on Tuedsay morning, so he took her in while I took a nap, I'd been up since 3 AM because of HIS new dog and her licking and carrying on. Grrr. I slept from 7 until nearly 10, got up, had some cold coffee and then he got home. When I asked him what they said at the vet he said they had said congratulations. HUH? For what? And he turned around and opened his jacket. "Congrats, you're a new mom!" lol

Holy cow, that's the last thing I expected! I was stunned. This is his MO, though, I should learn it. Last year I wanted Nosey Parker and he said no until he spent some time in the waiting room with her a few days later. Boom, we had a little white kitten! Same thing this time- he said no and then relented. What a nice man I'm married to!

Isn't she precious? Since she was found in a cemetery, we named her Gravey. lol A friend of mine thought that up, she who shall be called "Auntie Jodi" from here on out.

Looking out the window, it's a big scary world out there! I love the little chubby phase she's in right now.

Playing in the busted basket. What a flirt!

"Lady? You're not gonna make me wear that collar thing are ya?" (She doesn't really know me as Mom, yet.)

It's like "Where's Waldo?" only different- in her cat bed.

We're having lots of fun with her. Nosey Parker is actually handling this a lot better than I thought she would, they play together upstairs and you would think there was a herd of wild buffalo up there, the way they run and crash and make all sorts of noise! The other 3 cats, all boys, are withholding judgement for now, but I think one will come around and the other 2 will disregard her entirely.

So, it's officially nuts around here, but we're getting lots of laughs out of it. :) And Quigley is healing nicely now and learning the ways of our schedules and settling in. Still a little too crazy and exuberant, though, but what can I expect, she's a pup. A big 40 pound pup. lol

The new kid on the block.....

2010-09-03T17:26:00.005-05:00

Here she is- the still unnamed new dog- we thought we had one picked out but more I thought about it, I didn't like it. I'm usually the namer in this house, but since he thinks she'll be his buddy and ride in his truck whereever he goes, I was going to let him pick it. Changed my mind about that after he picked "Bristol". I just don't like it, it's too hard sounding of a word, not pretty or fun and I don't know what else we could call her for short. I'm lobbying for "Quigley". I'd settle for Chutney. lol Calypso and Cornelia and Fiona are also in the running.

"Lady? You want for me to stick my nose on that shiny bit for you? It's clean, I just licked it!"

She weighed 35 pounds at the vet's office.

She does know how to sit. She just doesn't always DO it when you want her to. Kids. Hmmmph.

This is my favorite photo of her, she's asleep, thank goodness. This morning she was so overly excited, she was going berserk! Gates don't even slow her down, she jumps better than Carl Lewis and Bruce Jenner put together. I had to shove her outside to chill. (It WAS chilly, too, yay, we finally got some rain and a cool front, hallelujah!)

I went to town today, it was good to get away from the bedlam. The other dogs were bummed about her, Shanzie wasn't even worried about the big storm last night. She had bigger fish to fry. lol

The Scrappy Mug Rug Swap, on Flickr

2010-09-02T11:53:00.005-05:00

This is the little darlin' that started it all-

My new friend, Monika, who lives in Germany, posted a photo of this on the doll quilt swap group and started a firestorm! It was decided that a swap was in order and I was enlisted to run it. We had people from all over the world signing up to take part and we've closed the sign-ups now and have 127 people swapping mug rugs. They'll all get their partner info on Saturday. It's been very time-consuming and that's why I'm not blogging much, or visiting other blogs. Plus, I'm a swap mama in 2 other big swaps, one is winding down and the other is just starting, so there's a lot of initial stuff to do. Plus I have orders to fill AND Jim just came home with an abandoned dog, who needed a bath desperately and it looks like we're keeping her, dangit.

I don't need another dog, this will put us back up to 3 big dogs. God, I hate people who dump their animals. She's maybe 7 months old, part yellow lab and was covered with seed ticks, covered! And one flea. Grrrr. She's very sweet though, for a new girl. Acts submissive to the other dogs, which is smart. Gosh darn it. Just when we were getting used to having just the 2 big dogs, now these 2 are all crazed and acting like morons. The cats will freak out once they see her, we haven't let her in it because of all the ticks. They're dying though and falling off and being combed off, like crazy. She has a vet appt this afternoon for shots and a heartworm test, please let it be negative! And she needs a name. Photos later.

I did find time to make a practice mug rug for Jim, he likes it and so do I.

She's so corny!

2010-08-31T08:31:00.006-05:00

As I said earlier, I'm doing another mini-quilt swap with a book theme. My partner, Rachel, picked Harry Potter or the Narnia books for me to work from. After much deliberation, I decided on Harry Potter and the Flying Ford Anglia. The Whomping Willow is an integral part of the scene, too. It was fun to make and Rachel and her kids like it.

The label on the back is a lightning bolt, to go with the scar on Harry's forehead that he got as an infant. The scar that burns when Voldemort is nearby!

This is Nosey Parker being corny- cuddling up with my ear of corn pincushion, a gift from a friend. I had given her a book I no longer wanted, a book of fancy pincushions and I knew I'd never make any of them. This one was in the book and it was my favorite. She made me this as a thank you for the book! I love it. Apparently, so does NP! lol Makes a great little pillow.

Oh, and the doll quilt I made, the blue spiderweb? It made its way to Australia and is now living with its new owner, Kate, from One Flew Over...

Now I have to wait to see what I receive from a different partner! I kind of love the wait, it stretches the fun out longer. There are some beautiful things being made and shown every day and it's so exciting to see who gets what!

I WON a doll quilt!

2010-08-22T06:24:00.006-05:00

I don't win a lot of stuff, probably because if I see a giveaway that already has 400 people signed up, I don't bother, but sometimes I just have to join in! I got really lucky and won this little beauty, made by Carol, mamacjt, from Flickr. I am so tickled with it, it's just perfect and so cheery. I hung it in the stairwell going up to the craft room. Be sure to go to Carol's blog, she has so much talent and such a great sense of humor, it really shines thru in everything she makes. She is the resident Angel Mama for several swaps, which means she makes quilts and pincushions and all kinds of things to send to people who didn't get what they were supposed to get because their partner "flaked" on them and reneged on the deal. She is priceless and such a dear, kind friend to have and to have a piece of her in my house is a real treat! Thanks so much, Carol! I just love this pinwheel flower quilt, it's incredible!

Here it is hanging next to the placemat that I received from Sudi Laura. Looks good, hey?

I'm in another mini quilt swap, this month's theme is book-related. I can't reveal much yet, but this is a sneak peek of what I'm making for my partner, Rachel. She just happens to love green and purple. :) I should have it finished by tonight but can't show it to you until she's received it. She's supposed to be making me something from the book "Coraline". I've never actually read that book, but I LOVED the creepy movie!

My baby has gotten so big, she doesn't camouflage too well on her quilt anymore!

And this is what Nosey Parker's bite looks like now that it's healed. Temporary (we hope) hair loss. She's feeling great, though. The other day I was on the phone and looked out the laundry room window to see her about 10 feet up in the tulip tree. Next time I looked, there was no sign of her in or under the tree, which was good. I didn't think too much about it after that until an hour later when I went upstairs to find her up on the balcony, in 90º heat! Gleeps, she climbed the tulip tree about 20 feet up and crawled over as far as she could and then she must have jumped the rest of the way to the balcony, I'm so glad that I didn't see that! The branches that get close to the balcony are SMALL! Brittle, even. If she had fallen, it's at least 15 feet down to the ground and part of that is concrete driveway under the balcony. OMG. I hope she never does that again! She's such a daredevil. She does NOT get that from me!

Is an original idea even possible anymore?

2010-08-09T08:00:00.006-05:00

I was in my local quilt shop Saturday and they had some used quilting books for sale. I scored a great one for $4, called "Shoreline Quilts", compiled by Cyndy Rymer. $4, what a deal! Anyway, I'm in the shop, browsing thru the book before I realized the incredibly low price and what do I see? A beach quilt with a bottle with a message in it. *gasp* Hey, that's MY idea! I did it on a placemat for a swap a few months ago! I flip to the front of the book to see when it was published- 2003. Ooops. OK, so it wasn't my idea! In fact, my idea wasn't so clever after all, was it? Someone else did it years and years ago. Well, shoot! lol

Here's a shot of the one in the book-

And here's the one I did-

Pretty amazing, huh? I just don't want anyone to think that I copied this idea from the book and then claimed it as my own. I had not seen the book or those photos at the time I made my label in a bottle. Honest!

It's a great book, too, filled with unique ideas and uses of items in the quilts that I would have never (at least, I don't THINK, ever) thought of! :) Apparently, the local used book store saves up quilting books for the local quilt shop and gives them first crack at 'em. I (and you, if you quilt) need to start going to used book stores, the price was great on this one and the others I saw, too.

And there you have today's public service announcement. As you were!

The mini quilt swap, part 2!

2010-08-08T21:36:00.007-05:00

Remember I showed you the piece I made, the mermaid looking thru the porthole? That's what I sent to Liz, and then a few days later, I received this from her. She does the most incredible work and she totally nailed my likes.... pirates, 3D, the beach, fabric, color, cleverness, everything! And, as you can see, she sent more! A set of coasters, 2 magnetic bookmarks and a really sweet beachy card. Booty, mates, that is what I found when I opened up the chest, er, package!

The most fabulous Capt. Jack Sparrow, check out the beads in his hair, the key in his hand, the ship on the water.....

...standing on the beach, glaring at the treasure chest...

...which is full of bolts of FABRIC! Is that clever or what??? I was dying, I thought that was so funny and unique and just incredible! The entire quilt is done with the most beautiful batik fabrics, and so many different ones. I just love this quilt, and I adore Liz for making it for me. The cleverness continues.....

To hang the quilt- 2 precious little keys that peek out over the top, they are so in theme, such attention to detail!

On the back, a little map is folded up and held closed with a dear little lobster claw clasp. SO precious. Unfurled, it reveals all the details of our swap.

Details blurred to protect the info from falling into
other treasure seekers' hands!

Big, huge thanks to Liz for totally making my day and week, for spending so much of her time designing and constructing this most wonderous piece for me, a piece that I will treasure forever! Thanks, sweet lady! I love your sense of humor and attention to detail!

Nosey Parker 0, Copperhead 1.....

2010-08-02T10:05:00.005-05:00

It's that horrible time of year again- when it's so hot out that the snakes come out of wherever they normally lurk and bite my cats on their legs. Of course, the cat probably asked for it by dabbling at it like a toy, but I would still like to kill that bugger for hurting my baby. No, we didn't kill the snake but only because we never saw it. Our first clue was NP crying in the laundry room, near the door she uses to come and go. Blood was dripping off her right front leg and she was in so much pain. We first thought broken leg, then we found fang holes. Chit! This was about 1 PM.

From previous experience and vet recommendation, we gave her about half of a benadryl (mixed with water, in a syringe, by mouth) and hoped she would sleep the worst of it off. She didn't sleep for a long time, but finally she conked out, getting up about every hour to seek a new spot- under our bed, under the guest bed, by the balcony door, up on my work table, on a dog bed- she was very restless.

The swelling got worse after this photo, but I didn't want to stress her by taking more photos. Her paw got so big, I was worried, it got really fat and thick then it started going up her leg, but it peaked and finally started to come down. She was a little better by bed time, drinking water and ate a bit.

This morning, she is taking it real easy, up on my desk on top of a bunch of fabric that is waiting to be washed. Her daddy went to the vet's office to pick up antibiotics (liquid, won't this be FUN?) and to get Paisley's ashes. I feel another cry coming on. Nosey Parker is going to be OK, thank goodness. We were so worried because we weren't sure what kind of snake it was, we're lucky it was only a copperhead. I doubt that she's learned anything though, because the other cats never did. If it moves, it's fair game, as far as they're concerned. Beez has been bitten at least twice and Freddie Wheat, twice also.

I hate $%*&ing poisonous snakes, I'll tell ya that. I sure wish we didn't have any here. Baskets!

On a lighter note, I got the first hexie top assembled. I like it! My points cooperated really well, I only chopped the tip off of a couple of them and because I pinned the snot of it when I sewed the rows together, they all lined nicely. A couple of the edges are a little bit full, I'll have to beat it into submission when I quilt it, but I think it's going to be a great little lap quilt. I need some backing material, though. It measures about 46" x 54" or something like that.

I have another one the same size and shape to do, next. I'm a little sick of doing it, but I'm forcing myself. I have too many unfinished quilts right now, I don't need another!

A mini quilt swap....

2010-07-30T07:21:00.006-05:00

I made this for a new friend in Canada, Liz. We are both in the Mini QT swap at Flickr and were partnered up for the month of July in the beach/underwater catagory. It was a great match-up- we have a lot in common and like so many of the very same things. She received it yesterday so I can post photos of it now. And she likes it, yay, that's always nice!

It's a mermaid looking thru the imaginary porthole on a submarine. :) Just imagine the shock the submariners would be in if they saw this for real! Hence the ship name- USS Mirage. My husband, the sailor, needed to remind me that REAL subs don't have portholes. Well, duh! (OK, I didn't really know that, but I pretended I did.) lol I sewed the bottom half of way too many snaps onto the circle to imitate hardware and then I snapped the top part onto them, so the stitching is hidden pretty much.

Close up of her face. I used Kaffe Fassett fabrics for her hair and shell-top, they just seemed so perfect with the coloring and pattern in them. I used some eyelash yarn for her seaweed headband and stitched some seed beads onto it for a bit of glitz. Also, some beaded bracelets for that fun 3D effect. She's wearing a shell top because she's going to a home with a teenage boy in it. :) I didn't want her to get ogled or cause any problems.

I had this fish fabric and just loved it so I used it for the back. I failed to consider how the binding would look with it, though! Ugh. Oh, well. At least the front looks good. I'm pretty sure this is the first round quiltie I've ever done.... it was fun. It's an original design and you'd believe that if you saw my trash basket full of rejected sketches!

Now, I wait for what Liz has made for me, I'm so excited. This week has been so fun between receiving fabulous things and sending things out to be received. I'm loving these swaps and we are keeping the post office solvent, I'm sure of it!

Yesterday was a fun day..... and thank you all....

2010-07-27T15:13:00.009-05:00

Let me start first by saying thank you to everyone for all the sweet

condolences on the loss of our dog, Paisley. It's been a week now and
we're getting used to the fact that she's gone but it still feels weird
without her in our lives. It was so kind of you all to respond and offer your sympathies, I tried to thank you all personally but wasn't able
to for some of the anon or "no-reply" peeps.
Please just know that I appreciated every single one of them.

Now, to yesterday- the mail lady brought 2 packages to the house! One was a quilt book I had ordered thru Ebay, saving over $10, which I liked. It's "Greetings from Tucsadelphia" by Lizzie B. Cre8tive. It's got lots of fun applique patterns in it and even a recipe or 2. But the other box- well, let's just say "WOWEE WOW WOW", shall we? It came all the way from Buenos Aires, Argentina from a friend named Sandy. I didn't know it, but she had my name in a scrappy pincushion swap over at Flickr! I made and sent the turtle, remember? I thought that was cute. Sandy taught me all about CUTE with a capital C!

This is what I found when I opened the biggest package in the box- a little white cat in a pink bikini and a rainbow colored pincushion with a velcro dot in the middle. Interesting, yes? Wonder what that velcro is for?

OH! It's to attach it to the next largest piece in the box, turned out to be a tree trunk on a piece of sand!

Now, tell the truth- is this not the cutest thing EVER????? Sandy made me a little miniature Nosey Parker Goes to Florida pincushion set! It's a rainbow palm tree on a bit of beach! Un-freakin'-believable. She even has her own little towel which doubles as a needle case. Sandy made this up all on her own, she had no pattern and she had to work it out so that it was sturdy and would support the tree top and built it an underwire frame and everything. This was no easy feat! I am so totally impressed. And grateful!

She also sent me some fabulous Kaffe Fassett fabric, 3D rainbow stickers and a lovely handmade, custom card with a long hand-written note about how this came to fruition. You wouldn't believe how giddy and happy I was- I needed this morale boost- it showed me what a lovely friend Sandy is to me and what a kind and dear lady she must be, to go to all this trouble for me! AND- I got what has to be the best pincushion in the entire swap.

For size perspective, you can see the real NP checking out her newest competition. The little fabric NP is quite tiny and so dear! I just love this and keep pinching myself because it's so dreamy. I love things with pieces parts, I adore things that are rainbow colored and I love all things tropical. And of course, I love Nosey Parker to bits, so you tie them all together into one package and I damn near fainted!

I tried to stay busy last week, to distract myself and I ended up finishing 2 little quilts.

No bees, no honey..... No work, no money..... that's a saying from somewhere, don't know where, but I like it. :) It's also the name of this little quilt.

It measures about 12" square and is for me and the other one, below, is for the Doll Quilt Swap. It's about 24" x 16". It's called a spiderweb quilt.

The recipient's name is blocked out so she can't accidentally find out that it's for her before it arrives in her mailbox in about another month.

And what's a spiderweb quilt without a spider? :) Don't freak, it's rubber and squishy and fun to squeeze. This spider is my friend, he eats scary snakes!

I also finished up 9 more sewing caddies and they're all in my Etsy shop. And I made 9 cat collars, but that was no big deal. Murphy and Parker both lost one this week, those rotten kids.

So this week has been better than last week. Thank you all again, very much, for the kindness you've shown me.

Paisley.... we won the lottery when we got her...

2010-07-22T08:15:00.006-05:00

For the last 14 years, we've been lucky enough to have a sweet collie girl named Paisley Maree. She came to us at the ripe old age of 3 months when her previous owners decided to have her put to sleep because she had a problem with fleas and mange and they didn't want to bother with her. Their loss was our gain. The vet was a friend of ours and was at our house when that call came in, to have her put down. She immediately offered her to us and we jumped at the chance. I mean, who doesn't love a collie, or the thought of having one? Turns out, collies are the NICEST dogs. And Paisley, who had every reason in the world to be miserable (infection raging, pustules flaring, sores weeping, and many flea bites, etc) was the happiest little puppy with the most tremendous spirit. She looked positively gruesome but we didn't care, we fell in love with this pup at our first meeting. All she wanted was to cuddle and play and scamper. So undemanding, she would take a nap where ever she was and that pink chair was a favorite spot, she would stick her head under there and snooze.

The vet convinced us that her face would eventually grow hair (they later admitted that they didn't really know that for sure but were hopeful) and we treated her mange with a daily dose of Interceptor, a once-a-month heartworm pill. It was sort of an expensive experimental treatment, not one recommended by the AVMA, or whatever it's called, but it darn sure worked. About 60 pills later, she was clean of mange mites.

She grew up to be just like she was as a pup, happy, fun and calm, but quirky. She would go for a walk (before we had a fence) and always come home toting something, either she'd find an old bottle in the woods or tree branch, a long deer or cow bone, something, it was a riot.

Paisley and I were really close, she wouldn't leave my side when I was sick in bed for a week, many years ago, and she continued to show that same kind of devotion for her whole life.

She and the other dogs had a game of stealing Daddy's hats. She didn't much like to wear them, though. :) Camo was not her color.

She was a real beauty, in our eyes.

Paisley had a few other problems, but nothing we couldn't deal with. She never lost her appetite, meals were a favorite time of day for her.

Monday, July 19, 2010 she had to be put to sleep. Her sweet heart was failing her and she couldn't get enough oxygen in her blood, she was constantly panting hard and no matter what we tried, it was getting worse. She was exhausted, she had given all she had to stay with us and it about killed us to make that final trip to the vet's office. We had her for just over 14 years and it was not enough. I miss my sweet girl but I'm glad she's not suffering anymore. The house feels so quiet and empty and I just hate this. My husband is so good to me, with the extra hugs and pats and kisses. He misses her too, he was the best daddy that girl could have wished for.

We'll miss you forever, Sweet Pea.

It's been a busy week, lots of sewing projects finished!

2010-07-08T21:37:00.007-05:00

I've been sewing a lot this week. I was in a pincushion swap and I decided to sweeten the pot a bit by making a few extra shells for the turtle. I particularly like the Carmen Miranda/fruity one! It's on its way to somewhere, I think my partner will like her.

I finished the mermaids and all the pineapple drinks, too and got them all mailed out for beach/underwater July/Aug 3.5" mini block swap. Sorry about the blurry photo, but you get the drift, right?

I got all the blocks done for the DQS9 doll quilt, I still have to put them together and then quilt it, but the hardest part is done, I think.

And I made 4 little eyeglass purses for a friend, she keeps her reading glasses in them and hangs them around her neck. She needed one black one for dressy occasions and then some fun bright ones to wear to work. I got those done today.

And, for another swap, a "flat pet" that can be taken out and about and photographed in fun places.... I made a flamingo (no!) and have it ready to mail off to parts unknown (to you, I know where she's going). I have one other swap to fulfill and then I'm done for a while, phew!

The feet are made from over-sized, enormous chenille stems, aren't they wild?! She looked pretty cute on our verandah, it's going to be hard to send her away!

That's what I've been up to! What about you?

Fair warning- removing a tutorial....

2010-07-04T08:16:00.003-05:00

In about 3 days, I'm going to delete my tutorial for the sewing organizer/travel caddy. I've had shops asking for a pattern and I feel like if I'm going to be selling them, I should take away the free one in order to avoid possible confrontations in the future.

So if you haven't gotten to it yet, you might want to get all the info and measurements now, because by about Wednesday, the 7th, it's going to disappear. Sorry for any inconvenience, but I don't see any real way around this.

Thanks for understanding!

I finally got off my duff.....

2010-06-26T17:41:00.005-05:00

and made up some patterns for a couple of my sewing organizers and caddies. What prompted this was a phone call from a woman with an English accent named Jennifer, who lives not too far away and has run her own business for many years, a pattern and sewing accessory business, selling patterns and items all over the country and she was picked up by Butterick for some of her things. She is the nicest lady and was very generous in her praise and admiration of my work. I've known about her for a long time, I would see her things in local craft malls and at some local shows. I didn't realize she was so nice, though. :)

At the end of our conversation, she commented one more time on my work and said "you know, your work is so good, you could almost be British." lol That really cracked me up, because as some of you know, I'm what some of my friends refer to as a "Half-Brit". My mum was born and raised in London. So, Jennifer and I had a good laugh about that. It was a very enjoyable phone call.

Anyway, she wanted to order some patterns and some finished product, so I finished writing the pattern and had some printed up the other day. Ordered some zip locks and stuffed them this morning and now they are for sale in my Etsy shop. *shameless self-promotion* For now, the sewing tutorial is still available here on the blog for the travel caddy, but I may be taking it down soon as I can probably make some much needed income from selling the pattern. I'm not looking forward to an unhappy email from someone who bought the pattern and then found out she could have made up her own with a little extra trouble and effort and saved the $9. If any of you have any thoughts about that, I'd appreciate hearing them.

And Nosey Parker was SO helpful this morning as I was folding patterns up. She wanted in on the action and had a wash right where I could supervise her supervising of me.

She's so stinkin' cute, we can't hardly stand it. :)

Doll Quilt Possibilities....

2010-06-23T21:29:00.003-05:00

After a lot of sleuthing and snooping and prowling around, I think this is my plan for a small quilt for my partner. It's called a Spiderweb quilt and I've never made one before. I have great expectations, though and hopefully will be able to start it soon. I have until the end of August to get it done, so it shouldn't be a problem.

These are the fabrics I'm planning to use, along with some solid white.

Hopefully she'll like it! I think it'll end up being about 24" long and 16" wide. I feel a little better for having a plan, I must say. And it was a tough decision but I can't tell you why just yet, in case she's peeking in. :)

And this is what I did this week while Jim was in CO, along with some sewing and making tiny 3.5" quilt blocks for a swap.

This is a before shot- and it was crammed even more full than this photo shows- I've done a little too much fabric shopping this year. *gulp* I was having to move entire stacks to get to the color stacked behind it and it was very inconvenient. So I refolded everything....

And this is what it looks like today!

I think this will be easier for me to deal with. I don't like the look quite as much, but function is very important and it's easier to slide a certain fabric out without disturbing the rest of the pile.

I'm in a beach swap where we all make a dozen or so little 3.5" blocks and mail them off. This month's theme is beach/underwater. I made these little pineapple drinks and also some mermaids, which I'll show you later. I love how these came out!

No Nosey Parker photos today, sorry! Please don't hurt me! :)

A couple of cool cats....

2010-06-21T16:24:00.006-05:00

First, we had a bit of company last week, our friend Patrick drove up on his way to Colorado and spent the night. We put him to work dicing onions to go into the buffalo burgers and he said he wouldn't mind wearing my pinnie. Looks pretty good on him, too, wouldn't you say? He's a fun guy and keeps us laughing most of the time.

The next day, he and Jim drove off into the sunrise together but in separate trucks, to head the rest of way to CO, talking to each on hand-helds. After helping Patrick unload a truck full of furniture, Jim intended to catch a mess of big trout. So he's having a fishing vacation and getting to spend time with his buddy, so he's happy.

The next night, as I was lying in bed reading, I saw something just horrible- Beeswax's neck was bright reddish-pink and it just freaked me out, I was sure it was blood. Then I remembered he was wearing a hot pink collar and had gotten caught in a severe rainstorm earlier! Phew! His collar was bleeding, not him! My boy was OK. Scared me, though!

Nosey Parker evidently really misses her Daddy because she has been glued to me all night, every night. Sleeping curled up in my arms, on my stomach, cooking me until I'm sure I'm going to explode, making bread on my wrists and palms until they're a prickled mess, gosh, I just love it! My baby..... she's so stinking sweet when she's asleep!

Up on the fabric hutch, which is usually covered with a white towel....

The Doll Quilt Swap is up and running again!

2010-06-19T17:09:00.004-05:00

This is the new hot spot in our house- my friend Jennifer gave me 2 towels when we were at her house a couple of weeks ago. The cats have all commandeered them! They are really soft and squishy, the towels, I mean... well, the cats are too, but I'm talking towels now....and they just all take turns lying around on them. This is Beeswax and Murphy, the brothers, on the lime green froggy towel. I just love these big boys! Parker likes to lay on it or under it in the late evening, before bedtime.

Last Sunday the participants of DQS9 were notified (something like 200 of them!) by their swap mamas and given the name of the person they would be creating a little treasure for. This was an eagerly awaited notification, we were all chomping at the bit, even the mamas, because they are making for someone also.

To get to that point, though, first the mamas are assigned their group and then they have to investigate each and every person by prowling through their Flickr photostream and their blog, if they have one and also the photo mosaic and/or photo favorites or gallery of inspirational quilts that they have marked. Notes are made on each person in various catagories and then match ups can begin. After that's all settled, emails are composed and ready to go when the time comes and all the "bebes" are notified at about the same time.

Then THEY get to investigate their partner that they are sewing for and come up with plan for a little quilt. Sketches are posted, fabric selections are photographed, discussions ensue from the serious to the bawdy, and a good time is by all. Well, by all who participated in it. There are still some very quiet quilters that don't say much and that's kind of a shame for their partners because any kind of feedback is better than no feedback at all. If I had my way, every single person would devote 15 minutes a day to commenting on other people's photos and ideas. Not only will make those people feel good, it's also inspiring and fun to see all the great ideas and colors and fabrics.

It's early days, though, it's only been a week, but I've already seen one finished quilt and a lot of great ideas posted. We have until the end of August to make them, so I'm hoping to get inspired soon and find just the right thing to make for my partner. I don't know what it'll be yet, but I do know this- this is the most fun swap I've ever been in, it's well run and very organized and the people who take part in it are extremely talented and fun and witty. I'm so pleased to be in it again for the 2nd time.

Amanita meets a fellow....

2010-06-17T17:35:00.007-05:00

I'm participating in a pincushion swap and this is what I chose to make for my secret partner. I used a pattern by Heather Bailey. My husband named her Amanita Muscaria, after a poisonous mushroom. I hope my partnerperson likes her and gives her a good home. She's a little shy and doesn't make new friends easily, as evidenced by a recent incident in our woods.

Amanita stumbled across a funny little man while out exercising- The Blueberry Man. He was a little startled and scampered up a tree to get to a safe place where the veggie-saurus couldn't get to him.

The view was good from up there, though.

It took a little smooth talking, but he eventually came down and made friends with Amanita.

And they lived happily ever after, until The Blueberry Man's head shriveled up and fell off. Then she ditched him for some younger stud. The End.

(I bought gallons of blueberries today, and when I spotted this one with the 2 eyes, I knew I had to take advantage of it. Pretty cool, huh, the alien eyes?)

Family visits and a couple of photos....

2010-06-15T13:04:00.003-05:00

Both of my brothers descended upon northwest Arkansas last week to visit us and the parents. Steve and his wife, Nelly, stayed with us and John stayed at the parents' house. We had a great time together even though I didn't get to see them all that much except in the mornings. Of all times, my boss called me to work a couple of days during that time.

Mum wanted a photo of the 3 kids, so we obliged her after a nice dinner on our verandah.

Steve, me, John
54, 53, 55

Steve, John, Pops

Steve and Nelly

Nelly is a lovely lady and we just love her to bits. While she was here, I foisted a set of dinnerware on her, my Pfaltzgraf Naturewood dinnerware that we just never used, service for 8, lots of pieces. I boxed it all up and we crammed it into their car when they left to drive back to FL. Phew! I have room in my cupboards again! Yay. lol

And we took the opportunity to get a photo of the 2 of us, too, it's a little dark because it's under a roof, like the others, but it'll do.

If you're curious, the little house in the background is our pump house, it covers the well and keeps it from freezing in the winter.

It was great to see everyone, it's been at least 2 years since we were all together like this. I know the parents enjoyed it immensely!

I won a giveaway a while back....

2010-06-05T15:41:00.002-05:00

...from Jodie, at RicRac....... And boy, did she send me loot! She sent me a bunch of new patterns which I have been lusting over and waiting for her to come out with, like Ernst and Pebble, the adorable turtles featured in her blog a few months back. And trio of adorable softies with their own carrying case/house, and bag pattern and zipper-mouthed monsters, I can see those coming in REAL handy on a trying day! My mother was always telling me to zip my lip, but I think unzipping it would be much more fun!

Also, Jodie sent me things that I can stitch my own pithy comments on, if I'm feeling really bratty! And 2 adorable pins and some genuine Australian fabric, too, a very sweet rose fabric, I just love it all! It all came with a really sweet note, too, with her superhero monkey on the front, what a hoot! How exciting to come home from vacation and find this huge envelope on the table waiting for me, from Australia! I just love the internet, I'm making the coolest friends. Jodie is super talented and still so very humble, it's just a pleasure to read her blog and see what she's making and sharing.

Thanks, Jodie! You made my day for me, at least twice already! You're super and I hope you keep on doing what you're doing, you're on a roll, lady!