numb3rs

and the numbers for Eight Squared are as follows:

3264 separate pieces of fabric for each rose

plus 49 setting squares for the middle

plus 28 setting triangles for the sides, top and bottom

plus 4 setting triangles for the corners

for a grand total of 3345 pieces - not including the borders

the paper-pieced rose pattern can be found here

and the numbers for me are as follows:

2 to the sixth

which is 4 to the third

which is 8 to the second

which is 1 times 64

which is 2 times 32

which is 4 times 16

which is 64 free trips around the sun

which is 23,360 days, not including Leap Years

which is 560,640 hours give or take 384

which is 33,638,400 minutes give or take 23,040

which is 2,018,304,000 seconds give or take 1,382,400

which makes me a billionaire twice over...

When I get older losing my hair, 

Many years from now. 

Will you still be sending me a Valentine 

Birthday greetings bottle of wine. 

If I'd been out till quarter to three 

Would you lock the door, 

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, 

When I'm sixty-four 

You'll be older too, 

And if you say the word, 

I could stay with you. 

I could be handy, mending a fuse 

When your lights have gone. 

You can knit a sweater by the fireside 

Sunday morning go for a ride, 

Doing the garden, digging the weeds, 

Who could ask for more?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, 

When I'm sixty-four 

Every summer we can rent a cottage, 

In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear 

We shall scrimp and save 

Grandchildren on your knee 

Vera, Chuck and Dave 

Send me a postcard, drop me a line 

Stating point of view 

Indicate precisely what you mean to say 

Yours sincerely, wasting away 

Give me your answer, fill in a form 

Mine for evermore 

Will you still need me, will you still feed me. 

When I'm sixty-four

John Lennon and Paul McCartney

eight squared

my mom was the best when it came to celebrating our birthdays ... there was always a birthday cake with a candle for each year (plus one to grow on) and birthday dinners and singing the happy birthday song and presents and hugs and kisses... 
she worked so hard to get me here, and then to raise me up...
i had no idea of how hard being a mom is till i had my own kids...
 which was when i started giving her pink roses for my birthday 
because pink is my favorite color of rose 
and that made the giving about both of us...

 the first year that she was gone from this Life my birthday was really, really sad... 
i took pink roses to the cemetery and told both of my parents 
thank you for being my mom and dad...
and i've done the same every year since... 


anywho...
a year ago i decided to make myself a quilt of pink roses for my next birthday...

i bought yards and yards of blue-with-pink-dots batik fabric 
and searched the stash for pinks and pinks and more pinks ... and bought a yard of every pink Fairy Frost that i could find on line and in quilt shops...

gotta have me some pink flamingos  

when i bought this batik a couple of years before that particular herb became legal in Colorado,
Auntia asked me, "When are you ever gonna use that?!?" 
and now i have an answer

strawberries and roses - what's not to love?!?

piecing the 64 roses took all summer...

 and piecing them together was another couple of weeks ... it would have taken a lot less time if i had noticed that some of those roses weren't pointing in the right direction BEFORE i sewed all the rows together... 

then i bought more yards and yards of pink Lakehouse hydrangea petals to piece the backing ... and sent it off to Liz for quilting with thorny roses... 

and trimmed it... 

and bound it...

all together now...

eight times eight is sixty-four
8 roses wide by 8 roses long, with one...

to grow on
on the back so i could write a message from me to me...

all that planning and spending and piecing and quilting (thank you, Liz, for not giving up on the Great Pink Thing) and binding and being absolutely CERTAIN that it was gonna look way cool once it was on my bed was followed by 
what the?!? what is wrong?!? why don't i lurve it?!? 

and then i remembered...

Grams Bear - in tribute to my mom
okay, that's better...


All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
Oscar Wilde

sun of a...

flower...

remember when i whined 

(and don't say which time?!? cuz i'm about to tell you) 

about the crocheted snowflake afghan and how much it bothered me that the pattern called for octagons instead of hexagons and i ended up giving it to Auntia?

no?

doesn't anyone ever listen to what i have to say?

no?

what's up with that?!?

anywho...

i was wandering around JoAnns a year or so ago and found a pattern for a crocheted sunflower afghan in the book This Land Is Our Land by Lion Brand ... the entire book is afghans made with Lion Brand Heartland yarns with color names like Black Canyon and Yellowstone and Joshua Tree and Glacier Bay and Kenai Fjords ... so i took the book with me and wandered over to the yarn ... oh yeah, the yarn colors were just as awesome as their names ... but, as is ALWAYS the case at JoAnns, they didn't have enough of any of the colors except the brown to actually MAKE an afghan ... so i found the yarn on line at Fabric.com - and ordered it... 

and received the wrong weight (it comes in worsted and chunky - i needed worsted) of yarn... 

and sent it back and reordered it and received the wrong weight of yarn... 

and sent it back and reordered it and received the wrong weight of yarn...

and sent it back and reordered it and received the wrong weight of yarn...

and by that time i had made all of the brown centers and needed some stinking yellow and green...

 i was getting really, really frustrated...

so i ordered it from JoAnns online...

the yarn arrived and all the dye lots matched and all of the skeins were the correct weight and the colors were awesome and i put it all away cuz it had been months since the original wander and i just didn't care anymore...

and then we painted the walls that buttery yellow and our crocheted afghans really, really didn't go anymore...

and it was autumn and it was getting colder and colder...

and my fingernails were being bitten down to the quick watching my Broncos play football and i needed something to keep my hands occupied...

so i brought out all that yarn and now i have this ... 

pretty little sunflowers all in a row

woo hootie hoo!

The sunflower is mine, in a way.

Vincent Van Gogh

socks on a rooster

i needed two pillow shams cuz the new quilt (yep - a new quilt for ME - more on that to follow) that i made for my bed isn't long enough to fold over my pillows... 
pillow shams should have a tight, tailored fit, right?!? 

not for me - i wanted my pillow shams to be loosey goosey... 

but not in a bad way
like socks on a rooster...

socks on a rooster

rolling the credits...

the paper-pieced rosebud pattern can be found here and was worth every penny...

and the quilting - well, the quilting is by Liz Bowman of Milan, Michigan and is totally way cool...

quilted back - garlands and thorny roses - awesomesauce

i dunno what i would do without her awesomeness...
yep, she's the icing on the cupcake!!!

and, seriously, a cupcake without icing is a muffin... 

not that a muffin is a bad thing... 

but it isn't a cupcake, now is it?!?

the trouble with peeps...

FASCINATING...

sins of omission

things i have neglected/forgotten to mention in the not-so-recent past...

the name for Hello, Handsome was shamelessly stolen from Annemiek at Carpe Quiltem  ... she has a much better way of putting words together than i have

i found inspiration for Hello, Handsome's pixelated skull at oliveandbo on Etsy 

the pattern for the paper-pieced roses that were used in Hello, Handsome is by Piece By Numbers and can be found here or at Craftsy.com 

the pattern for the paper-pieced World used for i love you to the moon is from Paper Panache .... i didn't need all of the Earth, so i partially pieced it and trimmed to fit

the pattern for the paper-pieced moon for i love you to the moon is from eQuiltPatterns.com

Giving credit where credit is due is a very rewarding habit to form. Its rewards are inestimable.

Loretta Young

line up

ooh-hoo! you kiss your mother with that mouth?

Nick Fury

green room

long story with a few side trips...
when i was a lot younger i couldn't really carry a tune unless there were lots of people around me and i was singing along with them .... a few of my high school friends invited me to a Sing Out Colorado rehearsal and i was certain that nothing would come of it - me sing? 
nah...

but i went anyway...

and it was kinda fun, so i went again...

and again...

till i knew enough of the songs and the choreography to join the cast in a show...

i was really nervous - i'd been in a few school performances (like all kids) in front of audiences who HAD to be there because that's what you do for your family - and had no clue what would be waiting for me when i was told to report, in uniform, to the Green Room before the concert ... i do remember thinking that it was odd that they knew beforehand that the room we were to meet in was green ... and i was even more confused when i found out that it wasn't, in fact, green...

anywho...

after those first few Sing Out concerts
messing up the words to songs

 and fumbling through the choreography

 and dreading the end of the performance because we were expected to leave the stage and mingle with the audience

all the while singing Up With People 

being incredibly introverted 

and unable to stay on key if there wasn't someone singing right next to me 

well..

it was something i didn't much like doing

i found that Green Room was my favorite part of the deal...

anywho...

when we moved here twenty years ago i was newly divorced and completely broke...

 we had to make do with half of what we'd had in our Other Lives because there was no money for anything new...

and that meant lots and lots of grey paint for the walls because grey was the only color of paint that the eXMan would accept in my Other Life
 and the half of what we were left with was grey...
grey furniture...

grey rugs...

grey pillows...

grey window coverings...

anywho...

about ten years ago i had saved up enough money to have the floors on one level of our house replaced with hardwood flooring ... and that meant that i needed to paint the walls, too...

so i painted them green...
not army green
or forest green 
or kelly green
but a warm, easy-on-the-eyes green...
and i really liked living in green rooms...

anywho...
it isn't just about me anymore 
and Auntia has her own opinions
sigh...
and when i asked Auntia what color we should paint the living room, she did NOT say what i wanted to hear...

i have had to learn to live in yellow rooms...
sigh...
she did choose a NICE yellow...
not sunshine yellow 
or lemon yellow
or jaundice yellow
and certainly not pee yellow
but a kinda buttery yellow

and NOW we are finding that the stuff that has hung on the walls for the past ten years just doesn't go anymore and we are slowly replacing old things with new things...

i love you to the moon and back again times infinity 
was the first new wall hanging.. 
and now we have this...

shot through the heart

it is my take on this thing...

lottsa sharp metal arrows stabbing that poor little heart
that we found at Hobby Lobby ... looks simple enough, right?!? applique some arrows shooting toward a heart and then quilt it...
 i am still awful at applique, so i decided to paper-piece the arrows and the heart first and then machine applique them onto the background of black Quilter's Linen ... an off-center heart just wasn't cutting it, so i put it in the middle - but the first heart was too small...

no, no, no - no Grinch hearts

and had to be replaced by a larger one - but there wasn't enough red fabric left and i skimped on some seams... 
can you tell where this is going?
 laid out the arrows and heart, appliqued them down, quilted it with simple straight lines, bound it and threw it in the washer...
 when i took it out of the washer i was so so so upset with me - the applique edges had shredded 
and the skimpy seams of the heart separated 
and all i had left was a big mess...
and i grumbled and sat on the Pity Pot till i came up with a Plan and set about fixing my mess...
which is another explanation for why the heart is broken other than the Actual True Meaning
and the back has a lot of black zigzags in tidy rectangles and a square...

anywho...
it's done and it's hanging on the wall...

yellow is hard to photograph - it's a lot nicer yellow in Real Life
and nobody needs to know, right?!?

shot through the heart and you're to blame
you give love a bad name
bon jovi