Power gli....gli....glitch..... Grrrrr.

We lost power on Thursday morning, about 5 minutes after I gave my husband an anniversary card that said "Come rain or come shine, we'll be doing fine...as long as we have each other! (And electricity!!)" Geez! We were laughing ourselves silly until it came back on and we discovered that we had lost a TV, a satellite receiver, a DVD/VCR combo and a clock and a $10 lightbulb, from 3 different rooms. And it's all the same stuff we lost 20 months ago when Ike came whipping through and wreaking havoc. We stopped laughing for a while, it wasn't funny any more. Well, he fixed the DVD/VCR combo. We bought a new clock. (It didn't work, we had to return it, another trip to WalMart, 20+ miles away.) We ran all over trying to find a part for the TV- the capacitor blew out- we had to order one online. The satellite receiver is being replaced no charge. We have had no TV since Wed night. We are missing the last 2 episodes of Survivor, which is just MEAN. A friend is recording it for me, though, thank you LIZ!!!!!

So, since we're leaving on vacation on Wed, we have to get as much of this stuff fixed before then AND clean the house and make sure everything is in order for our housesitter to stay here in comfort while we're gone. Sheesh, nothing is ever easy. The lawnmower broke, the parts place was closed, we're having monsoon rain storms, and the list goes on and on and time is of the essence!

To distract myself a little, I've played this week with the layouts for both sides of my hexagon quilt.

This side is mostly black. I arranged the mixed hexies to be somewhat orderly, by color, either greens or blues or reds, etc. I spent so much time on the floor getting up, squatting, bending, etc that I could barely move without moaning for 2 days afterward, man I'm out of shape!

This side is bright hexagons with mixed blacks and whites interspersed. I arranged this side so the warms are on one side and cools on the other, but not divided straight up and down, a little looser than that. I locked the cats out of the sewing area so I didn't have to worry about them scrambling up my layouts, this took HOURS and hours to perfect, believe it or not. Anyway, they're all stacked, numbered and put up safely until I can sew all 430 triangles together!

And here are 9 mini 3.5" quilt blocks for a swap I'm in. The challenge was black and white and one other color, I picked yellow. So I made wonky liberated stars and I think they look like nice little suns. I'll send 8 of them away and get back 8, each one black and white and one other color. Then we'll all assemble our mini blocks and make mini quilts!

I also made a mini quilt for a new friend in CA, I'll show you that in another entry, it came out pretty cute, I think.

The placemat swap is over--- I couldn't be happier!

Not that it's over, silly, I couldn't be any happier with the placemat I received from my partner, Isaacsmama, aka Sudi- Laura! Look at what she made for me and I think you'll agree- it's all fabulous and wonderful and very much "me".

Not only did she make me a wonderful placemat, she also made a matching, lined napkin and sent me some wonderful coffee and a chocolate bar that was so delish, I think it lasted about an hour in this house! Mmmm. Good stuff!

The placemat- look at this! So many pieces of fabric went into this little beauty and I like all of 'me! This was a lot of work!

You can really see the quilting more when you look at the pretty back.

And the tiny details- I have a crab and a bucket and shovel, I really can't wait to hit the beach in a couple of weeks, I am now primed!

Sudi-Laura and I have a mutual love of the beach and so we were PERFECT partners, I think, and we both came away very happy. I would do this swap again in a heartbeat. Thanks, SL! I love my goodies!

We have a winner! Two, actually, but just BARELY!

And I say that because obviously SOME people's children are too old and too cool to play the old children's game of "Bat the Corks About and Pick a Winner". Noooo. They have to lie there and look overworked, underwhelmed and hot. Pffffft.

It's a lovely pile of corks, is it not? Not that anybody USED them or anything. And don't mind the one showing #48- I'm a doofus and can't count. Didn't matter, though- the corks didn't move.

Look. Corks.

Whoopty Freakin' Doo!

So...... I enlisted the help of a man who drew 2 corks from a corrected pile and pulled out #11 and #21.

Translation- Susan R and Shelley! Congrats, girls and I'll be in touch for addresses so I can mail off your loot! Thanks to everyone for signing up for a chance to win and for all the lovely comments on my little blog and my little Mum and everything this year. It's gone by so fast!

It's my blogiversary! One year.... woohoo!

One year ago today I decided to join the masses and start my own little blog. I've had lots of fun with it, showing off things I'm working on, happenings around our house, light-hearted things, and pet activities. Nothing too heavy, nothing too deep, nothing, I hope, too depressing. I've accumulated just over 100 followers, thankyouverymuch, and to celebrate, I'm having a little giveaway.

You don't have to do any jumping thru hoops or spreading the word, I'm happy having you guys here with me and I want you to have the best chance of winning. So leave me a little comment and be sure that I can reach you should the little white number generator (Nosey Parker will be whining about the child-labor laws shortly) pick you as the winner or runner-up! Because I don't like waiting, the sign-ups close at midnight Sunday and we'll do the actually drawing on Monday.

Up for grabs is a little bit of Moda's Authentic. There's a Dessert Roll, a charm pack and a set of 3 cotton dish clothes that I don't really want to give away, I like them THAT much! But I bought them with you in mind, so off they'll go. That's one lot.

Then, as a runner-up prize, I made a Scrap Sewing Pod for you, using my own Authentic material. Here it is with all the other stuff, but the winner of this is only getting the pod. It might have something inside it, not sure yet, but it's possible. Depends on if I get to the store this weekend!




I just got this pattern yesterday, online- it is an e-pattern, which is very cool and instantly gratifying! I found it, ordered it, paid for it (a whopping $3.29) and downloaded it and printed it out, all in about 5 minutes. No shipping, no waiting, love that! Anyway, I made one for the runner-up. It measures about 8" long and 3" wide and 3" deep. It'll really hold a lot. You can use it for taking supplies to class, jewelry on vacation, make-up, pencils, whatever, it's yours to do with what you please! It's a pretty easy pattern, too and I'll be making more of these. The zipper application is the EASIEST ever, so if you have a fear of zippers, this pattern is for you! I really like the trim (the black printing) at the edge of the zipper, I think that's a nice touch.

The framed photo and the rocks are not included in the giveaway. That is my mother in the photo, with her brother, Ted. She was in the Land Army, in England. I love this photo, that hat just frames her head perfectly and she looks so lovely. She's 89.5 this month! Gotta love the Mumster. She's such a hoot.


This is my other favorite photo of her- she's standing in Trafalgar Square and has a pigeon on her head. No, that's not my father. He might not be anybody's father- his name, according to my mother, is One-Nut Nick. *snork* She SAYS she only knows this because her cousin Joan told her. Um, hmmmm. Sure, Mum, whatever you say! lol Anyway, she didn't date him long, she broke up with him after he asked her to move in with him. This was the late 40's, I think.... scandalous! Mum had principles! And class. Yay for Mum! She's very Authentic. The real deal.

So good luck, people! Leave me a comment if you'd like to be entered into the drawing for a bit of Authentic fabric and towels, or the little pod.

This giveaway is now closed. Thanks for signing up!

Here's a fun project for a friend....

I made my friend Tiger a cover for her Kindle, using this tutorial from the Moda Bake Shop.

This is the inside-

The instructions were great and came in really handy since I don't have a Kindle that I could use for size as I was making it. Tiger likes animal prints and all things jungle-y so I think she'll like this fine. It didn't take too long to make, either. I cheated just a little and sewed the binding down by machine, but it actually turned out really well and looks like it will hold up forever! The most time consuming part of this project is the decorative stitching that is between each strip of fabric on the outside, those stitches take forever. They add so much interest, though, that you have to do it.

The outside- instead of a piece of velcro, I made a strap for it with a cat collar clasp and thin nylon webbing.

Close up of the inside- I love this fabric! It's so vibrant and pretty. This cat's head is why I couldn't use velcro like I wanted to.... it would have covered up that pretty face.

Hope you like, Super Tiger!

Oh, here's a shot of Murphy and Beeswax on the zigzag quilt I made last summer, they lie on this almost every day on the foot of our bed. These 2 are siblings and just love each other. Murphy has crossed blue eyes and is so funny and sweet. Beeswax has green eyes and is smart and personable. I just love these boys! Usually they'll cuddle like this for a while. Then one of them will decide to wash the other one's head. Whether he wants it washed or not! Which then leads to a disagreement as the wash-er is holding the wash-ee down against his will. lol Since Murphy outweighs Beez by a good 3 pounds, he usually gets his way, unless Beez takes off and escapes. It's a laugh a minute around here!

I'm realizing why I like quilting best...

I used to sew for a shop in town, I made dolls and models for the patterns and fabric that she sold. It was fun at first but it became a monster job, one where I would start sewing at 6 AM, take a 30 minute break for lunch, sew until 4, start dinner, do YESTERDAY'S dishes, feed us, and then sit on the sofa and turn and stuff doll body parts until bedtime. Actually, my husband would do the turning and then throw body parts at me to be stuffed. lol Then, I would spend the next day assembling the dolls and dressing them and kitting them out in all their stuff. I would probably make between 10 and 20 dolls a week, and those dolls got more and more complicated and eventually, even the dolls had dolls.

Living 25 miles from the nearest craft shop meant that I also spent a lot of time either searching for or making all the little doo-dads that went with them. I was making angels, snowmen, scarecrows, crows, turkeys, Santas, reindeer, witches, bunnies- the whole gamut. I wish I had taken more photos of the things I had made, but I didn't think to.

As an example, I made many of these big Liberty dolls from this pattern- in fact, I accidentally plugged my bathtub drain because I was soaking sisal in the tub to relax it so I could make her extremely awkward hair. WHAT A MESSY PAIN! And dangerous, too, I had hot glue burns all over me, ever drip hot glue on your thigh? lol Anyway, I quit that job after about 7 years, working 6 days a week at home to keep up with the demand and the other day I worked at the shop. Finally I couldn't take it anymore, the fun was gone, so I quit. After I quit, the demand for dolls fell off anyway, so I guess my timing was pretty good.

So my sewing tapered WAY off, I don't think I used my machine much at all for a couple of years after that, until I got over it, I was really burned out. Then I started making things and selling them in my Etsy shop and I rediscovered my love for sewing.

I buy a fair amount of fabric from the new Bernina shop nearby and teach an occasional class there, usually for a bag or something like that. Somehow, and I don't know how this happened, I got roped into making some pincushions that look like cake. I now remember why I quit that other job!!!!!


What a pain in the butt! A lot of little pieces and I actually had to write notes to myself so I wouldn't get them all scrambled up. Interfacing, Timtex, ground walnut shells, stuffing, hot glue (because I cheated and didn't want to handsew those roses down) ricrac, changing thread colors 20 times, OMG! These aren't very good photos, because I don't really care about these things, but they took way too much time to make and I griped and grumbled thru every stinkin' minute of them. They turned out pretty cute, though, especially compared to the one I saw that someone else had made and was collapsing! I have to say, my fingers don't seem to be as nimble as they used to be and I found myself fumbling around a bit which I don't rememberbeing a problem in the past. Old age? Gosh, I hope not!

These are patterns by Cindy Taylor Oates and are very well written.

On a better, less whiny note, I did manage to make up 4 pair of no-no bands for a friend to send to a group called Operation Smile, where they use these to help during the healing process after children undergo surgery for cleft palates. Tongue depressors go into those slots and they make soft casts to keep the kids from touching their new face.


I can honestly say that this was probably the first time I've bought kid fabric to use for an actual kid! :) Usually I make myself something out of it.

I hope you all have a great day and only have to make the things that YOU want to, today!

Psychotic Seagulls and a Message in a Bottle...

Some people make quilts using Flying Geese and then others of us have to do Psychotic Seagulls. They're made the same way, sewing 2 squares onto a rectangle, on the diagonal, but when you're making a beachy placemat, geese just didn't seem fitting. And the effect you get is different, too, as you end up with chevrons or arrows in bright colors, instead of a colored triangle surrounded by white or some other solid. Where the one in the link is a blue triangle with white below it, mine would be blue with blue below it, making the arrow. The process is exactly the same, though. In retrospect, I could have done them a different way, faster and easier, but this started out differently and evolved as it went along and turned out OK. Next time I think I would just sew strips together into a long row of piano keys and then cut them on an angle and piece the 2 rows together down the middle, forming the chevron that way.

Anyway, this is the placemat I made for the swap at Flickr. I sent it to Sudi-Laura and she received it yesterday which means I can show it to you. I had so much fun making it, I tried new things and they came out well, I think. The flying geese/seagulls were new for me but very easy to do. Only problem is that the strips of them are very unstable as to staying straight and I ended up with a placemat that doesn't want to lie down really flat, it has a couple of little waves in it. Hence the term- psychotic seagulls. Psychedelic would work, too.

I free-pieced the houses and the tree trunk and figured out a way to keep the cabana flaps open all the time. That was all a little tricky due to water/sand/sky horizons needing to match up. I have to give credit to Lynne, of The Patchery Menagerie for house and tree help, she taught me how to do them. I machine appliqued the fronds. And I did a little hand embroidery for the flying seagulls and the cabana flag, because it was all looking a little drab. :)

I did some hand applique on the back- the bottle and sand covering it.

And when you tug on the cork- out comes the label. This part was SO fun for me, I love doing quirky, odd things like this. And I just adore hidey-holes, and I think this qualifies as such!

Inspector #7 was doing a great job, too!

All in all, I am really pleased with how it came out and I think Sudi-Laura is, too. It was a little hard to send it away, but I know I can make another if I decide to. And I knew it was going to a great new home! Enjoy it, Sudi-Laura! Think of your beach when you see it or use it. xox

My husband was helpful in the making as I kept running ideas by him and asking advice about the bottle/label construction. And he said an emphatic yes to the bit of black separating the houses from the bright colored seagulls- and he was so right! Thanks, honey! You have good taste in more than just wives. (Well, wife- you didn't choose so well the first time, now, did you?) lol

Have a great weekend, everybody! Make something fun. I was kind of sad when this got finished up, it was a great weekend project!