Bizbee- more photos- and one bitty block.....

 This is what I love about kitten-hood- the sheer cuteness of it all!  Look at that tum-tum, wouldja?  Do you want to smooch it?  I do! 

 And the kid looks pretty darn good on a quilt, too! 

 He was glued to his daddy today, every time I looked, he had Jim pinned down.

 Talking to his sister this morning..... "you talk, I'll wash!"

 And I'm sure I'll hear this later- "MOOOOooo...M!  Our food tastes funny!"  lol

 Beeswax is trying to ignore all of it.  :)  He's my handsome man.

 Our clematis was spectacular this year, and Nosey Parker sets it off nicely!

 Big drink from the birdbath.  She is adjusting nicely to the baby, I think she likes having someone active to play with.  They chase each other a lot.  Gravey is a little harder to convince, but she's getting there.  No bloodshed anyway!  Just a little growling, but a lot of curiousity.

 And I only joined one group swap this month for bitty blocks- the theme was Asian, and I made koi. 

I made these 2 bitty blocks for the bee I'm in- Krista requested vessels...

 I modeled the carafe after my favorite one that we use for iced tea, all the time.

 

 I hope everyone is having a nice weekend!  We are having gorgeous weather, open windows, blankets at night, woo!

Back from vacation in TX..... Pincushion swap received!

 I received my pincushion package the other day, it was chock full of goodies from my partner Carol,aka mamacjt at Flickr!  Look at all this loot!  2 fabulous pincushions- a big prince of a frog named Frank and a beautiful wristlet flower pincushion along with some decorative pins that look like cakes and desserts. Also, a box of Jelly Bellies that are drink flavored, and a bunch of prom queen stuff, since Carol was worried that I felt left out because I never went to an actual prom.  Aw, isn't she sweet?  She even wrote a fairy tale about it.  She sent me a Prom Queen sash and a tiara, cool! And of course, the Prom King, Frank.  LOL  The Fairy Tale is a hoot to read and it's very clever.  It incorporates the names of so many Flickr friends, it's just wonderful.

Frank is a chunky fellow, he has a wonderful feel to him and he's gigantic!

Thanks so much for being a fun swap partner, Carol!

Now on to vacation stuff-

(to see this better, click on the link below)

While in TX, my friends took me to a fun quilt shop called The Nimble Thimble, in Tyler.  As I was waiting to have some fabric cut, a lady came in with a really pretty quilt top that she had made for her granddaughter.  This is the pattern she started with, above.   It's called the  "You Are Everything" quilt and it's from Lizzie B Cre8tive.  We all just loved it- my friends came over to see what was going on- one was reading a book on her iPad and the other had her Kindle Fire, they don't sew or quilt, but they enable me to buy more fabric and patterns by cheerfully driving me there, coming inside, carrying bolts, offering suggestions, etc.  I just love those 2 ladies!  Lisa and Jennifer, you rock!

Anyway, the lady needed a backing and binding and I'm happy to say that we all got to be involved in that process and I think we guided her nicely.  :)  She really appreciated the help.  And when we saw her block in the bottom corner that had a red pig and said "the sooey to my Razorback", that struck up a whole new conversation because her granddaughter and I both live in Arkansas.  So this quilt can be personalized!  I want to make a sarcastic one, with things like "you are the thorn in my side" or "the pain in my ass", "the shark in my ocean", "the salt in my wound", "the knife in my back", etc.  LOL  Hey, I could make it for my Flickr buddy Kimmie! 

I had a wonderful time in TX at my friends Jennifer and Charles' house.  Our friend Lisa came up, too, from southern Louisiana with her little puppy, Charlie and he was just a delight.  He really entertained us and made us laugh even more than we already would.  He was so full of beans and he was FAST, running in circles, digging in some freshly turned dirt, getting filthy in the process.  Turned out, some fish carcasses had been buried in that garden and he was on the hunt for fish bones.  When told, my husband said he had a future as a cadaver dog!  lol  That was so funny.  Charlie is a terrier of some sort and weighs about 10 pounds.  I can just picture him working next to the big dogs!

Now I'm home and on a crusade to clean our house, it really needs a thorough deep-cleaning as we have company coming soon and we also need it just because I'm tired of looking anywhere in the house and seeing a mess.  So I'll be busy doing that, until I can't stand it anymore.  This is what I get for going and staying in immaculate houses!  

We went to our friends Blakeley and Sylvia's Open House at their shop, Wilson & Wilson Folk Art Co. in Eureka Springs a couple of weeks ago, and we got these 2 wonderful blackbirds!  They look great on our mantle along with all their other animals.  I just love their work!  These are an early birthday present from my sweet husband.  We got a cardinal last year that is to die for.

 And these are the pincushions I made for our swap- a trash can with a removable lid and storage inside, and a "cardboard" box for pins.  Inside the lid is a removable tape measure.  The trash can is my own pattern, I made it up as I went along.  It's made from felted wool and Timtex.  The box is cotton fabric, stuffed with ground walnut shells.

 I also made the snail from a Vanilla House pattern and shrunk it way down to be pincushion size.  Partner liked the trash can more, though, so I get to keep the snail! 

Our clematis (2 plants) is blooming wonderfully this year!

Have a great weekend everybody!  Thanks for plowing thru all the photos, I should blog more often and make these posts shorter, sorry about that.  I just never feel like I have much to say so I put it off until I suddenly have too much!

Spring Mug Rug time! And NP's evil twin sister makes an appearance!

It's time for Spring Mug Rugs!  Here, the early bird is hoping to catch a little worm.  Eeeek! 

The artwork is from a rubber stamp from rubberhedgehog.  This company makes great rubber stamps!

I changed the hat to a beanie.

 Spring really IS here, though and it's early, too, just like that bird.  Our redbuds are just lovely, there's a hill that runs all along the back of our house and keeps going, and the redbuds are plentiful there.  This is taken from my balcony- looking down into the redbuds, thru the tulip tree, is even more beautiful than viewing them from below.

A red and aqua mug rug with a clock that wants to wake you up to the fact that 

Spring is almost HERE!  Yay!

And the good Nosey Parker modeled for a mug rug, sniffing on some tulips!

 Her evil twin is a tad cranky that Daddy is messing with her during her nap.  She looks mean, doesn't she?  Good thing she's a lightweight, small cat!

 The ears are a clear warning! "Don't touch me with that thumb again, Mister!" 

He did.  LOL

I hope you're having a pretty spring, too!  We sat out in the sun for an hour yesterday, it felt great, but the mud-daubers are just awful right now.  I'm so glad they aren't aggressive.

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

 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!  :)

Has anyone seen a purple...........

...collar? Murphy has lost his 3rd collar this week.... 2 were red with flowers all over them (maybe he lost them on purpose?) and one was a beautiful purple one. I decided since it was nice out to go for a meander and see if I could find any of them in his usual spots (which means places I've found lost collars before.) This is a matching one on Beeswax's neck. He really looks the best in the purple, but Murphy was looking naked and I had an extra purple one handy. Normally Murphy wears royal blue, to go with his little crossed eyes. I put on my favorite gray hoodie and went out into the windy day.

So I think- this should be easy, hot purple, piece of cake, it'll jump right out at me!

Yeah. Not THIS week!

.

The redbuds are blooming and starting to drop.

The view is soooo purple.

Under the forsythia bush is a popular tussling spot for the boys, I've probably found 10 collars under that before, one at a time. See the redbuds peeking out from behind? Those are 40 yards away, probably.

The lilacs are blooming, too. Gosh, they smell so good.

Grape hyacinths are everywhere! A hundred times yesterday I thought I spotted the missing purple collar, but no..... it was another cluster of Grape Hyacinths. I think the squirrels are moving them around when we aren't looking, because for sure WE didn't plant them in all those odd-ball places!

We also have wild violets, best year ever, must be because of all the rain we've had. You have to watch where you walk because it would feel too mean to step on them!

I guess we'll just have to keep looking for the elusive missing collars.

Don't you just LOVE springtime? I know we do. Even if we can't find diddly this time of year. lol