district individual speech

I spent the bulk of Saturday at more speech competitions. Crispy had decided to do this individual thing too. No groups here...you are all alone up there in front of the judge.

His coach even made him a poster to hang up while he did his Expository Address...and no I don't know how to pronounce that. It is basically a how to speech.
His speech was about how you can use the guitar to meet girls. He did a great job with it...the judge like his animated facial expressions as he delivered the speech. I found myself giggling and laughing through out it.

Sheric and Joe (no relation)......

Sheric did his on Mousetrap Cars. I never knew there was a competition with these little homemade cars. They are powered by the snapping of a mousetrap.

Joe was a nervous wreck...he signed up for Spontaneous Speaking. You draw a subject out of the hat and go with that. He ended up with "Will Toyota survive"

What a relief that was. He knew enough about that to make a coherent speech.

I grabbed a picture of the results sheet. Ones!
The majority of the kids from our school, "Q", recieved ones....which means in two weeks they will be at the state competition....so tractor joe and I will be going on a 3 hour road trip to get there....

And....

this is the best part.....

Yes I will be checking and searching for geocaches hidden down that way!!

preschoolers color and paint....

Our preschool teacher was going to be gone on Monday. A good time to make a surprise for her and our classroom.
Over the weekend I cut 5 1/2 inch squares of muslin. Then ironed on 5" squares of freezer paper....(this made the coloring easier on the muslin.)
We are working on numbers right now.....I had these 4" inch stencils at home. I did the numbers 1-12 with a black crayon.
Their job was to.....
1. color the number with a crayon.
2. paint the fabric with plain water to get the square wet.
3. then paint the square and make it colorful.
I watered down the regular paint at school so it has a dyed look. Our water color paint is really used and has a "muddy" color to it, mostly the yellow. I had no idea if that would work well or not, but it did. We were able to get pure yellow and even pink that way. I brought them home and ironed all of them. Then trimmed them all to 5 inches square. I had some sparkly/glittery blue star fabric to use. (thank you Gwen) Since preschoolers are drawn to sparkly/glitery things I thought that would be perfect.
I took this picture as the sun was setting last night....thats why there are pins holding down the binding. If I wanted a natural light photo for the best color I needed to take the picture right now. The binding is the backside of the fabric...it matches, yet is different.
It is going to school with me today. Won't our teacher be surprised!!

so far this Saturday

This week I added more log cabin blocks to the pile....
This really is a new group, it was my goal this week...to get a bunch more blocks finished. I was just taking the picture and the phone rang...it was Karen.
Her blueblock quilt was finished. Yes, right down to the binding.
She told me she had emailed me the pics.

She didn't have enough of any single blue for the binding.
So she used up a bunch of smaller scraps to piece it together.


From the small sections I can see in the photos....I really like the way that looks. This is something I need to remember....
I always thought it would get to crooked or weird. But it doesn't, it works!
It is sitting on her dining room table, which is your average sized dining table...
That's as close as I can get to saying how big it is....
Then I went back to my log cabin blocks. I was thinking I wanted the corners to be all dark....so I tried making all dark log cabins. I didn't get the dark/verydark contrast I wanted. It is rather confusing when all the fabrics are dark. The jury is still out on whether or not I will use these or try again. It doesn't look bad in the picture.

It makes the corners "dark" which is what I wanted. I'll keep 'em for this.

seems like it came out of nowhere...

We had a late start on Tuesday morning. Not enough time to really start anything, but time to play with fabric.
I was looking at my little nine patches.
I laid 9 of them out on point. Hmmmm....that's cute. Then I remembered I had 4 of the little red, white and blue blocks. I went to get them and they made a star when I placed them in between all the nine patches.


Tuesday is my short day at work. I came home and sewed up what I had laying there. The star is off a little bit.....but thats because my blocks are all off a little bit.
Then I did some quilting on it....that went well for the most part. It just needs binding. I'll get to that eventually.
I think it will end up on the kitchen table, taking all the abuse that comes with being on that table. So it is just right for the kitchen.....

projects are progressing.....

I said I needed 12 more blocks to make the log cabin quilt square...

I have that now... and a few extra.

I think I will go ahead and make a bunch more....

Then the quilt will finish about 70 x 84 inches.

This next little guy is on hold for now.....

any border I put on will depend on how much fabric

I have "leftover" in my pile.

as I look at it...I wish I had put sashing between the blocks.

It measures about 18 x27 inches right now.

authentic sweetwater

Several weeks back, on a very cold day,
(not much different from today or any other day around here).....
Karen and I went to The Quilted Forest in Forest City.
Karen was on a mission. She knew exactly what she wanted. She had even called to make sure they had the layer cake she wanted.
It's the Authentic Sweetwater fabric by Moda. She had fallen in love with it. There wasn't to much in the way of yardage, but she was able to find some border fabric too.
This quilt will be a gift....that is all I will say.

Karen knew she wanted to make a simple block she had seen. A rectangle within a square. That "modern" look.

We went to the books and found something that would work.
Since we weren't shopping for books that day.....
we committed the numbers to memory.
All she had to do was cut it with our memorized numbers.

Our memories aren't so good anymore.....

The block she ended up with is her own creation.
It is closer to a square in a square.

We loved the way it turned out....makes me want to go out and buy a layer cake.

For a gift, she also made a journal cover. I have one of those composition notebooks, I had started cutting up magazines with ideas for scrapbooking. Now I am wondering if I should make one too.

a love story for Valentine's Day

Part One: the engagement!

A long time ago I started making some bears paw blocks.

I liked the block and thought it would make a nice quilt.

I made a bunch of them.

But.....

I got tired of making them, so they were set aside.

(that seems to happen a lot around here)

I absolutely love a log cabin quilts.
So I started making these blocks too.
Man it takes a lot of blocks to make a quilt.....
Things happen, I start something else....
and the log cabin blocks sat around.
Waiting.....I don't know when exactly....
but at some point years and years ago.....

the lightbulb came on!!

HEY!!

these two sets of blocks are the same size!
It was at that point they became engaged.
Destined to be together forever in a quilt.

I would lay out the blocks to figure out what I still needed.
I would try different ways of putting them together.
They couldn't get married until the whole party
was ready for sewing.

I finally came up with a plan.
All the bears paws had arrived...
16 of them, they were ready,
but the poor log cabins, they had more family.

To finish the quilt square, I need 12 more log cabins.
To add another row to the top and bottom,
I would need 20 more.
Hmmmm....
I am going to go work on log cabin blocks.
lots of em....
These blocks have been engaged long enough,
it is time to marry them....

The leftovers quilt....

As I was making that Carolina Christmas quilt remember?, I did a double sew deal.
After sewing the seam I needed, I sewed again about 3/8 inches from that seam.
When I cut off what I didn't need I ended up with 64 of these little pieces.
I squared them all up to 1 & 3/4 sq. inches.

Then I thought about it.
Looked at quilt blocks that might work.

And thought some more.

Finally I found a block that would work.....

All I needed to cut were more plain old squares at 1 & 3/4 inches.

I sewed one block and liked it....
so I sewed some more.

I now have 3 blocks to ready to go....

I even have a plan for the layout of the 8 blocks I'll end up with!
Karen was over this afternoon and she approved of the plan.

So I will go for it.

She also had one more finished quilt! It is a big one, but oh-so-simple!!

my fudge cake......

Way last Sunday, I said if we don't have school on Monday I will make some Fudge Cake.

Well,



we didn't have school and I did some

real

homemade

baking......

...another name is...

Chocolate Settle Cake

(that's what my Mom calls it)

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup flour

3 tablespoons cocoa

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup milk

1/3 cup melted butter

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

In medium mixing bowl combine sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Blend in milk, melted butter and vanilla. Stir it until smooth. Pour into small square pan. (8x8x2)

Mine didn't pour, it was thick, it was more like spoon into cake pan.

The filling: (the magic part)

4 tablespoons cocoa

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup water

Put these next 4 ingredients into a small sauce pan and warm it on the stove until all the sugar is dissolved. Then gently pour it over the cake batter. Do not stir.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Let it cool down. Serve it with ice cream or cool whip or real whipped cream.

I am thinking I should make another one. This one only lasted a few hours.

quilt stuff....

I cleaned the desk off in the living room. Then I moved on to clean and de-clutter more....
and I found a piece of scrap batting folded on a chair that no one sits in. I think the chairs main purpose is to hold coats.
That was too perfect....a clean desk to work at
AND some batting that was JUST the right size for quilting the happy beer quilt.
I even put binding on it.
It will go in tractor joe's shed, or as Matt Roloff (little people big world, tv show) called his fixed up barn....The men's crisis center.
Another one for the done column.



Next up.....
This pattern is from a magazine, an older magazine, but I don't remember which one or what the name of it is.


I only know I wanted to finish it...I needed three more blocks to make this layout of 8 x 10 blocks.


They finish at 6 inches. The original was much larger, but I got tired of making the blocks.


I sewed the last three blocks this week and put the whole thing together.


I just need to put on a border, which will be plain!


I don't know if I have something that will work or if I need to buy something.....



....and what color???? black, brown, rusty red????

story people....

While in Decorah
we did a drive-by photo shooting of one of my favorite things.
Story People.... We didn't take the time to go in....it might not have even been open on a late Saturday afternoon.
I love what they do there. I like the things they make.
It is quirky stuff. I'm not even sure how describe it....
HERE is the link.

Years ago, in a scrapbooking magazine, there was a page with a picture of a little girl. Also on that page were these words:
Are you a princess? I said & she said
I'm much more than a princess,
but you don't have a name for it yet here on earth.

I thought it was wonderful! I ended up putting it on a quilt as the border and giving it to Madison. I don't have a picture handy to show though. I will have to talk to my sister.

Another one I thought would be great on a quilt is:
There has never been a day when I have not been proud of you, I said,
though some days I'm louder about other stuff so it's easy to miss that.

Of course, I haven't done this yet...but I really think it would work for any of my kids or
even tractor joe.

(this is in no way and admission that I might get loud or even yell)

chore boy

Tractor joe's brother went to Florida a couple weeks ago. They didn't send any pictures of themselves while they were down there. I don't know, maybe that's because I said if we did get one...

I would draw eye patches on it, and give them a spikey hairdo.


Go figure.

So I have no real pictures of them in Florida.

Anyway...

Cornealous is off work right now. They aren't putting up any windmills. When spring comes he'll head out for somewhere, when they start building them again.

For now he is home and agreed to do his uncles chores.
I went with one day.....

This picture (of where we were headed)

is BEFORE the weather got bad. The wind picked up and we had whiteout conditions for the rest of the day. It turned into a horrible day.




Uncle Jim raises Alpaca.

They are not Llamas.

I know, they look like llamas, just don't call them that.

They sorta look like lambs or sheep.
Only their necks and legs are way longer.
And they come in more colors.

They will get sheered in the spring, just like sheep do...

and the wool is then sold.
I like when they are fluffy, they are at their cutest!

There are a ton of vintage graphics (besides the bathing beauty) to pick from here

earthcache two

This earthcache is called

Dunnings Spring and Waterfall.

Except for the walk in the snow there wasn't anything to tough at this one.

Here we needed to estimate how tall and wide the falls are.

Classify the falls and why we chose that.

(I will go with "cascade" I think.)

And what river does this flow into. I was way up there at the falls.

Tractor joe had the camera.

Are you close enough??

Come closer!!

There.
Now you can see I am standing on the side of the falls.
The water running down the rocks was such a nice sound.
I am thinking we could have taken a picture even a little closer.
Oh well.






When we were done watching at the highschool
(all the speech performances

Crispy's group got all 2's)
and ready to head home.....
I was able to convince tractor joe that there was one more easy cache we could try and find.
It was on a crosscountry ski trail.
Right at the begining of the trail.
So easy!
No hiking involved.
Almost a park and grab.
Except.....
Right after we arrived...
So did a group of skiers and they took
FOREVER
to get ready and head out.

We didn't want them to watch us as we dug out the bottom of this light pole.
Actually, I did the digging. Tractor joe kept saying...
"it is not there, lets go"
"you won't find it"
"you can't even move that cap, can you?"

It moved, I lifted it to find the cache, it was a film canister...sign our name on the log sheet inside,
and bury it back up for the next happy cacher to find!

Today we are home because of snow....

earthcache one

We were in Decorah, Iowa, on Saturday for a Speech competition.

Tractor joe..."can't we go anywhere and not have to find a cache?"

Me...."I guess not my love, you know how we enjoy caching."

Tractor joe..."WHO enjoys it?"

Me...."oh yah, it is ME who loves it. But these are earthcaches. There is no box to find. Just geological wonders! Then we just have to answer questions to claim them. Doesn't that sound cool and easy?"

The first one was called.....
ICE CAVE!!!!

The cache page said: Bring a flashlight and we did!
We were ready to be spelunkers!!
We needed to describe the terrain into the cave up to the point where it is gated off.
(it was downhill on a rocky, ICE covered path, and dark except where there was daylight coming in because of fissures above us)

We needed to take a picture with our GPS at the mouth of the cave.

Since I failed to hold up my beloved GPS....I will use the picture of tractor joe on the cache page.

The steps down to the road were even more treacherous than the cave itself.

We both manuvered them safely.

We both know we aren't to thrilled with cave exploration.
But in the end it was all worth it!!!

Except....here is where we recieved a text from Crispy that said: 20 minutes....

oh oh... we had to high tail it over to the highschool to see his Reader's Theater performance.

We made it with time to spare!

graphics from http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

I was sewing too....

Wow....I have had this for awhile....



http://quiltville.com/doubledelightintro.shtml/



The blocks have been done for quite some time...

I just needed to cut some setting triangles.



Good ol' Ozzy had to come check it out.


Mine is smaller than the one made by Bonnie Hunter....and different in color too.

It is for the couch in the basement.

I thought it looked so bright and busy....

wasn't even sure I liked it anymore.

But since the basement is rather dark....

this will work well down here to brighten it up.

I am almost done sewing all the rows together!! Now I need to think about the backing...

I just might go even more wild and put some orange on the back
or

maybe not.....

It will depend on what I can find that is on sale!

a dream come true.....

Madison has been waiting for snow.

Living on the coast in Virginia, it doesn't happen to often.

With a snowstorm finally predicted,

my sister gathered up sticks,

and made sure she bought a carrot.

(She says she bought all the important stuff too...

like milk and bread.)

But the carrot was very important...

Madison was going to make her first snowman!!

It snowed and snowed. It was perfect to lay in and make snow angels!

It was fun for Madison and her older brother Joey to take turns buring each other in the snow.

It was that light fluffy kinda snow that swirls around and makes everything pretty.

But it wasn't right for making snowmen.

Not sticky and wet enough.

Bummer.

No snowman on Saturday.

But then the sun came out on Sunday.

It warmed things up enough.....

made the snow nice and sticky!

Madison was able to build her first snowman....

carrot nose and all.......