vernal discontinuity

LuLu came to stay with us for a few days during Spring Break 

and Life with her has been a lotta fun!!!

 first up - movies!!!
before Melissa and LuLu went to see Power Rangers, they watched the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie at home... 

and, of course, they had to watch the original Beauty and the Beast before going to the new Beauty and the Beast movie...

all that movie watching led to empty bellies, so there was a trip to Red Robin and to P.F. Chang's...

no grilled chicken?!? seriously?!?

LuLu was not impressed with either...
 she is the only second-grader i know who doesn't eat junk food... 
no fries, no chicken nuggets, no ranch dressing, no mac & cheese, no hamburgers... 

yeah, it would be quicker to list what she WILL eat at a restaurant:

grilled chicken and fresh fruit 

when we came back home, i made pancakes so she wouldn't fade away...

next up was the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the special exhibit - Vikings - that Melissa really, really, REALLY wanted to see...

a viking we will go...

we thought that tuesday would be the museum's slowest day 
and so did everybody else 
and their neighbors... 
the museum is next to the zoo and, since it was raining outside, the zoo-goers decided to be museum-goers - it was SO CROWDED...

stormy weather...

even with the crowds, the Viking exhibit was excellent
and we had a lotta fun spending money in the gift shop, too...

in between outings, LuLu crocheted and sewed...

what do you MEAN it isn't done?!? when WILL it be a quilt?!?

look at those corners!!! and she did all the pinning and sewing herself!!!

 

and read
 and drew
 and played videos games
 and colored Easter eggs...

oooo!!! puh-retty!!!

her birthday is on Easter Sunday, so we celebrated a couple of weeks early...

red velvet Nothing Bundt cake with extra cream cheese frosting

'thar she blows!!!

you're no bunny till some bunny loves you

she's going back home today, and i am gonna miss her...

sniff ... sob ... sniff

Holy Cow! In the course of one week, I feel like I've lived about a year!

Karlie Kloss

sum day

me: you really need to get started on those crayon wallets.

myself: yeah, i'll get to them.

me: when?

myself: someday.

me: there are seven days in a week, but someday isn't one of them.

i hate it when i guilt myself into things...

anywho... 

someday ended up being sunday

and monday 

and tuesday

and wednesday...

puppies and daisies and crayons - what's not to love?

it's a good thing that i DID start on them cuz i don't have enough Puppy Love fabric

so i ordered more from Over the Rainbow

buttons are sewn on all the fronts

 eight are turned and ready to press and topstitch

 two are done 

and three more can be finished before i run outta fabric...

yep...

two down 

and thirty to go...

Stop counting crayons, just draw pictures.

Mark Scharenbroich

raising rays

after spending waaaay too long drawing out the diamonds for paper-pieced rays

i was feeling pretty good about my plan ... till i realized that they were gonna be backwards once they were paper-pieced... 

sigh...

 i didn't want to redraw the angles for the diamonds to go the opposite direction 

cuz drawing accurate angles isn't my idea of fun and this Quilting Thing is supposed to be about fun, innit?!?

  so i wasted even more time than redrawing would have taken figured out how to use the mirror image function on the printer

 and took my precious paper copy of diamonds facing the right way which was actually the left way to kinkos...

here's the first ray...

war

 the second one...

peace

and here they are together...

peace and war 

the colors are a lot more vibrant In Real Life  

and the tipis are flannel that looks and feels like chamois...

now i've just gotta raise some more rays

 till i have a star...

We've begun to raise daughters more like sons ... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.

Gloria Steinhem

π day

goof proofing

if the goof on the left-facing buffaloes

 thank goodness i'd made only two lefties before i realized the design was goofed up 

taught me anything, it's to PROOF my drafting before i commit it to Kinkos

 and their eleven cents per copy policy...

and so i did...

i sense a disturbance in the Force

i think it's gonna work... 
i tried War and Peace together, but i don't like the peace pipe and the tomahawk on the same ray
so that's gonna change...

the last time i made a lone star quilt, it was for my oldest brother's sixtieth birthday...

he's gonna be sixty-nine this year - good grief! how did THAT happen?!?

i used the strip piecing method and must have cut some of the units too narrow or too wide

when i put it all together, it wouldn't lay flat

i tried pressing it into submission, but it thumbed its nose at me...

so i held it up and asked Melissa to run by it at top speed - she said it looked okay... 

i didn't argue with her... 

and my brother didn't seem to mind

okay, i'll admit that i didn't actually TELL him - and i didn't tell him that i loaded the backing on the quilt frame upside down and didn't notice til i was taking the quilted quilt off the frame - which is another reason why Liz the Longarm Quilter is my favorite Real Life Super Hero...

anywho...

 i do NOT want to goof up another star - so i've decided to paper-piece the rays

which means more drafting

 and more goof proofing...

i SHOULD be making microwave-a-bowls and crayon wallets...

don't tell my conscience...

Conduct is the best proof of character.

unknown

new recruit

2550

pieces of fabric on the wall

2550 pieces of fabric

take 17 down 

and sew them around

2533 pieces of fabric on the wall...

yes, yes those ARE boxes of Irish Spring - i put the leftover slivers that are too small to use in the shower into the new bar's box, and then place it in with stuff that i don't want getting stinky

and if i had made the 150 buffalo that way

i might have gone a little cuh-ray-zee 

and started trying to write new lyrics to 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall...

okay, okay - a little cuh-ray-zee-ER...

i'm just sayin'

anywho...

after making the first four beasts 

and finding that i SHOULD HAVE TESTED the left-facing pattern - i'd made 50 copies already - ugh - there is no way they could have survived on the quilt prairie with their humps on backwards and their front legs where grass was supposed to be

i knew that i had to come up with some kinda plan...

i wanted to use scraps and stash that i've been hoarding saving - which meant that i couldn't just cut four 2 browns for the buffalo, green for grass, and blue for sky pieces of yardage into 17 groups of workable pieces...

so...

i measured and tested, just to be sure the sizes for each of the 17 pieces

head - middle - butt ... cuz i'm a yes-butt-er

and made labels for 17 envelopes to hold the cut fabrics

legal-sized envelopes - cuz that's what i had

chain stitched

what a tangled web we weave

trimmed each of the seams

how ever in the World did i live without that add-a-quarter ruler?!?

trimmed the completed parts

slice and dice

laid them out to sew together

your left ... your left ... your left your right your left

and

we have the BEASTS!!!

 TA DA!!!

the boxes of beasts are going sideways for a while ... i've gotta work on microwave-a-bowls and crayon wallets and other fancy stuff for a bit...

The difference between a hero and a coward is

 one steps sideways.

Gene Hackman