playing along

Kim at Kim's Big Quilting Adventure has been hosting Scrap Basket Sunday for several months... 

our scrap bag it isn't anything nearly as fancy as a basket - it's one of those zippered plastic bags that new bed sheets come in has such small pieces of so many different fabrics that i thought i would never be able to participate...

but then i decided to piece the backing for the Old School Saturday Sampler BOM out of leftover scrap fat quarters and bits and pieces of the neutral shudder fabrics from Dandelion Daydreams by Maywood Studios...  

i have been wanting to try a free paper-pieced Earth pattern that Auntia found here one day whilst surfing the Net...
  
i only had tiny bits of blue fabric, so i had to make my oceans green... 

a shining planet known as Earth

there isn't enough contrast between the continents and the oceans - but after i added the glow-in-the-dark moon which really DOES glow-in-the-dark - unlike the fireflies' butts it started looking more like home... 

anywho... 

this is my one and only scrap block for Scrap Basket Sunday...

it took the better part of two days to piece together the rest of the backing and i thought it would take every bit of fabric that i'd set aside for the OSSS BOM... 

however, i found myself with about three yards of MORE leftovers scraps... 

so maybe i can come out to play again...

You are not separate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don't have a life. You are life.

~ Eckhart Tolle

ahead of the game...

 last month i thought that this month's assignment for the Old School Saturday Sampler BOM was gonna be the long, skinny border of log cabin blocks ... and  i knew that i didn't want long, skinny log cabins... 
big surprise
i wanted moons...
paper-pieced moons...

in different phases...

and i knew that was gonna take me a long, loooong time...

so i worked ahead and pieced my moons...

such a cool pattern - worth every penny!!!

and folded them up and put them away, smug and smirking because i was gonna be sooooo far ahead of everyone else...

but when we went to the meeting on the second saturday of june we were told that this month's assignment for the OSSS BOM was to add borders to the left and right of the center panel...
say what?!? you mean i am NOT ahead?!? sheesh!!!

i didn't have any plans for the center side borders...
there are flamingos and the earth and moons and fairies and dandelion puffs and a leaf and a circle of geese and pinwheels...
i was running out of ideas...

Auntia to the rescue...

you know what you oughta do?!?

noooo...

fireflies!

fireflies?!?

yeah ... you know ... lightnin' bugs!!!

hmmm ... fireflies ... fireflies ... ooooo!!! 
fireflies!!! 
and i can use glow-in-the-dark fabric so their butts glow!!! 

and the search was on for a firefly pattern that i could actually accomplish...

so i searched and searched and searched...

but all the patterns i found on the Net were either too cartoonish or shudder appliqued...

what to do? what to do? what to do?

which lead to another conversation with Auntia...

what about the bugs in that pattern that you loaned me for the frog?

what frog?

the frog on MY quilt...

oh ... the quilt that you NEVER get around to blogging about?

you ended that sentence with a proposition ... i HATE that!!!

stop trying to be Colonel O'Neill...

TWO "L's"

stop it ... what pattern?!?

that pattern in the pizza box over there...

there are over a hundred pizza boxes in this room ... WHICH pizza box?!?

the one with the frog pattern in it ... it has bugs, too!

frog pattern frog pattern frog pattern...  
oh!!! 
the FROG pattern!!! 
you mean Over by the Pond?!?

yeah...

it has bugs?!?

yeeeeeesssss ... it has BUGS!!!

eeeew!!!

whatever!!! then don't make fireflies...

i'm looking ... i'm looking .... ooooo!!! 
i COULD make those flies look like fireflies!!! and look!!! there's a BEE!!!

no bees!

oh yes ... this quilt needs at LEAST one honeybee for my sweet Melissa ... you do remember that your name...

yeah, yeah, yeah ... my name means honey bee in Greek... 
whatever... 
neither one of us is Greek and your quilt doesn't need a bee...

well ... i needed two borders, not just one...
and i made a bee or maybe two...

 yes, it DID need a bee!!!
 and after she SAW the bee, she agreed with me...

 i did learn that not all of our glow-in-the-dark fabric actually glows...
only bits of it glow...
and i learned too late that most of those bits did not make it into the little bitty pieces of firefly bottoms...
but it is still kinda cool...

 i swear by my pretty floral bonnet i will end you!!!
and i'm leaving them in...

is this begging for a night sky border, or what?!?
and NOW i am ahead of everybody else ... bwah ha ha ha!!!

a place for everything

and everything in its place...

leftover bits and pieces ... and hunky guys

the rejected blocks are on the back of the quilt - all sewn together this afternoon - woo hoo!!! that was my original plan and i am relieved to know that other people feel the same way...

i won't be posting any more pictures of the second 1978 tea towel quilt (still screaming for a better name) till it's quilted and goes to live with its Intended ... i think that the Intended might look at this blog occasionally and i don't want to spoil her surprise ... it was 42" x 48" in the picture at the end of the previous post ... the final size after two additional borders is 57" x 69" 

now ... if i could just get other things in my Life in place...

clinker and stinker and pinkers

the paper-pieced blocks for the second 1978 tea towel which is screaming out for a better name, lemmetellya quilt are being made with a fat quarter bundle of Fresh Palette fabrics by Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Company ... i won the bundle when the lovely Thelma at Cupcakes 'n Daisies was having a giveaway for her 200th post waaaaay back in november of 2010... 

i loved the fabric when it arrived... 

it is lovely... 

but 
yes - you KNOW there is ALWAYS a but 
i put it away because it wasn't telling me that it was ready to be something...

when i searched the Great Pile of Stuff for fabric ... any fabric ... that would work with a linen tea towel from the 70's that is printed with gingham and rick rack, and is kinda Holly Hobbyish and i would have loved back in 1978  that little bundle of fabric kept getting my attention and i kept ignoring it... 
too much pink... 
not the right yellow... 
not enough blue... 
and then it fell down on my head for the fourth time and i decided to stop arguing with the fabric and just go with it...

i finished 32 blocks - even though i needed just 26 - cuz i KNEW there would be a few here and there that would refuse to play nicely with each other...

these blocks are just a bit too pink...

not even a bit of pink in the linen tea towel - you guys are OUTTA HERE!!!
i should have listened to myself when i told me not to use the pink fat quarters, huh?!? needless to say, these did NOT make the cut

this block is SUPPOSED to be Handy Andy...

Oh. My. Gawd. who is responsible for this?!?

but i have renamed it Wreck It Ralph ... it did NOT make the cut

this block is Crossed Canoes...

well ... that's a shipwreck, innit?!?
which answers the age old question
can a block be too red?!?
why, yes!!! yes, it CAN!!!
and it did NOT make the cut...

but these DID...

hmmm ... what's next?!?
and now... 
on to the next thing...

circles and swirls and strings

oh my!!!

the Old School Saturday Sampler BOM meeting for may was ... 

i dunno... 

two weeks ago... 

has it really been that long?!? 

anywho... 

this month's assignment was to make TWO blocks and then put the sashing and corner stones on the eight blocks that are the bottom of the quilt... 

i didn't like the assigned blocks again - big surprise so i made these...

 Circle of Geese and Strings Around the World

the swirly world is a design from Urban Threads named Leafy Earth and took a whole lot longer to stitch by hand than i thought it would...

but it is pretty doggone cool and was definitely worth the effort...

and here are the eight blocks all together...

oooo!!! fairie frost cornerstones!!! where else can i go with this?!?

these are rolled up and put away till june's meeting on the 8th... 

so... 

the center is done and the bottom is done... 

and none of it looks much like this...

not only was this pattern EXPENSIVE - it is also riddled with errors!!!

which is a good thing, innit?!?

long story long

when i was searching eBay for linen calendar tea towels for the years my children were born (1976, 1978, 1982 and 1986) i found the towel that i used for the aspen quilt listed ... i didn't know who Vera Neumann was, but i knew what i wanted to do with the trees in silhouette... 
well ... except for getting from the the little leaves to the big leaves  - ha ha ha !!! 
i bid on it, won the bid, paid via PayPal and waited for it to arrive... 

i ordered a few other things from other vendors at the same time... 

the other things which shall remain anonymous for now arrived... 

but the Vera towel didn't ...

i wrote to the seller and she told me to give it a few more days and let her know...

i did...

and it didn't...

so i wrote to the seller again and she told me to choose something else from her store that was up to twice the value of the Vera towel and she would send my alternate choice with free shipping ... so i shopped and shopped her store and settled for a Vera towel with tulips that i thought would work ... ordered it...

and waited...

and waited... 

and waited... 

and finally gave up on EVER seeing either of the Vera towels land in my mailbox...

so i shopped eBay again for a towel from 1978 and ordered this...

 different clan ... same vintage
with absolutely NO idea Whatever in the World i could possibly do with it ... i was working on Michael Myson's tavern towel quilt when it arrived ... i put this towel away because i was at even more of a loss of what to do when i saw it In Real Life...

and then the Vera towel mysteriously appeared after a six week delay ... i went with the Original Plan and forgot about the Back Up... 

but then the aspen leaves were done... 

and the border between them was done... 

and they were playing together nicely for the next border... 

and i  remembered that there was another baby girl born to another mother in 1978 ...

so i took out the towel and pondered...

and pondered...

and came up with this...

gingham checks ... a LOT more complicated than i thought ... how am i so incredibly capable of messing up squares of color?!?
and decided that the NEXT round needs to be 6 inch paper-pieced blocks from Sylvia's Bridal Sampler because the fun just keeps on coming...

yeah...

i know... 

but i SAID this was a long story long... 

and you should KNOW BY NOW that i paint a BIG PICTURE to tell a little story...

may the fourth be with you ... and the fifth, too

this has been a really, really good weekend... 

i did lots of work outside that did NOT involve a snow shovel except for scooping up leaves and the front porch looks like this now...

no snow ... not even a little bit!!!

and then we ran errands which included... 

 Hallmark to turn in our wish lists

and Noodles - next door to Hallmark - for their famous rice krispie treats cuz i have an aversion to paying $9 for a bowl of noodles 

and Lowes where we spent waaaay too much money on plants because Spring has taken too long to arrive and we needed a fix from the Green Nation 

and Perkins for buy-three-get-three-free muffins

 and Diamond Shamrock for our monthly tank of gas

 and a garden center to look for a planter to replace the one that i broke

 and Wendy's for salads

and then we grilled yes - dianne cooked with fire!!! Auntia's birthday bacon-wrapped filet mignons that have been languishing in the freezer since december just waiting for a warm and sunny day 

and some not-that-great corn on the cob...

we watched Mission Impossible 3 meh while we ate the steaks and corn 

and apple caramel tartlets with vanilla ice cream for dessert...

and then both of us headed into the Magick Shoppe to work on our april blocks for the Old School Saturday Sampler BOM meeting next saturday...

a dandelion log cabin and two not-hot-pink flamingos

which are 

So. Not. Me.

this sampler has made me stretch way, way, way far out of my comfort zone... 

i think i might have pulled some muscles...

anywho... 

this morning Auntia was up-and-at-em really early before me - which almost never happens and we went to see Iron Man Three ... woo hootie hoo!!! 

i love me some Tony Stark smartassedness ... if you go, stay through the credits!!!

and now i'm gonna ignore the housework and laundry and all those dandelions calling my name and go spend the rest of the day in the Magick Shoppe...

"When we become comfortable, do you know what happens around us? Absolutely nothing. Each day becomes just like the one before. We do what we have always done, therefore we get what we have always gotten."

Kip Davis, A Comfortable Situation