Ta Da~ Duh~ Whatever~

It seems that when you upload photos to blogger and then MOVE them around to suit your fancy, before publishing of course, you screw up the "click to enlarge" option!  So now I know...and you do too.

Lets try this

"Leaves" progress

If you click the pix, you will see how I top stitched the edges down by machine vs. by hand.  The second picture will show you the whole top so far...Still not really clear what I am doing, but it is progress.

I dug out this picture and thought I would photo the label before it turns to dust. Click to enlarge for easy reading. Evelyn was my paternal grandmother.

and this is the picture Aunt Rose painted, with me reflected in the glass. Not a very good photo, I might add. Aunt Rose lived with my grandmother downstairs in the "mother-in-law apt". I don't remember my grandmother, but I do remember Aunt Rose and her dog Sadie.

Of course I had to Google Spirit Lake....

Postcard???  Circa 1910, same date as the painting, so this is how things looked that summer.

And from the air, as it looks today.

 Crochet.

Hats? Baskets? WTF???   Cupcakes, Cupcake Ornaments. WIP. Cutting mat and flower pin for size reference.

Sewing Leaves

Now that could be a real cliffhanger...."Sewing Leaves...."  What? 

seams?  stitches?  you are making leaves?

In a way I am making leaves.  I have started calling this quilt "Leaves" because it's a...well...it's a 'leaf' print.  The first pic shows how uneven the edges are after a couple of cutting-sewing-cutting-sewing again-- steps.
Now this 2nd pic may be easier to see enlarged, so click-view-come back.  The bottom area is the kaleidoscope part I had on my design wall for ages. the blue-turquoise-y batik will be between the first 'border' addition and the kalid-y block area. Still with me?
Here is a full shot of the 1st border area on it's own.  [sorry about the flash messing up the colors]  I am going to applique, by machine probably, both sides to the blue batik, in points from the kalid-y side and in sq's from the 1st border area.  I should probably not confuse you, or myself, with words and just do it so I can show you pix!

I have also been crocheting.

The Gown

I forgot to post this close up shot I came across of Michelle Obama's gown. Way cool!
If you click here, you can see the days outfits on a UK sews site.

My Girls

Auntie Stephanie, my daughter, and Megan, my granddaughter. 

Puppies and Babies.  Megan's sister, Lily, and their new pups, 

Diego and Dora.

Caught red handed holding the zapper AND the baby!

Moi.

Crochet

A while back when I was showing what was on my display wall, there was also a block with a crocheted butterfly on it.  This might be the pattern!

Just in case someone may want this.....

changes are in the air

FISH more Fabric

FISH= fondling+inhaling+stroking+holding  Fabric.

More new fabric.  I needed something to go with the leaves print you see draped across the selection.  I purchased these from Thousands of Bolts, where the prices are good ALL the time.  If you have already clicked on the FISH link above, you might notice that the leaves fabric in my hands is the one here.  I have posted 2 pix of the same thing because of the different ways the flash does things. Not to mention the different ways I do things to flashed pictures. 

So am doing ok as far as supporting the sagging economy?  

Sheesh....forgot to mention the 4 cotton batts and 2 big things of Tacky Glue that came in today too.  The batt was on clearance from Joanns, and whether the glue was on sale, can't remember, but it doesn't matter, needed it anyway.

Property Line

When we bought this place, we couldn't find the property makers.  Not a big deal. We just put the backyard fence around the existing grassy area. We knew our line didn't go back that far, but if you go much further, you are walking on the hiway.  We did finally find out that our property starts in the middle of the private road out front, not where we thought.

Anyway.....I got up this morning and discovered 2 guys walking on the other side of the fence.  Seems one of the guys is the new property owner, and he was helping the other guy survey his property.  Boy were we wrong about the back yard!  So we have to move the fence, shorten the dogs area, lose all the extra mowing area.....oh darn.  That fugly trailer and car back there....that will get hauled out....double darn.

In the top picture, thank you Google, I put an X on our house because the actual house in the picture is gone.  It was demolished a few years ago. 

This should be interesting! I will keep you posted. Wonder if I should wait to get the deck started.....Might be a good idea, huh?

Cartoons from Friends

Do you have friends that send you funny pix and cartoons?  I do. Sometimes there is one that fits to a T.  Like this one. Ok...I re-touched it to 'fit' us, but....Pretend that's Ashley and I standing next to each other.

This one also fits me.  I just mentioned the other day how Menopause is making me psycho....I have blurted out a few things I wouldn't have in my younger days.....like 2 years ago.
This one?  I found this one on someone else's blog, but it just happens to fit something Stephanie, Mom and I were talking about the other day, during our "help with homework hour."  NO we do not DO Steph's homework. We help her bounce ideas around, give examples from the past, etc. Steph is 18, Mom is 80-something....that's a lot of era to cover and every student should be so lucky.

And this?  Well, when Dan showed me the Homemade RV's in my last post, it made me think of one of the cars my parents had.  It was called a Borgward....then Mom remembered it was called the "Borgward Isabella TS." But this car doesn't ring any bells with either of us.  Of course, I only remember the car from pictures.....Mom and I both remember the car being rounder, like a Bug, and I remember the doors opening wrong.  Any ideas?

Fabric, Tea, Megan, RV's

Pretty eclectic pictures today.

First....Dan wanted me to see these RV's....pretty slick huh?  And look. A. Pink. One.  {we find that many RV interiors are pink}

My DIL Kacie and HER daughters, Megan and Lily.
A pink baby.  That bassinet is history as of yesterday.  I went to get the waking babe and she was working her way OUT of the bed. Smiling, of course.
Megan loves to have her picture taken.  This time I made use of Picasa to make up a collage. Of Megan.
My mom, Evelyn, and I were invited to tea yesterday by Evelyn and Megan. Evelyn is my son's Grandmother-In-Law. My mothers MIL was an Evelyn also.
And the last for best....fabric.  Fabric.  Fabric that was on sale.  I am thinking of making a dress-ish sort of thing for Megan.  I seem to have forgotten the rest of this paragraph, oh my.  I meant to include "I want to use the flower and riboons fabrics for the dress for Meg-a-roo, and Steph may have claimed the purple for herself.  The green may go to Kacie for curtians...??? She mentioned recently wanting green curtains, so I grabbed this while I could.  If not, it can always be part of a quilt!" {added a few hours later!}

Cats and Yarn

Rocket loves loves loves this afghan.  I will hear mom's call, and I can always tell by the sound of her voice, that she needs rescuing from this beast of burden.  You can see that Page isn't helping!
A hat. I got this wonderful yarn called "Calico Cat~ Magic Ball" from Emily Parson.   She combines many different colors of yarn into a ball large enough to make a scarf.  More pix on this here.

Stephanie saw the yarn and loved it and even knew exactly what she wanted from it! What could I do???  I made her a 'hat with flaps', of course There are tassels yet to be sewn on too, at the ends of the "I-cord". {crocheted "idiot cord"}
She wouldn't let me photo it on a doll, or herself, so I used the next best thing....a lamp shade of course.
This last item is a scarf.  Stephanie was cleaning out her closet and found a bucket of misc. stuff, including....YARN ....No...Yes!  So one+ of 3 skeins later we have this.  And enough to make another one for another Daughter...in-law!  They will be for Ashley and Kacie, not Steph, for the upcoming Valentines Day color scheme.

Family

Grand baby #3 at 13 weeks in the oven.  Quite the bun.

My brother. He's a Goof. Takes after me....wait he's older, so I must take after him.
My brother and my sister in law.  On holiday in Montreal.
This is a lake.  This is a frozen lake.  This is Lac La Biche.  I think that translates to 'frozen lakes a biche'.My brothers cat.  His name is Snork.  I Snort thinking of the name.

You Can Do It...

Pieceful Afternoon commented on the quilt on my design wall, thank you, and how she was afraid to try a One-Block-Wonder of which there is now a second book, BTW.  [Go see my Orange Roughy quilt!]

So, Joann, have you tried a Stack 'n' Whack?  The cutting and piecing are about the same, but use different sorts of prints [fabrics] to get the different looks.  I love both!  I have been a Bethany Reynolds fan for years now!!  I even took a Quilt University class from her. I think quilts of that era are on my webshots pages.  In fact, the butterfly print I used for the class project was one Bethany had also and we discovered that it wasn't that great for a Stack 'n' Whack quilt.  So she learned something also.  [i need to look at the quilt to remember what the problem was....]

Stack 'n' Whack quilts use fabrics that are bold, colorful, novelty.

One Block Wonder quilts use a print with a "limited" palette.  

So both are fun.  I think the hardest thing is not spending thousands of dollars on fabrics that fit both methods!  I may not have spent that much money, but I still have quite a few fabrics I can use for both these methods.

Sew.........

Whats on your design wall???  The very dusty start of a quilt.  The top section is what I have gotten stitched together the last few days.  The first 3  blocks on the left side are from a quilt that had been given to a dog.....grrrrrrrr.......These are the blocks I rescued.  The bottom one is an embroidery I rescued from a shirt I made many many decades ago.  On the right side of the wall is a dragonfly pincushion.  I put that together in about 5 minutes because my design wall needed a pin cushion of it's own. I figure it will become a cat toy, so I didn't waste much energy on it.  On the lower right is a book, a very large size book.  I love that book.

12 Weeks 5 Days

That is how far Ashley is along in her pregnancy.  Due Date July 16!!!!!!!

Ok, for us, July has always been Ben's month. No other birthdays near that date.  And then.....Lily Mae came along.  That was ok, that was Ben's daughter, so she could be born in July if she wanted to.  So not only did she pick her daddy's birthday to be born on, but she missed his birthTIME by 3 minutes....3 minutes!!!

Now Ben's sister is going to have a baby....in July....So it looks like we will have 2 birthday months from now on, Oct [which includes Ashley's on Nov 1 in my book] has 3 birthdays and now July looks like it will have 3 also.  

Do you care?  Most are probably shaking your heads.  But to us, it matters.  As it should.

A Rug

I hope I haven't bored showed you this yet.  It's a small rug for Dan to put his tootsie on when he is in his computer room.  He enclosed a small area of the garage to set up his computer, so he didn't have to heat the whole garage.  But it still has a cement floor which is cold, so I used up yarn for a little rug. It's not quite squared, but say la vie!  I used three strands of wool yarn, so it's nice and thick.  I would have been bigger had I had more yarn.

I have also done some sewing the last 2 days, pix tomorrow...maybe...

Lists

Dorothy loves a list.  I love a list too.  So I will copy Dorothy and make a list of things I would like to get done in 2009!

1. Get a back Deck Built!

1a. that includes a 'sun' room, have big windows already!

2. Get front yard 'landscaped' to remove any trace of grassy parts that require mowing.  So basically zero-scape it.

3. Sew.  Lots. (check other list)

4.  Mess with yarn.  Have some ornament ideas to use the colors I got on my birthday. {does that count for revealing "secrets", ladies?}

5.  Welcome Ashley and Danny's child this summer. 

6. Get Stephanie graduated from HS and started in college.

7. Start prepping (collecting junk)  for some 'family crafting' ideas for the next holidays.  {I want us to  make ornaments, now that 2/3 of my kids have their own trees.}

8. ??Get a live tree for Christmas '09 to plant in yard in '10.?? {it might not be pine, depends on what we want in the front yard}

Yarn!

All this colorful yarnyness was kicking around around in an UPS truck since 12-24.  The poor thing.  But it was finally delivered yesterday, on my birthday, so I guess it was fate.  This is the second time in my life I have gotten a box of colorful threads as a gift, even though I picked these.  

The skiens are kinda small, which is fine for what I am thinking of doing with them {oh, secrets}, and they are cotton.  They were on sale.
Lily May is growing, as per her genetic instructions, and was here on Monday to tell us about the tooth she has coming in.  Her big sister was here too but didn't get in a picture.  Lily is also trying really hard to crawl, though in the picture here she is standing up with Grandpa.