tebow time

LuLu loooooves the Broncos ... but i dunno WHO could have taught her that...

if i could...

baby, i'd give you my World...

kwilt kwitic

trimming trees

second (and final, officially - but prolly not around here) FNSI for december ... i FINALLY got around to piecing the trees for Over the River...

oh autumn treeee ... oh autumn treeee

how are thy leaves so solferino

 and now i need to take a moment to thank the on-line thesaurus for another word for the color purple (even though the leaves and branches are more puce than a moderate purplish red - the word puce is not nearly as poetic or fun to say as solferino, right?!?)...

the trees will finish at 3 inches by 9 inches and they are gonna be the bookends for the OTR embroideries... 

it was NICE to not have to work on the teetering tower anymore ... it did occur to me that my grandkids prolly don't look at this blog - and i could post pictures of the actual quilts before the solstice ...... but not today ...... today i am going to watch this little person...

Gumdrop's wish for christmas

dance dance dance!!!

tiny tim

finito

what i didn't do for the first FNSI this month...

over with ... done ... finished

because the very last stitch of the very last binding was taken on thursday evening ... late ... very late ... too late to want to get up on time the next day... 

but they are finished and ready to go live somewhere else... 

woo hootie hoo!!!

so ... friday night was open ... i could work on any thing in the Great Pile of Stuff and not feel guilty about neglecting the quilts for my precious grandbabies bless their little hearts ... HPV not the virus or OTR or the Ghastlies or the Shepherd's Bush stockings or the Northern Lights blocks or the Hot Flashes blocks or Snow Days or Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage or the peppermint blocks or the snow angels or the scrapbook pages for Michael Myson that i have to have finished by august or i'll flunk motherhood or the double wedding ring quilt or or or or or or or...

i dunno ... just thinking about the stuff i have started ... and the stuff i want to start ... and the stuff i don't even remember ... well ... it made me tired ... so i took some ibuprofen and went to bed...

and today has been filled up with Auntia's 25th birthday bless her heart ... she is waiting to use the computer so she can post about her own FNSI which was much more productive than mine lemmetellya so i'm gonna go cut another piece of birthday cake and drink a cuppa sumpin sumpin

HAPPY BIRTHDAY 

MELISSA!!!

counting crows

teetering tower of what was i thinking?!?

or...

what i did for FNSI...

tell me again whose bright idea this was?!? 

for the past few days i've been sewing the quarter of a gazillion stars into borders for six quilt tops ... last night i spread them out for measuring and found myself wondering when the floor moved so far away?!? ... then i ripped flannel, and sewed the backs together ... i WAS gonna cut the bindings and sew those together, but i'd had enough of flying flannel for one night so i watched Grimm instead of doing anything productive ... i guess i oughta get the batting together for that tower of doom, huh? i have enough for the three smallest tops, but the others will require twin-sized batts... 

hmmm ... batting and thread doesn't go on sale till Black Friday...

that's a legitimate excuse for ignoring them for a few days, innit?!?

seeing stars

i have never had much will power when it comes to fabric panels ... i'll buy a panel of just about anything ... i have panels stashed all over the house ... and when i sort through the Great Pile of Stuff, i almost always come across a panel or two...

or ten...

anywho  ... the last time i sorted way back in early spring i found six panels that have a similar theme which must remain unnamed onaccounta it's a secret ... and i knew that by christmas i would have six grandchildren ... i made some notes in my quilt journal and sketched out a border that might be okay for all of them ... and went to work making flying geese...

a few months ago i posted a picture of a gazillion flying geese ... and now those flying geese are a quarter of a gazillion stars...

how many?!?

seriously - i did the math!

hey ... when did it start being november?!? and how the hedoublehockeysticks am i gonna get six sumpins made by christmas?!?

baneling bridesmaid

bird brain

turkey jerkey

quarter back

oh no!

two and ten black birds

Mama Spark is participating in a Geese in a Ring block swap and i followed her link to the pattern ... i thought that it was a waaaaaay cool block, but i needed it to finish at 6 inches instead of 12 inches ... i spent waaaay too much time trying to draft it on graph paper before i gave up and whined to Mama Spark and Auntia ... both of them suggested resizing the pattern using the Wonders of Modern Day Technology ... now why didn't i think of that?!?
short answer - i'm a technophobe ...
so i put on my big girl panties and came up with...

crows or bats?!?

a circle of black birds ... it's just a skosh on the short side of 6 inches finished ... that'll do

but i didn't let myself work on it till after i'd finished those pinwheels...

spinning wheels got to go round

i needed 44 ... 48 at the most ... there are 64 in that pile ... you know the story about the old lady who swallowed a fly?!? and who knows why she swallowed that fly?!? well, that's me ...... the old lady, not the fly

 did you see Auntia's Northern Lights blocks?!? they are pretty doggone awesome ... and the Wintergraphix bits and pieces that she is putting together - wow - it makes my eyes cross just watching her, lemmetellya...

cut, mark, pin, sew, press ... repeat

this is what i worked on for the Friday Night Sew-In...

pinwheels, pins, bits, pieces

i was hoping for larger piles of spinning wheels and smaller piles of flat tires ... sigh ... Sven the Viking ground his teeth when i hit a pin full-on ... he was so aggravated that he made all the lights in the house dim ... that pin won't be holding anymore seams that need sewing, lemmetellya...

witchy woman

sour puss

dragon's gold...

on edge

and just under the wire ... september's Hot Flashes BOM is On Edge...

mine

and so am i ... i had all month to put that block together, but i waited till now cuz it's never too late to do a mediocre job ... Auntia already had hers finished...

Auntia's

i am liking the Shades fabric less and less and i am ready for this Block of the Month to be over...

Sheri the Shop Owner's

i could not bring myself to put those two fabrics together ... neither could Auntia ... after i finished mine, i realized that the blue would have been okay with the yellow part of the red Shades say what?!?  

Sheri the Shop Owner taking roll call

and i'm sure pretty sure that everyone else at the meeting will not have strayed from the path like we did ... i guess we are rule-breakers cuz we were the only ones to redraft last month's block, too ... do you think that The Quilt Police nudge each other when we walk into the room and whisper neenner-neenners in each others' ears? meh ... i don't think i care too much ... anywho, the meeting for october is tomorrow morning and the Wonder Woman bag is packed and ready to go...

we interrupt this program...

to bring you this breaking news...

i think that the embroidery for Over the River and Through the Woods is done...

there we are - toolin' down the road in our truck, stocking hats on our heads cuz it is COLD outside

and i think it is pretty doggone cool...

headed for home

i am loving the wing at the back of the house that has every little thing we need for creating...

our house is a very, very, very fine house

i thought it was done a few days ago, but then i remembered the missing element...

tacky, tacky, tacky

and now we will continue with our previously scheduled program...

barn raising

the barn done been raised...

it will not always be summer; build barns

Hesiod

most barns are used for horses and other livestock, right?!? 

 

well, my barn is gonna hold horses of a different kind - a shiny collection of classic muscle and pony cars, and maybe even a couple Chevy and GMC trucks...

 

 if i'm gonna dream, it's gonna be big!

The barn really smelled like a barn with all the hay.

Dakota Fanning

a great wind is blowing

 and that gives you either imagination, or a headache.

Catherine the Great

a loooong time ago, i bought a weather vane ... not an ordinary weather vane with a rooster or a pig pointing in the direction of the wind ... my weather vane is a dragon ... a copper dragon

i had and have no place to actually put my weather vane ... the gazebo i was going to build, complete with a cupola on the top, and my weather vane on top of the cupola, has been eaten several times by the Economy and Poor Choices ... and so my copper dragon is packed away in a box in the garage ... but when i started stitching Over the River's embroidery, Opportunity knocked...

north by northwest

and i actually opened the door before it went away ... this is the pattern's original weather vane...

what IS that?!? 

 i think my dragon is waaaaay cooler ... maybe tonight i will finish stitching the barn - that door is getting lonely...

Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.

George Carlin

mission accomplished

Twist of Lime has gone to live with the Keeper...

Keeper and Twist of Lime

each of my four granddaughters now has a pink and orange quilt to call her own...

and now ... about those two boys?!? i dunno ... i don't think pink would be a good choice ... but orange might be ... after all, we do live in Bronco country

under construction

last night was the FNSI for september ... i put on my tool belt and put up some fencing...

that oughta keep 'em out

then i planted a bush by the side of the house...

it looked bigger at the nursery

pruned a few trees ... and shut the barn door...

gonna hafta fix that latch

which seems kinda silly since the barn isn't even built yet...

front and center

of a work in progress...

samhein sunset?!?

this is what the purple practice posted previously was practice for ... and it was NOT the walk in the park that i thought it would be, lemmetellya ... i had a devilish time keeping the sides on the straight of grain ... i pieced a bunch of different sizes of grey and green strips for the cemetery yeah, well, it is SUPPOSED to look like a cemetery - that's my story and i'm sticking with it and put them all together - there must have been hundreds of little tombstones ... when i asked,

"well, Auntia, what do you think of my cemetery?" 

she answered with,

"that is a LOT of dead bodies!"  

so i guess it's a good thing that i wasn't able to use all of them, innit? next up is a moon between those trees ... Applique, thy name is fill in the appropriate four letter word.

fdlfcfitd*

*friends don't let friends choose fabrics in the dark

cuz this is what happens...

yikes! where is Auntia when i need her to just say no?!?

bleck ... the pattern is from the book Winter Trees by Jane Kennedy 

the fabrics looked okay together when i pulled them from the stash ... it was about one in the morning and i was using a flashlight ... okay ... okay ... OKAY ... that isn't quite true - but it WAS after a very long day and i didn't want to waste any of my blue sky fabrics on a trial ... good thing this one was just for practice, innit?!?

and then there were none

the last time i posted about the Pink and Orange BOM blocks, there were four completed quilts and 24 leftover blocks ... now there are six quilts... 

twist of lime

irish gelatto

and no more blocks...

 woo hootie hoo!!! 

 the next time i start a BOM and i get the ridiculous idea to make all of the blocks and their alternates times three in another colorway ... will someone please smack me upside the head?!?

wee piggies

i didn't accomplish anything of note for the Friday Night Sew-In ... and no one wants to see a picture of nothing ... however ... this picture...

which little piggy had roast beast?!?

is too sweet, innit?

those are my newest granddaughter's little toes ... her daddy (Earth Science) painted them ... and i think that is pretty doggone awesome

gotta good reason

we've reached the halfway point of the Hot Flashes BOM ... this month's block is called Flushed, Sweat & Tears...

mine

Auntia's

the pattern calls for 16 flying geese and lottsa two inch squares...

Sheri the Shop Owner's

 which made me flush and sweat and want to cry ... i looked at Auntia and rolled my eyes ... she rolled her eyes back ... neither of us wanted to try matching all those points if we didn't have to ... we started redrafting the block in our notebook with square-in-a-square to replace eight of the flying geese, while Sheri the Shop Owner continued with her demonstration ...  Auntia drew a paper-piecing pattern for the square-in-a-squares cuz mine always turn out wonky and made copies for both of us to use ... and we used rectangles instead of squares for all but the four corners ... i'm all 
 for taking the easy way out

is that hercule poirot?!?

 nah...

it's LuLu  

after scarfing down a boston creme pie toaster strudel 

I think, monsieur, that little admission cooks your gander.

from Death in the Clouds

is that what i think it is?!?

i looked out of the patio door and saw this...

   now everyone knows that i love me some autumn leaves, but...

 it's only the first of august!!!

no more baby blues

SSBOM Hot Flashes for july ... the block is called no more baby blues...

mine

and, once again, no blue in a block named after the blues...

Auntia's

when we went to the meeting on the first saturday of july, Sheri the Shop Owner had the demonstration board all set up for the SS Neutral BOM which everyone knows is the second saturday of the month ... that was a short meeting, lemmetellya ... no demonstration and no sample block and the Shades fabric strips weren't in their cute little plastic bags ... both of us decided to use just the dark green Shade strip instead of the lime green strip...

Sheri the Shop Owner's

i'm not sure about the modulation of the phrase ... is it supposed to be

no more baby blues ?

or should it be

no more baby blues ?

and, seriously, shouldn't there be just a smidgen of blue in the block?!? i'm just sayin...

male menopause is a lot more fun than female menopause. with female menopause you gain wait and get hot flashes. male menopause - you get to date young girls and drive motorcycles.

author unknown

good golly

ms. molly ... those paper-pieced leaves really DO exist...

leaf fall! we have leaf fall! 35 minutes past the hour!

and their little acorns, too ... they were in bits and pieces in little ziploc bags till i had a marathon git-er-done session a week or two ago ... and now they are in a bigger ziploc bag, waiting patiently for me to get back to them and theirs...

say what?!?

last night was FNSI...

i embroidered...

the left side of the top embroidery for Over the River and Through the Woods

i can't believe that i signed up for more trees - you'd think i'd have learned my lesson with HPV not the virus...

i am changing the pattern a bit is anyone in shock?!? 

i didn't want it to be a winter scene, so i traced it with lines that are not drifted with snow...

we don't need no stinking snow drifts

and i replaced the horse-drawn sleigh with a truck from Snow Days another Crab-apple Hill pattern...

 does this fender make my butt look big?!?

the truck was too small and was facing the wrong way, so i traced it ... and reversed it ... and then Auntia enlarged it for me

 instead of black floss, i'm using DMC #154 very dark grape for most of the stitching ... and a little bit of Wildflowers #077 royal jewels for what should have been fields of snow, but is gonna be strewn leaves instead i was gonna write leaf fall, but Auntia says it's strewn leaves... 

and the background fabric is not what i originally chose last year ... i didn't buy enough background fabric for the embroidery and the paper-pieced leaves ... so i ordered what i thought was the same fabric, but was actually a bit more gold and more than a bit darker ... which meant that i still didn't have enough of either fabric for the embroidery and the paper-pieced leaves ... so i used both fabrics randomly shudder for the paper-pieced leaves... 

i dunno ... i think it will work ... maybe in a year or ten i will have a thanksgiving quilt...

Thanksgiving, man! Not a good day to be my pants.

Kevin James