My Sandbox

Gray (Grey?)

2012-01-27T11:06:00.000-05:00

The question has been asked. Why did I use a gray background? You want the long answer or the short one? ;-)

Ummmmm. Because I could? :-) Kind of. Well no. Not quite. Maybe. I suspect I was using a very labor intensive method of sizing and placing photos, but since I'm a Photoshop novice, I went with what I could figure out that worked! After laboriously choosing them from the over 22,000 pictures I have in iPhoto (can you believe it??? my goodness!!!) I cropped and tweaked the photos in Photoshop. In order to make some of them square I had to add to them rather than subtract. Those strips on the edges of the photos were coming up bright yellow! (you can see it on the left page, second row, second picture) I struggled to remove the yellow and after some gnashing of teeth I managed to change it to white. (separate strip, second photo) I finally figured out how to color it a more neutral gray. (sewing machine photo in the last house) Yippee! Of course I have no idea how I did it. Heh.

Then I placed the photos into an InDesign document. That, I know how to use. The house window is 20mm x 20mm. I sized the pictures down to 22mm x 22mm, but I was still worried about white showing at the edges so I made the page background gray. Also probably.....because I knew how!

I treated fabric with Bubble Jet Set etc and printed it all out along with some quilt labels. The quality of the photos? Eh. Not so great. (the labels were beautiful!) But who cares, right? It's for fun!

End conclusion: I really didn't need the gray, the extra mm around the photo was plenty to keep white from showing, especially as this is foundation piecing. Also, if I print any more I'm going to go back to printing on my nice Moda muslin and see if the details show up better.

January.....

2012-01-27T00:56:00.000-05:00

Is nearly over! How did that happen??? Sheesh!

Work has come to a standstill in the kitchen. I have the most horrible feeling we didn't do enough to prep the woodwork for painting and may decide to do some serious sanding this weekend. (Sigh)

In the meantime we work around the mess feeding the dogs, baking bread, and general cooking. Awkward, but doable, though the disruption everywhere is starting to get to me.

To ease my frustration with the rest of the house I did some serious clean up in The Sandbox this week. I finished this apron too. :-)

I hadn't been sewing the little houses for at least a week because I was working on this project. Cropping, resizing and printing family photos on fabric to go in little house windows and doors. It took days, but now I have some to play with!

And play I did. House #16. The Tramp makes no excuses, his favorite color is hot pink. He loves how it discomfits people that he has a pink cover on his cell phone! So he gets a pink house. :-)

The photo I used is one of these. Yep. That's a wolf. A real 100% wolf. And it's in an enclosure during a festival on the town green in New Jersey. Gulp. It was a wolf and wolf-dog rescue group trying to raise awareness of how wolves and wolf-dogs are not pets.

How amazing is that. The wolf-dogs were a bit smaller but this guy was huge. Very tall, with immense feet (by way of comparison, look at The Tramp's size 13/14 foot)...and look at the size of his head! Holy cow. I actually went in there to take the pictures!

Ok, he says. I'm done. Photo shoot over.

House #17. What's a house without a sewing machine????

And how cool is this! Yesterday I discovered my church back in New Jersey spotted the houses on my weblog and decided to make a house quilt to go with "The Blessing of Housing" project. Wow. What a neat Lenten mission. They are raising money to support an IHN family for one year, and want to give the family a quilt made with love as well. They are making the houses double the size of the original pattern. I made one this evening. I'm so used to working on the little bitty ones this one seemed so big and clunky to sew. But it came out just fine and I'd like to make a few more. I'm just smiling all over about the whole thing! Thank you Jeanneke and Jantine!

Lastly, we received a few grandchildren photos this week. The boys have new raincoats and The Sailor Son snapped a few quick pictures with his cell phone. The pirate and the firefighter. Too cute.

I guess it was a long day!

And this is Stardust getting ready for her first outing in the snow. :-) We are promised her nine-month pictures this weekend. I can't wait!

Off to bed for me.....

A day with Harry Potter

2012-01-18T22:54:00.000-05:00

Today I put the sanding block and paint brush aside to concentrate on some sewing. Two Harry Potter movies later we've made some progress! I'm soooo glad to be finished sewing all those squares together. Just the borders left to do. Yes, that's a stack of Harry Potter movies. They were really cheap at Wally World so we grabbed them all. We're just missing the very last one.

Yesterday I spent the day up on stools or down on the floor sanding and priming. It was a gorgeous day and we worked with doors and windows open. Ya gotta like January in the Carolinas!

The mess is getting on my nerves but I'm so glad to be finally working to brighten this place up so I'm trying to grin and bear it. Ugh! The sanding in the kitchen has sent dust all through the dining room. Look at that floor. And this is after an initial vacuuming. Everything on the tables needs to be washed now too. Sigh.

The living room has been hijacked too.

I'm sure Charlie is glad to be out of the dark kitchen. Even though we were leaving a light on for him all the time, sunshine is much nicer. It would be way too hot in front of that window in the summer though.

Well dang. He's blocking my breakfast view! But Maisy still has her sunbeam. :-)

We are excited how the room has opened up.

On one of our several runs out to Lowes and Home Depot we considered new light fixtures. I'd like them to at least match each other. We'll keep looking.

I'm not crazy about the floor tile either but we're going to live with it for now.

I didn't realize how really silly that clock looks! :-)

Sanding, sanding, sanding sanding. This time I kept the vacuum cleaner at my side! Oops. I missed a spot.

Maisy found herself a patch of sun and stayed out of the way. The other dogs worried and fussed all day. It's funny how it tires them out.

Not a bad day's work......well half a day, with all the running to the store. I can't wait to get back to it. Maybe on Friday.

We also drove up to North Raleigh to pick up this little china closet I spotted on Craigslist. It'll go in the kitchen to hold all the glassware that no longer has a home. The previous owner painted the inside. I'm still thinking about it but I'd really like to paint the whole thing. It's not a valuable antique by any stretch of the imagination.

Mom wants to put the Singer 201-2 into a different cabinet than the Spinet cabinet it's in now. I have this #42 cabinet in the garage. Mom likes it so I need to get it cleaned up for her. The top is pretty rough but the inside is in great shape. She plans to leave it open all the time anyway.

The Tramp will be pleased to get it out of the garage. :-)

Holiday?

2012-01-16T23:28:00.000-05:00

I don't think so. (With all due respect to Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Today Charlie directed work from The Tramp's shoulder....when he wasn't supervising from the top of his cage of course.

And I bit the bullet and started sanding and priming trim. I knew if I started then I would be committed to a whole lot of work. Sigh. So well worth it though. This is such a dark room but we can see the difference already! Not that you can tell by this photo, taken at high noon even. :-) It was a cold day to work on an open window. I used some towels to block the opening while the sash dried. *shiver* I also primed the remaining wallpaper that will be covered by backsplash. I can't wait!

I asked The Tramp to remove the grungy old cat flap from the door to the garage. Of course at the same time it was happening I was working on sanding and priming the inside of the door, and my feet froze! lol Oh, and there must have been an awful lot of cat dander caught in that flap because in a few minutes I was sneezing and sneezing and sneezing and sneezing and sneezing. Yeesh!

We are patched! Thank you honey. XXX I need to fill the cracks and cover the purple but it sure is warmer in here now. :-)

Resting up for tomorrow......

Demon wallpaper

2012-01-15T21:21:00.003-05:00

Since our kitchen is scattered all over the first floor at the moment, before getting back to wallpaper removal I took a bit of time to have breakfast in the living room. The window faces east and it's very pleasant at that time of day.

Yes, Fish has been displaced too. At least he has a view. :-)

Dog TV.

Mustn't miss the bird and squirrel show!

Maisy the Sphinx. She loves a sunbeam!

Oops. Commercial over, our show is back on.

Ngaire was mostly on duty in the kitchen, holding down the shreds of wet wallpaper for us.

Ugly isn't it.

Really ugly. Despairingly so.

But The Tramp worked hard at saving the day for me. :-) The holes are patched. (We haven't sprayed the popcorn patching stuff yet. An adventure for another day.....)

Yep Charlie. The view has definitely changed. I think it's going to be a while before we can say, "for the better". Oh well. The Tramp says a change is as good as a rest. Hmmmmm. If you're not stripping wallpaper maybe.

And look! The first bit of skim-coating above the door. What an improvement! Always have faith in your Tramp. :-)

No sewing today. Doing some Photoshopping and quilt labels this evening. If I stop writing of course......

Still tired

2012-01-14T23:26:00.001-05:00

I've been so tired I even went to the doctor. Sigh. I don't want to be tired! There's too much to do! So to celebrate my tiredness I've been trying to get some stuff done around here. I've still got two big quilts in the works for Patchwork Memories. Sewing up a couple of aprons. I've been building more little houses. And yesterday we decided to fill our long weekend with a kitchen do-over. Not a complete do-over. Mostly cosmetic. Anything to brighten the room up (and make me more tired).

First up....fabric and paper. I'm all caught up! 15 houses done. :-)

We have a wintery nighttime house. Not sure why that deer is inside, but to each his own I guess.

The house of snowmen. Oops. Excuse me. Snowpeople. Anywho, not sure why they're inside either.

Next up is Kaffe Fasset meets Laurel Burch. :-)

A house circa 1969 perhaps?

Nothing clever to say about this one. I just think it's darned cute.

Oh oh. I wonder what mess the Cat in the Hat's in now.

Hmmmm. Waiting to wake everyone up at dawn are we?

Now children. Wave to Mother Goose.

I'm really liking the psychedelic houses! :-) Oooooo. Can I paint my house purple? Huh? Huh? Can I? Can I? Pretty please....with sugar on top?

Chicken coop! How'd that get in here???

The first thing we did today was list the kitchen set on Craigslist. We decided there was no reason two people needed two dining tables mere steps from each other. Most of the family is four-legged or feathered. That's what we need room for.

Then kitchen reno commenced. We decided to take down the cabinets hanging over the peninsula in the center of the kitchen. Oddly enough, the only photo I have of them is this one taken during our house inspection before we bought. As you can see, my little working U is not very big and the cabinets, despite the glass, hem one in.

It took a bit of doing to figure out how the cabinets were constructed so we could get them down. But The Tramp was determined.

We were going to try to save the end cabinet but it turned out to be all one piece. Oh well.

Wow! The room just opened up without them! Ooooo. Can I have a TV in here now? Can I? Can I? I'd actually be able to see it! lol

Cool. I won't have to peer through the cabinets or duck to see what Charlie or the dogs are doing. (Or the TV.) ;-)

Then it was time to tackle (*shudder*) the wallpaper. Easy I thought/hoped. Oh NO! Under the wallpaper is primer and under that another layer of wallpaper. Cripes!

And the builders certainly didn't care about what couldn't be seen. We have big holes to fill too.....complicated by the evil popcorn.

Progress.....of a sort.

Urgh. I think I'd better get a good night's sleep.

Three, Four, Five

2012-01-09T22:09:00.001-05:00

Not much to say tonight, I'm way too tired. But I just had to share today's houses.

We have The House at Pooh Corner.

A rose covered cottage.

And a funky little abode in Metropolis.

I'm having way too much fun with this. :-)

Construction has commenced

2012-01-08T23:10:00.003-05:00

Aren't they cute! I was waiting to get some sky fabrics so I hadn't actually started sewing houses. Tonight we have the "candy" house and the "what-drug-was-she-on" house. LOL

Yesterday we did do some actual work on our house. Nothing picture-worthy. We replaced three exhaust vent covers on the back of the house. Now when the wind blows it won't get like a refrigerator in my microwave or breezy on the stove top. Yay!

In the morning I took Ivy for a walk. It wasn't that early but the shadows were still long.

I of course paused to admire and photograph the reflections in the pond. It's an addiction I tell you!

Sigh....that big front window always looks like a black hole. I'm not willing to cover it up with curtains though!

Today we took a ride to Costco for a few items and look what we came home with. Yessssss! Big and red and beautiful. To say nothing of the more powerful motor. The old one doesn't owe me anything. It has got to be at least 20 years old, maybe more, and the motor was starting to struggle.

Historic Grains Bread in the making. Sorghum, amaranth, flaxseed, millet and all kinds of good stuff in there. As I bake all the time now, I'm really going to enjoy using Big Red Bertha! I assure you....I am not in the habit of naming my appliances......or my sewing machines. I do not call them she. *shudder* But I think this appliance and I are going to become very close. ;-)

I also found a recipe for clementine marmalade in one of the GF cook books. Easy, quick, and yummy!

I'd love to go back to the sewing machine and build a few more houses, but there are dogs laying around me like scatter rugs and I think it's time to go to bed. Looking forward to tomorrow! :-)

Clarity

2012-01-07T00:15:00.001-05:00

On a clear day
Rise and look around you
And you'll see who you are
On a clear day
How it will astound you
That the glow of your being
Outshines every star
You'll feel part of every mountain sea and shore
You can hear
From far and near
A word you've never, never heard before...
And on a clear day...On a clear day...
You can see forever...
And ever...
And ever...
And ever more. . .

Today was a most gorgeous day. First and foremost I can report that the air in The Sandbox has cleared appreciably. The latest batch of "stew" I've made to mix with the dry dog food does not have brussels sprouts in it like the last batch. This is not a mistake I will make again! :-)

The air in the kitchen is better than clear. It smells fabulous. For Christmas we received a King Arthur gluten-free bread mix and a special tall narrow loaf pan from Mom and Dad. King Arthur says gluten-free bread needs more support when baking. I guess that's true because this is the first loaf of GF bread I've made that hasn't partially collapsed! I'm gonna be getting me another one of these pans.

I decided to be brave this morning and take all three dogs for a walk. I hate only taking one and leaving the others. They act hysterically upset but in reality I'm sure it's mostly me that's upset and they settle down as soon as I leave the house. They behave on leash very nicely individually but Ngaire is so high-strung that she makes the others crazed when they are together. I didn't go out of the subdivision....I'm no dummy.....but we walked around the pond three times enjoying the clear fresh air.

It was early enough that the sun was still up in the tops of the trees. (These are cell phone photos!)

The reflections were spectacular.

I can never choose a favorite picture.

How can you describe that blue! It does look like you could see forever.

I sat in the living room to eat breakfast and watched the birds. We had the usual titmice, finches, chickadees and nuthatches. One goldfinch, a cardinal, and a blue jay so it was a colorful morning too. The pair of towhees and the little sparrows hopped around with the squirrels. I was pleased to see a pine siskin at the feeder. This is their winter range and it's the first one this season. Robins were everywhere on the ground and in the trees. A beautiful red-bellied woodpecker stopped for suet as well as a downy woodpecker, and I was very surprised to see two bluebirds in the feeder eating seed. The biggest surprise however, was a whole flock of red-winged blackbirds. Occasionally I see one, but I've never seen so many.

(Side note: I may have been to hasty in my declaration of clear air. OMG What a pong! *waving the laptop to clear the air* *Sigh*)

I finished up the twelve blocks of the Temecula Quilt Co. mini mystery quilt. Today it was revealed that the "mystery" was that each day's block had the same number of pieces as the day. I realized that right from the beginning so I was surprised that was the mystery! :-) Since I only have 7" squares of these fabrics I dug deep in my stash to come up with sashing and borders. The sashing is ok but border part was making me crazy.

Ouch. Too red.

Shirting like the sashing is, but too pale.

Kaffe?? Fun, but no. :-)

Hmmm. All the right colors, but waaay too spotty.

Too pale again.

One more time with the red. NO!

Yeesh. By this point I've decided to forget the border and just bind it. This is better.

Even better. So blue it is. :-)

Oh man, it smells evil in here. Maybe we should sleep with the window open.

Tangled

2012-01-04T21:36:00.001-05:00

Prompted by some posts on the FOCD (Friends of Cloth Dolls) Yahoo Group I recently finished a small UFO. Nothing overly exciting, but it's done. A few months back my doll club decided to make pancake dolls and paint them. Of course I went off on my own tangent (nothing new) and made a 3D bird. I used the Spool bird pattern. I was unhappy with my paint job on it so I decided to Zentangle over it. It's a pretty rough job. Drawing on a 3D object is really awkward and I'm sure is something that needs lots of practice. :-)

I just had to do "feathers"!

Cute. Now what do I do with it??? :-)

Today I did blocks 10 and 11 of the Temecula Quilt Co. mystery. Such tiny pieces to work with. I'm loving it.

While I work in here this is what goes on behind me. They are unstuffing toys (and farting).

Keeping me close company (and farting).

Blocking the way to the iron (and farting).

Waiting for Charlie to throw food (and farting).

Anyone who has a dog knows they can sleep and fart too. Sigh. I think I need to make change in their diet.

Sorry about that. Just sharing a bit of my current reality. ;-)

Getting back into the groove

2012-01-04T00:27:00.000-05:00

Today is the first day of the new year as far as getting back into the routine is concerned. I'm not feeling my "groove" yet, but I'm working on it!

The first groovy event of the day was receiving new photos of Stardust! Some 8-month pictures and Christmas/Hanukkah photos. I was not only her first Christmas, but also her dad's. I asked how was his first Christmas. He said, "educational." :-)

She certainly does love to mug for the camera.

Before I grooved on upstairs to the ~~sweatshop~~ Sandbox this morning I spent a few minutes gazing out the front window. It was gorgeous today, but windy and COLD. Don't ask me why this squirrel stayed in this narrow bit of shade instead of taking advantage of the sun.

Here come the geese. It looks like they're on a mission.

Yep. They're coming for breakfast.

Everyone had a flap.

Hup two three four....

Well darn. It's frozen!

Yep. They've come to ~~poop on the lawn~~ breakfast on the fallen persimmons. One of them didn't eat anything. He (she?) watched me closely the whole time.

I'm watching you too buddy!

For heaven's sake! Now the birds are foraging in the same bit of shade. I don't get it!

Groovy, now I can see them. A female eastern towhee and two white-throated sparrows.

I guess the holidays aren't completely over yet. The amaryllis are still groovin' along. The white one is about to bloom again too.

So before I got back into sewing the memory quilts waiting for me I couldn't resist working on the Temecula Quilt Co. mini mystery sampler quilt, The Twelve Days of Christmas. I was a few days behind but the blocks are so little it was easy to catch up. I don't know what line of fabric that is but I've had that pile of 7" blocks for several years. They were for a class I couldn't get to because of a storm. High time I used them for something!

Then I got down to business. Fifteen rows done, nine more to go. Then borders, then the third quilt out of the same shirts.

Groove on!

First finish

2012-01-02T22:47:00.000-05:00

Well....second. I forgot about The Tramp's coffee cozy! It's time to start a new list for 2012. My Dad insisted we add up last year's list of finishes for a grand total. We did....but I'm trying to forget the number darn it, because I'd hate to be in competition with myself. Believe that and I'll tell you another one. ;-)

So today I bought more thread. Navy blue. How do you run out of basic navy blue? Sheesh. Anyway, I was making Erin Erickson's Two Zip Hipster bag. I first saw it on How About Orange and just had to have it too! It's a very well written pattern and I didn't have any problems. I used fabric and zippers I had on hand and would like to try it again as this one seems a bit Christmassy. I wouldn't mind having one in Jessica's Outside Oslo fabric. :-)

Ta daaaa.....

Now I need to load it up and give it a road test!

In with the new!

2012-01-01T22:55:00.001-05:00

Is Blogger acting funky for anyone else? These days I have to jump through a bunch of hoops to add photos. Just wondering.

After the clean-out madness of yesterday, today was a lovely quiet day. Not that I got very much done.

Now that I'm sewing for Patchwork Memories as well as for enjoyment, it was time to upgrade some of my equipment. When I added up all the tops I'd made for Julianne in the past six months I was amazed! The cutting mat on my table must have been at least 15 years old. Yikes! No matter which corner I used it was well past it's use-by date. So The Tramp encouraged me to buy a quality mat, and I did! It's custom cut to size and there are some issues with how rough the cut edges are, but the company has been very responsive and we should have some resolution after the holiday. In the meantime I used it for the first time today it and the surface is so fabulously smoooooth. Swoon.

I love my sewing machines and tables but the chairs I'd been using were awful. One had developed a funny tilt (oh my back!) so I had to sit with a wedge of foam rubber under one cheek, and the other chair just turned out to be an unwise purchase. My bad. Oh how it made my legs ache! I can't tell you how many chairs I've tried out at stores and quilt shows in the past year or so on a quest for the "perfect" chair. The perfect part also meaning not fabulously expensive.

So right before Christmas I banished the unwisely bought chair to the attic, grabbed an extra stool we had around the house and perched on that to sew a few quick seams at the Bernina. A (very) hard seat and it's too high, but not so bad really. Then the light dawned.....I think there were rainbows and music and everything! LOL Medical stools! Backless. Of course! At the Juki I get kind of wedged between the table extension and the knee lifter and a chair with a back is such a pain to get in and out of.

So after a bit of online searching looky what I found! And even better, The Tramp said why don't you just go ahead and buy two! Woot! So after taking height adjustments and width-of-butt into consideration, I ordered and here they are. A backless one in burgundy....because they had a discount on the burgundy.

And a teal one with a removable back, because they had a discount on teal. :-) The seat is a scoch narrower on this one but I don't really notice. And if I want to use it without the back I can take it off in seconds.

I'm still kind of amazed at the whole thing. Comfortable and affordable! Wow. I sat last night on the burgundy one for a couple of hours cutting up scraps for my houses and I didn't miss the back at all! My cup overfloweth. :-)

My other (endless) complaint has been lighting. So today The Tramp rewired and added a switch to this Ikea pendant we've been moving from house to house. It needed a serious cleaning. But now it's cleaned and wired and up and I couldn't be happier. Thank you honey. XXXOOO

So at his request, tonight I made the man a cozy for his travel mug. Pink polka-dots. It's so him. LOL

I was making myself a purse but I ran out of thread, dang it. I hope JoAnn's is open tomorrow!

Reflecting

2012-01-01T15:09:00.000-05:00

Well sort of. I kept a list of finishes for 2011. I keep thinking I haven't accomplished much but it seems I really have.

2011 Sandbox Statistics

New quilt starts finished
    Square in a Square
    Patches & Pinwheels (flimsy)
    Swartz Creek Scrap Quilt
    Whistle Stop mystery (flimsy)
    Stardust O' My Heart
    Baby Quilt
    Jelly Roll 1600 (flimsy)
    Jelly Roll 1600 (flimsy)

Quilt UFOs finished
    Signature wedding quilt
    The Very Hungry Caterpillar
    Tractor quilt
    Puzzle Garden mystery quilt
    Bittersweet Briar (flimsy)

Swaps swapped
    Willow Bee blocks
    Monochrome blocks - Karolina Kwilters
    Wonky houses - Tonya

Charity tops quilted
    8

Bags made
    Amy Butler Nappy Bag
    Anything But Blue bag
    Long-stemmed Tulip bag
    Snap Happy II Bags
    Little Duffle Do It bags

Dolls done
    Birdie Angel Pin Keep
    2 Pret Tea Mouse Pin Keeps
    Zentagle Bird

Misc completed
    Abbey Bag
    13 Mug Buckets
    Set of 4 Four-sided Placemats
    Set of 2 Four-sided Placemats
    Purple Jacket
    Two sets of 5 Spiderweb placemats
    Camera straps, lens cap holders, flash bag
    4 pillowcases
    2 book straps

Patchwork Memories quilt tops
    5 memory quilts
    21 t-shirt quilts (my goodness!)

On to 2012!

Out with the old.....

2011-12-31T22:16:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year's weekend! We've been keeping busy. Even though we were late in putting up our inside Christmas decorations I felt a need to clean up and sort and decided to take them down on Thursday. As is my wont, I made the job harder than it needed to be. Have you ever had the crazy idea to cut the lights of a 7ft pre-lit Christmas tree? 550 lights? OMG All I can say is think about it before you start. What a job! My hand is still sore from the wire cutter. But I did it! I really like this tree and look forward to putting it up next year with some small LED lights, not the blazing bright light it had. I couldn't even look at it in the dark!

I meant to finish these pillowcases before Christmas so I could put one in The Tramp's stocking. Didn't do it, but they are finished now and on the bed. I bought the fabric on a whim when I saw it in the store. I just love it.

Since it was so sunny, breezy, and balmy today we figured we'd better take advantage of it and take down the outside lights. It was so gorgeous I first took a walk around the pond.

I could hear the kingfisher chattering from the trees. He's across the pond in front of the white house. He is very hard to spot and never lets you get close so I was thrilled to spot him and get near enough to snatch a couple of photos. At max zoom of course. :-)

There he is!

The mergansers are hard to get close to as well. These are the first decent photos I have of them. They swim away so fast! There have been up to ten of them on the pond at one time. I'm assuming it's because the fish population is recovering nicely.

There are always robins in the bradford pear trees harvesting the fruit.

Ah well. Back to work. The Tramp decided to sort by type and carefully tie up our light sets. We lost four sets to squirrel damage and half of one other set stopped working for no visible reason. We've learned our lesson. Next year we won't hang lights on the trees. :-)

The dogs basked in the sun on the porch.

Ngaire wondering when it will all get more exciting.

Maisy basking happily in the sun.

Are you done yet?

How long do you want me to hold this pose?

The sun is too bright!

Ivy alertly watching for movement in the neighborhood.

Gosh it was a beautiful day!

Of course then we decided to have a major clean out of the garage that took until dusk fell and aching backs said stop! :-)

Oh my! I hear fireworks outside. Happy New Year!

Coming up for air....

2011-12-27T21:20:00.002-05:00

Where to begin? This has been a busy few weeks. The pictures pile up but I don't take the time to post. We've had so many late nights doing other things!

This is a fabulous photo of Grand #2 at a Christmas party. His brother had the same face paint but would not let his picture be taken.

And look at Grand #3. Such joy at receiving a Wiggles book for Christmas! I wish I'd been there. :-)

Christmas decorating was pretty low-key here. I did score a whole bunch of snowperson salt shakers and votive holders at the thrift shop last week. They look great on the table runner Mom made for me few years ago. I've had the Avon candle sleigh for about 30 years. It isn't Christmas without it!

The HOA buys luminaries every year from the boy scouts. A bunch of us got together to put them out in the afternoon. Actually the kids did most of the work, we just cheered them on. After dark The Tramp and I walked around the pond taking photos. It's one of those times you wish you had a wide angle lens. Our house is the second from the end. Cars drove around the pond all evening to see the lights and luminaries. The Tramp likes to think most of them slowed down to look at our house! LOL I doubt it.

I went outside around midnight, after most of the house lights were out and it was pure Christmas magic.

I have managed to fit in a bit of Christmas sewing. I made this "Merry Christmouse" ornament for my bee's holiday swap and Mom got it. Good thing for me, as I had forgotten to take a picture of it.

Chocolate was necessary.

The weather up to Christmas was so mild I had another day of sewing with all the windows open and fresh air blowing through. Good thing too. It helped keep me awake. :-)

Actually, the real reason I was creeping around outside with a flashlight after midnight on Christmas Eve was to find arms for Mr. Snowman. The bottom box held a new desk chair for The Tramp. The smaller box, a shop vac. The head box had t-shirts. I managed to get it put together, decorated, hatted and scarved without The Tramp seeing. I taped an envelope to one "hand" and a small gift to the other.....which managed not to fall off until we we were just sitting down to open our presents! I think the dogs were a bit peeved they couldn't get to the front window. :-)

The luminaries in the morning. Only a few bags had gone up in flames.

Our old black microwave finally annoyed us so much we treated ourselves to a new white one and spent Christmas Eve afternoon installing it (after we went back to Sears to replace the wrong parts it came with...sheesh). You wouldn't think so but it makes the whole kitchen so much brighter! And it doesn't beep! Yay. Everything else in the house beeps, this goes "bing, bing, bling!" LOL I love it!

Once a year, on Christmas morning, The Tramp insists on having bacon and eggs for breakfast and I, as dutiful wife, prepare it. I don't mind. The rest of the time he isn't the least bit demanding.

While I waited for The Tramp to appear I also made (gluten-free) Clementine-Cranberry Scones. A success!

I glanced out the front window and spotted three crows squabbling over one of the luminaries.

I'm not sure what the attraction was, but they dragged the bag back and forth until the sand and candle dumped out. They managed to get the leftover wax out of the little cup, discovered it wasn't food and abandoned it in the road. Too funny.

My "loot." Kaffe Fassett, Peanuts, James Taylor, chocolate, and a fancy new cordless iron. I am happiness filled. :-)

The Tramp was also pleased and put his chair together right away. Actually there are new sewing chairs coming for me too, but they haven't arrived yet.

I used my new baking book from New Zealand to make a dessert for Christmas dinner at Mom and Dad's house. When I first glanced through the book I realized I would need some Golden Syrup. Our other Christmas Eve project was cleaning out the pantry.....and look what I found! I already had two jars! Guess the pantry really needed sorting.

I made Mom a set of spiderweb placemats to match her dishes. (Yes, The Tramp is wearing one of his Grinch shirts.)

I made Grands #1&2 four-sided placemats with four superhero fabrics. Of course this is the only picture I have.

We unearthed a box of Christmas crackers out of the garage that we've been meaning to use for about five years!

I also made Pavlova. Yum! The Ginger Crumbles from the new cookbook are on the right.

The Grands had new write-and-erase boards which the Sailor Son said kept them very busy on the long ride in the car. They were very serious about their drawing. Note the new cars they each have by their sides. Noisy! OMG! This was an enforced "quiet time".

The Sailor Son was able to stay over night so on Boxing Day the boys and I made a house out of the chair box. We "builded it" and taped on a roof and a door.

How 6'2" Sailor Son fit in there with them I'll never know!

Even though it was getting chilly we promised them time at the park on the "fwings" before they had to leave.

Oh to be young! Especially at Christmastime. :-)

Cuteness

2011-12-18T01:17:00.005-05:00

The big Ralph Lauren shirt quilt is done! Yippee! The borders are "Ralph Lauren blue" and navy. I think it looks great. I have to put two more of these together in January, but for now I'm on my own time and I certainly have a few things I'd like to finish before the end of the year. :-)

I asked the Evil Stepdaughter for a recent picture of Grand #3 and this is what I got. Too cute! I'm told he shared quite a bit of that jelly toast with the dog. That would have been fun to see. (Grandmothers can say that sort of thing! LOL)

Our big excitement of the week (decidedly not cute) was a broken water pipe. Our water bill showed that we were hemorrhaging water. Ouch! We found a leak in the crawl space and had it fixed. I got a credit from the town and thought we were all done. Heh. I got the next water bill and it was still very high. So we had the plumber come back and look everything over again. I went back to the town and they showed me the readout from the new wireless water meter. We were losing gallons and gallons. Almost 80 gallons during the night alone! Yikes! We had a swamp developing on the downside of the yard and the neighbor's driveway was wet. So the leak sniffer man came and painted an orange circle right in front of the foundation, next to the front stoop. And back came the plumbers. (They're loving us and our money. Sigh.)

I'm glad I didn't have to dig that heavy wet clay! Hard, dirty work.

It turns out the polybutylene water supply line had split. We thought we might have damaged the pipe when we yanked out the big azaleas. The plumber assured us it was way too deep for us to have done the damage. (Whew!) The house is 25 years old and was built in the heyday of polybutylene, which is no longer available in the US and Canada, after many lawsuits. We will probably be fixing leaks for years to come as it has passed it's life expectancy. (*&%$#@*!)

The plumber was not pleased to see that they ran the water supply in the same trench as the sewer line. Worse, it was underneath the sewer pipe. You can see it there. The polybutylene had become stiff and brittle. The split was where it bent to curve around to the other side of the sewer line.

So until we decide to have a new trench dug and a whole new water line installed, this is our fix. Up and over, which seems to be working just fine for now.

I have to go back to the town next week for hopefully another credit. I was told that sometime next year we will be able to access our water meter readouts online. That will be fabulous. We'll be able to keep tabs on our sub-par plumbing without having to regularly visit the crawl space. (Ick.)

Water issues taken care of for now, I went back to my sewing machine and finished up all the Holiday Blocks for the December guild meeting. I realize I missed putting one of them up for the photo! Oh well. I would have been glad to win a set of any of them, but alas I didn't.

Kathie had fun at the guild meeting collecting all of "our" holiday blocks. We made the kits up back in September using Bonnie Hunter's Happy Scrappy Houses pattern.

It was a fun meeting, with lots of tables so we could enjoy all the holiday food everyone brought. We had a long parade of charity quilts and later on a wonderful show & tell.

There were endless door prizes too (which I also didn't win) and we also presented the Heritage Day raffle quilt that I didn't win to the actual winner. Sigh. It's a lovely scrap quilt and I wouldn't have minded lugging it home with me. Really! :-)

My secret pal gifted me with some chocolates and the 2012 coupon book for a local quilt shop. Cool!

As if I don't have any other sewing to do, I have allowed myself to get ~~sucked into~~ enthused about a new project. Not a block-of-the-month....but a block-of-the-day! Yep. Send The Tramp a sympathy card now. Well maybe not. At least I'll be using up some of my mountain of scraps. He's bound to like that part of it. :-) Jeanneke in The Netherlands has started a weblog called Building Houses from Scraps and challenged us to join her. I took one look and I was a goner. Cute little blocks. And they are houses! What's not to like?? LOL And Jantine has generously created and shared a foundation piecing pattern for those of us who don't want to sew 366 house blocks by hand. Yesssss!

Last night I played around making myself cute little templates for all the cute little pieces and today I made my first block. Woot! Ever so cute. I love the idea of using novelty prints in the some of the windows and doorways. Cool. Something to hunt for. Hee hee!

No less cute....to my eye anyway....are the dogs. In this case, Ngaire. I was sitting on the floor with her at Mom and Dad's house and she had her nose right under the chair rocker.

Yep Ngaire, I'm playing with the camera again.

Clearly I'm being very boring.

Going....

Gone.

Sweet dreams!

Are we done yet?

2011-12-08T23:18:00.001-05:00

Polo shirts, get thee behind me!

Last week's memory quilt was mostly stabilized polo shirts. A lot to do, but not so bad. This week's quilt is about half stabilized polo shirts, the heavy pique type. They are thick to cut! It's really hard on rotary cutter blades and hands. (Oh my aching hands!) The main problem is I had to cut enough squares for three queen sized quilts. 528 4" cut squares for each. Total: 1,584. One is due to the client before Christmas and the other two are due next year, but it made complete sense to cut everything at once instead of messing around. I cut up nearly every scrap of 29 Ralph Lauren shirts and one Lacoste. Yikes! Now I know what a marathon it is I'll be much more careful to pace myself next time.

First I cut up the 10 dress shirts. Easy peasy. Gotta love the colors!

Then I cut open and stablized 20 polo shirts. Urgh.

That's a hefty stack!

Ouch! Two rotary cutter blades later, it's done. (Maybe it's cutting the Pellon that does it to the blades. Hmmmmm.) Lots of polo ponies and one crocodile ready to go.

Three rows together and the fourth ready to add. Twenty more to go! It's going to be colorful, that's for sure. :-)

I'm happy to report the town has come by to pick up the mountains of leaves. It must be long days for the workers and we appreciate their labor.

During a rotary cutting break, I amused myself taking a family portrait. After much confusion I got them all sitting in a row. Ivy sat from the first, but the others kept running up and down the stairs with excitement until I got them turned around, sitting, and lo and behold - staying!

You can see, except for Ivy, they still weren't focusing on me. She sat like a statue. :-) First we check to the left. Anything interesting going on in the yard behind?

Then we looked to the right. Yep! The house is still there. But wait! The big radar ears are swiveling.

We hear something! So we crane our neck to check out the sounds from next door.

Ok, ok! We're watching you now. Are we done yet?

Nothing new

2011-12-06T22:13:00.004-05:00

Sewing and raking, sewing and raking. My life at the moment. :-) Sunday we worked hard and got the front yard looking pretty neat.

The back yard is another story. Sigh.

Apparently squirrels think Christmas lights are tasty. Grrrrrr. This is the first chewed set. Tonight we discovered the replacement set chewed. Moral: Don't hang your Christmas lights on the squirrel's private tree!

This t-shirt quilt has been sewn together and delivered to Julianne. It's actually mostly polo shirts as the young man isn't into t-shirts. Julianne is adding some nice masculine borders and it's going to be very handsome.

And woot! A finish of my own. This baby quilt is going to someone who works with The Tramp and had their first baby. I found the pattern in a Eleanor Burns book. I put yoyos in the corners instead of appliqued flowers. It was quick to construct and quick to quilt, but that curved binding was a killer. But it's cute and I'm sure they'll enjoy it. :-)

Maisy the Strange, Maisy the Weird, has a thing about Charlie. She sits looking up at him and fusses and fusses. Of course if Charlie happens to come down to her level she backs off rather than get her nose nipped. :-)

I couldn't resist taking some video of Maisy and Charlie after my shower. It's only eight seconds but you get the idea. Maisy can keep up the fuss for a loooong time. In this case it was at least a half an hour, while I got dressed and took videos.

Just a nice normal day

2011-11-29T22:14:00.000-05:00

It seems I hadn't downloaded all my picture taking devices yesterday. This is a fun picture of Eldest Daughter meeting Charlie. She prudently put up her hood since she was wearing earrings!

It rained hard last night. This morning Ngaire and I took a walk hoping the rain was over with. And it was! She behaved very well, but then again, we didn't meet any people or dogs. Her backpack pocket is open because I suddenly thought she could darned well carry her own bag of poop! LOL

The cold air was nice and refreshing....in a damp sort of way. :-) There was a large flock of robins flitting and pipping all around the pond. They like the berries (pears?) in the Bradford Pear trees.

As we came around the pond I realized that we have almost full disclosure of the house now. Just a few weeks ago it was almost completely hidden by the trees.

We are having our last push to get all the t-shirt quilts done for Christmas. Yesterday I worked all day on two big quilt tops that will be front and back of the same quilt. It's going to be a heavy quilt! It was nice and warm out. Each warm day I'm able to work with the windows open I wonder if it's going to be the last one. Hmmmmm.

And this morning I got them done. OD green sashing with matching camo borders. Lots of guns and beer on these t-shirts. I don't get most of the other references on the shirts either, but it's quite a collection and nice and colorful. Julianne says the family are good customers and I hope they like my efforts.

This afternoon I celebrated by raking leaves. The Canada geese and mallard ducks were no where to be seen, but the mergansers were toodling back and forth across the pond. They are diving ducks and keep disappearing suddenly then popping up in unexpected places. Amusing to watch.

It was quite breezy too and I spent some time taking pictures of the wavy reflections in the pond. (Isn't it nice I'm so easily amused.)

I took videos too. You can hear the background noise of the wind and the distant traffic on the interstate. I'm not sure if it's on this video but birds were singing, my dogs were barking at invisible people and school buses, and a neighbor was using his chain saw. Just a nice normal day. :-)

Giving thanks

2011-11-27T13:10:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Visitors have come and gone. My cold and cough is hanging on, but I guess you can't have everything. :-)

We are thankful the Sailor Son was able to come down from Virginia with the Grands for a day and night. Also thankful the Eldest Daughter (ED), the Led Zepplin Fan (LZF) and their dog were here for three days. ED and LZF also come with residual cat hair on all their belongings so of course my allergies kicked in as well. I'm not too sure I can be thankful for that. :-) And the leaf mold outside hasn't been helping either.

Stardust has had her seven month photo session. I'm sure she is thankful to have such a doting mommy and daddy. We are thankful that MD and Poyla opened their house to The Tramp a week ago when he had to make a sudden trip up to New Jersey for a funeral. The Tramp says she is the happiest, laughingest baby. Of course I wish I could have been there.

I am fortunate and very thankful to own several excellent cameras. It's really shameful I don't take better photos! Most of my Thanksgiving pictures are fuzzy due to some setting on the camera I didn't realize I had set. But I'm thankful to have the pictures anyway! We had a very tasty gluten-free turkey-dinner-with-all-the-trimmings and I'm truly thankful for all the wonderful folks who share their gluten-free recipes.

The Grands had fun decorating a gingerbread house with their aunt. Grand #1 just couldn't understand why we wouldn't let him eat the house when it was all done.

They had fun trying on auntie's glasses. I'm not thankful that Grand #2 has inherited the family allergies. As the day progressed his nose became completely stuffed and he was wheezing badly. I guess he is allergic to our dogs and any cat dander carried by ED and LZF. He was amazingly cheerful even so! After they got back to Virginia he ended up in the hospital for treatment. I'm thankful to report he now has an inhaler and is doing much better. I remember scary nights in the hospital emergency with Middle Daughter when she was that age and am very thankful for all the medications that make a normal life possible for those of us with asthma and allergies.

ED was born on Thanksgiving Day 34 years ago and this year her birthday fell on the holiday again. I made her a "Church Ladies Apron."

Grand #1's birthday was a few weeks ago. The Tramp vetoed all my birthday gift suggestions and picked out a simple set of police vehicles saying that's what he would have liked if he was four years old. I'm sorry I wasn't taking a video at this moment as Grand #1 is proclaiming, "This is AWESOME!" (Always listen to your Tramp!)

The Tramp had some loving time with the dogs. I assume they are thankful to be living with us. :-)

LZF and The Tramp spent Friday afternoon putting up the Christmas lights. We were thankful for his help.

It was a lovely warm day (thankfully!) and the dogs helped from the front stoop.

We are thankful for LED bulbs, so we can afford to go a bit crazy. This year we are finally 100% LED. We haven't quite caught up with the Griswolds though. :-) We took the tripods and cameras out for some experimental night-time photography.

While the dogs slept away the evenings....

LZF and MD took over my cutting table....

and I actually got a bit of sewing done. New camera strap covers for ED and I, and a bag for her flash.

ED and LZF were thankful I was able to patch all the ripping seams on Patrick's favorite shirt. :-)

A vintage zigzagger for my 301 arrived in the mail, thanks to The Tramp.

And I'm thankful to have won this package of goodies from Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs and Kristyne of Pretty By Hand. Woot!

This morning we watched from the front door as LZF packed the car.

Had a last cup of tea and coffee and watched the geese, ducks and heron on the pond.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hack, sneeze, cough, sniff, wheeze, moan, repeat.

2011-11-21T23:08:00.000-05:00

On Friday I came down with the most awful cold. Well all colds are awful aren't they. The only thing special about this one is that I have it. Ugh.

So what do you do but stay indoors and ~~sleep~~ sew. Deadlines are good. I had two t-shirt quilts to finish. Kept me out of bed. :-) They are both bright and cheerful too.

Charlie and the dogs have been doing their best to keep my spirits up. Clearly I was at least somewhat amused since I stirred myself to find the camera. We are playing a serious game of dunk the toy. The water soluble dye in the green and blue wood beads is coloring the water.

It's a messy job but somebody has to do it.

Oops. We've dropped the toy and are now trying to bathe in the green water. Aren't you green enough Charlie?

Oh ho! You've been watching me!

MOON!

Charlie doesn't have the wild coloring some other parrots have but there is a lot going on in his feathers. It's always interesting what the camera sees. If you click on the photos you might see more detail.

Hello handsome.

Yes you.

This afternoon I went out to deliver the t-shirt quilts and to get some fresh air on this lovely warm November day. I puttered across town doing small errands that didn't require me to think, including a long long overdue trip through the car wash. I had the same magnets on my car for about three years. Fair warning....this is what happens if you never take them off! (or get your car washed) I've picked off what I can, now I have to figure out what to do about the rest. It's an old car with plenty of "character marks" on the paint so I can't get too concerned about it.

We had a visitor on the front stoop when I got home. I set the camera to video and put it down on the railing. The mantis slowly advanced on the camera and climbed right up on it! Too bad the video is mostly out of focus.

The dogs never noticed him/her (on the right). They were too busy barking at the UPS truck. :-)

But since discretion is the better part of valor, Mr./Ms. Mantis decided to climb out of the way up the side of the house.

Falling down on the job again

2011-11-18T23:02:00.001-05:00

I've had a migraine pretty much every day this month so far. Makes me lazy about posting. :-) Anyway....

This is one of Maisy's fave sleeping positions. My back certainly doesn't twist like that but she's as comfy as could be.

Charlie has been very talkative lately. During quiet moments when no one is in the kitchen you can hear him go through his entire repertoire. His newest trick is calling the dogs' names. When we are having a dog training session or I make them sit for a treat he often says, "good girl!" before I can. Even when his mouth is full with his own treat. (we are an equal treat opportunity household)

My Christmas cactuses bloom at Thanksgiving and Easter. I'm not sure what that means! I'm just glad that they bloom at all. :-)

This was the first leaf pick-up week so last weekend we did some leaf removal. The house is slowly emerging from behind the trees. The day after all of our work the maple trees in the center dropped the rest of their leaves. The big oak on the right will hang onto it's leaves almost into January.

We have a very narrow frontage and if we don't block the mailbox or the driveway we have almost no place to pile leaves. So we go vertical. :-) And managed to impress one of the young neighborhood boys with our "huge" pile.

The Tramp used the blower and I raked. In between I messed with the camera. There just wasn't a bad view of the pond that day. The water was like glass.

Color, color, and more color.

I love the layers of color.

So of course the view from my sewing machine is easy on the eyes. :-)

This week I finished two t-shirt quilts.

This one was huge. It's a fun one. All the shirts are motocross with lots of bright colors.

I love the wheel fabric Julianne found for the inner border. How perfect!

Look at that. Quartered it nearly covers a queen size bed.

So that's about it. I've got a charity quilt partially quilted. A baby quilt partially bound. A gift made for my secret pal, and two more t-shirt quilts to get done by Monday. I think I need a good night's sleep! :-)

A walk

2011-11-12T22:51:00.001-05:00

On Friday, Tanya took a long walk with Choco and took photos at five minute increments to show the area around her home in Japan. At the end of her post she challenged us to do the same. So on Friday I went for a walk with Ivy and took along the camera. I didn't keep to five minute increments but it's close enough. :-)

This is the view from the front stoop. Yes, there is a driveway under all those leaves.

I could have chosen several different routes with different types of scenery. There is the walk to the park, the walk to the main road, the back way to the stores and the mall, or around the side streets. I chose to walk along the greenway and the side streets, making a big circle around and arriving back the other way.

Several yards along the way have dogs. These two are behind an invisible fence and it annoys us and upsets our dogs when they come charging nearly to the curb barking like crazy. We have to walk along two sides of the property so it's a lot of barking.

The sky has been a magnificent blue and the trees are wonderfully colorful.

The road I am walking on has a break in it. Ahead, a little to the left of center, is the walk-through to the greenway.

Beyond is the continuation of the road. The greenway is to the left on the other side of the bridge. There is a planned continuation of the greenway to the right.

Ivy is wondering why we've stopped. I was amazed at the size of this leaf!

There are plenty of houses off to the left and right but except for the back of a row of town houses, most of them are hidden by the trees.

Now I'm back on the streets. So many houses around here are like this one, under the shelter of large trees.

Here we've turned onto a street that runs parallel to a busy interstate. If you click on the picture to enlarge it you may notice the concrete wall showing between the houses. I'm sure the wall makes a difference, but even so the traffic noise is LOUD.

There's the wall. It's much quieter at our house, we are in a more protected spot. But I have noticed since the weather has been cooler we can hear the traffic more, especially in the mornings.

That house has solar panels. The Tramp would love to install solar panels on our house. Just one of the many items on our wish list!

Another view of the wall behind houses (behind the garages). Lovely homes I'm sure, I just don't think I personally could stand the wall and the noise.

More color. :-)

I guess someone thought their shoes would be a nice neighborhood decoration. A neat trick as they are pretty high up! There was a flock of crows all around us at this point, one of them kept watch up in that tree.

Others were bolder.

It's November folks! I have gloves on and my ears are cold. Leaves are raining down all around us. I'm still not used to flowering plants in the winter. :-)

And now we are back to our street. Despite this very clear sign, people drive in and around the pond all day long. In the evening too. At neighborhood gatherings we always end up discussing how to discourage it. We like that kids can run around pretty freely, there are always walkers from the surrounding streets with dogs or baby strollers on the narrow road and it's nice they can enjoy the pond too. However, the road is in pretty bad condition....to say nothing of the fact we have to pay to maintain it! Maybe we should have toll gates. A way to pay for repairs?? :-)

And as I put the camera down I spotted that stray dog charging towards us! Luckily it was friendly. Ivy wasn't too happy though

Back at the pond. Our house is directly across.

This sign is pretty clear too, don't you think? It's only the rare person that causes us trouble, either on foot or in a vehicle, but I sure don't want to be liable if they do something stupid.

I suspect these will be our winter residents.

Now the leaves are coming down our house shows a bit more.

We're home!

So what's it like in your neighborhood?

Intense

2011-11-10T14:29:00.001-05:00

I swear I do more cooking now than I did back when there were seven of us in the house. Sheesh. Well maybe that's not so surprising when one has three dogs and a parrot and is nutty enough to cook for all of them. To say nothing of the gluten-free thing and not eating out. So not being the most comfortable cook in a kitchen I find cooking marathons pretty intense. Satisfying in their own way, but exhausting too.

Today was "Chop" day. A marathon if there ever was one! But since it's been eleven months since the last Chop day I guess I shouldn't complain! I washed out my trusty Chop bin and in went quinoa, flaxseed, coconut, peas, black-eyed peas, beans, corn, cooked popcorn kernels, lentils, pumpkin, various peppers, purple cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli rabe, cilantro, parsley, carrots, carrot tops, rutabaga, pasta, sweet potato, and what-have-you. I was contemplating going out to get more but when the bin got this full I figured I should stop. After all, Charlie's not very big!

Two spoonfuls per snack bag. (takes FOREVER)

With a little help from Charlie. :-)

And of course the ever-hopeful Maisy.

Done! Whew.

Which translates to 196 snack bags.

I reused some of the large freezer bags and they were marked 12-8-10. Lets hope this batch lasts just as long! Last job before the grand clean-up is to pop it all into the freezer.

Well. Maybe not. Hmmmmmm.

What a mess I make. But it's all cleaned up, the dishwasher is on and a pile put out in the compost. The bin has been washed in my ridiculously small sink and now I can move on to something else. :-)

Maybe I should consider having lunch before supper time. Hmmmmmm.

Oh my head!

2011-11-06T21:16:00.000-05:00

After a few rainy days the weather has gone back to gorgeous.

The sky has been spectacularly blue. So blue, one or the other of us has a migraine. Darn it. The high pressure I suppose.

Nonetheless, I'm thoroughly enjoying the interesting sky and fall colors. I took this picture when we came out of BJs yesterday. My phone just didn't capture the intensity of the dark clouds against the bright sky.

Someone is eyeing up the remains of my dinner. They have to lay down while we are eating. No begging at the table!

"Are you absolutely sure that bone on your plate isn't for me?"

Despite the piles of projects around me I have been working hard in The Sandbox. It's hard to tell sometimes. :-) In between talking, screeching, eating, and throwing his toys, Charlie tries to help. He's teetering on that thin bit of metal on his playstand, getting ready to take a swipe at the quilt I'm working on.

Almost..... Just a bit further....

Whoops!

So this big custom t-shirt quilt is done.

And this coordinating one. It was even huger so I didn't bother to lay it out. :-)

I also made myself a jacket from a pattern and fabric I bought at least three years ago at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival. Yahoo! A UFO done!!! Though I'm contemplating adding buttons.

I finished the "spools" row on the Whistle Stop BOM. I just have the top applique row and the borders to do now. My deadline is December 16th so I better get a move on!

Today I pin basted and marked this baby quilt. I'm hoping to get it ready to bind by tomorrow night. My headache has eased a bit, so back to work!

Mmmmmm. Chocolate.

2011-10-30T13:58:00.003-04:00

Yesterday we had rain but no snow thank goodness. Seems we moved just south enough. :-)

Today is an absolutely gorgeous day, though still quite chilly.

Saturday was definitely a stay-at-home-and-get-stuff-done day. Even though I broke down and pushed the heat up a bit I just couldn't get warm! So I dug out my Wristies to wear while sewing.

The Tramp spent quite a bit of time out in the cold garage messing with computers and parts and deciding which pieces to list on craigslist. He keeps our servers, routers and what-have-you out there and the chest freezer makes a convenient work table....until you want to make lunch and need to get in it of course.

We had hamburgers to warm us up at lunchtime....which Charlie took full advantage of.

Some cupboard love from the dogs. Seems it's been noticed I have food in my hand as well as the camera. I assure you....I'm fully aware of my role in this household.

Charlie was especially ~~destructive~~ playful yesterday and I of course spent quite a bit of time retrieving his toys. He has me fully trained you know.

Late in the afternoon the sky turned blue and we even had a few breaks of sun. Yay!

This quilt is a rush order. I guess you can figure out the young man's profession without too much trouble. I believe his family wants to give it to him before his next overseas tour of duty.

Yesterday, while Charlie was helping himself to my lunch, I was browsing cookbooks. This morning I made gluten-free oatmeal cookies for The Tramp.

A gluten-free citrus pudding cake to take down to Mom and Dad's for Sunday dinner.

And to satisfy my cravings, some gluten-free brownies. Yummy! Hard to tell they aren't the gluten-full version. Good old chocolate comes through again! :-)

A little bit of this and that

2011-10-28T22:33:00.000-04:00

Brrrrr. Today was dreary, dark and cold and we have a freeze watch for tonight. It was supposed to rain but nothing much happened. At least we aren't in the path of the coming October snowstorm! (waving to friends and family in New Jersey) Yeesh!

I took this picture yesterday while I was sewing. It was gorgeous. The last beautiful, breezy, warm day I think. Windows open, curtains blowing, leaves fluttering down. Sigh. Actually, if there wasn't a screen on that window I would have had leaves scattered all across the sewing table!

I was working on another t-shirt quilt, this time with polka-dot sashing! I confess it made me a bit cross-eyed. :-)

Charlie and the stereo keep me company.

While the dogs patiently (or not) wait for Charlie to toss them his leavings. :-)

I finished the quilt top today. I wasn't sure about the polka-dots, but it looks pretty good all put together.

The Sailor Son took Grands #1 and #2 fishing and I snagged a couple of photos off of Facebook. Aren't they the cutest, lounging in their chairs with their feet up on the railing!

Stardust had her six-month photo session. Perfect for melting a grandmotherly heart.

The Tramp and I took the dogs for a morning walk. It's getting more colorful around the pond everyday.

That's our house peeking from between the trees. Even taking down the three persimmon trees won't make much of a dent in the greenery.

A warm sunny lunchtime on the back porch. Maisy just sat there for a while like that, contemplating her navel. The camera noise didn't even disturb her.

I took the opportunity to give them all a good brushing. Sigh. We love them because they're furry. Right????

No Ngaire. You don't get to share my grilled cheese.

LOL Vampire Dog!

Hello

2011-10-24T20:31:00.001-04:00

I'm here. Just not taking the time to write so now I have to catch up. The weekend before last the autumn weather came in with a bang. We had a couple of really nice windy days with a cold front from Canada. The Tramp and I went outside in the late evening to enjoy the wind in the trees and the dark pond. I fooled around for a few minutes taking photos in the dark. This one is about the best of the lot. I totally amazed the Eldest Daughter by telling her the photo reminds me of the graphic on one of her Nine Inch Nails t-shirts. Alternative music isn't my thing so guess it isn't something she would have expected her old Mom to remember! LOL

I finished another t-shirt quilt. It's all baseball related shirts and is very handsome with the red and black borders.

I've rearranged my sewing room a bit and Charlie is over by my sewing machine now. Maisy doesn't care where Charlie is. She'll wait anywhere for him to drop his (expensive) parrot food where she can gobble it up. Sigh.

I visited the State Fair on Thursday. The admission price that day was cans of Food Lion food for the needy. What a good idea! First I visited all the garden displays. Well gee, that's what I want my front yard to look like.

Some were a bit more fantastical than others. :-)

Love the pink flamingos! Well done too. It didn't look the least bit tacky!

I browsed all the craft displays. Found my quilt.

And enjoyed seeing all the other entries.

I enjoyed the midways with all the big rides....from a distance.

And tried to eat healthy with roasted corn and a frozen banana. :-)

The number of food vendors is incredible. And an amazing amount of it is deep fried. Candy bars, Koolaid (I can't imagine), mac & cheese, Oreos, Twinkies and even pickles! Urp.

This weekend was absolutely gorgeous so we spent a good deal of time outside in the yard. About two dozen geese showed up to enjoy the pond. Right before I took this picture they had a huge flapping, honking argument. Then they spent the next half hour or so preening and splashing. Soothing their ruffled feathers I guess. :-)

While The Tramp muscled out the rest of the azalea bushes, I concentrated on our mailbox post, sadly in need of attention.

I scraped as best I could and The Tramp followed up with the electric sander.

In between helping with the bush removal, coats of spray paint on the mailbox, and primer and paint on the post I enjoyed the sun and the scenery.

We made a mess of the kitchen changing the light fixture over the sink to one that actually works! It was horribly difficult kneeling on the counter and getting up under there.

While that was going on my first attempt at gluten-free French bread was cooling on the stove. Frankly it looks better than it tasted. So I'll find another recipe.

The mailbox was reinstalled and ready for the Monday mail truck.

The house is sporting new light fixtures out front as well as over the kitchen sink. And no more aggressive azaleas are threatening our view of the pond. (Yay!)

And we both have all the sore muscles to prove it! :-)

Gnashing of teeth....

2011-10-18T22:26:00.003-04:00

Arrrrgghhhh! I'm trying. Really! OS10 Lion is going to be the death of me. I was indeed gnashing my teeth just now at the lousy scroll bar. No manner of poking, clicking or dragging could get me to the top of the page. This was just after I was thwarted by the email function in iPhoto....which has been rendered almost useless in this update, sigh. Every time I enter an email address, poof, it disappears! Sheesh. I really hope they fix this stuff before I gnash my fillings out. On a brighter note, we have mostly figured out iCloud. At least what I figured out for me personally, is that it's just too darned much trouble. So I've mostly turned it off. Ahhhhh. Peace.

Of course this doesn't change the fact that I'd buy Apple stock in a heartbeat.....if I had a spare dollar or ~~hundred~~ two. They've sold millions of the new iPhones already, set an all-time record (for a quarter) for Mac and iPad sales, and as usual have met and exceeded their self-predicted numbers in the stock market with their highest September quarter revenue and earnings ever. Truly amazing.

(Usual abrupt change of subject......)

I finished all the stitching around the applique on the Whistle Stop BOM. Woot!! I've put the row on the quilt and am ready to start the next row. It's pretty! I'm very pleased with it.

(Oh dear. Camera shadow.)

I have several t-shirt quilts in the works for Patchwork Memories. This is another really big one. I love my Bernina, but every day I'm grateful I have the Juki for working on these big, heavy quilt tops. I'm also eternally grateful to Mom for gifting me her Horn of America Quilter's Dream table.

Without the extensions on the front and back of the table I don't know how I'd wrestle these tops into submission. Thanks Mom!

Something has to save my teeth from abuse. :-)

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

2011-10-15T23:54:00.000-04:00

Don't you feel that way sometimes? I sure do. The issue is usually change.....which of course is often for the better....but can come with difficulties too. (Need I say it? Send The Tramp a sympathy card.)

This week Apple released iOS5 with the usual fanfare. The Tramp promptly updated his iPhone, figured out what would annoy his loving wife about the update, braced himself, then had me update my phone.

Ok. I'll admit. It works, and works well, but you certainly have to jump through a few hoops to re-set everything up how you like it. (Old dog? Sigh.) Worse, after about 12 hours my phone suddenly went dead. Nothing I did would wake it up. Oh damn, I thought. Not. Again. This is a brand new phone replacing the previous one that imploded. But all is good. The Tramp took it away for about five minutes, and returned it to me in working order. Yay! My Magic Man. :-)

So today....in order to take advantage of all the new features iOS5 offers (such as iCloud), The Tramp took a deep breath, girded his loins, and boldly went where no man has gone before. He updated my MacBook Pro operating system to Lion, Mac OS10.7. :-)

Well. There are a few cool changes here and there, but for the most part it seems Apple has completely forgotten a large part of their market. Yep. Those of us who might possibly have a little gray hair. The ones who've started wearing reading glasses (dammit). The ones who's patience with technology might be just a teeny bit shorter than it was just a few years ago. (Feel free to disagree, but I'm enjoying my rant. :-)) What immediately strikes me is why would they make all the little buttons you have to click on to navigate around even smaller?? Why take away scroll bars?? When scroll bars are enabled it's a thin line with no blue thingy to grab. It's all gray and hard to see. (Gray and more gray everywhere. Yeesh.) And worse, if the scrollie whatchamacallit is at the bottom of the scroll bar you can't grab it and move it up, and it sometimes changes direction without warning. Huh?? It's all very buggy.

The Tramp has worked hard all day to overcome my frustrations, some of which he has had himself. To be fair to me (what a sweetie), he says my complaints are voiced by many. (He reads techie news. All. The. Time. Bless him.) He's found information on how to set things up as I/we like it. Found some hacks to overcome some of the most annoying new features. We are still figuring out things like why everything is double-entered in iCal. (iCal in particular is really frustrating, in lots of ways.) We've disabled the crazy animations that make me dizzy, but some remain. Sigh. The shoe? That's me afraid of what's going to be frustratingly different when I open the next application. There are fixes for many things, we just have to find them......and learn to accept the New Way Of Doing Things. :-)

Thank you for listening.

Yes I sewed today. Kept me away from the laptop! LOL I made a Jelly Roll 1,600 quilt with the Sherbet Pips Jelly Roll Mom bought for me (so I could make it for Stardust). I ordered the fabrics for the borders, binding and backing.

I'm working on a set of placemats for my kitchen after reading Tazzie's tutorial. Simple, quick and effective. Thank you Tazzie! The red is for the binding. It's the fabric with the running dye. (last post)

I even used her quilting suggestion. Nice!

I also covered Ngaire's bed with a nice soft fleece. None of them liked the new bed because of the kind of slippery fabric on it. It didn't take Maisy long to test it out.

She's currently over under The Tramp's desk talking up a storm. Her strong sense of entitlement means it's past our bedtime and where is her nighttime treat?? :-)

Apparently....

2011-10-15T10:59:00.002-04:00

it's Fall! Fabulous weather for walks with the dogs.

Misty mornings on the pond.

The creek is mostly dry, but I got a nice flare effect from the morning sun on a puddle.

Dry, dry, dry.

Stardust celebrating her Mommy's Fall birthday. Though it was 80F the week MD was born (not normal in New Jersey). I remember I couldn't even put her in the cute outfit I had chosen to bring her home from the hospital in. Happy Birthday honey!

Fall is a great time to experiment with gluten-free pizza. The pre-made crusts were a bit disappointing so I'm going to have a go at making my own next time. Fab toppings though. Who needs crust???

A fabulous performance of Once Upon A Mattress. :-)

Fall is also the time for the NC State Fair. Two ribbons! Woot!!

Fall is also the time to get out in the yard and do a little serious landscaping.

In this case it was trying not to damage the truck pulling out azalea stumps. Not entirely successful. So it's an ongoing project.

The dogs certainly enjoy the cooler weather. Anyone want to donate a few thou towards building us a bigger porch??? LOL

Fall is the time for Halloween decorations. We came across this pirate ship made of sheets of paneling, with blue tarp water and red flashing cannons. With a skeletal pirate at the wheel! Pretty clever.

Fall is a great time for throwing open the windows and settling in for a day of sewing. This is the center of a baby quilt...so far. (Eleanor Burns pattern)

And knitting. I finished this shawl last night. Yay.

And started this Hitchhiker shawl by Martina Beham on Ravelry. Pretty! (Thank you Anita!)

Six points done, 36 more to go. It's sock yarn, so I think it's going to take me a while. Hopefully not a year like the last one! And it's got wool in it, so I may not even be able to wear it. If so, I'm sure I can find a daughter who will. :-)

Fall is a great time for making new placemats for the kitchen. The tops are done and I bought plain muslin for backing and red for binding yesterday. YIKES!! THIS is why I ALWAYS wash my fabrics before I use them. I must have had a premonition and decided to go ahead and wash the red fabric in the sink instead of in the washer....something I almost never do (too lazy). :-) As The Tramp said, "Thank goodness!" (Does he know I would have thrown it in with the dark clothes...which are mostly his? Heh.)

Raspberry juice!

Even my hands were red!

I added another piece of red that's been kicking around and soaked them in hot water and Retayne.

After a rinse and spin in the machine I soaked them again to make sure no more dye came out and they passed the test. So I've dried both pieces and will hope for the best. No more cheap solids from JoAnn's for me!

To eat chips....or not to eat chips. That is the question.

2011-10-04T22:35:00.002-04:00

The weather has been spectacularly beautiful here. And cool! Almost cold. Yay!!! It's Fall! There haven't been any photos of the pond recently as it has been either an ugly brown or full of duckweed. The duckweed has been treated and with the weather so cool and clear I couldn't resist a few photos. I love the one lone cloud reflected in the pond. (click on the photo to see)

These four geese seem to have moved in.

I'm told there used to be willow trees all around the pond. Now there is just one. A couple of trees died during this hot summer and there are some gaps. Maybe we can replace them with willows. Would be nice, but it's not my decision so in the meantime I can enjoy this one.

Another sign of fall are the various fruiting bodies on the trees and shrubs. The robins have been after these berries on the dogwood tree.

And the hated persimmon trees are loaded. Sigh. It's just a matter of time before I get one stuck all in the treads of my sneakers. Icky.

I'm working on the applique row on the Whistle Stop Quilt Shop BOM.

Pretty, pretty!

But now I have to do all the bottonhole stitching. Time consuming!

But it's coming out ok so I shouldn't complain. :-)

Stardust has turned five months old!

Today I finished another t-shirt quilt. It's huge! 101"x108" So I only took a picture of a quarter of it. :-) Wow. I see so many scraps and threads on the floor. I guess the first thing I should do tomorrow is vacuum. We won't even mention the dog hair. :-p

Hmmmmm. Do you think I might be eating something interesting???

Yep. She's really focused on the sweet potato chip in my hand. However, the good news is Ivy is starting to lose weight. She had gotten pretty tubby without us realizing it.

Now if only tubby me would stop eating the chips. I haven't got all that hair to hide behind. :-)

My Sandbox?

2011-10-04T20:19:00.000-04:00

The question has been asked, "What's your blog name and why?" Dawn and Judy want to know. Well.....it's because The Tramp said, when I'm doing my favorite things I'm as happy as a kid in a sandbox. He actually said it the first time he came upon me sitting in the middle of a new garden having a blast digging in the soil and planting. I think he was surprised and a bit puzzled by the whole thing. LOL

I hope I always have a "sandbox" to play in. Fiber or soil! :-)

Crash!

2011-09-30T00:32:00.001-04:00

Sigh. Firefox crashed. So let's start again.

What was I writing about? Oh! Cooking. I was saying we're still getting used to the gluten-free cooking. It isn't hard really. It's just that you can't always rely on your lifetime of experience Cooking The Other Way. At least I can't. A "natural" cook I am most certainly not. I have a hard enough time these days getting used to having an electric stove! Yeesh.

So anyway..... The other day I baked oatmeal cookies, orange date muffins, and a different sandwich bread. I used to have a good idea, for instance, when the cookies were ready to come out of the oven. No more! The last batch came out like rocks and this batch was soft and fell to pieces. I can't look at a recipe filled with things like amaranth flour, sorghum flour, quinoa flour, rice flour, almond flour, flax meal, potato starch, xantham gum (among many other things now in the pantry) and have a clue as to how it will come out....or taste! Each baking session is an interesting experiment. The Tramp, bless his heart, eats it all....even the rocks. And he compliments the cook too. Smart man. ;-)

The little fish tanks on the counter are good feng shui. Or not.....but I like them. :-) Actually the blue one belongs to Grand #1. I was put in charge of Cook....yes, he named it Cook (the reason why is a mystery) .....while the Sailor Son was underway.

The season is finally changing. It's going to be almost cold this weekend! Yay! In the meantime it's bringing in all the bugs. Ugh. The ants are the worst. The exterminator has treated for them but apparently we have to wait seven days for the full effect. They're coming in under the wall by Charlie's cage. It hasn't been too bad in the pantry (on the other side of the dining room doorway) but it's nasty when they swarm all over Charlie's fruit and veg dish. Ugh, ugh, ugh. But we shall overcome!! :-)

At bee the other day, one of the gals showed off her quilt from the retreat last year. Click on the photo for a better look. It's marvelous!!! Mine has flowers all over it, but she went with an Easter theme. I just love it!

Even her label is fabulous.

Mom (hiding) has finished her latest Maggie Walker quilt, "Fox Chase." All needle-turn applique and hand quilting. Also fabulous!

Another quilt top finished for Patchwork Memories. These were all sorority t-shirts. Fun!

And tonight I made up two of the little duffle bags from the pattern Mom bought at stash dash. Cute! These are the smallest size. Just 4"x2"x2". The strawberry one is for Mom. I wonder if she's going to want them in all four sizes???

It's a nice pattern, well written. The bag is nice and firm. All the raw edges are bound. It's kind of fiddly, but maybe the larger ones are easier.

But then I never start with the easy version. Of anything. Ever. :-)

Lamps.....still :-)

2011-09-25T13:58:00.000-04:00

After much more browsing last night I found a number of Danish modern lamps similar to the lamp I bought yesterday from a Craigslist posting. I was trying to find the name of the manufacturer. The shade on mine is old, and it looks right, but I'm not sure if it's original.

Among others, I came up with this one. Similar, but not the same. Nice though.

Ooooo. A pair! Same design, different color.

And finally. BINGO! There it is! It has a tag marked Stiffel. Hmmmmmmm......

Totally Tickled

2011-09-24T23:13:00.000-04:00

What am I tickled about? Several things actually. It's been a pretty good week.

On Thursday I stash dashed with Mom and Kathie. We didn't make it to all the stores but we had a good time together. I'm tickled to now have more sizes of yo-yo maker, from Elegant Stitches and Carolina Sew n Vac (I think).

I'm tickled to have more Kaffe Fassett fabrics, from Wish Upon A Quilt and Thimble Pleasures.

And I'm tickled to have a fresh supply of machine needles, from Carolina Sew n Vac. Also Mom bought me the cute little duffle bag pattern at Thimble Pleasures....so I could make her one. LOL

Mom was anxious to buy a Jelly Roll and try the Jelly Roll 1,600 quilt. So she bought a Jelly Roll at Wish Upon A Quilt and I'm tickled to say she bought one for me too! :-)

I'm very tickled to have finished my flying geese rows for the Whistle Stop BOM. Now I have to do the applique blocks to go in between.

I'm tickled about the nice new switches and outlets The Tramp installed today in the newly painted master bedroom. It's the small things....ya know?

I'm tickled to have The Tramp's Queen poster and the rainbow quilt Mom made for us back up on the wall. Much more to do, but not having any greeny-yellowish walls around us has been so uplifting. I may even be sleeping better!

The floor still needs to be done but we're both tickled to have our closet operational again.

Excuse the still-needs-to-be-sorted mess on the counter, but it's fabulous to finally have medicine cabinets. Woot! (It's hard to take a photo of mirrors. :-))

We are hugely tickled that Maisy (we call her Maisy Of The Iron Stomach) has stopped being sick all over the house. She was so violently ill I got quite frightened for her. She was madly running around licking the kitchen floor and I had to move any house plants so she couldn't eat them! We also couldn't let her out without her frantically eating every twig and oak leaf she could find on the ground in the dog pen. We have no idea what started it. At first I thought it might have been the spray of dried chili peppers for Charlie, which I thought I had left on the kitchen counter, but I found them unscathed. It's just like kids. Sigh. They're always throwing something new at you. (Oops. No pun intended.)

And lastly....actually what started the whole "tickled" thing....is this lamp I found on Craigslist today.

Very cool, very retro/mid-century/Danish modern.

It's wood above, ceramic in the middle and a wood base with a couple of inlays of different wood. Practically mint condition, but enough wear to make me think it really might be from the '60s.

After searching on the net until nearly blind, I found exactly one image of a similar lamp. Not in any way conclusive of the lamp's origins, but it's fun to speculate. :-)

Since....

2011-09-22T00:13:00.000-04:00

.....I was thinking I should remember to post more often....and since I seem to need photos to inspire me....here is the photo of the day.

Yes indeed. I found another (rather vicious green) product with the "New Zealand Springs" scent. (Cascade--previous post) The Tramp (a Kiwi) and I were quite curious as to what "New Zealand springs" could possibly smell like, if not clean, basically unscented, water. So when I spotted this bottle in Target yesterday I couldn't resist opening it for a sniff. Big mistake.

Now Mr. Clean is a product I've always liked. Not too stinky and it gets things clean. Febreze on the other hand, is a product I absolutely can't stand! It's a guaranteed migraine. In defense of Proctor & Gamble, most scents are difficult for The Tramp and I, (so nice to live with someone who understands!).....but I still don't understand the concept of spraying something as disgusting as Febreze all over my belongings. *shudder* So putting that thought aside, I opened the bottle anyway. Sigh....don't ask me why. I do know better. Really! Well guess what. It smells like the Clairol Herbal Essences shampoo from my teenage years. Ugh! Talk about a headache. I can tell you it shortened my trip to Target. I'm darned sure that spring water in New Zealand doesn't smell like fake herbal perfumey shampoo.

Just so you know what my poor family has to put up with, I'll tell you about me and Cascade. When I was about 12 years old we got our first dishwasher. I soon found out that it made our dishes so squeaky clean I couldn't bear to touch them. Sounds like a teenager making an excuse not to empty the dishwasher, doesn't it? :-) But sensitive me really couldn't deal with it. Handling the dishes was like fingernails on a blackboard. It set my teeth on edge. I can feel now, it just writing about it! The worst were a set of glass dessert plates my brother and I called the "air plates." Mom figured out that using Cascade made the whole experience worse....for me....and the whole family who had to listen to me complain! So of course the one dishwasher detergent I never buy is Cascade. I'm sure it really doesn't make a difference what kind we buy, squeaky clean dishes often feel nasty to me.

Send The Tramp a sympathy card.

Every day I think I should post......

2011-09-19T22:50:00.003-04:00

....and then I go to bed instead. :-)

We continue to visit the dog park.

Where we do the usual dog stuff.

Until we get tired....and stretch out in the cool dirt. (sigh)

And we meet all sorts of dogs, including this sweet great dane.

There are decorated fire hydrants all around. Very cute.

Especially this one outside the skate park! :-)

The Tramp bought me a composter. Yippee! I've always wanted one that didn't require lots of digging.

It was a bit of a fight to assemble. The Tramp said he didn't know how anyone could do it without some significant tools. I don't think that's a problem for us....do you?

Of course it's always advisable not to drill into your finger. Way too much drama.

Kathie and I finished our Holiday Block kits in time to sell at the guild meeting. We sold out! :-)

It was a big crowd this month. It's a fabulous meeting room. Plenty of space for over 200 people and tables for charities, library, workshops and etc all around the perimeter. And a nice stage for speakers and show & tell.

I finished ten of these mug buckets to donate to the guild's Heritage Day Auction & Boutique. The pile of cut t-shirts has been stabilized and returned to Julianne. The fleece is waiting to be made into a dog bed cover.

We spotted this on our last trip to WalMart and I couldn't resist taking a photo. New Zealand Springs Scent. Huh? Interesting marketing decision we thought.

The Tramp and I had a chat Friday evening which resulted in the decision to finally paint our bedroom. The dull yellowish-greenish color (darker than it appears in this photo) sucks all the light out of the room. The whole house actually, since it, or a version of it is everywhere we haven't painted yet. The house is shaded and somewhat dark as it is. Nice in a hot climate. But this is more than I can live with. We also took down the wooden slat blinds which I hated. Yay!

We removed the vanity light fixture since it kept blowing expensive CFL bulbs. Removed the mirrors to make way for medicine cabinets.

First up was painting the ceiling white. Much better than 25 yr old dirty popcorn. Whoohooo. What a difference.

I think I mentioned a while back that popcorn ceilings are evil. (Last year at this time in fact, as I painted in preparation for moving in.) Grrrrrrrrrrrr. What a mess when it starts coming down as you paint it. Not too bad elsewhere, but always around the vents. Sigh. I even tried to stick some larger bits back up with my Tacky Glue. Yeah.....I know.

There was so much ugly black dirt by the vents too. Ewwwww.

The room brightened up as soon as the ceiling was done. Then the pale chiffon pink on the walls added even more brightness. :-D

I have a sallow complexion, so looking at myself in the vanity mirrors surrounded by all that yellowish-greenish ick was sooooo depressing. Note the Formica matches the walls. SIGH.

But with a white ceiling, pink walls and a fabulous new light fixture it will all be a rosy glow from now on. Yay! This is a low budget project so I'm going to have to live with the counter as is for now, though did you know there is Formica paint? Hmmmmmm.

The tramp also replaced the closet light since the old one worked intermittently. Not good in a room with no daylight that is painted in a light-sucking color. So now it's all painted and bright too. :-)

So still a bunch of finishing work to do. The Tramp is replacing all the beige outlets and switches with white ones, and the medicine cabinets are still in their boxes. The floor in the vanity area and closet is still subfloor, but we bought some cheap vinyl tile and will work on that next....when our joints and muscles have a rest and we don't stiffen up every time we sit down! :-)

I finished the two churn dash memory quilts today. I hope the client likes them.

This is what a pile of 49 t-shirts looks like. Yoiks! I got most of them cut today.....before my legs and feet gave out that is. I'll get them finished and stabilized tomorrow. No rest for the weary! ;-)

Fabric, skin, feathers, and fur

2011-09-09T21:21:00.000-04:00

Hello out there. Ummmmmm..... What to say???

The kits for Holiday Blocks are put together. I sure hope I win them. The colors make me happy!

I finished another churn dash top for Patchwork Memories. Borders are in the works, and I have t-shirts waiting to be stabilized for another custom t-shirt quilt.

We were blessed with a visit from Middle Daughter, Poyla, and Stardust! What can I say? Grandmother heaven. :-) The skull quilt was a hit with the parents. Stardust reserved judgment for the time being. The ceiling fan was much more interesting.

We had great-grandparent love.

Grandmother love.

And even a little Tramp time. No success convincing her he's scary. LOL

The obligatory photo of the four generations. Though someone was much more interested in the ceiling fan than the camera-dad.

We exuded cuteness.

We found our toes for the first time.

We laughed.

We cried.

We went to the park.

And just had the most wonderful weekend. Stardust also got to meet her New Zealand cousin (Grand #3) via webcam.....who apparently, has just discovered his belly button. Too cute!

Charlie had a good week too. I added another treat cup to his play stand.

And bought him some peanuts in the shell. It took him a day or so to figure out that they needed to be torn apart to get at the good part.

And of course the dogs are always waiting for something to be dropped.

He always rushes over to see if he can get hold of the camera. And this time he managed to snatch the strap. :-)

The dogs have had some exciting newness too. Yep. At the local dog park!

I stopped there for a preview and promptly got all our proofs of rabies etc together and went to buy the dog park permit.

Our first visit was yesterday evening. It got dark enough for the overhead lights to come on, so the pictures from my phone are dark and blurry. (Yes, our dogs really are in the photos.) There was somewhere between twenty and thirty dogs having the best time in the one acre park. It's a nice place and we met a bunch of really nice people. I'll try for some daytime photos next time. :-)

Play date

2011-09-01T22:24:00.000-04:00

Kathie and I had another mental health day today. :-) We ended up at my house again since my car was in the shop (sigh). Our play time consisted of experimenting with sun dying. We used the instructions in Karen Eckmeier's article, "Sun Prints With Tissue Paper," from Quilting Arts Magazine, Summer 2006.

We tore up a rainbow of art tissue, wet our fabric, cut up some plastic bags to work on, put on our old clothes, mixed our paint colors, and got busy "painting" our fabrics with "sun" paints. Then we lay torn strips and chunks of tissue paper over the wet paint and lay it all out in the sun to dry. Dying fabrics is not something I do, so this was a fun new experience.

The hot Carolina sun dried things up pretty quickly. This one still has the tissue paper on it.

And after I peeled the paper off!

You can almost see landscapes in them already!

Then we played with putting shapes, in this case leaves, on the fabric before we placed it in the sun. A sun resist? I saw a similar thing on How About Orange, though she used light sensitive dye. So we didn't have a clue if it would work.

As Kathie would say, "Cool beans!"

After lunch we got onto our other project. We are making up a set of Holiday Block kits for our quilt guild. We have permission to use Bonnie Hunter's Happy Scrappy Houses pattern. And made a good start cutting the strips and squares for the kits. Two blocks in each of 21 kits that will be sold for a nominal fee at the next guild meeting along with a whole bunch of different kits (we hope!). There is a small budget for fabric (as yet unspent) but most of this is from my stash. Can you tell I lean towards brights? Last time Kathie and I did this, two or three years ago, I won our set of Holiday Blocks at the December meeting! Yikes. Another UFO! I think I better dig those out and make a quilt from them.

This is the "dog bed corner" of our bedroom. Nothing much bothers Maisy as long as there are cushy beds scattered around the house for her to lie on. Talk about the lap of luxury. :-) The other two get hot and like to lay on the tile floors in the kitchen and bathrooms. Not our crazy Maisy!

Jelly what???

2011-08-30T22:33:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I spotted this link on someone's weblog. (I forget who. Yikes! I'm sorry.) Jelly races! In which you make "Jelly Roll 1,600 Quilts." What fun! So today I had a race with myself.

And I won!!

Yes, I know. I used a Bali Pop rather than a Jelly Roll. It's called a Jelly Roll 1,600 because when you string the whole lot together in one hugely long strip it's 1,600 inches long. If you think better in feet that's 133.33 feet. Or 44.44 yards. (Metric thinkers...you're on your own.) The first seam is a doozy. 800 inches (66 feet, 22 yards)! So when they say start with a full bobbin....they mean it. :-) And as I'm stitching away I'm thinking, "Wow, I am using a lot of thread!" Then came the "DUH." Just because it's loooong seams it doesn't mean I'm using more thread. Sheesh. It's not good when my mind wanders. So I put a movie on.

It's over!

2011-08-28T23:07:00.002-04:00

For us anyway. Hurricane Irene has gone north. The Sailor Son is still out to sea as far as I know. In New Jersey, one daughter is trapped at home as the river is in the road,

and the other one has downed power lines blocking her street.

My brother (at the Jersey Shore) reports that his yard is a mess and they lost several trees. Here in central North Carolina we were just west of most of the action. It's been really bad for some folks though. :-(

So what do you do on an unusually stormy day? You (hopefully) feel secure in your preparations. We went out at the last minute and bought two of these 5 gal Coleman water containers. Very cool. When it was clear the storm had passed I asked The Tramp to get them out of my kitchen sink so I could make dinner. He put them on the kitchen table for me and we figured we'd use the water over the next few days. But what did I find this morning? They leak! Water all over the table, soaked into a chair cushion and spreading on the floor. Sigh. Some security.

What else do you do on this stormy day? You keep checking out the windows to see what the weather is doing. The birds were bereft. Where in the world had the bird feeders disappeared to? :-)

You watch and wonder if there will be enough rain to overflow the pond. (Nope)

Then, while you wait for the kitchen timer to say the eggs are ready,

you amuse yourself teasing your parrot with the camera.

But he doesn't mind.....because he always gets goodies when you're cooking.

And the dark day becomes a bit cheerier with warm egg salad for lunch.

And finally, you sit down for an afternoon of sewing with the cool fresh air blowing in. But you have to anchor your fabric pieces down or they keep blowing on the floor!

And you finish one churn dash memory quilt top. (Phew!) (borders not chosen yet)

And finally, you go out one more time for a look at the stormy sky reflected in the pond.

Goodnight Irene.

One day closer

2011-08-25T22:05:00.003-04:00

Wisely, the weekend visitors have decided to stay put in New Jersey. And the Second Fleet has gone out to sea as predicted, so we won't see the Sailor Son and grands either. Of course now it looks like New Jersey is going to get a more direct hit from Irene than we are. It changes hourly. Did I mention I have new hurricane apps? ;-)

Hurricane Irene : Tracking Map : Weather Underground

In The Sandbox, the Juki has been humming. Actually, with the walking foot it sounds more like a machine gun. Two memory quilt tops were finished yesterday and delivered to Julianne today.

And I've started cutting out two churn dash memory quilts.

This is a fraction of the cutting I need to do. Sigh. But I've opted not to risk using a rotary cutter this evening! I was attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes late this afternoon, so I'm seriously drowsy from the antihistamines as well as being so ITCHY! Grrrrrrrrr.

The contract sewing has been fun, but I've discovered my cat allergies are an ongoing problem. Since the t-shirts, sweatshirts and clothing fabrics come from people's homes, the chances are great that some if them will come from houses with cats. Julianne has taken the trouble to add a cat question to her forms and she's made labels for the boxes that will come to me! The box is also taped closed to keep her own sweet little kittens out. Nice!

Hmmmmm. What else did I do today. Oh! 40 laps in the YMCA pool. I'm still slow, but it's getting better.

And this morning Charlie's cage got a good clean out and scrub. I took out all his toys and washed everything. Then I made him new hanging toys and moved things around a bit. I need to keep him on his toes!

This is one of those baskets you put baby bottle parts in to go in the dishwasher. I stuff it with shredded paper, small toys and goodies like Cheerios and peanuts. He loves it! Pretty soon the stuffing will be all over the bottom of the cage.....again.

All of his foot toys have been retrieved from wherever he'd flung them, washed, and put back to be flung again. :-)

Yes Charlie. I see you! Do you have any idea how much work you are????

Goodnight. :-)

What next?

2011-08-23T22:18:00.002-04:00

Today turned out to be an interesting day. First thing this morning it looked like Hurricane Irene was heading directly for central North Carolina. Yikes! Mom and I went to quilting bee, where of course we chatted about the hurricane and our preparations. The Sailor Son called to say we may not see him again this weekend since the ship may be sent out to sea to ride out the storm. As the forecasted storm track has moved a bit eastward, pretty much directly towards Norfolk, I suspect he's right.

Hurricane Irene : 5 Day Forecast Map : Weather Underground

We've also heard from Middle Daughter and I'm beginning to doubt we'll get to see Stardust this weekend either. :-( But you never know!

As The Tramp and I made our shopping list for storm supplies, all of a sudden the floor started shaking, the windows rattling, and the dogs went nuts. Charlie's playstand shook and swayed.

The lampshade on my desk rattled loudly.

And I kind of freaked. Earthquake! If you're not used to it, it's a pretty weird sensation.

It was over as soon as it started, so....we went out to do our shopping. Since we couldn't reach anyone by phone, the texts started flying between family members up and down the east coast. Most of us had felt the tremors and all wanted to check in on the others. The Tramp, who comes from the land of earthquakes (New Zealand, The Shaky Isles ), thought our mild hysteria was pretty amusing. Show off! Anyway, after our shopping trip, we are now prepared for the hurricane season, the November tornadoes I read about every year, and who'd have thunk.....possibly an earthquake. Sheesh!

The Tramp, at great personal risk to his sanity, pointed out some "hurricane apps" for my phone. Woot! Of course I downloaded them. You can't have enough weather apps....can you???

Ah well. I think it was indeed enough excitement for one day. The dogs certainly think so. You can see it in their eyes. "Stop it with the camera already. Isn't it bedtime?"

Oh! The Tramp has reminded me that we saw an awesome dust devil today as we were driving home. It was several feet wide, about 15 feet high, and traveled along the sidewalk for at least 50 yards. Now that got him excited! :-) Like I said. What next?

Dog days of summer

2011-08-22T10:56:00.001-04:00

Family is beating me up for not posting! Help! LOL Really though, it's just been a lazy time. The very hot weather was getting me down and I didn't feel like I had anything to share. This is a good week though! The weather isn't so awfully hot (is that autumn I see at the end of the tunnel???) and we've had visitors.

Maisy spends most of her time somewhere or other sleeping....and snoring loudly. Especially when her nose is pressed up against the wall. :-) This is of course when she isn't eating, chasing her tail or annoying the other dogs or hanging around the parrot cage waiting for tidbits to be thrown at her.

The Sailor son and the grands were here overnight and now my brother and his family are here. The newest grand will be here at the end of the week! :-D I've finished her (first) quilt. It just needs the label. Yes it has skulls on it.....which I found with the nursery fabrics along with the coordinating lavender dots. My SIL said something about finding cute skull things for her so I went looking for something to fit the theme and was amazed to find it. I went with a disappearing 9-patch pattern. I personally think it's a bit dull, not enough bright colors, but The Tramp told me to stop fussing, he likes the effect. I do like the peace and love flannel I found for the backing though. And it's all just for fun anyway. :-)

Hard to see, but the latest picture of grand #4 features her in a pink outfit with a skull on the front. So I think her daddy is going to like the quilt too. :-)

We may get a little excitement from Hurricane Irene. I hope it doesn't upset travel plans!

Grands #1 and #2 were a joy as usual. I had my rowing machine set up in the living room and the boys found it intriguing. First they rode with daddy.

Then experimented by themselves.

I set it on the lightest setting and they quickly figured out how to row by themselves!

We had lunch at Bob Evans.

Had fun at the train store and book store, and then went to the park. This park has a wonderful long sea serpent poking up out of the ground. It was too hot to climb on in the middle of the day though. We clambered all over the play structures, slid down the "fides" and then went on to the "fwings", much of which was carefully situated in the shade....thank goodness.

"Fwing high Daddy!"

Grand #1 called this large swing "the couch". I assume it is intended for handicapped children as this was the school-age playground, not the preschool area. Grand #2 loved it and giggled the whole time. :-)

Oh to be young. :-)

They are absolutely charming little boys and I get to see them next weekend too! Woot!

It's HOT!

2011-07-28T16:52:00.000-04:00

Record high temps around here and tomorrow and Saturday they are speculating if we will hit an all time high of 105. Ouch! So gardening and walking are out of the question. I think it's even too hot for the mosquitoes. I actually made it to the mailbox and back without a bite. :-)

We've been hibernating inside in the air conditioning, away from the heat and unhealthy air quality. I think it's been dragging me down. I've been so tired! The good news is that yesterday The Tramp and I joined the local Y. Today I went to swim laps. It was so nice to be back in the water again! 30 laps. :-) Slow laps (very), but I made it to 30. And I'm sure I'll feel it later. I know it probably sounds silly, but I'm enjoying sitting here smelling a bit like sunshine and pool. (I did take a shower!) Tomorrow morning I have an appointment to learn about and sign up for Mobile Fit. Now I've found the website I think I'd better read up on it this evening. :-)

While in hibernation I've been able to get quite a bit done up in The Sandbox. To begin with, we rearranged the room. This is after we bought some bookcases on Craigslist and set them up along the wall in our bedroom so we could finally (it's only been 10 months) get the books out of boxes and onto shelves. That required moving all but one piece of furniture in the bedroom, to say nothing of lugging the boxes. Also wiping down the bookshelves out in the pouring rain and hauling them upstairs. But I like it! The books give a nice and cozy feeling to the room.

Now all the rearranging is done, The Tramp has been following the announcements of neat new stuff from Apple, fixing my dad's iMac, and wrestling with the new OS X Lion. I get to listen to him muttering away about what's different and what doesn't work as expected. He doesn't dare put Lion on my machine yet because he knows it will make me crazy, therefore make him crazy. :-) I think he'll wait until they get the bugs out first.

I've finished three t-shirt quilts and have a couple more waiting. One of them was 36 shirts! Huge! And heavy. I can only wonder how heavy it will be after layering and quilting.

I finished the Swartz Creek Scrap Quilt top from Pepper Cory's class at Symposium this year. It's majorly random and scrappy and I love it! It's a lap quilt for me. I bought a nice soft flannel for the backing.

Love it, love it, love it. Most of the fabrics are thrifted clothing and some the fabrics Pepper Cory gave me during class in exchange for letting her pick through my shirtings. Pepper picked a Kaffe scrap out of my stash as the inspirational fabric so I've used it for the border. And the inner border is a Kaffe shot cotton. Weird fabric. It came out of the dryer limp and totally crumpled, and it frays like nobody's business. But it's pretty!

I also finished this top from Kim Deihl's class at the 2010 Symposium in Charlotte. The buttonhole stitching took a while! I love how bright it is. Now I have to think about how to quilt it.

Nothing much disturbs Maisy while she's in her sunbeam. :-)

Stardust has had her three-month photo shoot. She's getting big! And is starting to look like her daddy too. Mommy's eyes in the first picture and a very Daddy expression in the third one.

Mom has finished the flying geese row on her mystery quilt. I still have to do mine.

And at bee, Nancy revealed her gorgeous retreat quilt from 2009. The back is so pretty too! Sigh. I need to start working on mine again.

Can't you just hear Maisy, letting out a big sigh and saying, "Oh all right. I'll be your pillow....again. Just tell Ivy to stop kicking me in the head!"

Do I need a 12 step program?

2011-07-18T22:57:00.000-04:00

Some habits are good and some habits are bad. My upstairs vacuum cleaner is definitely suffering from my bad habits. Not only do we have three exceptionally hairy dogs, but I'm a confirmed thread tosser. This is really bad!!! Lots of long threads holding the dog hair in there. I think I may need an intervention.

I love these vacuums. We have a whole family of them. :-) Possibly I shouldn't be abusing them so!

Once I cleaned out the vacuum I got down to some sewing. I finished another row on the Whistle Stop mystery quilt. Yay! I have to do the flying geese row and then I'll be caught up and ready for the August row.

And today I finished quilting and binding this long overdue wedding gift. The Tramp will deliver it tomorrow and I hope the couple enjoy it. I used a Spumoni Bali Pop and a matching Bali for the backing. My Juki was having fits sewing the batiks and kept skipping stitches. I was ready to throw the whole lot out of the window! Nothing I tried as far as needle sizes, adjusting, oiling, or cleaning helped. So I went to the TL98Q Yahoo Group and searched the messages until I came up with a hint that it might be the presser foot! I changed my non-hopping foot for the regular hopping foot and abracadabra....it worked! Gotta love them Yahoo Groups. :-)

The bride wanted fall colors so I thought some loops, leaves, and ribbons would be appropriate.

Tomorrow is doll club. Then I have to get back to the t-shirt quilts. And finish cleaning the house.....water the garden......clean the bird cage.....walk a dog.....get my nails done.....cook meals.....read email and blogs......and sleep. Dang. Maybe I should at least get started on the sleep part now.