Ace in the Hole

It's done! And it's a slam dunk if I do say so myself. I'm so pleased. The Tramp helped me down off the ledge a few times, gave excellent design suggestions, rearranged my fabrics, and pulled out some poor choices. Love you honey! :-)

Next job is to make sure it gets signed by the guests at Middle Daughter's wedding. After which we move house. When that dust settles I will start stressing over how to quilt it and bind it.

Our little bit of "fun" this weekend was figuring out how Maisy the Innocent, Maisy the Unpredictible, Maisy the Weird, was ending up outside the fence. She digs, but only for voles and toads and smelly things. With her short legs she certainly isn't a jumper or a climber. How the heck? We walked the inside of the fence and didn't see anything. When she disappeared again later in the day we put the dogs back out in the yard and walked the outside of the fence to see what would happen. The Tramp found the broken spot in the fence when she stuck her nose through the hole! We just didn't see it earlier in the day. Sigh....if I can just keep her corralled until the move.....

Just call me Trouble.

Purple Rain

Rain? HA! I wish! It's HOT and HUMID. Sigh. I'm so ready for chilly weather. :-) We had an early Spring so I can only hope that means an early Autumn. We'll be moving house all through September so keep your fingers crossed for me.

The purple blocks are done! :-D Next step is to trim the excess backing fabric from the blocks and get them sewn together.
Hmmmm.... I may cheat and work on something else for one evening. Or else I could pack some more boxes. Not! :-)

Blue Moon?

No visible moon tonight...but the stars seem to be in alignment for us these days. :-)

The blue blocks are finished! Yay! The green was such a struggle but now I don't see what my issue was. The blues were easier but I see fabrics in there I don't like. I think I need to not look at it for a day or so and look again with fresh eyes. :-) Border fabrics are hanging to the side. They are growing on me too.


Speaking of blue..... Our new house is blue! And I love the red front door. :-) Only a couple more weeks 'til closing!


And even better...check out the view from the front windows. We will own a slice of that pond.

Sigh. Nice!

Little Green Apples

The green blocks are done. Yay! I'm don't normally work with green so I found them a bit of a struggle. I'm not completely satisfied with some of my choices but in the overall scheme of things they will be just fine.
Today is our sixth wedding anniversary! Where does the time go? We've lived in four houses already and are about to move to our fifth. I think that's quite enough moving thank you very much. :-)

Life marching on...or...don't step on the bubble wrap

Well the house isn't sold, but we are buying. Yikes!

Pop, pop! Pop! Darn it, what's that bubble wrap doing on the floor? Pop!

While I fight my way through the boxes, packing paper and...Pop!...bubble wrap, I've been working on a wall hanging...Pop!... for the Middle Daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law. Pop! I want to have the top done so it can be signed by everyone at the wedding.

So far it's looking...Pop!... pretty good. Progress is being made. Despite the bubble...Pop!...wrap. SIGH.


Don't we just look so comfortable snoozing in our sunbeam. Sheesh! Just you wait girls. I'm gonna make you pack your own toys. :-p

POP! (dang it!)

Outside there isn't any bubble wrap.

Yet.

But the yard has been invaded by something equally unwelcome. I included my toes in the picture for scale. Yowza. We've been invaded by alien toadstool beings!


So what's new with you???

I never know what to title my posts!

Hello. Remember me? Not too much sewing happening and we are still embroiled in selling our house. What a pain!

Much of my time for the last few months has revolved around the guild's raffle quilt. It's a gorgeous vintage grandmother's flower garden top that was donated to us. The talented Karen Comstock of Quiltricks designed a border for it and we've put in over 180 hours hand quilting it after appliqueing the border. I've been one of the many who've been hand quilting "Little Orphan Annie" as well as traveling to various local venues with other committee members to sell raffle tickets. We have quite a bit more raffle ticket selling to do before the drawing in October. Same as last year, our charity partner is Military Missions in Action.

It has been so hot here! The first picture is from the Rural Reunion in Raleigh this last Saturday, and the heat index was about 107F. Yuck. This is the first event we had the finished quilt to show.

Before this week we took the quilt, frame and all, to each venue and chatted to the crowd about quilting while we worked. This was at the Carthage Buggy Festival.
Our first outing with the quilt was at Spring Daze in Cary.
The quilt has also spent time in several of our living rooms. This is mine.
This is Mom's.

I'm looking forward to taking a photo of the quilt hanging. It's glorious!

The other quilty type thing I've done recently is attend the North Carolina Quilt Symposium in Charlotte, at the beginning of June. I took a class with the lovely Kim Diehl. She was teaching a quilt from her upcoming book, "Simple Graces." She was worried about looking short in the photo and I was trying not to look like an Amazon. LOL Can you tell I'm hunching down?

And a class with doll maker Patti Medaris Culea. So much fun! It was a class on doll face painting and we got to play with Patti's Shiva Paint Sticks. I admit it. I'm hooked! Got to get me some of those paint sticks! :-) Those are Patti's hands on the right, demonstrating.

And my doll heads. They still need the details added in order to be considered done.

Ewwww

No sewing this week. A day at work, time in the garden, shopping, and this....


Mold! Ewwwww! Caused by a leak. Which resulted in ruination of the carpet.....


And removal of this not-so-glamorous-but-perfectly-serviceable kitchen cabinet unit. (It did have doors and drawers before we started taking it apart.)

So the plumber comes tomorrow to cut more holes in the wall and find the source of the leak. Double ewwww.
After the warranty company has the drywall repaired we'll have to install a new sink and vanity and replace the carpet with something more sensible for a powder room. SIGH. Not what you want to be doing when all you want to do is sell the house.

C'est la vie! :-)

Cherrylicious

It feels so good to finish a sewing project! I spotted this table runner pattern online quite a while ago and just fell in love with it. Thank you Monica! I quilted feathers in the border and a pattern in the background, a la Patsy Thompson. And it came out ok! *happy dance* (I don't think I'm ever going to get over feeling I'm going to ruin everything when I quilt it. LOL)

Is it April already???

I'm just gonna pretend that I haven't been lazy about posting and jump right in. :-p (I do read lots of blogs and have been incredibly lazy about commenting too.)

First of all there is a new grandbaby! He's way off in New Zealand, sigh. Everyday I have to thank the powers that be and a bunch of really smart people for digital cameras, the internet and high speed connections. IMHO he looks just like The Tramp. :-) Cute, cute, cute!

Then there are the grands up in Norfolk, VA. We visited last week and I got to be the monkey in the middle in the back seat of the car. While one of them slept...

the other one entertained me. He was a very cool dude in his shades and sporting a mohawk hairdo.

Then he kind of spoiled the effect by showing off the nail polish on his thumb! LOL

This last weekend we spent a lot of time out in the garden. And I managed to get a family portrait when they were tired enough to sit still.

We weeded and mulched and I potted up some of my favorite plants. I figured it makes a portable garden that I can take with me if this house ever sells.

About two weeks ago our quilt guild sponsored two workshops with Sharon Schamber. Very cool! I'm pleased to learn whatever she wants to teach me. Here she is demonstrating on my sewing machine!

Ummmm.... What else? Oh yes! Tuesday I went to doll club and we continued to work on our Patti Culea dolls. We worked on faces mostly and I finished it tonight. Not bad for the first one. The camera is kind. I'm not pleased at how the seam allowances turned into purple shadows after I painted on the textile medium. It doesn't show as badly in the pictures. One side of her forehead, nose and chin have a purple shadow and of course it is all around the edge of her face.
But overall I'm very pleased and look forward to finishing her body and dressing her. She seems to be developing into some kind of pink sprite. It's kind of like giving birth and seeing what happens as your doll grows up. Fun! :-)