Then There Were None...

RocketMan and Abby

Today Abby, the dog daughter of Page, friend of the cats, Rocket and Precious, left us to rejoin her family in the next life.

Page, mother of Abby

Precious, sister of RocketMan

I miss you all. They all joined me in my creative endeavors.

RocketMan

May Our Page

Find endless adventures in your next life!

You loved road trips. 

You caught almost every mouse the cat brought into the house for you. You caught a possum bigger than your own body. [that one got away]

You were also a great quilt minder, making sure they never got away.

Circles 13, 14 and 15 And More

I was loading the camera card and noticed the last 3 panels of the Circle Project. Humm.....seems I forgot to post them.  

I went outside the box on this last one.  

Now I need to put them up on the wall and arrange. 

But first...I had a Family Get Together to get through.

I am not a natural hostess person, I stress about it, a lot.

But I really enjoyed having all my children, and their spouses*, and their children here. You can enlarge the pic.  One niece is getting a bit big for her aunties lap, but her cousin fits just right. Whereas, her baby sister fits in her cousins lap,just right.  2 cousins were busy playing elsewhere, so only 4 of my 6-pack are in the pix. 

The eclipse. 8/21/2017 

Most of my pix of it are like this, so I might as well include the dog, Page.

* Ashley is going to point out that her spouse was not there. 

So I will beat her to it. He had to work.

Fur-Felts

Fur-Felt Plankton 

Or Galaxy 

Fur-Felt Bird

As I was working on this second one, Dan mentioned it looking fish-ish...or bird-ish....

I flew with it!

These are made from the bits of fur the dogs shed. Small coils of felt-ish fur. 

Most of the family thinks they are gross.  I see them as possibilities.  Dan sees them as his wife enjoying herself. And encourages her! I am stitching them to small "sample fabrics" from Dharma Trading I do believe, and backed by off-white blanket fleece. It is nice to hold. 

As it really looks on  my pin board.

A new....wait for it....PIN BOARD!!  

Dan had cut this piece about a year ago, for another area that I decided not to use it in. 

A couple of days ago, bitta met bing and with a piece of canvas...wa-la.

Beachy theme.  This started as an Embroidery stitch test thing.  

I had to go back to 2008 to find it!

This one is Chair With A View.  

The chair part was a quilt block I had designed. The rest of it came together when i first started following Jude Hill.

It's About A Dog

His name is Ozzie.  Named after a soccer player.  My youngest daughter and her S-O-in-law are the proud forever parents of this guy.

He is as soft as he looks!

I have been needling lots of different things, pix later.

It's Happened....I Put Thread....

............into a needle and stitched something........

Many people mark the days passing in many forms. I read blogs of others who do this in stitch. I decided to try this too...not to mark the passage of time, but to kick start my enjoyment of sewing from the rut it was in.  

I started with this. Organic shapes {to use a new term; for something natural; I suppose is how I would have called it before}  These shapes are actually fur.  From the one Abby dog, mostly. When she is shaggy, her fur mats. I have saved them in the last year. So now they are stitched down. I can't tell you how many endorphin this one small piece released.  It still is.  Releasing them.  

Not very big.

But not really surprising to find I do this.  I pulled this out of the ottoman. 

I am not sure how old it is but I know I had it with me when Granddaughter #3 was aborning herself in July 2009.  I sandwiched everything back then, like a quilt.

↑Bits from other wallies I didn't really care for. ↑↓ Labels from clothing.

Soda bottle lids. ↓

Cutout from a soda can. ↓

↓Printed ribbons off fabric bundles.  If the company is going to print it, I am going to save it.

These will be used elsewhere....someday.

This fish was a novelty fabric,  in parts.  So I connected the parts with a ruff.↓

I started in with the fur bits after getting a card and 2 books as gifts from my brother.  He has not wished to converse with me for many years, until now.  I am very happy he did! 

I laughed the next day when I was reading Judy Martin's latest post, she was talking about Janet Bolton's newest book, Fabric Pictures which is the book my brother sent.  

The books contents are  soooooooooooooo me!

Thank You Scotty!

Faces, Stitches and Hacks

Avery, for the family members that check in here to see these pix.

Below, 5 of 6 girls. 

 I find myself taking these kinds of pix every time they are here.

Here is #6 girl with her own girl....this is a school 'book report' project.  Make a puppet of a person from a Folktale, so Megan picked our copy of Stone Soup. "She" is attached to a hanger to hang in the classroom.  Meg and I had fun doing this, though Meg wanted to do more than just follow the instructions the teacher gave her. But that is how Megan is.

 

So what to do with dolls left on the couch  dog bed?  Lie on them of course.

Stitching.  I have been working on the sky area of the Crane Prairie Res. -area-wall-fabric-piece I am working on.....

There are many many many different areas of Geology in Eastern Oregon, though you can't tell from this screen shot...Anyway, I am adding some of those parts of Geology everyone enjoyed seeing, climbing, driving on.  I am also including flora and fauna...trees, frogs, lakes, flower, etc.   

I have also started the holiday decor-ous around here.  This tree 'quilt' was made and used in the RV for the Xmas Trip one year.  The girls, Ashley and Stephanie who were teens at the time, didn't really care about presents, but they did want a tree.  This isn't exactly what they were thinking of, but it was all we had room for.  

But to use it this year, I decided it needed to be trimmed a bit. 

It was a little over grown for the space it would occupy. 

The fleecey batt was a little saggy at the bottom, so I gave it a few hand 'quilted' stitches to hold it up...

Now to let the girls decorate it.  [Meg has already drawn a pic of santa, sleigh and reindeer, but you can't see it very well above the tree.]

View from my chair..

Birthday Week Begins Here

Birthday's today are Ben's, my oldest, and his youngest, Lily, who was born the same day and almost the exact same time...missed it by 3 minutes!  

Ben and his Lily holding niece/cousin Avery

Who is this?  This little girl is Charlie. Ashley and Danny really wanted a dog, now that they have a house, 2 kids and a garage....isn't that a song??

My mother in law holding Avery.

 The 2 youngest for the time being, Charlie {canine} and Avery {human} and their parents chins....

 a little girl and her little pup.  

Rhiley has a birthday this week also, she will be 2!

 In all the chaos of family gatherings, someone said, "I hear Avery, she's awake."  Next thing we know, Grandpa Dan is coming out with Avery.  First time he has held her!!!

{Avery was pretty delicate as a newborn, which was a bit scary for Grandpa, so he just waited until she was stronger. She is nearly 2 months old now}

Snowing

My adoring fans await me....something I don't see for myself, though I know they are there.

 I was trying to figure out how to trace a large circle, but sadly, the laundry basket was not large enough.  I wanted to get the round of fish on evenly....hah!

 who am I kidding???  just slap them fishies on there chick!  I have taken some creative license for the fish colors, my quilt my rules.  I will do the same for the flowers when I get to them, but I will try to keep the seahorses and plants normal colors....the coral might get a little crazy too now that I think about it.

 so did someone ask for this?  I am a bit bummed because Steph is not here to build her snow person, and by the time she gets here Wed, this might be gone as it doesn't last here in the lower elevations around Puget Sound.

Remind you of anything?

Thank you ladies for the uplifting comments on my last post.  Mom has not asked for the paper as much as I thought she would.  I did read her the highlights, online, which seemed to suit her.  She could keep her eyes closed and we could make comments about things and we even joked about a few things!

Monday Night Family

I know this is Wed., but....here are a few things to show you.

Stephanie made herself a clock. She took apart a hard drive, a thrift store clock, and a few other things I think. It works!
Monday Night was family night, especially since Steph will be going to college in 2 days. She might not be here for her B.day, so sister Ashley made her a cake...well, actually Danny made the cake because he was off work on Monday.
Handwork....I am thinking of adding only orange things to this bright turquoise piece of fabric [i dyed it, it's decor fabric]
So while passing my sewing area, I noticed this piece of fish fabric that I believe Christine gave me last year for my Pine Lake Quilt. There is orange on that fish belly. But it's really long, as fish tend to be, so I added a few running stitches and gathered it up. Now it looks like a flower AND it fits!

While figuring out the block placement for her [Steph] quilt, the dog, Page, kept sitting on it...hey that's her job, right? Well Steph was going crazy trying to keep her, Page, off of it. So who should come along to join the fun? Yup, the cat. Page could not understand why she kept getting chased off, and the cat didn't care either way.
What is Monday Night Family without the family picture? Danny, Rhiley's daddy, holding Megan and Rhiley. The smirking female in the background is Stephanie. [meg is the blond, rhiley is the cooing 2 month old....except you can't see her cooing]