busy, busy

There hasn't been much happening on the quilting front this last week. Dd had a friend come over for a slumber party Monday and Tuesday nights. We went swimming Monday, went to the Science Center Tuesday and went swimming twice, and Wednesday we swam for a bit and then the girls played until friend's mom came to get here. Lol-do you all get the idea they like swimming? I think the pool is the one thing we'll miss most when we buy a house someday.

This weekend is the big family reunion on my dad's side. That branch of the family is pretty big and there's lots of kids in DD's age range so a good time is pretty much guaranteed. I made salted nut roll bars and cornbread salad to take for the meal and DD and I picked up a bunch of glow sticks for the kids to play with. (Just have to keep DD convinced that she can't bust into them until dark tomorrow.)

Next week they'll be some major butt busting on the quilting front so I should have updates galore for you.

Two more birthday blocks and my secret shame

This blue block is for Diane-she requested vibrant blue stars to make a quilt for a friend who lost her home in Katrina. It's the Florida Star pattern from quilterscache.

This sleepy little kitty is for Nell-she requested pet blocks-won't that be a fun quilt!


Ok-now brace yourself-I'm about to show you something ugly, really, really ugly. This is what my sewing space looks like right now.

You may be asking yourself-how can anyone even sew in that disaster area? Trust me you can't. I can't find anything and every time I try to do something I end up knocking something over. As you can see it's even spilling over onto the floor.

This weekend DD is going to her Grammy's house with Grandma so I've resolved to get my quilting space tidied up. Wish me luck!

Speaking of luck send some Itty Bitty's way-we're going to try to release her back to the outdoors this afternoon.

Morning glories

This is the block I made for Christine in round 2 of the birthday block swap. Her theme was "In my Garden." I absolutely love appliqué so I couldn't resist this lovely morning glory pattern.


The pattern finishes at 7 inches. I always cut my background fabric a little larger and I decided not to trim this down-Christine doesn't have any size preference so I figure that leaving it untrimmed will allow her to pick a size for it to end at and give her a little more flexibility when she puts her quilt together.

I also like to have a hand piecing project to take with me when I'm on the go-usually something fairly brainless so I don't have to do to much thinking and can just slap my patches together and sew. My new hand piecing travel project is a Thousand Pyramids quilt-I have no idea how big this will be-I'll just work on it until I'm sick of it and see what I end up with. I haven't got much done on this-I took it to my mom's house over the 4th but didn't spend a lot of time piecing.


It feels like I've cut a million triangles for this quilt but I'm sure there's going to have to be more scrap bin raiding before this is over. I've been scrounging for lights in my scrap bin- some of my lights are actually darks flipped over to the back because I'm definitely lacking in lightness.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have another completed birthday block to show you however DD wants a quilt for her stuffed T-Rex and is rather insistent that I work on it so I may be showing you something else entirely.

Lucky me!

I got my quilt from the ALQS today-I am beyond thrilled. I saw this gorgeous little tree of life quilt on Cathi's blog and knew I would be so jealous of whoever got it because it was perfect. When I opened the mailbox today and saw a package with a postmark from Ireland it was all I could do not to sit down right there and rip it open. I practically skipped back home and tore into it the second I got in the door.

Isn't it beautiful!

I couldn't get a good picture of the quilting but Kathi used a stipple in the middle for the tree lovely loose feathers in the corners that really complement the top.

She also sent me some some lovely bits of fabric and a Bailey's Irish Cream Truffle Bar. Our post man decided to flatten the chocolate bar a little bit when he stuffed it in our mailbox but you know what-squished chocolate tastes just as good-lol-I can vouch for that because I've all ready sampled the goods.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Cathi-in case I didn't mention it I'm thrilled!

I scream, you scream...

....we all scream for ice cream! Doesn't this little quilt remind you of Neapolitan ice cream? Especially-dadadum (that's my drum roll) the stripy binding!

Yes-I know that's not the best bound corner-that one just didn't want to fall in line properly. I did better on the others-honest.


See-this one's not warped.

And here's the whole striped ice cream quilt.

Once my quilt from the ALQS gets here I'm going to start hanging them on my little wall of quilts-I'm so excited!

Itty Bitty update

Itty Bitty made it through the night in her box. This morning we took the lid off to check her out and she caught a couple little bugs that were on the leaves in her box. She hopped up on the edge and decided to go explore my kitchen counters a little. Total Clorox moment-I assure you my counters will be getting scoured. She hopped around the sink and over to the dirty dishes on the counter.



Since she looked so frisky we offered her a little birdseed and some bread. She ate and ate so apparently a quiet night of rest got her ready for a big breakfast.

That whole chunk of bread disappeared into this tiny, tiny bird. With our luck she'll end up being too fat to fly. She did reward us with a lovely little song-either that or she was warning us to back up off her bread. Either way it was cute...

Our neighbor Kathleen is going to pick up a little bird cage for her at the store today so Itty Bitty can get out of the box but hopefully she'll heal up fast and not have to spend too much time in the box or the cage. Although if her wing doesn't heal enough to let her go I think Kathleen is rather enamored with her and can likely be talked into giving her a good home. I've all ready told Itty Bitty that Kathleen is the one she should be sucking up to.

pretty in pink and the call of the wild

Something quilty-I got the quilting done on my little 9 patch quilt. This photo doesn't show the color very well but it's the best picture of the quilting. I really like hand quilting these little tops-it doesn't take more than a day or two so it provides a lot more instant gratification than...oh...say that queen sized top that I've been hand quilting for the last 500 years.

I'm hoping to get it bound tomorrow-I'm going to have to be a little creative with the binding-I used scraps for this and I don't think there's enough of the border fabric left for the binding so I'll have to play around a little. Kathi did this really cool stripey binding on her framed 4 patch quilt-she may be my binding muse for the day.

On a non quilty note meet out little (hopefully temporary!) visitor.

Today DH and DD were outside with the cats when Sorry (cat 1) comes in the house with something in her mouth. Dh hollers at me to come see what it is. It was chirping and shrieking and at first I thought it was one of the little ground squirrels that frequent our patio. I was completely freaked because I was terrified she was going to drop this ground squirrel and it would be loose in our house. I finally get Sorry to very reluctantly release her prize and I realize it's a bird.

The bird goes scooting out the door in a desperate bid for freedom only to be pounced on by Tommy (cat 2). Normally Tommy shows complete disdain for anything Sorry does but this time she decided to be a team player...fine-whatever. I get the bird away from her only to discover that one wing is completely ajar and it can't fly.

So we get it a little box with some batting (hey-maybe this is a quilty post after all) and let it rest for awhile thinking maybe once it has a chance to relax it will be ok. After an hour it's wing is looking a little better but it's still not flying. Our neighbor who has some experience with birds gives it a good look over and says the wing isn't broken but might be sprained and little birdy is going to have to rest for a couple days. She also sexes the bird for us so we now know our guest is a girl.

So Itty Bitty as we've been calling her is hanging out in her pimped out shoe box with food and water, soft batting, and some leaves and will be spending a quiet night in our bathroom-far away from the cats I assure you! Hopefully in the next couple days the wing will be back to good and she'll be ready to fly back to her family.