done ... done done done

done...

all of the crayon wallets are done

phew...

and they are packed into their reusable treat bags

there's another box just like this one - they barely fit in the car, lemmetellya...

along with some other puppy/dog-themed stuff 

and delivered to little miss k who will be six in june 

to give to her kindergarten classmates and siblings and friends

and i was done two months early

which is pretty much unheard of around here...

also done...

asking a quilter to mend is like asking Van Gogh to paint the kitchen

LuLu's long-sleeved shirt which seems to be worn to shreds well-loved - i'm just sayin' is now a short-sleeved shirt

four lemon microwave-a-bowls

four sunflower microwave-a-bowls

two sunflower coasters
the moon tree skirt trimmed to a circle from a square

binding machine-sewn onto quilted things that will join the ever-growing pile of quilted things that need binding hand-stitched down...

the front and back lawns are raked and ready for the aerator except for what's left of the five inches of snow that fell tuesday...

and some of the house appears to be clean tidy enough...

 now i can get back to what i wanta do 

instead of what i oughta do...
till guilt kicks in again...

I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done.

Lucille Ball

today

was a snow day...

and i found myself pondering

yes, pondering - in public, no less 

if beauty really IS in the eye of the beholder...

beautiful or ugly?

beautiful or ugly?

beautiful or ugly?

i  know what i think ... what do YOU think?!?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give the beholder a punch in the eye.

anonymous

pineapple express

we're being hit with another snow storm...

 one of my favorite weather guys (he is only wrong 95% of the time, instead of 99%) says this one is straight from Hawaii...

 he called it the Pineapple Express...

 snow, snow, go away!!!

that's how much was waiting for us this morning... 

it's supposed to start snowing again in just a little bit... 

but that's okay cuz i have been fortified with...

i used to hate oatmeal ... now i lurve it ... all it needed was a BUNCH of brown sugar and some sliced apple and craisins ... who knew?!?

my morning bowl of oatmeal lovingly made by Auntia in my very favorite pineapple bowl!!!

 and i intend to stay hunkered down under the quilt that my bowl is sitting upon till it is time to shovel again...

I wish we could just go nowhere...

Saul Silver

may day!!! may day!!!

it has been doing this...

cuh-cuh-cuh-cold again!!!

all the live long day ... AGAIN!!!

there has been no shoveling, though - the streets and drives and sidewalks were heated up past 80 degrees on monday...

 and no snow day off from work and school... 

so much for the very merry month of may...

i'm just sayin'

from there to here

this picture... 

morning glories hidden in the zucchini

was NOT taken today... 

a looong time ago i won a giveaway at Kim's Big Quilting Adventure... 

Kim sent me lottsa goodies...

 including a packet of morning glory seeds - which i planted that spring... 

 promptly forgot... 

and was surprised by that blue blossom UNDER the squash plants... 

which was a waaaay cooler surprise than waking up this morning to this...

14 inches of snow between 5pm yesterday and 6am this morning

yeah... 

it was already starting to melt by the time i shoveled... 

thawed my fingers... 

and took the camera back outside... 

anywho... 

i have found myself pondering the seasons of Life In General...

 and of Things In Particular...

and how we move from there to here and back again...

last week i was worrying about how to get from the little leaves to the big leaves...

what was i thinking when i came up with 5 inch leaves and 7 inch leaves?!? how could i not know that it was gonna give me fits?!?

and found myself totally flummoxed... 

i needed to move from a 25" x 35" rectangle to a 35" x 42" rectangle without abandoning all hope of symmetry cuz we all know that dianne is diametrically opposed to asymmetry ... 

after two days and three nights of thinking and nightmaring i told Auntia that i was gonna give up...

 she made a profound suggestion...

why don't you draw it out?

draw what out?!?

the different parts ... draw it all out

and what good is THAT gonna do?!?

then you will see what you need to do...

mutter ... mutter ... mutter

so i took a big piece of graph paper... 

assigned one inch to each square... 

and guess what?!? 

i could see what i needed to do...

oh!!! i SEE!!!

Auntia was right... 

but don't tell her that i said that cuz there would be no living with her...

spring ain't sprung

the world outside my door this morning...springtime in the rockies
is windy and white and wet and wild...
yesterday the high was 79 degrees (Fahrenheit) ... sheesh

snow den

are you tired of this planter yet? i know that i am!

yes ... yes ... it is still snowing ... i tried to take a picture of the big green egg on the back patio because it has at least 25 inches piled on top of it but the screen door is frozen shut and i am not walking around through a gazillion (when i went to bed last night the official accumulation was 17.5 inches for Broomfield ... and there were 8 more inches waiting for me on the driveway this morning) inches of snow to get close enough ... and underneath it all is a thin sheet of ice ... lottsa whoops! whoops! whoops! this morning ... i'm gonna leave snowball-making to the little ones cuz it's another snow day and work on my kinda snowball in the magick shoppe whilst sipping hot chocolate with lottsa marshmallows ... and maybe Auntia will bake some cookies

uncle!!!

and here's the planter 6 hours later...seriously?!?

...my back and shoulders have had enough of shoveling snow for the day

when i wasn't outside shoveling the walks and drive and knocking snow off of the trees that didn't get a chance to lose their leaves i worked on this pile of fabric...woof! woof!Lone Wolf by South Seas ... mmhmmm ... look at all that snow ... glad i don't have to shovel it!
have you ever bought fabric knowing that you need to make a quilt out of it with no plan whatsoever?
my other brother from the same mother will be 60 on March 28, 2010 the day before Mr. Husker and i need to make a quilt for him ... the Other One lives about fifty miles from here, in the high foothills of the Rocky Mountains ... he moved there from the suburbs a few years ago ... i've never seen his mountain home and i don't know much about him anymore ... he has called himself the black sheep of the family but actually it is me who baaas from my little sheep mouth ... when we were kids, i thought of him as a lone wolf ... maybe he is a lone wolf in black sheep's clothing - ha ha ha!
anywho, a few months ago i asked his daughter the lovely Princess Sarah if she could give me any ideas for a quilt for Other One and she told me that he loves national parks and north american wildlife and that he prefers earth tones ... hoo boy - me and earth tones - like that's gonna work, eh?
so i started the search ... i decided on Snowy Silence by South Seas and ordered the panel and some yardage way back in february ... and waited to be inspired ... and waited ... and waited ... and then i saw the Lone Wolf panel and changed my mind ... that's okay since i still didn't have a plan for Snowy Silence ... i ordered the wolf panel and some yardage ... and waited to be inspired ... and waited ... and waited ... i guess my muses have been on furlough cuz my quilting mojo done got up and went ... when Mr. Husker's Homestead made its way off the sewing table i knew i'd better come up with something - inspired or not - and this is it...mutter ... mutter ... mutter
a plan of sorts for a band quilt using the panel and the stripes, the trees and the sky ... i couldn't find any fabric online that i liked for paw prints in the snow - so Auntia and i went to JoAnns - i fussed with white on whites and cream on creams and blues and browns and greys until Auntia made the decisions for me - i'd prolly still be there if she hadn't - thank you, Auntia ... so last weekend i worked on 240 half square triangles......i'm gonna need to make 24 more because - and this is gonna be a shocker - i changed my mind ... and today i cut out 264 of theseand 66 of theseso i can make 66 of theseand then i can make 66 of these!
these is a weird looking word ... i did spellcheck because it just doesn't look right ... but it is ...... anywho ...... can you tell that i am really not wanting to go back to the magick shoppe and work on those snowballs? i'm running out of excuses...
i finished reading An Echo In The Bone ... but Auntia hasn't - she keeps asking for spoilers and i dunno when to keep my mouth shut ... she asked me to make her a quilt with Wolf Song because her favorite character is Rollo - she's rather fond of wee Ian, too ... wait till she finds out what Diana Gabaldon does to the two of them in this book ... and i think that the paw prints will look cool for her wolf quilt, too ...... okay ... okay ... okay ... back to work

enough already

it has been snowing here since 10pm last night ... and it isn't expected to stop till 6pm tomorrow ... most of the schools were canceled by 5am - even though the accumulation this morning was only two or three inches - because the weather dudes and weather dudettes said it was gonna snow and snow and snow...so much for the geraniums in that basket ... and it's only noon!
... and - boy howdy - were they right, or what?!?

littlelle is home!

just look at our little sweetie pea ... her daddy is a pro at swaddling ... and she's already getting some use out of her it's cold in the world outside quilt ... because it is cold in the world - it has been snowing/raining since before Littlelle was born (heavy, wet snow that turns to slurpee when it hits the ground)...

...and while i was visiting the Moths and waiting patiently (cough) for my turn to hold the baby, i took a picture of the quilt (wedding wishes on dragonfly's wing) that is hanging in their family room

snowed in ... not!

we were expecting 10 - 15 inches of snow on saturday ... i spent the last blizzard shoveling snow and surfing the Internet, and i didn't want to waste the jammie time again ... so we planned ahead. on friday, while Auntia was being beat up at the dentist's office, i stocked up on food at the grocery store ... then we made a mad dash to TQS for our BOM kits (it's against the rules to go early, but they took pity on us and let us do it anyway) and bought a few lavender fat quarters, stopped at the Thread Bear for some fairie frosts, and then headed for home. i put down some fertilizer (think green, green grass being nurtured under a white blanket of snow) before the wind started in ... i was supposed to be cleaning house on friday evening while Auntia got her weekly, gratuitous, choreographed violence fix, but i was too sad to do anything much after i heard about radman's passing ... so i wallowed in grief for the rest of the evening...
...on saturday morning, Auntia bordered her little (it isn't little, but it is little compared to the big quilt that she is making - this one is the leftovers) fern blocks and sewed them into a flimsy while i did some of the cleaning i was supposed to already have done......and then she laid out the blocks from Bonnie's Orange Crush Mystery and started putting them together ... this is how she left it last night (my orange crush blocks are languishing in their plastic tub, where they will remain till ... some other time)...
...and i made a little progress on Mr. Husker's birthday quilt ... mountains and a practice bull (i don't usually have to practice bull - ha!) that i have named Sampson ... he's gonna go live with the other orphan blocks because he has crooked, crooked ears ... i have plans to round up a herd today - the calves, cows, and a bull are cut and waiting ... but first i am going to put on some spaghetti sauce and finish up the cleaning ... by the way, the snow was one inch, not fifteen ... no shoveling for me today ... woo hoo!

brrrr

this was the snow gauge at 2pm ...... now the wind is shifting the snow so much that the Bug is no longer an accurate gauge ... i can't find the official accumulation ... my guesstimate is about 12 inches ... maybe 14 ...... the forecast is 4 to 8 more inches before 6am tomorrow ... here's hoping the ground slurps most of it in before it turns to slush in the storm drains

snow-pocalypse

two hours later ... time to walk the dog (again) ... time to shovel a path (again) ... and check the snow gauge (again) ... sheesh, beav - it's a freakin' blizzard out there!

snow gauge

it was 10am and time to walk the dog ... but first i had to shovel a path ... the Bug is my snow gauge ... 'bout six inches, so far