the morning after the night before

does anyone remember Girls Night Out (formerly known as HPV not the virus) ? i didn't finish it till waaaaay too late for halloween last year and that is okay cuz it is not a feel-good-keep-warm kinda quilt and i would probably have to put a hurt on anyone who actually tried to use it... 

anywho...

 there were a LOT of leftover pinwheels ... 

i put some of them together...

the morning after the night before

and made a table runner for the long, skinny table that used to live in the Gotebo Oklahoma library...

speaking of long and skinny - did you check out my quilt holder upper?!?

NoJo is 12 and wears a men's size 12 shoe... 

he is officially taller than me even before i shrunk 3/4 of an inch at 5'5"...

the table runner is 16 inches wide... 

if not for his big man hands and black socks, you'd never know he was there!!!

the morning after the night before was

quilted by Liz Bowman of Milan, Michigan

and was pieced and bound by me, myself and i

Girls Night Out

also known as 

HPV not the virus is almost* finished...

 the Quilt Formerly Known as HPV not the virus

embroidered and pieced by me

quilted by longarm quilter extraordinaire Liz Bowman

Hocuspocusville embroidery pattern by Meg Hawkey of Crab-apple Hill

center panel adapted from Jane Kennedy's Winter Trees

five years of having to listen to me whining and beeotching was suffered in silence by Auntia

i've been told that i have a twisted sense of humor

so ... whaddya think?

*hidden somewhere in the house is another package of black leaf beads that Auntia gave to me ... so Girls Night Out won't be done till i sew on the 125 missing beads**

 **unless i never find them ... oh gee darn that would be a shame!!! 

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

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?!?

herd of birds

last night was the Friday Night Sew-In and it was for the birds...

no blue skies around here the past few days ... maybe i should have waited for the leaves to dry a bit
i've been piecing flying geese for the past couple of weeks ... after some slicing and dicing and a bit of heat those became these...gaggle of geese ... herd of birds
i am not too keen on the idea of trimming a gazillion little birdies, lemmetellya

i worked on HPV not the virus a bit, too...no paper-piecing patterns for tombstones?!? seriously?!?
i couldn't find any patterns for tombstones, so the Little Red Hen had to do it herself...a bit morbid, innit?!?
i had never tried to draft a paper-piecing pattern before ... they'll do, i guess

maybe today i will get the grass mowed and some of those weeds pulled ... yeah, like that's gonna happen when i have a gazillion wings to clip

last but not least

i placed the last stitches in the last HPV not the virus stitchery today...Toil & Trouble Employment Agency

as i was taking the picture, i realized that i hadn't posted this one...Potting Shed ... for potting pumpkins, not pot
it was stitched before the end of last year - but was misplaced in the Great Pile of Stuff till a week ago...

i thought that i didn't really care when or even if i finished the HPV not the virus embroideries ... i was stitching cuz i like the pattern and cuz i like to hear the needle and thread go pahwoosh and cuz it is fun ... but when i took the last stitch i was really, really happy ... joyous, even ... and i realized that it is more than just funpahwooshingness ... i finished stitching it ... and it may actually be a full-grown quilt someday ... pretty doggone cool, huh?!?

tomorrow is this month's FNSI ... and i won't be embroidering HPV not the virus - ha ha ha!!!

nope ... not yet

thank you for the quilty love for neat ... sweet ... petite ...... i gotta say that Blogland liked it a lot more than i did ... i was more than ready for it to go live in someone else's world

still can't bring myself to put pen to paper or, rather, fingers to keyboard and write about the drama and trauma shudder

Kim asked, so i'm gonna show how HPV not the virus is coming along...Hester's U-Pick

is stitched ... and...Spooky Lou's Quality Pre-Owned Brooms
is stitched ... and of course there can't be a used-broom lot without a service department...bristle lube while you wait ... yeah, i've heard that one before
i dunno where the first picture that i took of the service shop went it's probably in digital hell ... so i took it again in incandescent light which isn't very green of me but CFLs make my stomach heave and it looks kinda orange but it isn't in real life ... anywho ... that's ten buildings stitched ... and two more to go ... sigh

done ... done ... done ... done ... done ... knot done

last night was another Friday Night Sew-In ... i didn't need to work on this...

Le Witche Boutique - seven of twelve
cuz it was done ...... and i didn't need to work on these...Paper-Pieced Saturday Sampler BOMs -
Handy Andy - Crossed Canoes
Jack in the Box - Cross and Crown
cuz they were done ...... so i put this together...a wibbon bwanket for a wittle baby
but it didn't take as long as i thought it would ... so i sewed together the black flannel that was on sale at JAF last week for $2.50/yard for the back of The Ghastlies ...... and then i put this together...NoJo's burger pocket
so this guy...NoJo gives a whole different meaning to the term meat head
can finish his first-ever-cross-stitch-project ... he has been working on a Cars bookmark...who says real men don't stitch?!?
instead of doing his summer reading ...... anywho ...... i searched high and low for the pattern that i made for mug hugs so i could start working on the 23 that i need to make as party favors for a brand new baby girl's shower in september ... but i couldn't find it anywhere ... and that made me too pissy to start on the 23 tea wallets ... so i took out the yarn for a daisy baby afghan for the same little baby girl and got this far...loves me, loves me not, loves me, loves me knot
before i decided that this is one more thing that just ain't gonna get did any time soon ... but it will make a lovely fifth or sixth birthday present, won't it?

bad hair day

guaranteed!!!
this is my sixth (of twelve) Hocuspocusville block ... at this rate, i will finish the stitching sometime around the middle of never


p.s. - the Twilight Quilters Coven is sponsoring a giveaway here ... these quilters are making some amazing blocks based on the Twilight saga ... vampires and werewolves - what's not to love?

airing dirty laundry

i finished stitching Hagatha's Dirty Laundry...i love that little kitty!
hard water ... stains added ... and she'll wash anything!

laundrocat

'nuff said

so ... sew already

last night was the Friday Night Sew-In for february ... and i didn't make any plans this time ... yeah ... i decided to not decide ... go with the flow ... let the dice fall where they may ... let fate decide ... and guess what?!? that doesn't work for me, either!
i wandered about aimlessly for an hour ... and then i baked some cookies ... by the time WWE was on i knew that piecing was out of the question due to the roar of the crowd coming from the magick shoppe where Auntia was working on her BOM blocks ... so i closed the door to my room and put An Echo in the Bone disc 6 in the player ... then i picked up Morgana's Apothecary and started stitching ...

i stitched and stitched and stitched ... through 5 cds worth of Davina Porter telling me the story ... at 1 in the morning i was stabbing my fingers more often than not - the bats and the potions would have to keep till this evening ...... i just finished the last of the french knots...morgana's materia medica
this is what it looked like before the sew-in...
my roof's got a hole in it
i'll be happy to put this one away ... this is the fourth Hocuspocusville block that i've finished ... i have eight more blocks to stitch ... i think i will take a break from them for a while even though i didn't work on Morgana's Apothecary for three months - she was missing in action because i am kinda weary of DMC #3371 and my fingers are sick to death of being stabbed by that sharp little dagger of an embroidery needle ...... last week i managed to finish the machine quilting on Mr. Husker's Homestead...mr. dinner maker and his herd of cash cows
a very special little buffalo just for my brother-in-law - the Husker fan
when i took it off the frame and started to trim it i became quite ill ... pounding head and angry stomach ... the same thing happened when i trimmed Born to be Wild ... i dunno why ... it could be because i spread quilts out on the floor to make the trimming cuts and leaning over them makes me sick ... or maybe because it scares the beejeebies out of me to take a rotary cutter and whack away at something that is so close to being finished ... anywho ... the binding is machine-sewn to the front and it's waiting for me to hand stitch it down on the back ... maybe i'll start on it tomorrow ...... but now i'm gonna go watch Legend of the Seeker even though the stories are wrong, wrong, wrong and munch another cookie or two

not so sew-in

i told myself that i should not and will not read any blogs this morning till i post about the Friday Night Sew-In ... so here goes...

i had plans ... i was gonna finish loading Mr. Husker's Homestead on the frame and start quilting the red borders ... i was gonna make the SS3 BOM block ... and then if there was any time left before the sandman came to visit i was gonna crochet a little on Auntia's coat or embroider a bit on Morgana's Apothecary ... in the meantime, i was gonna feast upon homemade soup and angel food cake with strawberries...
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley
whatever would we do without Robert Burns (whose birthday is coming up, by the way, on January 25)
even though i am neither a mouse nor a man ... my plans do often go askew ... the batting went on the frame ... the backing went on the frame ... the top went on the frame ... but when i tried to roll the backing onto the top leader it was upside down ... gasp ... i unrolled it and rerolled the other way ... it was still wrong ... i unrolled it and rolled it the first way ... still wrong ...... and then i remembered that if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got ...... so i whined for help ... Auntia took a look
you've got it backwards
how do i fix it?
you'll have to take it off and re pin it
groan
i'll help
so we unrolled and unpinned and she stood there while i turned the backing around and started to re pin just to make sure i got it the right way ... after it was re pinned, i rolled it up and tried again ... now the fabric was pointing the right way, but it wasn't coming off the roller the way it should kinda like the toilet paper roll ... by this time i was more than whining - i was groaning and whimpering
what now?
it still isn't right - wah wah wah
you've rolled it the wrong way
do you know how many times i've done this?!? i'm tired and my back aches and i just can't do this again!
okay ... okay ... okay ... i'll help you mutter mutter mutter
by that time the last thing in the world that i wanted to do was quilt ... so i sat down and crocheted a few stitches on Auntia's coat/sweater ... she took a picture...those are some raggedy looking nails
my nails kept catching on the yarn, so i stopped and filed them and put on some lotion ... then i made a pot of tea* and got out my ME little peace of quiet mug...whenever my kids would ask me what i wanted for christmas, i always told them peace and quiet
i sat back down in the red chair and crocheted a few more stitches ... but i couldn't concentrate cuz rasslin' was on upstairs and it was loud ... so i asked Auntia for her CD player and started listening to An Echo in the Bone ... i've already read the book and i know what happens but i like being read to ... so i crocheted and listened ... and then Auntia brought me a basket of kettle corn and i ate it like i hadn't eaten in hours ... oh wait - i hadn't eaten in hours ... realizing that i was ravenous and i needed to wash the sugar off my hands anyway i warmed up a bowl of soup and scarfed it down while Ms. Porter read Willie out of his problems and crocheted some more ... and then i ran out of yarn...no side seams ... one swell foop
i'd added five inches to the frontbackfront... and i didn't want to crochet anymore ... so i took out HPV not the virus and started to work on Morgana's Apothecary...Morgana may not have an apothecary, but she does have steps now
the next thing i knew it was one in the morning ... i'd listened to five CDs and my hands were tired...i love my red chair
i locked the doors and turned off the lights and went to bed ... i dunno what Auntia accomplished but i do remember a flurry of activity in the background and some flashes from the camera ... so i'm sure she'll fill us in

and now the house needs cleaning and the quilting frame is looking at me with loathsome eyes and the SS3 BOM is feeling quite betrayed ... but there is angel food cake and strawberries for breakfast

*note to self - do not drink a pot of tea after 8pm and expect a good night's sleep ... caffeine or no

outta sight

outta mind...

remember Hocuspocusville? well, i'm glad YOU do, cuz i sure didn't ... way back in october i traced out the next block - Morgana's Apothecary - and started in on the letters cuz i like to stitch the words first ... and then i decided the carrier that i was using for all of the stuff was awkward and unnecessary since i really only needed the stitchery, a hoop, some needles, a pair of scissors, and the floss ... so i transferred the stitching and necessities into a ziploc bag and put the rest into a big tote that is hanging on the back of the magick shoppe's door ... outta sight...
outta mind...
the rest of what happened is kinda blurry ... i was sitting in the oldmanleather chair, about to start stitching on the lost dog sign ... i remember taking off the hoop and putting everything into the ziploc bag so nothing would spill onto it ...... that was three months ago ... there was halloween ... thanksgiving ... christmas ... new year's ...... and this morning i remembered HPV not the virus and went looking for it ... somehow the ziploc bag had found its way to my bedroom where i hardly ever stitch cuz i lose needles and pins and then find them in the worst of ways and was under a bunch of folded but not put away clothes ... totally outta sight ... and totally outta mind...can't ...... breathe
sealed in plastic which is very not good for the fabric or the floss and sealed from my list of things to work on ... sheesh...three months and that's all you have done?!?
Hocuspocusville is one of my favorite wivvsp's and i have no deadline for finishing it ... so i stopped working on HPV in late october cuz i was crocheting the outer edge on an afghan for the m&ms for christmas ... and then i started on this...Family Circle's easy crochet Spring 2007
openwork coat for Auntia ... i finished the sleeves and started the frontbackfront ... when i was sewing down the binding on Little Nonnie's doll quilt i couldn't figure out why my fingers were so sore ... and then i remembered that i hadn't held an actual needle for a loooong time cuz i'd been crocheting ...... anywho ... Hocuspocusville is now out in plain sight ... the ziploc bag is open to the air and Morgana's gonna have an apothecary ...... someday

by the way ... i have joined in the Friday Night Sew-In for the New Year on January 15, 2010 ... commitment is atypical for me but the rules say that i don't have to actually sew ... i just have to promise to put aside some time to work on a project on my to do list ... and that i can do

the black cauldron...

i'd like the eye of newt stew and a side of fried bat wings, please

is stitched ... woo hoo!!! i used glow in the dark thread for the little circles around the open sign - but when i tried to get a picture of them glowing in the dark ... well ... the camera laughed at me ... sigh ... the leaves in the window boxes are DMC #4130 ... i think i might add a few leaves to each of the blocks - i like how they look ... we saw this version of Hocuspocusville at the Quilt Affair...oops! don't want you to get a crick in your neck...
that's better ... now say ooooh! aaaaah!

...this is the third completed HPV (not the virus) that i have seen and the jury inside my head is still out on whether or not i like it better with brights or with more color or with buttons ...... well ... not really on that last one - the button version has been my least favorite ... but my opinion may have be tainted by the quilter ... our conversation went something like this...

i used blah blah blah single strand
uhm ... i'm using two strands of DMC #3371
DMC?!!? floss?!!?? sneer
uhm ... yes
i finished the quilt in three months
well, that's great! good for you!
how long have you been working on it?
uhm ... since february
february??!! and you haven't finished the embroidery??!!
uhm mum mum ... no
really!??!!?

grrrr ... yes ... really ... i'm embroidering - plain old embroidery with a plain old hoop and a plain old sharp needle and plain old embroidery floss - something i haven't done since i was a teenager when rocks were soft and mist was in the air ... and i am enjoying every minute of it ... i'm not running a race and i don't have a timetable ... i'm not stitching Hocuspocusville to impress anybody - i'm stitching it cuz i like it ... and it doesn't much matter to me if it takes six months (not likely) or six years ...... okay ... rant's over ... i feel much better

bubble & brew, wishy-washy hands, half & half, and frog eyes

i finished embroidering the Hocuspocusville coffee shop two days ago......it was a lot less stitching than the quilt shop ... i tore the rest of the fabric (now's a fine time to make sure that i have enough, eh? the shop where i bought it went out of business in march) and maybe i will be able to trace out the restaurant - the black cauldron with authentic witch cuisine - this weekend ... but HPV (not the virus) is gonna have to take a backseat to the stocking that i started for LuLu (formerly known as Littlelle) ... it is counted cross stitch, so i actually have to count when i work on it and it doesn't make that great pahwhoosh sound that embroidery does ... sigh ... i have made Shepherds Bush stockings for all (four) of my kids, my mother, my sister, and three of my grandbabies - it only took 386 days to find myself two stockings behind ... sigh ... Santa is an understanding guy and will probably leave goodies for little girls with no stockings...

Gumdrop, NoJo, Mrs. Moth, Little Nonnie and LuLu
...we did manage to get all of the m&m's up to see Little Nonnie ... she was in quite the mood when we arrived - i asked her to wash her hands so she could hold the baby and she went into the bathroom ... water turns on - swish - water turns off - okay, i'm ready ... did you use soap? no, i didn't use soap - why would i use soap? you're kidding me, right? no, i'm not kidding you - i haven't touched anything except my clothes and the toilet paper ... mom, go wash your hands with soap ... why? i've lived 84 years and i think i know a little bit more about babies that you do ... mom, if you don't wash your hands with soap, then you are NOT gonna hold my granddaughter ... fine! whatever!
what is it with people who refuse to wash their hands? she's not allergic to soap. she taught me that washing my hands was the best way to not get sick. she also taught me that i should never, never, never touch a baby unless i had washed my hands with soap and water...

...and she is not alone - everybody wants to hold LuLu, but the vast majority don't even think to wash their hands first ... one actually insisted that she washed her hands before she came over so she didn't need to wash them again - never mind the fact that she pet the dog and handled the steering wheel and the door handles for the car and the house and her purse strap and her car keys ... she has some kind of eye thing that makes her eyes watery - so she is always wiping at her eyes and then sticks her finger in LuLu's mouth ... well, not on my watch ... LuLu has a binky - use it - not your nasty knuckle ... what has happened to common sense?!?
NoJo is blowing out the used candle on his half-birthday piece of cake ... doesn't he look excited?
NoJo's half birthday was last saturday ...... three of my four kids were born within a month of christmas ... it is a loooong dry spell between christmas/birthday and the next christmas/birthday so i used to bake each of them half a cake and give them silly presents six months after their birthdays ... it's a family tradition ... my family tradition ... and i'm not gonna stop giving my grandson a little piece of cake with an already-been-used candle on it unless somebody can give me a good reason not to...
frog eye salad is another tasty treat that looks like it's already been eaten once
...and Auntia finally convinced me to make some frog eye salad ... we are gonna take some to Nicci when we go to see her tomorrow ...... and then we have some auction tickets to use at The Quilters Studio - they're gonna have some shop samples on the auction block - maybe we will have a winning bid or two ... and they are having their christmas in july sale (i am so gonna stay away from the winter graphix fabrics - just say no, dianne) this weekend, too ...... i am so far behind on BOM blocks that i may never catch up - Auntia even cut the pieces for me for the required block (actually, it wasn't out of the goodness of her heart - she lost a bet and that was the payment - ha ha ha! when will she learn that i don't bet unless it's a sure thing?!?) and i still haven't looked at it ... not to mention the six pink and orange blocks ... and the new saturday sampler that meets on the second saturday of each month ... and i haven't worked on Mr. Husker's Homestead since, well, forever ... and the applique blocks from class ... and the bat blocks ... sigh

not all who wander are lost

if you wandered over here from Kim's blog about megging and Hocuspocusville (referred to around here as HPV - not the virus) and studies and soccer terms and quilting embroidered quilts and the other myriad topics that Kim worked her word magic into one cohesive post ... and you've noticed that the picture that i posted of HPV's quilt shop wasn't actually finished ... well, here it is in all its wrinkly glory...you want it ... you know you do!!!
i decided to use a back stitch for the words on the tree banner after all ... i think i will do the same for the small words on the other blocks ... and (raising up my glass to Kim and her love of Starbucks - the coffee bar, not the Colonial Warrior) i've traced out Bubble and Brew - the fly-thru coffee shop - to embroider next...
...while i was wandering around searching for the links i realized that the designer for Crabapple Hill is named Meg ... coincidence?