i dunno...

i think i might need this...

i know that i want it...

i could skip a few meals and/or delay paying a bill or two...

maybe if it goes on sale...

bilingual?!?

 my new cup...

yep, this raven and i speak the same language,  for sure!!!

attempted murder - part three

 

ugh ... the air quality was 143 (smoke from wildfires) when this picture was taken and the colors are not true 

 but the stitching is done - yay!!!

attempted murder - part two

 

caw caw caw 

attempted murder - part one

stitching on 28ct twilight lugana with called for DMC (mostly) from chart found in:

on page 54

caw caw 

comma chameleon

this was gonna be a two words post

but i realized that i am the only person in the World who would have understood it...

backstory:

back in 1983 or so, i lurved listening to Boy George and the Culture Club singing Do You Really Want to Hurt Me and Karma Chameleon
this was waaaay before song lyrics and their meanings were accessible at our fingertips...
anywho... 

i thought he was singing 

Come-ah, come-ah come-ah, come-ah chameleon
yeah...

in my defense, it's a hummable tune
which is what i mostly do when i sing along with a song
and i didn't know what karma was anyway

a few years ago, Zen Chic came out with a fabric line named Comma...

i dunno if it's still available anywhere, but i thought it was pretty cool at the time and bought three charm packs and some yardage, thinking i would make it up using Mama Spark's Charmalade Quilt pattern at the Moda Bakeshop...

but i never did get it made...

 so it lived in its pizza box with a label that said COMMA...

i was looking through the Great Pile of Stuff and said to myself
self, make something with these COMMA charm packs and get them outta here 

so i put together a bunch of half square triangles 
and then some pinwheels
added some borders 
and came up with a flimsy that i thought would make a nice little summer quilt
 and i KNEW was gonna have comma in its name
if i ever found a backing for it...

Melissa thought i was nuts...

she said it was OBVIOUSLY a Halloween quilt

and when we went looking for backing fabric at one of those Joann sales - you know the kind - 40% off plus another 25% off the total purchase including sale and clearance items
 Melissa led me to a Marvel Halloween pumpkin bolt... 

i thought it was hideous...

but the price was right...

sigh...

here is Comma Chameleon:

does that look like Halloween to you?!?

and this is the hideous Marvel backing:

i lurve Marvel comics as much as The Next Guy, but that fabric is ugly...

pieced and bound by me
beautifully quilted with Halloween cats and bats and witches by Liz Bowman
and given to Melissa as soon as it was finished cuz the back changes it from a nice little summer quilt to an ugly Halloween quilt...


People generally fall into one of three groups: the few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no notion of what happens. Every person is either a creator of fact or a creature of circumstance. He either puts color into his environment, or, like a chameleon, takes color from his environment.
Myles Munroe

some 'splainin'

because sometimes two words may not be enough...

it never occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, not everyone knows about training dragons...

Halloween is a Big Deal around here and Melissa ALWAYS dresses in costume...

when she was little, i made the costumes for her...

Flower Power

my very own Little Mermaid

Princess Bumblebee

unless i ran outta time - then my mom would help out...

Miss Kiss

clownin' around

and now she makes her own... 

baneling bridesmaid

Lieutenant Ihearya

the ranger's apprentice

 this year she decided to be Toothless from

  How to Train Your Dragon...

Toothless - the Night Fury

she spent MONTHS crocheting the shawl...

the wings of a pitch black dragon

and she told me that it was totally worth it!!!

night furies

abby normal

franken-kit-kats ... even less fun to make than the werewolves

i dunno ... they look more like zombies than Frankenstein's monster

recipe and how-to video are here

note to self - stay away from this website next halloween

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Ah! Very good. Would you mind telling me whose brain i DID put in?

Igor: Then you won't be angry?

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: I will NOT be angry.

Igor:  Abby someone.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Abby someone. Abby who?

Igor: Abby ... Normal.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Abby Normal?

Igor: I'm almost sure that was the name.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA?

Young Frankenstein

beastie boys

note to self - Wilton's black sparkle gel doesn't ever dry ... it's gonna smear no matter how long you wait 

they look more like chocolate pigs than werewolves, but adding fangs would have been too scary for the younglings and their nonna...

the recipe and how-to video are here 

note to self - she makes it look a lot easier than it is In Real Life

as for being a werewolf, Jacob Black had this to say:

It's not a life-style choice, Bella. I was born this way, I can't help it.

Jacob Black in New Moon

s'more peeps

p.s. - you can make your own ... directions are here

crinkly wrinkly

Lulu drew this Halloween picture for Auntia and me...

kinda gory for a 5 year old, innit?!?

and told me that she is the bleeding hand, Auntia is the bleeding star, and i am the bleeding bat...

when i asked her why i have to be the Old Bat,..

she answered with, "Gee, Nona ... i DIDN'T draw your wrinkles!!!"

Age wrinkles the body, 

Quitting wrinkles the soul.

Douglas MacArthur

samhain

this year i actually finished a halloween quilt in time to USE it ... his name is Samhain and he has lived on the OldManLeatherChair all month...

Samhain

fabric is the original Hallowgraphix by Jason Yenter for In the Beginning

pattern is Fireworks! by Kim of Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

quilting by Liz Bowman of Milan, Michigan

pieced and bound by me, myself and i

batouttahell

my dad didn't get to cuss much around my mom, but she did cut him some slack every once in a while ... when another driver would whiz past us and he said 

like a bat out of hell!!! 

she didn't raise her eyebrows very high or admonish him with Guido!!!

so that's what i came up with when i was trying to think of a name for this wreath...

Bat out of Hell

it has been living on the back of Auntia's red leather chair... 

she says it doesn't keep her very warm... 

maybe that bat isn't outta Hell after all...

pattern and fabric by Jason Yenter of In The Beginning

quilted with BATS!!! by Liz Bowman of Milan, Michigan

pieced and bound by me, myself and i

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

beware!!!

i don't know who created this ... but
isn't it brilliant?!?
don't text and fly - bwah ha ha!!!

have a safe and happy HALLOWEEN!!!

simply ghastly

my sister loves halloween ... my sister loves the Addams Family ...my sister's living room is mauve ... my sister needs The Ghastlies...they're all together ooky

i fell for the fabric the first time i saw it at Desperate Quilters ... the plan was to make a double irish chain - with the different characters fussy-cut in 6 inch (finished) blocks ... none of the local quilt shops have The Ghastlies ... i had no idea that the characters are so BIG ... waaaay too big for 6 inch blocks ... so i modified the center of the blocks to be 6x10 ... there's a green peeper border around the black inner border ... this flimsy is crying out for a black flannel back and binding ... and i'm thinking that it needs big pink roses quilted all over it
i love this little coven of witches...i always feel like some body's watching me
the fabric comes in other colorways - green, orange, mauve and grey .... and i was gonna buy some more for me ... but i think i'm kinda over the whole creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky family

who???

hoot hoot hoot!!!
not me ... i don't have fancy schmancy halloween slippers ... yet!!!
happy halloween!!!

wit or wit-out

no, i'm not talking about ordering a cheesesteak in philadelphia ...... after the 240 blocks for the Miss Melly block swap when i swore that i would never, never, never try to swap blocks with real quilters again because i am not up to playing with the big dogs so i oughta just stay on the porch i thought that making a dozen or so bat blocks for the Spooktacular block swap would be no big deal ... i figured i'd be able to find a variety of pieced blocks that with the right fabric looked like bats ... wrong! lots of applique designs (out of my league - my applique skills need a lot more practice) are out there, but i couldn't find anything pieced that looked like a bat to me ... so i had to figure out my own ... the only black fabric that i had to work with was a piece of flannel, so that's what i used for the prototype ... that attempt took some major tweaking and a wee bit of whining at Auntia what do you think? is this gonna be okay? does it look too weird? are you sure you would want this block in your quilt? and then i tried a bat out of polished cotton ... meh ... we decided that the creep factor was more enhanced with fuzzy flannel (ick) and i changed out the ears from a flying goose to prairie points (even ickier) ... eventually the bat blocks were to the almost finished stage and then i started wondering if i should sew on the eyes and the little vampire-bat teeth or leave them off ... the blocks look a lot like the bat signal without the eyes and teeth but they look kinda goofy with them...

so, whaddya think ... wit or wit-out?

spooky

we found ourselves in need of some halloween fabric (gasp - how could that be???) and went shoppin' ... these are mine...halloween hunks - you want them - you know that you do
Auntia let me use her 40% off coupon for the hunky halloween guys - halloween fabric isn't on sale yet at JoAnns - so they were $6.00/yard instead of $9.99/yard - woo hoo! i like the devil and she likes the pirate ... i suppose Twilight fans would like the vampire ... but the skeleton guy is a bit too - uhmm, i was about to write "bony" but i guess i'll say - thin for me ...... i dunno what i will make with the fabric - maybe aprons ... my halloween stash needed some good-lookin' dudes ...... the blue, yellow and black are gonna be bat blocks if i ever figure out how to make them NOT look like the Bat Signal and the lime green bats on black and the orange are gonna be nine patches ... halloween doesn't get mad at me when my blocks shout boo!