Happy Halloween

We made pumpkins from paper bags in preschool ...and then decorated them with rick-rack and ribbon stuff. There was a bag in our craft supplies and they went to town....cutting and sticking it on with the glue....they couldn't put enough stuff on them.....I thought they were kinda cute.

Then we had our party this afternoon.....

I am tired.....

But no more workdays....we are off to the quilt show tomorrow!!

Wednesday's weather....

The weather isn't that interesting.....cloudy and about 50 degrees.......so I'll go with quilt stuff......

I have decided that I am going with the red fabric for all the sashing,


green for the corner stones,


my new holly print for the borders


and green for the binding......


I could still change my mind, but I want it simple and small. (link at the bottom)


I love it, I'm not sure I would marry it though.

Karen has been very busy with these Disappearing 9 Patches. This one is brown and pink. There is a baby in Wisconsin that will be recieving this when it is quilted!! Karen has earned her trip to the quilt show this weekend.

She is sewing up a storm!!!

Only 2 more work days to go!!

Then there is "Sweet Nostalgia".....it is just a printed out pattern so far.......

This is where I found them........(the blocks are 12 x 12......the witching hour post should open and on the side bar is the link to the school bus one.)

http://dorothybakerdesigns.blogspot.com/2009/10/sweet-nostalgia-october-witching-hour.html

Right now I am thinking these would be really fun to try some color tinting on......

I have colored pencils, watercolor pencils and LOTS of crayons....just not sure which to go with.....all three have been used........I think the crayons would have the most color options. So I have been google-ing and reading.....asking others what they know.....learning what I can about color tinting and stitching.

I'll experiment and get back to you on this........I am concentrating on the Christmas words right now though.....

http://gailpandesigns.typepad.com/my_weblog/ .........this is the blog, the BOM Christmas words are in the sidebar. I hadn't looked in awhile....such pretty stuff there.......

but wait there's more

My supply of little 1 1/2 inch squares was
very low.

So....yesterday I also cut a bunch of these....

They will be used to make 3-inch 9 patch blocks

......Someday they will be fillers or borders, I just don't think I can have too many of these.

recent quilt things

Karen did some Disappearing 9 Patch blocks.


They go really, really fast.

Seems like she had just told me was starting these....

and now they already at the quilter.
It will be a table topper for Christmas,

about 48 x 48 inches.




Karen is so good at using prints. She just puts them together and they look right.....well these were from a charm pack, but her other stuff she has made looks right.

She said she doesn't think about it she ......JUST DOES IT.

crap....I can't help but stew and think.


>
I was out having Ozzy groomed and had time to kill.

I walked around the quilt shop looking at fat quarters.



The majority of my fabric is tone on tone...

not much for prints.



Well I wanted to be like Karen, so I picked up some

flowered prints that caught my eye.

I'll collect some more....I plan to putting them in a

scrappy trip around the world.

and when the time comes, I will not think about it I will just do it.

promises ....promises

I also grabbed some fabric for my Christmas Words It is the same red in both pictures, after I came home, I thought it looked nice with the Christmas fabrics.






That holly fabric is way more gold than it is showing up.

It looks more off white up above, this pic is probably

closer to it.



So now I want to work on my words again.



I have no idea how I will finish it right now.









I am so close to getting the stitching done on these.

But what did I actually do today???






I put the borders on this star quilt. Then sewed the backing fabric together. It is going to the quilter on Monday!!!

OVER for now....rain and football

For the past 3 days it has been

dark, cloudy, cold and

rainy.....

I just dumped out the rain gage, it said 3 inches of rain.

But...to the west, the sun was actually blinding me.....

I could see the sunset.

Wow, it has been awhile.

Crispy and a few friends just left to go watch one of the football play-off games in the area.

Our team is all done for the season..........

No more jerseys, pants, socks or cleats.

.....and no more......(I am giddy just thinking about it)

....and no more compression shorts.

We had one pair

and they were washed every night,

sometimes they were "dark"

sometimes they were "light"

they might have even been "red" once or twice

whatever worked with the laundry that day.

They were cleaned and ready for the next day!!!!

I feel so free!

this weeks stuff...

Last weekend I finished all the words and wreaths.....
The magic, noel and delight still need the flower details added.
I started the delight flowers. I wasn't sure I llke the way it looked. Hmmmmm...what to do......

Wondered if I should cut it off and use a different color.
It looks like a snowflake in light blue, this is a really lousy picture so you'll have to trust me.
I walked away....
I came back....

I picked up scissors, looked at it some more.....

I put the scissors back down because.......



...out of the corner of my eye I spotted this............





The stitched Welcome I had bought at the quilt show in Duluth.





I am headed to another quilt show in Des Moines with my mom


and Karen.


I want to buy stuff there.....but this little voice in my head said


you better work on what you already have.....





so that is what I have been doing most of the week....


it lays on the desk....


(right next to the Christmas Wreath pieces, they are not forgotten)


and when ever I have a minute or two I will sit and sew on it.




It is coming along nicely!!

snow of all things

Heartbreak at the football game last night.
The score was tied at 8 to 8.
We had first chance to score.....
and didn't make it.....
their turn.....
and
they did make the winning touchtown.


I was bundled up last night....layers of sweatshirts and jackets
big warm gloves
even snowpants....


so it was no surprise that...
when we woke up.....
a dusting of snow was greeting us.





It doesn't seem right when the grass is still green
and some the leaves haven't even changed yet.

It is time to start winterizing.
Putting all that summery stuff away.

But it is cold, who really wants to be out there?

Inside is nicer.

There is always something to work on .

I just may work on my Christmas stitchin'.....


No plans for the day have been made yet....so who knows....
stitch by stitch, I will get these done eventually.

downtown Des Moines

The preschool teacher and I had to go to Des Moines for school....all the sessions were about teaching blind students.
We arrived about 10:00 pm on Monday night. We stayed in the hotel where the meetings were being held.
I was thrilled that one of the caches I could look for was only 387 feet away.
But being a chicken in the big city, I waited for daylight!






During the break that morning we headed over there.... only to be stumped...no cache anywhere.....



where are you little cache????

look up..

look down...

look under....

look all around....

talk to yourself and fit right in with locals hanging out....

ask the pole how things are going.

We did give up on this one and I logged a DNF....

another blue sad face for me.

Later in the afternoon I went out on my own.

I called my cousin and left a message that I was standing on 4th and Locust, how far away was he?

In no time at all he called back.

I told him I was geocaching the streets of downtown. He was only about 7 blocks away. He told me to keep heading west and he would be down to help me find a cache!

We were near ground zero....but the signals were dancing off the buildings.

We would go from 29 feet to 124 feet from the cache and we hadn't even moved.

We read the information again and then looked across the street.....

....it had to be over there it fit all the clues.

We stood there under the copycat photocopy sign and I looked up. I wondered if that bump thingy up there moved....my Hero of the Day jumped up and it moved!!!

It MOVED!

thats it!....can you grab it on the next jump???


YES!!!!

My first urban micro in downtown Des Moines!!

Then my hero had to go back to the office and explain what geocaching was.......at least he had a successful ending to his story!!!

the halloween quilt....

When I was taking the photo of my little halloween quilt, I found the word "ick"

ICK would describe our weather the past 2 days.
Cool, windy and RAINY
We have had over 2 inches of rain....
and....
I broke down this evening. The temp in the house was around 60 degrees....sorta chilly....
I turned on the furnace.

I knew tractor joe would be home from his trip south and say, "man, its cold, shouldn't we turn on the furnace and see if it works?"
So I beat him to it.
Lovely warmth greeted him at the door when he walked in tonight. He was surprised.
anyway....
My trick or treat quilt..............needs binding, I know....I'll get to it eventually...

I love this wavy stitch my machine does. I bought it for the applique/banket stitch, and ended up finding this one to be my favorite. If quilting a small quilt with this stitch is wrong...

I don't wanna be right. There is something addicting about. I love sewing with it.

maybe I could at least cut the binding....as much as I love my wavy stitch, I go the opposite way when I think about binding.

my related quilts....

I was able to get the center of this quilt finished.
Those cornerstones are a deep purple. They were supposed to be small stars too....but I wimped out and made them plain.....

I did have good intentions and had cut a bunch of 1 1/4 inch squares and strips that width too....I would still be working on this if I had gone with that plan.....

I think I will go shopping for the red that is the narrow border and then the deep purple is the wide border.


Sometimes I find a home for leftovers right away.....




The words for trick or treat are made from the strips of purple and ....
little baby pumkins were made using the little squares I had cut.....






The "boo" and itsy pumpkins didn't make the final cut here. (This one is actually finished, even quilted, but no binding.)
I'll get a picture taken soon!
This one is a BOM that I found...it has 6" blocks. These gold stars are my creation....the pattern called for 4 appliqued angels....I wasn't up for that, being wimpy again....so I used the left over sewn strips from the golds and cut them up at 1 1/2" to make these little gold 9 patches.
All the blocks for this quilt are done, they just need to be sewn together.
They are living in a zip-lock baggy for now.


I just don't know what to do with this one...... to finish it. I could add a border or not....
I could put Christmas words around or not....
I could leave it as and use it for a table topper....it would be 42" square....
except...sigh.... it is so rare that my table is actually clear of stuff...it would be covered most of the time anyway. I will have to think about it.