one of my first quilts......

This was probably the third quilt I made. There was no pattern, just a block to use. 

I said it looks like dinosaur foot prints to my middle son. 

He thought so too and wanted me to use it.

He would have been about 7 or 8, and in love with dinosaurs.

Of the three boys, he was the one who actually got involved with quilts and even tried sewing himself way back when.

 The middle one's first and last attempt at sewing

Check out the hand quilting. I really did that so long ago. I made a few more with hand quilting. It took forever and I didn't find it soothing or relaxing. Once I started sending them off to be machine quilted, I never looked back.

For years my mom would say, "you should be hand quilting that"

But, Mom, I don't enjoy it.

"well you could tie it then."

Oh please, Mom! 

I never liked sleeping under grandma's bumpy, yarn tied quilts.

 I don't really like tied quilts.

I think that after nearly 20 years of this same conversation, she has finally given up trying to get me to hand quilt anything. Now she just whimpers when I say a quilt is off to the quilters.

This was a quilt made to be used, and it was. It's age is starting to show. 

I am not sure this is worth fixing. There are many areas of wear on it.

For now it will just stay in his closet.

one loved green, one loved orange....

I am not sure of the year this was made. 

It is from a pattern in the Aug. 1996 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting,

called Stars Ablaze.

So it was after that, but before he (the middle son) graduated in 2006

That really narrows it down.

He had a Dreamcast video console. He picked this lime green fabric because of the swirl design, it reminded him of the game system. They must have had a swirl logo or something.

I also made this quilt twice. 

The other one was orange and white. 

It went to the niece who also has Orange Crush.

I texted her and she sent pictures of her orange quilts right away.

There was no date on this one either.

But on the back of this one....

...it says, Orange Crush 2009. Cool.

And the weather is still quite warm, if not hot.

babysitting fish this week....

My middle son is out of town for the week. Some school thing for his job. So, I am feeding his fish. He filled film canisters with food. One for each day he is gone. I can't go wrong.

AND, I am taking this opportunity to raid his closet for quilts I have made for him.

Then use his clothesline and take pictures. They are all pre-blog quilts so I don't think they have  been shown here.

This one is Bonnie Hunter's Orange Crush.

It was a mystery. I don't know if it is still up or not.

Yes it is! Orange Crush Intro

I did the original with orange and gave that one to my niece in Virginia.

Then I made another one with lime green and brown.

My plan is to take a picture of a quilt each day. He has quite a few.

I checked the forecast this morning. Thought it would be really boring.

Warm and sunny for days and days.

Not quite,

there is still the possibility of snow.

We shall see. AccuWeather seems to give the worst case scenario all the time.

postcards again....

I did 3 cards with leftover supplies that haven't been put away yet...

(three cheers for not being organized and leaving things out)

Two will get sent to the pet postcard project today. It is my dog, Ozzy, on them.

When pulling out these pictures, from a camping trip, there was also one of my sisters dog.

Her name is Tiki and she isn't spoiled or anything. 

Doesn't every dog have a chair that goes with on camping trips?

 If Tiki wasn't in her chair, Ozzy was.

This one will get mailed to my sister Jenny, Tiki's mom.

postcards for kindergarten kids.....

When we had the 100th day celebration, one of the items that the kids glued to their crowns was cut out book covers from book order sheets. There were some left over, so I took them home.

I actually used them!  With mod podge, I glued them down on postcards.

I punched out a bunch of stamp shapes with painted paper scraps.

It took a while to decide what else would be on these postcards.

Finally decided on their names.

I will mail these out near the end of the year. I don't know why the last picture is sideways.

Oh well, you get the idea.

bliss.....

My mom and sister were down for the weekend.

There was a craft show and an auction yesterday. We did both. 

Jane also wanted to make some postcards. 

I dug out cut-up cereal boxes that had already been painted to use.

She added more paint and stamps to them.

We had quite the mess going. Paint, ink, stamps and paper. There was some scrap painted paper that needed to be used up. I also was making our meal, so I finished one and Jane made three. My mom watched us. 

She thought it was way to much work for these four cards.

"Cards?" my sister said.

"These are works of art!"

We had so much fun.

It was our bliss.

After they left, Jane sent me a picture. I had no idea she took it. 

It is of a different kind of bliss....

Laid back and playing on my phone.

birds, bags and binding.....

This month Block Lotto is making birds. 

I love these birds.

We can make up to 9 birds for the drawing at the end of the month.

I have those, but I made more.

Then I had an idea.

 I finished some hearts that never got finished the month we made 

Low Volume hearts at block lotto. 

They were then laid out together.

The beginnings of a new quilt.

iheart birds

It could end up a wall hanging.

Or...

if I win, it will end up much bigger.

I hope, I hope!

10 Snap Happy bags. These took me several days. I would work on them, then go work on birds and then go back to bags.

Easy Street came back from the quilter. The binding is even on.

I don't have a picture of the whole thing yet. There was never a good time to take it out and hang it on the building. Today is not a good day either, it is a good day to stay inside.

The temp is cold and it feels like winter.

We had a taste of warmer weather a few days ago.

& the robins are back.