It can happen in an instant!

One minute you're minding your own business and the next- BANG! You're a victim of a drive-by!

I'm working a new quilt, or what may become 2 quilts- hexagons. This is another quilt-along over at Flickr, at the Old Red Barn Company group. This one is being taught by Julie at jaybird quilts. I decided to do a stash-busting one using fabrics I had on hand, so I thought a black/white with brights sounded good and summery.

Due to the nature of these triangles, half are predominantly black/white and the other half are mostly a bright fabric. They don't mix well with this layout that I've chosen, so I will probably make 2 different quilts, one like this, mostly black and white with little bits of color, above.....

......and another like this one, mostly brights with little bits of black/white.

I was having a great time making up more triangles and working them into each layout, when suddenly- the beast came from out of nowhere and plundered the layouts. Ack! Then she came back to admire her handiwork.


It was exhausting work, too.

A nap on the fabric hutch (where all good things come from) was in order. Oh, a life of crime- it'll flat wear a girl out!

It's been a good week! OK, a great week!

First, I had to renew my driver's license and since I was driving past the place AND had fixed my hair that morning (something I only do if I going to more than just the post office or grocery store) I decided that it would be a good time to get it over with. Usually it's not a fun experience, the women there are overworked and underloved and never hardly crack a smile, so sitting there grinning like a loon at the "look here" sign is hard to do. Well, I lucked out- the place was nearly empty and they had to time to goof around. Not only did we get a really good photo, we had fun doing it. Turns out, they said, don't come in on Monday or Friday or in the afternoon because the lighting is bad then with the sun ripping in the big window and we'd all look like vampires, all pale and icky. lol So Tuesday mornings- they're perfect! Now I'm set for the next 4 years with a really nice DL photo, yay! How many of you can say that, huh? :)

Then yesterday, I found out that I won a drawing from the lovely and gracious Jodie of RicRac! She's going to put together a show-bag of her patterns and things after her big show is over in Melbourne, Australia. No offense Jodie, but I hope you have a few good things left when all is said and done! I know you, and I know how popular you and your products are and I seriously doubt that you'll have ANYTHING left! Jodie designs THE cutest little dolls/softies/robots/animals, etc and has such a knack with them. And she is a wonderful photographer, too, and has quite the sense of humor. I just am so grateful and excited to be her winner. Woot! The link to her blog that I gave you above is to part 1 of her 5 part story of Ernst, the most wonderful turtle you'd ever hope to meet. Be sure to seek out all the parts, trust me- it's worth it.

And just so you don't think I've been sitting around doing nothing but admiring my DL photo and gloating, I finished up a placemat for my swap partner, Sudi-Laura. We agreed on a beach theme with colors and wonky and wild, so here's just a peek at part of it. It's all done and on it's way to Massachusetts as we speak. After she gets it, I'll show the rest of it.

Ya'll have a great week!

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

Potholder Pass II sucessfully completed!

I participated in a potholder swap and was lucky enough to receive these from spottedstonestudio, much to my delight.  Krista also sent me 3 lovely batik fat quarters to go along with them and a really sweet note.  This is one seriously talented lady and I so appreciate the time and trouble she went to to make these for me.  She has 3 kids and one is just a sweet little baby, I don't know how she gets anything done, but she does and she does it so well.  And to add to the coolness factor, she lives way up north in Alaska!  

The front-

The back-

Thank you, Krista, for making my first potholder swap so much fun!  I had a great time and I really love my potholders.  If my OVEN WAS WORKING, grrrr, I would actually contemplate using them.  (Long story- used the self-clean feature for the first time and now the entire oven and digital display is DEAD.  Not happy, nope, not at all.  Samsung appliances?  I won't ever buy them again.  This is the 4th problem we've had with our less than 2 year old appliances and 2 of them were in the first week!)  

Here's whatI sent my partner-hopefully she'll like it.  2 wonky potholders, some Pez fabric and a condiment wallet.  I also jazzed up a note card to match. 

the front-

The back-

I had fun making them, this was my first wonky star and I think it turned out great.   I learned how to make this star from my friend Pamela, who has a great shop on Etsy.   She's another super talented lady and is very generous with her knowledge, which I so appreciate.

We had company come for the weekend so I've been busy cleaning house and then having fun with Jennifer and Charles.  The boys fished every day, all day, leaving us to our own devices, which was wonderful.  We cooked, ate, drank, watched movies, visited, laughed, ripped paper off my string blocks, sat in the sun, and just generally had a great time.  Oh, we sneaked in a visit to my mother, the Mumster, too.  That was good, she just loves Jennifer (it's mutual) and she considers her a daughter, because Jen "gets" her.  Mum is 89 but doesn't look it or act it.  

No photos of us, though, because we were too busy chillin'.  :)  It was a great weekend and we capped it off with little grown-up Easter baskets (cute Rubbermaid containers) at breakfast (I can't believe we didn't photograph them, the table looked fun) with chocolates, toys, notepad, fishing lures, gummy worms, Swedish fish, etc.  They were a hit! I hated to see them leave, but Charles and Jennifer both have to be at work tomorrow, darn it.  They're the best, easiest company, too.  SO helpful and fun.  We just LOVE them.  Travel safe, you two!

Fashion advice and my favorite kitchen gizmo....

"Mom? Does this basket make my butt look big?"

I recently purchased some new catnip from the place where I get the buckles for the cat collars that I make our kids. Man, it must be some seriously good sh!t! lol I caught Beeswax pulling the packages of batteries out of this Longaberger basket this morning, in his quest for a fix. I'm talking packages of D cells! The heavy ones! I keep the catnip in there, with the lid down, but he wanted in and he wanted that stuff NOW. So I gave him some and put it away and he went after it again. Then he wanted in the basket. *snork* We were cracking up, watching him. He's so funny.

Nosey Parker wanted some too and after Beez vacated the basket, she climbed in. A slightly better fit, but not great! Daddy brought Beez a bigger box.


I have to share with you my favorite kitchen gadget- the Sunbeam Egg-cetera. I've had this forever, I just love it, it makes the best poached eggs. You put some water in the bottom, up to a certain line and plug it in, when the light comes on, they're done! And isn't it cute? The little egg shape just cracks me up, no pun intended. One egg on a half of an English muffin and I'm thrilled at breakfast time. It'll do hard boiled in the shell, too, if you want.


Cute, huh? I hope it never dies, I'm sure they don't make it anymore.

And finally- you all know about Nosey Parker, the white kitten. We also have a black cat, Sammie, short for Sambuca. Well, he's the only one that will play with her, the other boys have each other and that's all they want. They wouldn't play with Sammie either, so when we got NP, he was kind of happy, until he learned how tough she is and relentless! lol She pounds on him all the time, but sometimes he likes it. Anyway, when they're together we call them Salt and Pepper. And when she's beating him up, we change the names again to "Assault and Pepper".

Somedays, I feel like I should call the cops on her, she's mean! Poor little Sam, he's been known to scream like a girl and he goes on and on about it. rofl He's got super thick fur, though, so she's not really hurting him.

Fun and games at our house. Stoned out cats and kittens and wrestling matches. It's pretty entertaining sometimes!

I just can't have anything nice anymore!

About 25 years ago, my husband gave me the coolest birthday present- basket weaving lessons. I loved them, learned all the basics and all about different supplies and then I bought some books and branched out on my own. This basket was the hardest one I ever made. I had to mold the spokes to the handles and then let them dry in order to form the nice round, square shape. I think it's called a Margaret Basket, but I'm not positive anymore. It looked great, I dyed it green after it was all done and it served us well for over 20 years until some big doofus stuck his big fat foot thru it!

It was partially my fault, I left it on the floor and it was dark. I knew it was there, but I guess he didn't. It still worked, the holes were mostly on the sides, but it was bothering me and he felt awful about it. So I fixed it! I had a lot of twill tape in stock so I wove that thru the bad spots and voila! It's better. Not perfect, but better. And the poor thing is very brittle. Hopefully I bought it a few more years of gentle use.

Because our old dog is having a few problems and needs to wear a "bikini" with Poise pads in them, we have to keep the pads real handy. I got tired of them being out in plain sight all the time, so I broke into my Fassett materials and made this.

It holds both size pads that we use and hangs on the wall, up out of the way. And it goes well with the wall color and other things in the room.

A simple project, but quite needed and rewarding.

Directly behind you as you're looking at the new bag, is this-

I've been pretty busy upstairs this week- I'm making more of the coffee cup organizers that I sell in my shop, I am down to only 3 all of a sudden. I'm making some to match the sewing caddies for those people who like sets to match. People like me! lol

Home repairs and a finish....

First the pretty- I made a purse for a friend. Jennifer doesn't sew or quilt and HATES going into quilt shops because she says she feels like an imposter. (Probably feels like I did the day I had to go into a Junior League meeting to pick something up- 50 beautiful young women in power suits and I was in my work jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt.... lol, I wanted to crawl under a linen-draped table!) Anyway, Jennifer sucked it up and went to her LQS and picked out the fabrics and sent them to me. LOVED them, so pretty and spring/summery! This purse is from my original pattern, The Parker Purse, only it's a bit bigger than what I usually make. Jen hauls more stuff around than I do, but I'm starting to find my little ones just a bit too little, so I make myself one like this.

Anyhoo- a batik for the exterior and a Jane Sassaman pink and blue dot for the interior. I gave her a cool, iridescent glass button for the closure, too.

Then the home repair- all of a sudden our electric bill jumped up by about $40 a month! What the heck!? So we thought- maybe it was the water heater. We did an experiment by shutting it down for 22 hours to see what it did to our meter reading and it was a big difference. So that meant our water heater was running too much. Jim got all his big tools out and spent about 2 hours trying to get the element out of the bottom of the water heater, under the house in the crawl space. I'm really proud of him, I would have been screaming obscenities by this point but he had a smile for the camera.

Just behind him in the first photo, the ground drops away and there's a ditch about 4 feet deep. (That's where we're heading in case of a tornado!) The garage is on the other side of that wall. Anyway, not much room for him to work in.

He ended up having to cut a bigger hole so he could get the pipe wrench in there, that element did not want to come out. It was to the point where I was about to go shopping online for a water heater to replace this 20 year old one. He finally was able to unscrew it and pull the thing out, though and then the built up lime and calcium/hard water deposits started pouring out with the water. He got his little copper tool and started scraping, while I watched. Usually the scraping is my job, don't why I escaped this time, but I was happy to squat there and ooh and aah over the massive quantity of it all! We have really hard water here.

He scraped out about 10 pounds of this crap. No wonder the heater was working so hard, the element was buried in it! We're going to do this once a year, now, instead of waiting for an element to go bad. Well.... we SAY we'll do it, but it's such a crappy job and it's so hard to get the elements out, we'll probably wait as long as we can. Procrastinators Unite! So here's how we spent our Monday afternoon. I hope our next electric bill is much lower.