Which?

After an unacceptable amount of agonizing, I finally came upon the perfect pattern for a table runner I am making. I searched all of my books, files and computer and finally hit on this pattern from The Happy Zombie. (I'll explain this gift in another post but some of the fabrics may look familiar) It fits the bill in so many ways....fast and easy being the most important. After I made all the blocks I realized that this is not the best combo of fabrics with the border print. There is something very fussy about it all. Here are the various settings and inner border combinations.



I think I like this setting best. It gives the eye a place to rest. But which inner border? Plus in the last photo you will see yet one more inner border option. I didn't remember that fabric until after all the others were taken and didn't feel like re-doing them all.
But then there are these two settings. In the original, this one has appliques in the center light squares. I would use leaves (or maybe even quilt in a contrasting color) but as Aunt Janice would say. This looks, "Ehh!"
This is my least favorite. Although it looks good in the picture it is sorta lacking something. I think it's not wide enough to really show the streaks of color. It just looks fussy to me. However if I do this pattern I am going to quilt leaves in the light streaks in contrasting thread.
This is just showing a third inner border option. Whatcha think? I cannot change the outer border. The entire runner is worked around it.

Another weird obsession

A while back I saw a flower pattern on a blog. I began to make flowers. It was a short lived passion but after I made a few with the pattern, I began to make them with yo-yos. The yo yo flowers are two sided. I have a little bouquet that lives in my sewing room. They make me happy just to look at them and unlike the real thing, they are alway bright and cheery.

September.....

Is one of my 3 favorite months. (the others are March, Mrs. S's b'day and June, mine!) DH's birthday was the 22nd and Ms. A's is the 24th.
Random facts....
Ms. A was born on the 2nd day of Rosh Hashana. I thought it was soooooo cooool that they announced her birth during services.

We had the choice of birthdays for her....we chose to give her her own day that she didn't share with her dad.

We went for dinner at the Brown Derby the night before she was born.

I expected a redhead this time!

DH is the youngest of 3 brothers all 1 year or less apart....born to a mom who was not yet 20 and had been married 3 years....and is still married 52 years later

This picture will not be either of their favorites.....but I love it. We had gone to Ohio to visit family and had to be at the airport at some ung-dly hour like 5:30 a.m. After a hysterical night in the hotel room where we needed to go to the front desk to request that the porn be turned off the television, where we went to Denny's (lovely hotel food) for dinner, asked for a to-go cup and the guy thought we wanted a souviner, and a night of poor sleep, we made it to the airport.....with no coffee having been injested. Ms. A must have her a.m. coffee at that hour and was grumpy when we hit security and the ever friendly TSA employees. Now you'd think that they'd have been much nicer at that hour but they were barking up a storm. I was watching Ms. A getting more and more irritated (that irritation began at the ticket counter) & I actually could see her face changing. I looked at DH and said, "QUICK, go buy coffee!" (we'd made it through the security way ahead of her) As she finally exited the security area I slammed the coffee in her hand. She was grumbling and grousing and grumbling and grousing. We sat down and like magic, the caffeine took effect, she looked at me and said, "coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee!" and became her normal self. This photo is of her and DH ....she is in a much happier state AFTER the coffee . DH is pretending to be severe!!

These are repeat photos from Las Vegas!!!
Happy Birthday to my September crew!

mmmm....

Lookee what I made at work last week....These are round for Rosh Hashana. I forgot to take a photo of the braided ones I made the week before. I love, love baking bread. Too bad I don't really eat it any more.....I do have lots of friends though whenever I bake!! I made everyone at work crazy last week with the smell.

Remember when we talked about thank you's. Well, I made a challah for every teacher/assistant combination. I received one thank you from my best bud and one from a very kind teacher. That was it. I didn't make them for the thank you but a simple acknowledgement would have only been the right. We are talking about 25 employees !

I actually made these a few weeks ago....I forgot to post the post!!!! I often create multiple posts in one sitting and save them as a draft for ease of posting! I'll be making more of these later this week for home......don'tcha wish we had smell o'vision?

Fall Placemats

Another of my finished projects. I bought these placemats at WalMart for .10! Yes you read that correctly....1/10th of a dollar.
I had these nearly finished. I was appliqueing the purple leaves. I finished one mat and began to look around for the other. Where did I put it? Did I drop it on the floor? OMGoodness! I appliqued them together! I nearly cried. Freemotion, zigzag applique on this waffle fabric. After some quality time with my seam ripper, a razor an a brush with a mental breakdown, I got the two separated. Then as I was doing the yellow leaf, my thread broke. Hmmm....why don't I have any tension.....hmmm, let me loosen this tension dial just a bit more.....POP! The entire tension assembly fell apart in my hand. Springs, washer thingys and plastic covers....AHHHH!!!! After a few choice words and deep breathes, I realized that this was just a machine of parts. Assemble the parts correctly and all works well, put them together wrong and nothing works at all. It's not rocket science, it's just a mechanical tool. I got it back together, finished the placemats and opted to put the last two away untill another day. I can't even imagine what else I could do wrong!

Finished Pillows

I've been busy the last few weeks. Maybe I'm not blogging too much or making actual quilts, but I have indeed been creating. I finished this pillow. For some unknown reason, I really, really wanted a ruffle on this thing, I got it in a big way. It's bigger than the pillow!!! I just tucked it behing the others. The picture should enlarge if you click it. OMGoodness! After I posted this I noticed that I never washed off the blue marker used to mark the pattern....oooops!

The pillows on either side were bought at a craft show by my MIL. The quilts on the bench were made by DH's grandma. They are totally utilitiarian, well used and loved. This pillow was given to me by a friend that has broken up shop so to speak. She has quit quilting and gave away all of her stuff. This was hand quilted. all I did was finish it.

Monday morning funny

I bought this a few years ago and keep forgeting to post......Have a great Monday!

A quilter is always a quilter

What does any self respecting quilter do when face with 2 unplanned days off work, no malls, fabric stores or resturaunts open: When the threat of danger is real?????? Why quilt of course. In between the hours spent in front of the weather channel, cleaning up the yard, boarding up the house, calming DH who was 1500 miles away, buying candles and more importantly vodka, moments of OMG what am I doing and talking to friends wondering at exactly which point we would chose to evacuate, I cut out and finished 5 pairs of pj pants, machine quilted a pre printed panel on my home machine, convinced Ms. CCCat to take her longarm out from under the layers of plastic (to protect it in case of Ike) and quilted! (Whew! Long sentance!) Together we finished my cowboy quilt (full photos once it's done done) If you look close you can see the boot and hat panto....


We, a term I use very, very loosely, also quilted a baby quilt and loaded a large donation quilt. She will finish that one this evening.

Ever wonder?

Did you ever wonder what YOU would do when faced with a hurricane. My heart goes out to my neighbors in Houston. The devastation could have as easily been my city. For a few days we were in the bullseye. It is such a horrid thing to wish the hurricane away because you know that you are wishing it to someone else! I am not sure that I would have actually evacuated.....I am 5 miles, as the birds fly, from the gulf. This has been a huge source of contention as DH was not here and was in a total panic fearing that I'd stay. Sometimes though, evacuating is as treacherous as stating. If you leave to late, TRAFFIC and caught in the storm. This one was predicted to go straight along the path I needed to take AND heavily affect the area I was running to! Luckily, the question of what to do will not be an issue for another year. In the meantime....Pictures of the boarded up house.... (yes, Mr. FancyPants and I did it alone. I took them down and put them away all by myself!!!!) (in case you wondered....it's like a tomb inside once all the boards are up.)
I took a tour to see what was open. After all, the predictions changed and Ike was no longer headed towards us....directly that is! Here was Joanns for 3 days.....fancy sandbags. Like that would stop much.

Kohls......

Notice how they leave the doors exposed. G-d forbid we shouldn't be able to shop ASAP once the danger was over! What good do you suppose that trash can is doing???

All in all we received NO rain, NO wind, NO weather troubles from Ike! Although I am glad, it is with a heavy heart....someone else is suffering.

Ike not here

Well, we lucked out this time. The entire city practically shut down, the malls, restaurants. even WalMart closed. The storm turned and unfortunately pummeled our neighbors in Galveston and Houston. Here it is blazing hot, sunny and gorgeous. North side of a hurricane, destruction, south side, hot, hot and dry! THANKS TO ALL FOR YOU PRAYERS AND WELL WISHES. I just finished taking the boards off of my windows, by myself I might add, and am getting the house back to normal. Will write more later, I have photos, but for now, I just wanted to say thanks.

Well?????

Notice the lack of question mark here today!
I had already gotten most of my hurricane gear together but spent this afternoon fine tuning. If I need to board up, I'll do so without DH as he is travelling. Fun, fun! I'll learn how to use the electric screwdriver and masonry nails reallllll quick huh!. My escape hatch, that is Ms. A's house is in the direct line of the storm also and expected to receive, as the weather man said, "copious amounts of rain." Big sigh! I just wish they could figure out where this thing is headed. It changes hourly. To those of you in the path of this storm, be smart and be safe.

Retreat this weekend....

.......or perhaps I may be otherwise engaged this weekend.

Somewhat quilty?

Just thought you’d like to see Ms. A’s project when she was about 10…..It is hand sewn….she is now 23….I remember that one day she just asked for a needle and thread and made this on her own….she no longer owns this pillow....... It finally bit the dust......because it's disqusting and mom decided it needed to go. It didn't fit the decor of her new apt, LOL and why store it. It was really rather gross already. She was sad to throw it away but to say it was a shambles would be an understatement. Maybe, someday, she will really learn to sew????? Yeah right! Ms. A still has the doll my mom bought her when she was about 18 mo. old. Poor ole' Senne is beheaded right now and needs to find a doll hospital. I gave her a heart transplant many years ago but reattaching heads is beyond my abilities!!!

More coiled bowls

I really think I need a 12 step program…..

I am so addicted to making these coil bowls. I made a few last night, called a friend and told her that I was done, burned out, finished. I felt fulfilled and didn’t need to make another bowl……..I lied! This morning when the one bit of wrapped cord called out to me!!!! Let me show you what I’ve done since my last “bowl check in.”



This is a top view of the square basket I made. It is way more patchkying than I like (yeah, that's Yiddish for fiddling with. It's just that patchying fits much better than fiddling around!).

This is what you get when you wrap 100 ft of clothesline with the same combination of fabrics.

I've been wrapping the line with scraps. Hey, I spent the same amount of money on the 1" scrap as the 2 1/2" purposely cut strip! I made this cutie. It's really small. DH said he wants to take it to work to put on his desk.

This was the last one that was just calling my name. I finished it last night and am free of wrapped cord.

These are all of my creations. I didn't take individual shots of the hot mats and coasters.

Shopping

I have been hitting the "submit order" button a bit here....


I promised a door prize to Ms. A's professional group. Since they are all deaf interpretters, I think the fabric on the right is just perfect! You may remember the purse (scroll down to see) and bag I made from the blue colorway. The Browns fabric is because, although we deep in Cowboy territory, we are diehard Browns fans. I have no idea what I'll make for DH but I can't wait to finish it!! LOL!!!! DH will love whatever it is just because it is Browns fabric. I need to photograph my other purchase.....at least it will lead to another semi-quilty type post.....

Shopping II

I may not be sewing much but I never stop shopping! I think if I ever move a pre-requisite would be having a Half Price book store. My latest purchases are just fun! This is the entire set of quilting patterns.Best yet, look at the price!!!!

These books, although older, are still loads of fun. They seem to be filled with many animal type patterns. I guess I'm collecting for a someday Noah's ark type quilt.

The bane of my existence......

….has become putting something down and not knowing where I left it! I used to blame the little blue men (there was a Steven Speilberg show on TV once that blamed little blue men for misplaced items) but have seriously reconsidered in the past few months. I think that I am just losing my mind! Take these for example. I KNEW with every fiber of my being that I did not lose my sunglasses (they clip on to my glasses). When packing for Las Vegas I looked everywhere for these goofy things. High, low, up, down….everywhere and they were not to be found. I asked DH if he had seen the case (that is like speaking to the air but it was worth a shot) and he said no. HMPH! We came home from LV and I looked some more. Double HMPH! Then, when I was taking photos of my living room for this blog, I moved a basket. When I looked inside, THERE SAT MY GLASSES CASE just as big as you please. Yup! Inside were the missing sunglasses. Now why in heavens name where they in that basket??? It made absolutely no sense and even the little blue men would understand that!!

This *^%&^&^$####**** thing has been THE most frustrating thing I own. This is an ipod case made for using during exercise. I like this case because it has a clip and when I go to the gym, clean house or do yard work, I don’t have to wear the massive arm band. I can just clip it on myself and go. Plus, it’s protected in my purse. But the padded parts don’t allow it to be used in a docking station. In order to use any of my many docking stations, I must take the ipod out of the case. Hooking up to ITunes? Take the ipod out of the case. At school, I take it out to use and then put it back in to protect. In the car, back out of the case to use the docking station and back in when I get home. At home, out of the case to listen to music in my sewing room and back in the case when done. That little case is wiley because it is never, ever where I leave it! It was lost for two weeks when I finally found it inside a storage box. Then I lost it again the very next day!

On Thursday, I packed to go to Austin. I disconnected my phone charger and put it???????? Now on Friday, I was unable to figure out where I left the blasted thing! I thought maybe it was wrapped up in my clothes so didn’t worry too much about it. I couldn’t find it all weekend…..couldn’t find it when I got home Mon. ……dumped my suitcase and various bags….no phone charger! By this time I was so aggravated! No phone charger and no IPOD case!!! Double. Triple, GRRRR!!!! I began searching in earnest!!!!!! Finally I looked at the computer desk and next to the printer….hey! What’s that??!! The IPOD case….and what’s that on the shelf next to the router???? The phone charger!!!! WHOO HOOO!!! (in all fairness,it’s pretty dark and shadowy where I found them but golly, what were they doing there in the first place?!) I suppose all is well in the world for another day. The only problem is that I go back in the car later this evening and you know what that means for my ipod.