A Quick Drive-By

Just a quick post to let you all know that yes, I am still alive. The last few months my time has been eaten up by Christmas preparations and job searching. I'm thrilled to announce that I have now landed a temp job and the trainer is so impressed with me that she's finagling a way to get me hired in full-time! Woohoo!!! However, now my time is being sucked up by the job. Oh well, sooner or later I'll get back in the groove of things and have the ability to function on less than 8 hours of sleep....until then, the blogging will have to suffer, I'm afraid.

Thank you to those of you that have been worried about me, you are so sweet to think of me. I'm still here, just busy running around in the background for a while :)

Tomatoes, tomatoes...

It's been getting a tad cold here overnight lately....like, below freezing. So I decided I should pull all the tomatoes off the plants before they freeze there. I filled 3 mixing bowls of green tomatoes!! Now, of course, I have no idea what I'll do with these, but they'll sit here just fine in the sink overnight until I figure it out :)

A Horse Show

This past weekend DH and I were asked to take pictures at a horse show being put on by a friend of ours. Well, DH took the pictures, I gave treats to the horses and did PR to the attendees :)

Here is Lee Anne, the owner of the farm. She is riding Gwendolyn and is already in her costume for the Pas de Deux performance. She borrowed her son's Marines coat for the event.


This is our friend, Audra, riding Caesar. She and Lee Anne did their performance together. Both horses were getting spooked by the windy conditions of the day and they didn't do very well, but it was very fun to watch.

Here are the winners of the day. Marsha and Cindy took first place - they did a great job! Audra's dad made the halters for the winners.

This is Mascha and Alexandria. They dressed up as zombies and painted skeletons on their horses. They took 2nd place for the show. Mascha is an exchange student from Germany. You could tell these two practiced a lot!

Here is Evie and Karlyn, a mother and daughter duo. They took 3rd place for the day. They were thrilled and did a wonderful job :)

Let's see....something sewing related...well, I've started getting the last 19 blocks together for Candied Hexagons. Just basting paper pieces right now. I should have a good start on getting the blocks together in a week or so. We'll see how that goes.

We are finally having a memorial service for my sister, Laura next week. We were waiting for the police to release her body to us, but they don't plan to do that until the trial for her killers is finished, so we're going ahead with a memorial service now.

A Knitting Blister!

You can't see it, or I would have taken a picture for you. But it's true - I have given myself a blister from knitting!

It first appeared on Tuesday, a sharp, small pain on my index finger. It felt just like a wart feels. But I haven't had a wart since Junior High!! My first thought? Ugh, I hate getting older. I even talked to my Mom about it when we went to the farmer's market that day. She agreed that getting older sucks! LOL

So, Wednesday evening, I sit down to do some knitting, as I hadn't touched it since Monday night. I had done quite a bit between Sunday and Monday night football games this past weekend. I start knitting and I hit the wart - again and again. The exact same spot that I use to hold the needle while sliding more stitches up is where I'm getting a wart? Great.

Then I thought about it a minute. That just seems too coincidental. A wart, which I haven't had in over 25 years, in the exact spot I use repeatedly while knitting? Yeah....it's not a wart, I've given myself a knitting blister! LOL

Guess it's time to take a break from the afghan and get back to work on the quilt :)

Halloween Rug?

Another project I started this summer. You all know those fabric bowls everyone is making using cotton clothesline? Well, I made a few of those this year, and decided the technique would make a wonderful rug for the kitchen.

I started pulling all the fabrics I didn't really like from my stash (you know, the ones that people gave you that you just can't figure out what to do with?) and cut them into 1/2" strips. I started with the purple pile, then got through the orange and green piles, too. At that point, I decided I'd better start actually sewing the thing before I cut any more fabrics.

This is how far I've gotten to date. As you can see, it has somehow morphed into a Halloween rug. Huh. Not exactly what I was planning - but what can I expect when I only pull oranges, greens and purples?? Yeah...I should have seen it coming.


As you can see from the closeup, I cut up an especially horrendous Charlie Brown green Halloween fabric, thinking the technique would disguise the design....I'm not sure it did.

Oh well, I'll still use it. It's going to be a rug for goodness sake - it's not like it will stay pristine very long. It's meant to be used and used up. And I'd better get back to work on it, it's not nearly large enough yet.

Felix's new favorite chair. Anytime I'm in my sewing room, he's keeping my sewing machine chair warm for me :) Looks like he's working hard at it, too :)

Candied Hexagons..

I finished all the pieces tonight to square up Candied Hexagons. I didn't snap a new pic though. However, I did measure it on the design wall and it's an odd size. It's 53" wide by 52" long. Very odd. I was hoping to make a large lap robe, something about 63" by 78". Ok, so a 5" border would fix the width issue....but I've got 26" to make up in length! I measured the height of 2 rows and found they are 15", so I think I'm going to make 2 more rows of blocks, then add a 5" border all around. That should get me to the size I need....so, 22 more blocks to go! LOL

Ugly Fabrics..

When I first started quilting 15 years ago, I remember being told that I needed to use 'ugly' fabrics in my quilts so my 'favorite' fabrics would shine. The concept, apparently, was to keep the competition down. I also remember being told that you can't use all 'favorite' fabrics in a quilt. Hmm...not that I necessarily agreed with this concept, it just never occurred to me to question it.

I didn't actually go out and buy 'ugly' fabrics for my quilts. In fact, every fabric purchase I have ever made were all 'favorite' fabrics. And I noticed that the trend in fabric usage has changed in recent years. I read blogs all the time that show absolutely gorgeous quilts where the maker claims every piece of fabric is a 'favorite' to her. I'm thinking specifically of the Australian quilters right now. They just have a flair for bright, happy, gorgeous quilts. And there isn't an 'ugly' fabric to be found. Of course, this isn't limited to Australian quilters, we have lots of quilters around the world that are making quilts that are filled with 'favorite' fabrics.

So, what's this got to do with anything? Well, I've finally finished all the blocks in my Candied Hexagons quilt..


I'm currently working on those last 6 side pieces to square it up. At least, I think I'm done making blocks...it turned out a lot more square than I had anticipated. Anyway...I'm rearranging blocks every time I stand up and I'm realizing I have an 'ugly' fabric in the quilt. I'm not exactly sure how it got there. Notice the 2 whole hexagons on the bottom row? The pink roses on the brown background? I think I was hoping the roses would stand out more. And being that the fabric colors fit the quilt colors, I figured they'd just blend right in. They're not. Those 2 blocks are the first thing I see whenever I look at this quilt.

Oh wait, there are 3 of those blocks! I just realized there's one on the top, too. And another bit of this 'ugly' fabric is in one of the pieced blocks. I think I can handle the pieced block, but those 3 large hunks of 'ugly' fabric are driving me to distraction.

What's the consensus? Should I take them out to follow today's trends of "No Ugly Fabrics Allowed" or follow the trend I was taught in the beginning of "Use Those Ugly Fabrics to Allow the Gorgeous Ones to Shine!"

I don't know...

Here's a close-up of Felix sleeping - seems like that's all any of the pets are doing these days since it's started to turn cooler. I actually turned on the furnace yesterday just to get the chill out of the house. It's been alternately raining or sun shining here today, so a perfect day to get a lot done in the Sewing Room :)