Lamenting

As the snow falls, I sit and lament on how little fabric dyeing I managed to get to this summer. Brought on, no doubt, by with this lovely little pair of underwear that just found it's way in and out of my laundry. A friend and I did these for those "special" men in our lives a couple of summers ago. We laughed so hard that day, dreaming up yet more new and exciting ways to irritate them! Her husband thought they were a hoot and proceeded to wear his. My guys... well that was a different story. My youngest got a laugh out of them and eventually wore them (as a last resort)if he ran out of clean laundry. My older one and my husband were horrified by them. I was rather shocked to find these, in the laundry this week. My husbands found their way to the trash long ago, and my youngest lives 3000 miles away! Hummmmm Someone must be holding out their laundry on me!! But after next weekend, it won't be my concern. He will be moving into his own house and his the laundry responsibilities will fall on someone other than me!! Oh Darn! :-) Guess that gives me more time to do the stitching that I love so much.

I took a wonderful class the past 3 weeks, for a Christmas tree wall hanging. We ended it yesterday with practicing free motion quilting. We played on scrap fabrics and I was amazed at what fun we had. I put some of the techniques to work on a Christmas quilt that I finished up last night. Hope to stitch the binding down and have it posted real soon!

Hope your holiday projects are coming along. The clock is ticking!

So much to do, So little time

As those holidays approach, I am finding that I have way too many things I wanted to get done. I am going to have to give in and hope will be done for next year it seems, but I did get this little table topper finished this week. If you check out
http://melsownplace.blogspot.com/ you can find the pattern, that she so generously posted for us all. It's quick, easy and a great way to use some of your nickel squares up. I did a little adjusting of mine. Mostly because I didn't read the instructions. Oh well, the nice part of quilting is that you have the liberty of changing things to your liking. I am going to consider this to my liking and not that I didn't read thru things! :-O

One suggestion I have is that you really look at your border fabrics. Many times you are able to take parts of it, and incorporate them as appliques. That is exactly what the Angels are. You could adapt this method to just about any type of piecing. A flower from a floral print scattered across a quilt block might just be the thing to spice up things. How about a bear appliqued to a Bear Paw block! The ideas are endless.

I am heading back to the "sweat shop" (LOL) to work on a few more holiday projects. See you soon!

Took a little side step this week and started working on some towel sets. I have embroidered towels for many years now, but it wasn't until staying with a friend a couple years back, I was introduced to her grandmothers great bath mats. She just took a towel folded it in half, put quilt batting in between,(and this is the perfect place, to piece all those left over ends of quilt batting together) then just few little lines of stitching on it to keep things in place. Voila! If you have never stood on one of these, you don't know what your missing. Top that off with easy washing and they wear like no others, I will never purchase another bath mat again. It was such a simple idea, and simply wonderful. I have made plenty of them, and have even done personalized ones for the fishing lodge in Alaska that my youngest works at. I've had their clients wanting them too. They are really great!

As I said, I usually embroider towels sets, but this year I needed Disney's Cars theme. I found the perfect ribbon for them, so there you have it, even faster yet! This is actually for my oldest son, who is moving out!! Yep you heard me, at 27, he finally bought himself a new home. First time out on his own! He is a race car driver, so the cars theme for his new bathroom was a perfect fit. He actually approved the whole idea too! What we are both on the same page about something?
:-) I found the soap dispenser and tooth brush holder in "Cars" theme at Target, and they are too darn cute. He might not have much in the rest of the place, but his bathroom is going be just great!!

As a mom, sending your kids out on there own, you want nothing but the best for them. Not sure my shopping has actually added to that, but I can't stop myself from buying things like dish soap, laundry detergent, bathroom cleaner, toilet brushes and plungers. I am sure he will be just "thrilled" with his new goodie basket!! OR NOT! LOL!!

So as I prepare for his leaving, my husband is going thru his own little faze of this process. They are quite close, and he must be really dreading this next faze of life. The man who throws a fit every time any of us have brought a new pet home, found himself a new friend this week.


Meet Murphy, our new wild child. It's been so long since we have had a kitten, that I forgot just how darn cute they are. This guy is a fireball. He hasn't stopped running and exploring since he got here. It didn't take him more than about 3 minutes to decided that he was king of this castle and has spent every moment since proving that to us all! It's like raising a child all over again! Whew. I am sure there will be many adventures of Murphy in "quilting trouble" to come! That writing is on the wall.

I'm well on my way with Christmas projects this week and should have some ready to post real soon. Hope your all making progress on yours too!

Happy Halloween

It must be here. We have a foot of snow on the ground. Denver is usually so nice, but it seems that Halloween has traditionally brought snow. I remember those days of trudging thru it all with the boys to get their treats. It was always fun though, as we went with a couple other families and made a night of it all. It even got better when one of the gals bought a mini van and had a TV in it!! Man was that heaven. We would just drive from street to street in the heated car and wait for the kids. Can you say dis-connected!!!! The kids were older and much appreciated the fact that we were not hanging around them anyway. :-)

We took a little family vacation last week. Stepped off the plane in our shorts and flip flops to snow. Yikes, what a shock to the system. We took a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands and it was so hot in Honolulu last Saturday night that I couldn't bring myself to put my jeans on before we left. I sure did wish I had when we landed in Denver the next morning.

This is the last little Halloween project I have to share for this year. Another one of Angies Bits and Pieces projects. Since I have managed to "play" away the month of October, I need to get busy with my Christmas projects. Oh yeah, another year that I was going to have them done by July and it didn't happen. Any one else have a track record like mine???? Maybe next year we need to all get together in some kind of forum and inspire each other to actually stick to our game plan!! Let me think on this and see what we can make happen. Please post a comment if you would be interested in something like this, and any ideas you would have on making it work.

For now Happy Halloween.

It's almost that time of year again!

And my new favorite pattern is???? This was in a magazine on the newsstand recently and I ended up using it not only for a swap table runner, but also one for me. What a big difference in the color schemes. It's not too late, consider making one of these little charms for yourself, and be sure to post photos so I can see too!

Happy Haunting!

Fall Tablerunner swap

Another great table runner was found in my mailbox from Becky in South Dakota. Our Quilted Table group is so much fun. Besides the great monthly runners we can make for ourselves, we swap 4 times a year with other members. This swap was a little different, in that we sent our favorite fabrics to our swap partners and they created something with them. Becky had no idea that the Bear Paw is my absolute all time favorite. How great is that! Along with the runner she sent along a bag of Chocolate candy that looks like corn and a bag of Chocolate River Rock candy. Am I in heaven or what!!! If your not a member of our Quilted Table Yahoo group, check us out. (The link in on the side bar) We have such a good time. The monthly runners are all freebie online patterns and we just stitch them up and post photos. It's really fun to see everyone's different takes on the patterns. Then of course there are, our great swaps. Just too much fun to miss out on.

:-)

Up up and away

I've been down to Albuquerque New Mexico for the International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. It's a yearly event for me. Coupling the color spectacular in the sky with some quality time with my dear friend Laura, what could be better. 43 years is the number we came up with for the time we have known each other. Scary isn't it??? At least for Laura who has had to tolerate me for that long! LOL. What are friends for though right!

The weather was good for the most part this time. Sunday's final mass ascention didn't happen because of the wind, but the rest of the time I was there, was just beautiful. Thursday there was some winds that came up and caused a little chaos for a friend of my son's who had a balloon. He had a little incident that landed him on the Today's show and the front page of the newspaper, but all was well, and his balloon was back in the sky the next day.

Special shape balloons are my favorite, so I am posting a few for you to see. It's all truly spectacular though.

I have actually kept to my word this week. Here it is Oct 3 and I have finished up this month, of my block of the month quilt. Yeah haw!!! This is such a beautiful quilt, that I am glad I put the work in, on it. It would be a shame to have this end up as a PIGS project! (Project in Grocery Sack) Next month is a set of Flying Geese, then December is another round of pieced blocks (and those are already pieced) and it will be done. I can hardly wait to see the completed top.

Hope you all find time to realize your dreams in the week to come!