Catching up

Being a bad blogger lately, I had to wade through my photos and edit down to these "few."  Ha!  Get ready.

The weather was warm just a week or so ago!  Now it's fully autumn and the heat is on.  On a recent warm day The Viking discovered slides at the park.  It was great.  He belly laughed all the way down and wanted to go over and over again.

Lilly Pilly got finished and delivered to the state fair.

Thank goodness.  I was getting stressed out enough to fall into my old M&M sorting habit.  I guess it's a control thing.  Heh.  :-)

T-shirt quilts have happened too.

As well as a Needlestars workshop with Paula Nadelstern.  Fabulous!

I had an iced tea incident in the car.  Sigh.  Wet seat, wet pants, and wet purse with all the contents.  The purse washed up fine but my old wallet was looking pretty threadbare, so I gathered up some batik scraps and made another one.  Love it!

Speaking of batiks, The Viking liked my new fat quarter so much he wouldn't let go of it even to eat lunch!  Training him right, don't you think?

The North Carolina State Fair ended yesterday after 11 days of madness fun.  We're lucky it's so close to home.  We can hear every fireworks display.  :-)  On day 5 we had our day at the fair with ED, LZF and The Viking.  He was less than impressed with the huge pumpkins.

Monday morning is not the most crowded so we were able to give him some walking time.

No rides for us but the amazing number of food vendors were enticing.  Two words......Funnel Cake!

We stopped in to see my ribbons.  Willie got a blue!  Woot!

And Lilly Pilly had a second plus a Golden Needle Award which is given by the Capital Quilters Guild.  Double Woot!  And it was so cool that it was hung next to Marilyn's stunning Alaska wall hanging.  I wish you could see it up close all sparkly with crystals.  Beautiful!  So many friends won ribbons.  :-)

Before we left The Tramp managed to talk LZF into testing out a Krispy Kreme cheeseburger (He declared the new Krispy Kreme Sloppy Joe would be too messy to eat in public.  I quite agree.).   He said the only thing the "burger" was missing was bacon.  How male.

On Thursday I took Mom and Dad to the fair.  This time I was able to take the time to admire all the quilts and needlework.  Inspiring.

Thursday was much more crowded.  ED, LZF and the Viking joined us and it was hard to walk together.  All the action, color, humanity and noise can get pretty overwhelming.

At 8:00 this morning I went back to the fairgrounds to pick up my entries.   Since every inch of the huge fairgrounds are used by the vendors and rides it was strange for those of us who had to drive in, wend our way through and find a place to leave our cars so we could go inside with our claim tickets.  What a Twilight Zone experience.  The rides and games were still and silent.  A few carnies were just arriving to continue the job of packing up.  They couldn't have had much sleep!

Most of the food vendors and smaller rides were closed up.  A few were gone already.  Some of the tables still had cups and plates on them as they must have been left when the fair closed at midnight.  Like those movies where all the people suddenly disappear.  Eerie.  I could hear the Twilight Zone theme as I walked.  :-)

The myriad of trash barrels were full or overflowing.  The crowds were so thick on fair days I had never even noticed them as a hot pink feature.

Since the majority of the food is deep fried I had to be careful as I walked between builings.  After 11 days the pavement is greasy and slippery.   Ugh!  Some of the booths had full kitchens.  Look at those gas hookups.  Wow.  Some large scale frying went on here.  The pavement was filthy black in there.  I don't know how they clean it up but they do.

Friend Kathie won ribbons too!  I picked up her entries this morning as well.  She sent me this happy photo with her dyed silk scarf....which someone actually tried to buy from me today!  Kathie sells them, so she was pleased.

This is Kathie's gorgeous sunflower.  I believe she learned the technique in a Susan Brubaker Knapp class called Wholecloth Botanicals.  I think I need a lesson.  :-)

And her nuno felted scarf.  Lovely.

Mom just finished this cool beaded project.  I'm impressed.  The Tramp and I are going to make a stand for it and then it will be ready to enter into next year's state fair!

We are excited that Mama Cat and her Stardust Kitten are coming to visit us this weekend.  Can't wait!

So.  Consider us caught up.  Goodnight!  ;-)

Living Room

Yep.  This evening it's all about the living room.....or lounge.....depending upon your local vocabulary.  ;-)  We don't sit in here in the evenings very much.  Sad really.  It's quite comfortable!

This morning we woke up to the first frosty day of the season.  From the living room window I enjoyed watching the mist rising picturesquely from the pond.

I really have neglected this room.  Last night I covered a couple of the sofa pillows.  I love the fun fabric but it certainly doesn't do anything for the soft seafoam color of the sofa.  (much prettier than it looks in these photos!)

I have four more pillows to cover and am thinking I might go with the wildest Kaffe fabrics I can find.  I figure if I do each side a different fabric it will be like eight new pillows!  :-)

The reason we are "stuck" in the living room this evening is because the upstairs carpets are drying.  The cleaning session was overdue.  The first machine we rented was a dud.  The on/off switch didn't work and it wouldn't stop dribbling lots of extra water.  What a mess!

Machine number two works as it's supposed to.  It will never look new again but I was so excited I even took a few pictures of wet carpet!  (Can you tell the cleaning was very overdue?)

Makes my heart go pitty pat.  :-D

Wow.  The room looks so much larger with all the "junk" moved off the floor.

So here we are playing happy family in the living room.  Dogs all around.  Mostly they are exhausted from having to supervise our cleaning from behind the gates.  Poor babies.

We have our laptops and hand sewing and Maisy is comfortable on The Tramp's lap.

This is the view from my chair.

Last week we moved this fun map of the world, New Zealand top and center, in here where we can enjoy it better.

 There are a few Halloween decorations here and there.  :-)

Snoopy is over by my cabinets of trolls and Peanuts stuff.

The Tramp has downloaded some "An Audience With" shows and tonight we've enjoyed Billy Connolly (giggle),

Michael Buble (swoon),

and right now Dudley Moore (1981...my goodness!).

Soon we'll go upstairs and see if the ceiling fans have dried the carpet enough so we can go to bed.  Time enough in the morning to do the living room carpet before the machine has to be back at the store.

Sewing has been happening, ribbons have been won at the state fair, computers have been updated to OS X Mavericks (it's freeeeee!), and fun has been had with family.  Photos next time.  :-)

Believe

It's been intensely busy here lately.  Much to my surprise I have once again became one of those people who are so busy I'm actually getting things done!  Believe it or not.  Heh.

Last week was very busy getting ready for the quilt guild's Heritage Day Auction.  I finished typing up the auction catalog booklet and it was printed up with only hours to spare.  (The printers turned out to be somewhat unreliable.)  Friday was set up day inside the historic house and then I was at the park all day Saturday for the event.  We had to finish the set up of the quilts and the boutique, engage the public throughout the day and at 2pm have the auction.  Then of course it all had to be broken down and cleaned up.  Exhausting!  But successful!  Believe it or not I don't even have a decent picture to show you.  That's how busy we were.

Sunday was The Viking's first birthday!  Wow.  I really can't believe that!!

Would you believe he popped several of those balloons and it didn't even make him flinch.  I jumped a mile!

This is the obligatory baby-and-birthday-cake photo.  ED made a fabulous Winnie The Pooh cake.  I don't think The Viking actually ate any of it, but I'm sure you will believe me when I tell you he thoroughly rubbed it into his hair and gleefully tossed it over his shoulders and down his back.  He even managed to get red frosting in his diaper!

It seems at this moment the adults were busier with his presents than he was.  It was so funny watching him walk all around the room with that bit of wrapping paper stuck to his foot.  He was alternately sliding on it or trying to lift up his foot and shake it off.

The Tramp and I couldn't believe we sat down and put all 45 of his new cardboard blocks together.  lol

Apparently I talk with my hands!  I wonder what I was saying??

This is Bella.  She is a rescue from a shelter in NJ and for the most part doesn't like people....or dogs....or much of anything.  I couldn't believe it when The Tramp won her over.  She almost looks blissful.

My brother has "harvested" his first batch of honey from his hives.  And he sent us a sample.  Woot!  I'm sure you believe me when I say I wish I had more.

Wow.  Look at this.  So cool.  The Evil Stepdaughter's first challenge quilt.  I have to believe she's a talented art quilter in the making!

I couldn't resist throwing this photo in.  Don't you just love a man in uniform?  Swoon.  :-)

I believe Stardust has been practicing her funny faces.  Cutie pie!

The busyness also included a new batch of dog stew.  You better believe dogs were drooling on my feet.

I can't believe this big t-shirt/memory quilt got done amidst everything else.  It was a challenge too because of all the Crown Royal bags (22? 23?).  Julianne did a great job with the design!  I believe the client is going to be very pleased.

Somewhere in this madness I found some moments to finish Santa #10.  Yippee!!

And for the piece de resistance.....   The quilting is finished on Lilly Pilly.  What an unbelievable journey that was!  I had managed to fold the backing under the quilt in no less than three places and catch it in the quilting.  But now that the teeth gnashing is over I can smile again.  :-)

Gosh I can't believe I quilted that.  I'm still shaking my head over it.

The dense quilting made it very wavy!  The Tramp got home just in time to help me get the insulation board out of the crawl space so I could block the quilt.  I held it up in the shower to wet it and gave it a spin drying in the washer.  Now it's pinned to the board and can dry (hopefully) all night under the ceiling fan.

Tomorrow is binding day and the last piece of the puzzle will be to give the birds eyes.  Then I can deliver it to the state fair!  Nothing like a deadline to get me moving.  I feel like the little girl in Miracle on 34th Street.  "I believe...I believe...I believe...I believe."  ;-)