Just another day in paradise

Mother Nature pulled out all the stops and gave us a breathtakingly beautiful weekend! I spent quite a bit of yesterday outside, doing more laundry (did the final wash of my Bright Future quilt - after Show and Tell this weekend, it will be winging its way across the country to a new baby, due in September, so I couldn't resist taking a final photo of it),


checking out the fort the kids built in the woods behind our house,

picking blackberries (what a long, plentiful season this has been!), and going down to the creek with the kids to splash around,

(Water-bending like Aang in The Last Airbender - he was so disappointed when it didn't work)

While inside, I cleaned bathrooms (YUCK!) but only so I wouldn't feel guilty about the time I spent birthing my Christmas Tree Skirt (no more photos until it is done, hopefully by Thursday), sewing together a couple of rows of the ribbon quilt ( I VOW to have the top finished by Show and Tell on Saturday!) and playing with my 1.5" scraps. Yesterday I chose blue.

Judging from my inclination to create the short words first, can you guess what color I'll be working on next?

To round out the evening, I watched my Netflix movie, Up in the Air, while hand quilting, a little on my 4th of July Tablerunner and a little on my Christmas Tree Skirt. A perfect day!

Me and my bright ideas

We were at the city pool on Friday afternoon, cooling off from a scorcher of a day and relaxing from a doozy of a week, when one of Jason's friends and his mom arrived. One thing led to another, and all of a sudden I am heading home with one extra child and plans to go to the drive-in movies and a sleepover. I love the spontaneity of summer!

My Drive-In Movie quilt was christened with popcorn and sno-cones - it is officially a quilt now!

Today was school supply shopping day. It turns out it is twice as expensive to buy supplies for kindergarten than for 3rd grade - what is up with that? But the kids are excited for school to start, and that makes me happy. I always loved school as a kid, and I hope my kids continue to enjoy it. While shopping, we made an impulse purchase.

The plan was for us to all end up blond. Instead, we look like carrot-tops, but that's OK, it was fun. I'm sure it will raise some eyebrows at work, but whatever.

Since it was an absolutely beautiful day, I did lots of laundry so I could spend lots of time outside hanging up the clothes, one of my favorite chores. But I also spent quite a bit of time inside, cleaning, but also sewing. I've been wanting to make a Christmas Tree Skirt for quite a while. Usually, when Christmas comes, I swirl some white fabric around the base of the tree and call it good, but when I see everyone else's neat tree skirts I think to myself, "I could do that!" So, I finally got started.

I used this tree skirt by Jen/Cre8tive Quilter as a model, but I had to tweak it some since I didn't have the ruler she had, and I really didn't want to have to sew 40 wedges together. Instead, I used my Dresden Plate ruler in conjunction with a 6"x24" ruler, and ended up with only 16 wedges.

I LOVE IT! It is about 36" in diameter, pretty small, but then, I usually get pretty small trees. Tomorrow, I plan to birth it, and then work on hand quilting it. Perhaps I could have it done for Show and Tell at the quilt guild meeting next Saturday...we'll see.

Here's hoping my Sunday is as perfect as my Saturday!

A giveaway for a great cause!

All you readers already know about my miscarriage. And I really appreciated the support you gave me during that difficult time. There's another blogger who recently had a miscarriage, and she received support from a local group to whom she is trying to give back - The Santa Barbara Birth Center. Apparently, the people there helped her through HER tough time, so she is raising money for them, and raffling off a Singer Featherweight and a bunch of fabric in the process.

Seems like a great cause to me, and a win-win proposition; I encourage you to check it out here!

In the red

While in the parking lot at the pool yesterday, Jason lost another tooth - his second in two weeks, and the fourth lost tooth in the family in the last 6 weeks. If they keep losing teeth at this rate, they are going to bankrupt me!

Speaking of being in the red, after we returned home from the pool, I went down to the quilt studio determined to sew together the rows of my ribbon quilt so I could get it off my design wall. But I had just a tiny bit of red thread on a spool on the machine left over from my CD holder project so I decided to sew together some of my red 1.5" squares to use that up before switching spools. Well, I got carried away.

I love making words with these scraps. I'll never make a dent in my stash or my scraps if I keep using such tiny pieces, but this was a fun exercise. The beginnings of a color quilt perhaps...

The ribbon quilt remains on the design wall, untouched.

Color in my car

First of all, I screwed up my courage and called the longarm quilter about my missing quilt. No answer, but I left a message. Keep your fingers crossed. I mentioned being concerned that it was taking so long to get back to me and being left with no choice but to take further action to recover my quilt. Vague, I know, but hopefully she will realize that I REALLY want my quilt back.

Yesterday, I was clearing everything out of my car in preparation for getting it detailed today. (YAY!!! Right now it is icky. It is my fault for letting the kiddos eat and drink in the car, but we spend so much time in the car, it seems unfair to not allow it.) Anyway, I noticed that my Sun Visor CD Holder straps were all stretched out and that it just hung from the visor, probably partially impeding my vision. I need a new one. I know they are only about $1 to buy, but where is the fun in that? So I made one.

It took me much longer than it probably should have - perhaps I should have looked online for a pattern. But I like figuring things out on my own. If I were to make another one, I would

• make more CD slots (mine only has 9, but that is because of how I wanted the pattern repeat of the fabric on the pockets),
• use one pieces of bias binding all the way around instead of binding each side separately (and make curved edges to help facilitate that),
• use wider elastic straps on the back (I just used what I had at home),
• and use a slightly firmer base inside (the cardboard I used is about cereal box thickness and it feels a tad bit flimsy to me).

But all in all, I like it! When the kids got in the car this morning, it was the first thing they noticed - "Hey! Where did you get that? It's pretty!"

Does anyone else even still use CDs? I know I'm a dinosaur. I don't use my dishwasher. I prefer to hang my clothes on the line instead of putting them in the dryer. And I don't have an Ipod or music on my phone. Instead, I rotate my CDs every so often. Right now, it is heavy on the country:

• 2 Sugarland CDs (the 2nd & 3rd, don't really like the 1st)
• 2 Joe Nichols CSs (the 1st & 2nd, don't really like the 3rd - and isn't he CUTE!)
• 1 Sara Evans Greatest hits
• Norah Jones (the debut album)
• Darius Rucker (the debut country album - LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!)
• The Dixie Chicks - Wide Open Spaces (one of my favorite albums of all time)
• Bobby Brown - (my kids love him - I did, too, until we listened to him for the 4 millionth time!)

What's in your car?

Feeling lucky!!!

First of all, thank you all for your support and advice regarding my quilt that has been held up at the long-arm quilter's. I plan to muster my courage and give her a call later today. Hopefully, this will be the call that does the trick. After all, I've been feeling pretty lucky lately.

You know how I won the Urban Circus fat quarters from Laurie Wisbrun? Well, they arrived last week and they are gorgeous!! Lucky me! I'm going to make something for ME with these beauties.

Then, on Friday, I received an email from Vickie at Spun Sugar Quilts that I had won her City Quilts Tour Giveaway, and that the Kona Fat Quarter Solids were headed my way - WOO HOO!! I chose the Candy Corn colorway; not only could I use more of those colors in my stash, but I LOVE candy corn! How lucky can one gal get?


I decided to find out. I bought a lottery ticket.....




and didn't match even one number. OK, so I was pressing my luck. But I still feel like I won the lottery with my fabric winnings!

There was other luck involved with my week/weekend. Both my kids managed to have sleepovers with their friends ON THE SAME NIGHT! Do you know how many stars have to line up for THAT to happen? I had my hubby all to myself for 18 hours! Dinner, a movie, sleeping in - it was wonderful!

And I got Happy Birthday mail from Em. My birthday is not until late September, so I don't know if that was a mistake or, more likely, she just wanted to celebrate something with me, but anyway, look what she sent!!! I had mentioned that I didn't have any skeletons in my stash - well, now I do!

And for more detail on the little treasure box, check out her post about it. I had no idea when I read this that it was coming my way. Thank you, Em!!!

My only regret about the weekend is that no quilting happened. Zip, zilch, none, nada. Oh well, I can get to that this week.

I wonder what wonderful surprises are in store for me THIS week?

What would YOU do?

Early in February 2010, I sent this quilt off to a long-arm quilter that I "met" online, with assurances that the quilt would be back to me in time for me to bind it for an early March birthday when I had hoped to give it away as a gift.

Unfortunately, the quilter's life was in turmoil, and the quilt didn't make it back to me in time. The quilter let me know it would be late, and I said, "no problem" and went to plan B for the gift. However, I waited and waited and waited, and the quilt never came.


So, swallowing my distaste of confrontation of any sort, I called the quilter at home in early June to inquire as to the status of my quilt. It turns out, it was done, but that she had been very ill, so it had been forgotten and never mailed to me. I understood, gave her my get well wishes, and received assurances that her husband would pop it in the mail to me.


Another month went by, and in mid July, I sent her a get well card that included an inquiry as to the status of my quilt. I rush to my mailbox every day hoping it is there, but alas, only bills and invitations to protect my family with more life insurance. (sigh) I don't want to pester someone who is ill, but I'd really like my quilt back. Is it shallow of me to be concerned with some scraps of fabric when someone is facing a debilitating illness? I don't want to be aggressive or confrontational, but if the quilt is done, it seems like someone should be able to pop it in the mail for me, right? And I pre-paid, so I can't even use payment as an incentive for getting the quilt back to me.


What would YOU do?

I know one thing I should do is learn how to machine quilt my own quilts. Last night, Curt and I mitered the borders on my little orphan 4-patch mini, sandwiched and basted it, took a long swig from my drink (iced tea - caffeine is about as strong as I go), and sat down at the machine to teach myself to machine quilt.

The road to H*** is paved with good intentions. The floor of my sewing room is paved with the thread that I pulled out of that aborted attempt. Apparently, to free-motion quilt, you need not just feed dogs that drop, but also the "optional" quilting foot. I'll be heading off in search of that optional foot tonight. Oh well. In the meantime, I started hand quilting my red, white and blue tablerunner. Learning new things is great, but sticking with what you know is nice, too.