Sometimes , it's just the little things....

I think this is the first time in forever that I have gone 5 days without sewing a stitch.  (Not that I don't have obligations, you understand......it's just that, for some reason, my heart isn't "in" it!)  I'm hoping that I can change that today.  I think I am going to write a pattern for "Confetti Squares" for a lap sized quilt. Just wait until my graphic designer gets wind of that.  He still hasn't finished "Color Play".  (Although I did get a preview of a possible cover which I asked to be changed a bit, so he's working on it.)

In the meantime, I must show you something which as always thrilled me.  (Call me weird!!)  I think double yolks are the coolest thing on the planet.  It's almost like twins.....and how often does it happen?  Heavens, I rarely even make friend eggs anymore and then to have two double yolked eggs on the same day?  I thought it might be like a "sign" of some type....but NO!  The rest of the day was pretty mundane. LOL

What I have been doing lots of lately is searching out bichon frise rescue sites online for a possible new dog.  Hubby and I think we might just like a boy this time since we've never had a boy.  How do you like this little guy?  Isn't he just the cutest?  His name is Rocky and he's 9 months.  Problem is that the foster mom thinks he shouldn't be an only dog so he'd have to come with the next one.

Meet Isabelle.  She and Rocky apparently are best buds!  Isabelle is 4 years and they both are puppy mill rescues and not real sure of human companionship yet.  Both are "fixed" and microchipped, and have had shots and vet checks.

Then there is Roscoe.  Roscoe is 5 and also up for adoption, but he would be available as an only dog.  He too was a mill dog, but prior to that was owned by a couple who had gotten divorced.  From what I read, he is a little lover.  So.......that's where my head has been lately.  I don't know!  Should we get another dog (or two) or not?  I go one way one day, and the other, the next.  If I wasn't allergic to cats, I might go that route instead, but that's OUT!

Oh, there is one really nice thing that happened lately though.  My swap partner got her doll quilt and the goodies I sent her and said some really wonderful things in her blog.  You must read them here.  I was so touched!!  Thank you, Kat!!

So there you have it!  My last 5 days in a nutshell.  Whatcha think???

More stuff.......

My friend, Shirley knew how broken up I was about losing Emmy, so she made me a sweet little quilt to remember her.  Note the doggy on the left:





She even painted that button white to make it look like her.  BUT, did you note that quilting?  Isn't she fantastic?  I am in awe with every single thing she makes.  One is more beautiful than the next!

Then......I got my 3D quilt from "uberstitch" (Pam) for the QT swap.  Note all the goodies she sent to me too.  E-gads, it felt like Christmas.



And last, but not least, I followed a marvelous tutorial here to learn the D4P trick and made my own quilt to show it off.  Needless to say, I started with lots smaller squares and I did square them all up to 4 inches before I sewed them together.  I love the wonkiness of it!  I think this might be used as another angel quilt for DQS10 if we need it.  I surely will be using that tutorial again though....so fun!



Hope you all are keeping busy too.  In between sewing, I've been researching Bichon rescue sites so who knows?????  Eventually, there might be a new family member here......we're thinking boy this time.  We've never had a boy dog before and I understand they are oh so sweet.  We'll see.....

LIfe goes on....

Before anything, I must thank all you marvelous readers on all your blessings and exclamations of sympathy for our loss of our sweet, Emmy.  Saturday was a tough day, and although it has been exceptionally quiet in this house, it has been raining constantly since Sunday and I'm not unhappy about letting a dog in and out of the house all wet.  Nor, am I upset when our bed is not shaking because our dog (who slept with us) was afraid of thunder and lightning and NO ONE dare sleep while that is happening!  I do however, miss the growl every time someone sneezes.  Sneezing was not allowed in our house, you know!! LOL   She didn't like that at all!!  I also miss so much else......much too much to mention.  I'm sure you know what I mean.  Seems every loved pet has something special that makes them unique.  At this point we aren't sure if we will adopt again.  It's too early......but if it happens, I will be sure to let you know.

In the meantime, I have been sewing.  I sent out a STUD mini quilt to Ruthie who was my partner for the theme, "favorite things".  Ruthie likes:  Wizard of Oz, owls and birds, schrooms with rooms, embroidered/embellished, and bird nests and branches.  No schrooms with rooms, but the tree has one, and please note the lions tail on the right side of the "golden brick road".  Everything else, I think I nailed.  She loved it.



Then, I was the first one to be done with the doll swap.  I had sent my quilt to my partner earlier in the week, and yesterday received mine from "boutiquenutmegdesigns"..(Meg).  She nailed my likes to a T.



Then, just for fun, I sewed this little number.  It seems I'm really into red and white lately......I'm thinking it's my sympathy for the Japanese people, who knows, although I do love red and white anyway.  I even think the next thing I make is also going to be red and white.  Why I'm thinking in only those colors is beyond me.



I showed this to the owner of my LQS this morning and she asked when I was going to write a big pattern for it.  ????????  Good question, and perhaps that might be in the cards too.  I better do it soon though so I don't forget what I did.  Duh!

So, you see, I'm still alive and probably working harder than ever.  At least for now......thank you all again for your sweet words and love.  It means so very, very much to both me and my DH!!  I've read every one of your comments to him too.  And we cried together.  But, that's good......

Smooches to all of you!!!!!

Emmy

January 1, 1999 - March 18, 2011



Goodbye my precious baby!  I loved you so much!

Always something!

Yes, with me, it's always something.  Sometimes, I'm not even really sure what will happen.  LOL  See the image below?  Those are the embellishments for my next project......which is in the works, but still a secret so I can't show you until my partner gets it.....when it's finished, naturally!  I made those cute mushroom buttons.  They're not perfect...actually, my first ones were better, but the color was off so I had to redo them last night.  They match much better now. 

The mail has been good.  I am getting some of the swap items that I have coming lately and it's so fun!  Remember when I sent this mug rug:



Well, this is the one I got from my partner, Amy Crane Designs:



She had all sorts of neat stuff in the package she sent.  I think I just sent some small packages of coffee.

Then there was the Scrappy Pincushion Swap, remember?  I sent this (plus some pintoppers):



With all the ones I made, I was somewhat torn on which to send, but I noticed that she did like rainbow things, so I went with that one.  In return I received this beauty from Mel Sews:



It was so nice of her to include extra fabrics that she used....plus those pretty magnets (which are on my refrigerator at this moment.)

Lastly, I think you might like to see my latest wall hanging that was sent to it's owner this week:



I covered the banner flags with dimes to protect the privacy of the owner since they spell her last name.  I hope she's pleased.  That was a fun commission quilt to make.  I have a few to go yet, so if you are one of the ones waiting, my thinking cap is still on.....I have not forgotten you!  So, that's it for today, my friends.  Hope you are all well and happy.....after all, that's the main thing, isn't it?

Yup, still ugly!

I really thought the quilting would improve that quilt.......and it did.....just a little!  BUT, I'm thinking it's still ugly, so I'm not even going to try to improve it by sewing covered buttons to each black square.  I finished it by binding it, and now it's in my upstairs closet.  If you want to buy it, I will let it go for the cost of the quilting, plus shipping, and a mere $40 for my time and materials.  I'm thinking about $120 total.  First come, first served!  After all, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.





On a brighter note, I must show you the latest creation for "chickenfoot".  But let me fill you in a few facts first.  Chickenfoot is the head mama of the doll swap.  She organizes all the 220 or so entries and divides up the names to her sub-mamas who, in turn match up names for swap partners.   It's a daunting job!  Not only that, but she is also the head mama for the Scrappy Pincushion swap.  Another job of record proportion.  Well, ever since I first joined the doll swap for DQS7 (I think it was) I have made her a quilt to reflect her and her sub mamas.  I just thought it would be fun.  So, in 2009 I made this:



I think we only had 7 mamas that time and one of them was a guy (who I didn't include).  That set the bar for DQS8 when I made this:



That one was huge at 18 1/2 x 29 inches and took me forever, but it was her birthday month and I needed a theme.  LOL  Note that all 8 mamas were pictured in this quilt.  (No guys that time!)  Then we came to DQS9 and the number of mamas went up to 12........can you believe?  I wondered what I was going to do with all of them until a friend suggested that I do a quilt and call it, "Chickenfoot and the 12 mamas, the early years".



Note that I, as the oldest mama, and angel mama, (thus the halo) was the only one without an egg shell on my head and that our one, and only, African American mama even had a dark brown shell to represent her.  Plus, of course, her and some of our younger mamas weren't even hatched yet.  So......what to do for this time?  I am a bit busier this year and with all the swaps running at one time, and the new lap quilt pattern and the commission quilts to do, I was in a quandary.  I could have made something completely different, but I really wanted to stay with the chicken theme, so I thought I'd improve her looks and came up with this:



That one was more of a normal size at 14 x 22 inches.  She loved it and is thinking that soon she'll need to dedicate a whole wall in her house for all the quilts that I've made her.  LOL  Well, she better wait, because I already know what I'm making for DQS11.....and it's a dilly!  You will have to wait too because I'm not tellin'.  I will tell you one thing though.....it will be smaller.  LOL

A grey Hare?

I just HAD to show you this.  I thought it was lost because I sent it out waaaaay back on February 1st or so, but my friend, bahamadawn, finally got it yesterday.  And yes, she does live in the Bahamas but her name is not Dawn.....it's KIM.  (At first I thought it must be Dawn too.  So don't think you're the only one who thought that.  LOL)



When the QT group was picking themes, she and I wanted Easter/spring and got out voted, so decided to do a private swap on our own.  (I really wanted to make a funny bunny 'cause I had this guy in my head.)  I have yet to get hers, (and Lord help me if it takes me close to 6 weeks to receive), because she makes awesome stuff!  We have very similar styles.  So stay tuned, I will show you as soon as I get it.

THEN, ta-da..........."Color Play" is all finished, photographed, instructions written (and corrected once already), and everything is in the hands of the graphic artist.  He assures me that I should have a finished product in about 2-3 weeks.  Yippee! I will let you know when the pattern is finished.  Wanna see some pics?

First, the front:



Yes, those are DH's fingers there on the top, and maybe you can see his feet too?  Hopefully, my guy will cut those out of the picture, but if not, who cares?  Now for the back (which is laying horizontally across the back of my couch.)



I used the left over colors from the front to fancy up the back and all the instructions for both the front and back are included in the pattern.  Pretty cool, huh?

Now, I'm working on binding the "ugly" quilt, which surprisingly enough is not so ugly anymore!!   You'll have to wait a bit for that one..............

No, I'm not dead!

I probably had you wondering, huh?  It's been so long since I've posted.....but (oh and thank you, thank you ever so much for all the sweet Birthday wishes....this was a hard one for me....getting older is no fun) I had a busy weekend and wasn't very productive.  I did manage to pop into the quilt shop on Sunday though and bought these marvelous fabrics for a new project:



These will be combined with various pink and orange and golden solids and hopefully will make a marvelous creation (yet to be drawn...or even determined as yet.)  There will be birds though...that was made perfectly clear by the customer......and why not?  They are such fun!

Then, I also got back "Color Play" from the quilter and I have been working on the binding for that:



Fear not, I do have more black thread!!  Hopefully I can finish that today so I can take pictures and get this pattern in the works for printing!!  I'm excited!  I do love this quilt!!

Then, yesterday while I was working on a surprise for a friend and can't show it to you until she gets it, I got an awesome envelope in the mail with this:



Can you even imagine something so beautiful and teeny tiny?  I believe the creator paper pieced this and the block is only a total of 4 inches square.  I'm telling you, Sil is amazing and if you go to her Flickr stream you will see what I mean.  It was so nice of her to send me this and I already have something planned to re-pay her.  Now I'm wondering how I should showcase her block....maybe I should frame it?  That might be nice!

So, that's it for today, I'm afraid.  So sorry I can't inspire you today, my friends.  Maybe next time???

Ta-da........Color Play!!

Yippe, yippee, yippee!  I did it and didn't screw it up and believe it or not, my math was even correct.  (I can hardly believe it myself!!)  Now to write the pattern.  But, don't you just love it?  This is the only picture I took......draped over my ironing board after the final pressing before it goes to the quilter.



I'm calling it "Color Play", named after the original doll quilt I made last year for the Doll Swap (but never gave away).  In fact, that one is hanging in my dining room.  It's 16x20 inches.



The new lap quilt is 54x68 inches and once it's all done as a shop sample for my local quilt shop, it'll come home to be twins with the original.  I've been thinking about doing this for a whole year and when I discovered that my LQS was going to carry all the Kaufman Kona solids, I knew it was time to write the pattern.  I hope you like it as much as me........this one is 100 times better than the last.  Don't you agree?