the same ... but different

i wanted this pattern from Crab-apple Hill in the worst way ... so Auntia gave it to me for christmas last year...Over the River and Through the Woods

and i was ever so grateful ... and then i looked at it again and decided that i didn't like the colors which, i am sure, surprises everyone cuz they are neutral shudder and dark double shudder ... so i decided that when i started stitching - it was gonna be brighter and lighter ... and i wanted it to be more autumnal ... and i didn't like the words cuz my grandmother lived in california and it was over the mountains and through the desert ... and i didn't want the sleigh cuz i've never even ridden in a sleigh so why would i want to stitch one ... and 51 x 57 isn't big enough...
so ... brighter autumn colors ... with a different layout ... and not exactly the same stitchery ... and bigger
sigh
i wrote down the fabric requirements and kept the yellow sticky with me till i forgot to take it outta my pocket and washed it with my jeans for months...

when i saw Saltbox Harvest i knew i had found exactly the right fabric to autumn up the quilt ... and when we went shop hopping i looked for a charm pack of Saltbox Harvest so i could do some more planning ... Auntia found the perfect fabric for the embroidery and i took the bolt over to the charm packs and placed those lovely Saltbox Harvest prints on my chosen background ... and i thought

bleck - i don't like it. i don't like it at all. maybe i need a different background? wait ... what is this? Awesome! seriously? isn't this the one with the panel that has a squirrel shudder? i hate squirrels. it can't be the one with the squirrel. oooo! i really like these fabrics! seriously, i really do love these fabrics! this can't be the line that has the squirrel cuz these fabrics are .... well ... Awesome!

Awesome by Sandy Gervais
and so i bought the charm pack ... and i bought enough of the background fabric for the embroidery ... and i took it home and put them with the pattern...doesn't that background look like it was made to go with the charm pack?!?
oh ... wait ... it was made to go with the charm pack!
and then i went to the lqs that is closing its doors forever and found some yardage that was marked down a bit...
oooo! it's even prettier when it's in big pieces!
and i really, really liked it ... but ... why are there stars in the middle of the quilt instead of around the edge? and there are still those troublesome words ... what if i take out the middle embroidery ... and move the other two stitcheries to where the stars are ... and piece leaves for where the stitcheries used to be...ooo! batiks! i knew i would find a reason to buy batiks!
and keep the flying geese ... but make an outer border of stars for the top and bottom ... and i still want to replace the sleigh with a ... uhm ... five window wrap around pickup truck ... Auntia is collecting the supplies for this Crab-apple Hill design and it has a pickup truck that i could use ... and i'm gonna need more fabric...fat quarter bundle - score!!!
so i splurged and bought the fat quarter bundle ... this is the second fat quarter bundle that i've allowed myself to buy and it is ... well ... Awesome!
expensive, but Awesome!
a luxury, but Awesome!
frivolous, but Awesome!
and now i have everything i need to start ... except embroidery thread
and time

Awesome!

waaaay back in september of 2010 i posted about a quilt that i wanted to make for Thanksgiving  (you can read about it here) ...  (and you can read more about it about here) ... most of the fabric that i decided to use was the 

Awesome! 

line by Sandy Gervais... 

the Economy had tanked and i found myself deep in Financial Kimchi, so i was spending a LOT of time communicating with a home refinance officer whose favorite word was 

Awesome! 

or Ruh Roh - depending on whether the news was good or bad...

it was easier to forget the Ruh Roh stuff if i kept busy with the Awesome stuff - planning, redesigning, tracing, stitching, drawing and redrawing, drafting and paper-piecing, embroidering, adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing, cutting and piecing ... and ... well ... all the stuff that goes with making a quilt my own... 

fast forward to december 28, 2012...

i placed the last few stitches of binding and took out the leftover paper-pieced acorn that i had saved for a naming block ... and gave my quilt a new name ... here is Awesome!

Awesome!

this is how it was supposed to look...

Over the River by Meg Hawkey of Crab-apple Hill

Liz Bowman (Milan, Michigan) worked her longarm quilting magick on it ... she did NOT disappoint, lemmetellya...

wind swirling and leaves - just like i asked!!!

my dream home - complete with flamingos and a dragon weather vane

and my dream truck

i don't think that i could be happier with this quilt ... cuz it is Awesome!

impulse buying

my nonna died when i was five or maybe six ... my parents had to borrow the money to pay for her funeral and burial ... they decided that would not happen to their own family, and bought a funeral and burial plan ... my mother would buy a money order every month and send it off to Olinger to prepay for their eventual demise...  

i know that i was just a little kid, but i remember thinking

what an unselfish thing to do for the people who love you...

fast forward to this time last year... 

i had a couple of life-threatening experiences that some of you already know about and realized that i had never taken care of my own Final Arrangements; but i wasn't well enough to do anything about it at the time...

and by the time my health crises were beaten to submission resolved, i was too weary to act...

fast forward to now...

i have noticed that my children are attending a LOT of funerals for their friends' parents...

 and that those parents are my own peers...

and i made an appointment to Take Care of Business...

it was not fun...

but it was enlightening...

it turns out that there is a LOT of UPSELLING in the funeral business...

i went into the meeting determined to NOT opt for anything other than basic cremation - no urn, no catering, no memorial, no viewing, no service, no flowers, no creative financing that includes a life insurance policy should i decide to keel over before the Plan is paid for, no, no, no, thank you...

it took a while to convince the salesperson that

 no, i do NOT want fries with that...

i took out my credit card so i could get the Rewards points, and prepaid for making an Ash of Myself...

and when i was finished with all of that, Auntia and i went to Woodley's Fine Furniture to order a dresser for her room... 

it was NOT an impulse buy - she has been planning her purchase since last year's 45% off sale, and knew exactly what she wanted...

and we did what we always do when we walk into a furniture store - we sat in every comfortable-looking chair and sat on every comfortable-looking couch and played Lightbrownielocks and Silverlocks... 

this one is too high 

this one is too low

this one is too soft 

this one is too hard

this one's arms are too wide

this one's seat is too deep

this one is butt ugly

this one is too fancy

this one is too scratchy

this one is too slick

this one isn't made for stitching

this one isn't made for reading

this one is just about right

this one is too ... wait ... what?!?

what?!?

what you said...

try this one - it isn't ugly and it isn't fancy and it's the right height for both of us and the arms are just right for stitching or reading and it's leather so it will wipe clean and it isn't scratchy or slick and your feet reach the floor and my knees aren't up around my chin and it's just the right amount of firm...

but it's red...

yes, it IS red. but it comes in these other colors...

Cara the Chair is red...

an old picture of Cara the Chair - named after Cara the Mord Sith from Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series of books

Cara the Chair was an impulse buy and nothing goes with her...

but this couch would go with her...

and we were gonna wait till the little ones are all in school before we buy a couch...

that's Three. More. Years.

three years of arguing with them about what is okay and what isn't...

and we will teach them what is and isn't acceptable...

but it's red...

our sunflower pillows would look awesome on it...

but it's red...

it's 45% off...

still, it's a LOT of money...

and Awesome!!! would look awesome on it...

Awesome!!! WOULD look awesome on it ... maybe it's time to rethink the living room...

let's go home so we can bring back the sunflower pillow and an autumn quilt and see how they look...

still ... it's a lot of money...

and so we did...

the quilt looked awesome...

the sunflower pillow looked awesome...

but i still wasn't convinced...

Clifford was gonna be a HUGE investment, even with 45% off...

and i'd just spent all that money on the prepaid cremation...

and that got me to thinking which is always kinda scary...

thinking about things like Life being Short...

and Uncertain...

and the fact that there was no Comfortable Place to Rest in the Here and Now...

and the fact that my body isn't gonna have a Comfortable Place to Rest in the After because i'd opted for the No Frills Package...

and Comfort being Under-Rated...

and Jumping In With Both Feet being kinda fun...

and that is how buying a Big Red Couch can be an Impulse Buy...

To be always intending to make a new and better life but never to find time to set about it is as ... to put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day to the next until you're dead.

Og Mandino

snow in summer

there should be a picture of Snow in Summer here... 
sigh... 
there is not a single blossom left on our plants...

remember Awesome! ?!?

i do love this quilt ... it is Awesome!!!

well...
i had some extra yardage (long story for another post) of the fabric that i am using to stitch Snow Days by Meg Hawkey of Crab-apple Hill
and came up with the brilliant idea of making a winter version of Awesome!
which is what it is actually supposed to be...

so ... the same pattern as Awesome!

Over the River by Meg Hawkey of Crab-apple Hill 
but
uh huh - there's that but 
different...

blues and purples - i lurve me some purple instead of neutrals...
variegated blue and purple DMC #4240 Mid Summer Night floss instead of #310 Black...
and any other kind of pieced blocks that are not the original pattern...

the embroidery is done...

 fabric is Stonehenge Glacier Blue 

 that's LuLu in the backseat

the flamingos are practically covered with snow!!!

and i've started on the pieced blocks...
Awesome! has falling leaves
and i thought that maybe a winter OTR ought to have falling snowflakes...

seriously?!?
after paper-piecing four snowflakes for Auntia's tea towel quilt i thought i would never never ever make another paper-pieced snowflake ...
but then i found this pattern...

by Paper Panache
and ordered it
secretly hoping that it would be out of stock or lost in the mail
it arrived safely...

sigh...

 i took it to Kinkos to make some copies and give it a try...

so...
what do you think?!?


“Layer upon layer of soft-packed snowflakes settled in near silence, forming a quilt of feathery ice crystals.”
Rebecca Nichols Alonzo, The Devil in Pew Number Seven 

if you can't say sumpin nice

don't say nuthin at all...

Thumper's mother's words to live by

Mr. Nutz cooling his mmphms on a hot summer day months and months ago ... i have nuthin nice to say about Mr. Nutz ... so i won't say nuthin at all...

we have been hanging out at our not-so-local quilt shop for several years ... we know the owners, have taken a few classes, participated in Blocks of the Month, and spent thousands lottsa dollars there ... so we have had hundreds lottsa opportunities to hear different politically correct ways of saying 

holy crap!!!

U G L Y - you ain't got no alibi! that's ugly!!! 

it looks like a dog chewed it up and spit it out! 

ahem ... interesting take on your block/border/quilt...

my Personal Favorite is uttered by one of the shop owners when she is at a loss of something positive to say regarding a Miscreant Quilter's latest production...

it's your quilt...

which is always followed by a pregnant pause and some serious head-shaking

she utters these words a LOT at the monthly BOM meetings ... and i don't think that Auntia and i are the only ones who know that she is really saying...

tsk. tsk. what were you thinking?!?

anywho ... i brought Awesome! with me to a saturday meeting for show and tell ... i wasn't going to take her because ... well ... because there are some Not Very Nice Quilters in the World and the last thing that i wanted to hear about Awesome! was any Negative Criticism ... not that Negative Criticism would change the way that i feel about Awesome! because i truly did put my Heart and Soul into making her, and she is even better than i had hoped she would be ... yikes ... i just realized that Awesome! is female ... i don't think i've ever made a not-male quilt before ... anywho, Auntia told me that i ought to share Awesome! with the Real World, and so i did...

and then i remembered something that i already knew about me - i am not good with more than one source of audible input at a time ... i can't process everything that everyone is saying around me, and i am uncomfortable when lottsa people are talking at the same time ... which means that the one phrase i heard was... 

"Good use of color."

when we left, i turned to Auntia and said...

seriously?!? good use of color?!?

to which she replied...

it's your quilt... 

ha ha ha!!!

a thanksgiving miracle

remember these bear paw blocks?

well...

they ran around and around

and chased themselves into this...

Running Bear Loves Little White Dove

with thanks to Jennifer of Bronze Wombat for giving this little quilt the perfect name

this may not seem like a thanksgiving miracle to anyone else, but it is because:

a) with the exception of the brown for the paws, the fabric was ALL from the Magick Shoppe's Hoard

2) i actually used a panel before it had a chance to go out of print or get lost in the Magick Shoppe

thirdly) RBLLWD was finished in less than two months - which is a record time for ANY quilt that i have ever started and finished (thanks in a big, big way to Longarm Quilter Extraordinaire Liz Bowman) 

the panel is from this collection by this artist

Princess On A Pea - First Nations by Denyse Klette

and it is awesome!!!

Liz quilted dream catchers all over it...

how does she DO that?!?

and they are awesome!!!

the backing fabric is called Five Cent Peace...

lucky buffalo nickels

and it is awesome!!!

i LURVE this quilt!!!

peep central

there's a peep store in our nation's capital!!!

who knew, right?!?

well, lemmetellya who knew...

 Amy knew, that's who knew...

and she went there!!! 

and she saw the Peepmobile!!!

she even stood next to it and had her picture taken so she could send it to me and i could be jealous!!! 

and i would show you the lovely Amy, but that would have meant including a picture of me NOT standing next to the Peepmobile, so i Wilsoned it...

oh, for the love of marshmallows!!!

is that not the most awesome yellow VW bug ever?!?

but - wait - there's MORE...

she shopped!!! 

for ME!!!

a NEW TIN!!! and a FRAME!!! and BRACELETS!!! and PEEPS!!!

and, most awesome of all, 

she made a pincushion for ME!!!

here a peep ... there a peep

with her own hands!!!

using PEEP fabric!!!

and did i mention that she made it for ME?!?

it is so very AWESOME and i am not worthy and she really shouldn't have...

but i am so incredibly happy that she DID!!!

thank you, AMY!!!

Money can't buy happiness

But it can buy Peeps

Which are kinda the same thing

author unknown

orange crush

here's hoping that the on-line translator didn't lie and i'm not writing bad words in languages other than dianneish...

oranje

arancio

naranja

arancione

πορτοκάλι

machungwa

apelsin

オレンジ

d'orange

оранжевый

laranja

zoranj

תפוז

Pomarańczowy

orange

i do lurve me some orange...

 orange dream cookies ... adapted from this recipe for lemon cookies ... heaven on a plate, lemmetellya

 the garage door is finally painted ... mark that one off this list from a year ago ... this is how it looked in the early morning sunshine while the paint was still wet... it's a bit more mellow in Real Life ... needless to say, the new color has not been much of a hit with my neighbors ... and, also needless to say, i don't much care cuz i think it's kinda awesome ... and just look at the blue sky!!!

my orange kitty is named Pumpkitten ... finally, a cat that doesn't make my eyes swell shut

 renegade orange marigolds ... not where they are supposed to be
but i'm not gonna complain

 i did not know that cosmos came in orange till i was trying to find flowers that wouldn't clash with the garage door

 what's left of LuLu's tomatoes  ... she LURVES cherry tomatoes

 my new Bronco jammies ... to be worn only on game days

 coffee tastes better in a polka-dotted cup ... especially an ORANGE polka-dotted cup

my Lucy kit from Carrie Nelson at Miss Rosie's Quilt Company ... which i was lucky enough to score before they were all gone ... i was planning on swapping out the greys and blacks with blues so i could make a Bronco quilt, but the fabrics are just too doggone awesome ... and who am i to mess with a quilting genius's fabric choices?!?

Orange is the happiest color.
Frank Sinatra

back to christmas...

long story...

after closing on this house on december 18th, 1995, we had three days to move from my Dream Home into a pint-sized fixer upper...

yeah...

the week before Christmas...

it was not a Good Time and i was not in a Good Place...

on the 23rd, i came "home" from working the night shift and found that Michael Myson and Melissa had put up an old artificial Christmas tree that was already broken before it was dropped off a friend's pickup truck ... Mikey had run wires from the tree to a nail in the wall to keep the tree upright, and the two of them decorated as far up as they could reach

 with whatever they could find...

it was touching and endearing and beautiful...

yes, it was...

but... 

instead of feeling blessed by the Spirit of Christmas in my youngest children's eyes, i  was overwhelmed with Sadness and Loss...

and after they left to spend Christmas Eve with the eXMan and his family... 

Guilt came to live here...

the next year, i bought a new tree...

a slim (skinny) blue spruce

we set it up in the living room and decorated with homemade ornaments that Michael and Melissa made with raw hide and pony beads and conchas 

and some pink berry picks that i found on sale...

i didn't have a tree skirt, so i spread woven place mats under it and i thought it was beautiful...

and it was all ours...

after a few years, that skinny blue spruce was losing more needles than it was keeping...

and its wire branches were not up to holding ornaments

or even lights...

and all of my kids started calling it Mom's Charlie Brown Tree...

so i let myself be shamed into buying a big fat tree - Melissa's tree - and it is beautiful, too...

she decorates it with red and white ornaments

 and cranberry bead garlands and popcorn garlands...

it is a proper Christmas tree

 and it always looks awesome...

but i missed my skinny little spruce...

i had collected a lot of southwestern-themed ornaments and garlands

and even a birch wood tree topper...

but still no tree skirt...

so i decided that i would put up MY tree in my bedroom

 AFTER i made a tree skirt for it...

fast forward five or ten years...

short...

last year, in july, i paper-pieced four spirit guide animals based on Quilted Legends of the West by Judy Zehner and Kim Mosher...

 joined them into a big square...

not looking like much...

and sent it off to Liz Bowman to do her quilting magic...

ooooo!!! dream catchers!!

i dunno how Liz always manages to make my mediocre piecing look so incredibly awesome...

anywho...

 i trimmed off the corners (thanks to my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Walsh, who taught me how to make a compass with a string and a pencil)...

 crossed my fingers...

 cut a slit and center hole...

 and bound it with bias binding (thanks to The Net and all its continuos bias binding tutorials)...

maybe THIS should be the right side

and brought my sad, skinny little blue spruce tree in from the cold...

coulda done a better job with those ornaments ... there's always next year

gonna hafta move that into the corner so i don't run into it

gonna need some PRESENTS to put under there!!!

purty, innit?!?

the tree needed some company

so i dug out the little Nativity...

sweet Baby Jesus

and celebrated with my skinny little blue spruce tree till the day after Christmas...

and now i've decided that i need another tree for my space ornaments... 

and that tree is gonna need a tree skirt...

don't worry - it's just a phase

cuz we don't need no stinkin' bare-bottomed trees...

i am linking up with Mama Spark's WIPS with Friends

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

George S. Patton