Fron the great state of Houston

We arrived after a grueling ride of 5 hours, even though the traffic was easy and swift.  And Ann drove.  We met a ton of people, some from Fairbanks Alaska who knows my friends from there.  

And we bought stuff.  You will have to wait for the big reveal...because you know....I can't get the pictures into the iPad without my computer which sits at home......you know


So the Quilt Show is incredible!!!!!

Ann bought a new ruler system the links together and has a self straightening edge.  And a Jim Shore cat quilt.  

I am bargaining with a guy who has a new light box that is made of LED lights and stays cool all the time.  He says his cat hates it, the light is no longer her favorite place to curl up!
   
I bought  Something C. Oh yes.....a new magazine since Gen Q was such a disappointment. Modern Quilting is so much better.....

We are in the bar drinking a hug e margarita......can u see my typing has deteriorated.....

Off to the Houston Quilt Festival

Frank  is staying home with the dogs.

If you want to meet Ann and I in Houston send me a text 225-252-1100 and hang out or eat....we are always up for eating and hanging out in the middle of quilt stuff.

And we will be in the building all day long!

I am so excited.......

McGee must have wind of me leaving him, he tossed his cookies this morning and DiNozzo won't leave my side.  Chloe could care less!

Here are some of my older quilts for you to check out!  I designed, pieced and quilted them all myself.


glen:  even the cat is sitting in my lap!

Come Trick Or Treat At My Halloween House!

My very latest finish

Come, my pretties, and trick or treat at my Halloween House during the Wicked Blog Hop!  (insert cackling laugh here!)  This is my day to show you into the Wicked Realm of Howl-o-ween ..... Hound Style!

We love Halloween at my house.  And now that we have no daughter at home, we just decorate the porch. This year I will be in Houston at the International Quilt Festival on Halloween.  So Frank will be giving out candy, so don't think you can do tricks at my house and steal my vicious guard hound......

For my Wicked block I thought I would give you a Halloween House.  I love to do paperpiecing and found this wonderful house at FaveQuilts . Wouldn't it be fun to do houses for every holiday?  Hmmm.  You need to print the four pattern pieces before you begin.  If you know how to change the size of the printed pieces you can change the size of the house.  I printed my pieces to end up 8.5 x 8.5 inches unfinished.  

Choose your fabrics to bring out the scariest emotions in your house.  I found this perfect sky in my stash.  

Cut the fabric to cover the area of the sky making sure the fabric extends over the paper by more than a quarter of an inch.  I have an Add A Quarter ruler that helps make sure I have enough seam allowance on my pieces.

Here is the sky and the roof and a chimney.  Deep in my stash, I found bricks for the chimney (she says proudly).

Iron all your seams each time you sew.  This makes it lie flat.  This is what the back looks like, simple seams.

And this is the front side.  Nice and precise.

Here are the window and the door.  I choose some fabrics that I could fussy cut and have this very surprised looking cat.  I guess he is amazed to find that he is sharing his house with bats and a crazy pumpkin man.


Tear the paper off the back and put the roof on the house.  A house needs a roof!  Even the Halloween House!

See how the waxing moon is in the starry sky over the house?  Will you come trick or treating at my Halloween House this year?

McGee the Howl-o-Ween Hound

Watch out for that vicious guard Hound!

Check out the rest of my cronies at the Wicked Blog Hop!

Tuesday, October 30^th

I Like To Quiltblog

Canary Created

Cherry's Prairie Primitives
Count It *All* JOY!! 

Archimedes' Bathtub

Quilts And Dogs

Jane's Fabrics And Quilts

Creations On The Island

Englating

Mrs.Pickles Garden

Scrapbook-Chickadoodle

Taschen, Quilts Und Mehr

Pamela - That Other Blog

Parenthetical Quilted With Wild Abandon

I lopped off a section of the batting roll and loaded up a quilt.  Parenthetical seemed the most likely to allow me to play with free motion because of the heavy patterns on both the back and the front.  And I played with wild abandon!

It went very quickly, like maybe 3 hours from start to finish.  But I had a lot of insignificant yet aggravating problems.  Which started early this morning.

At 3 AM the cat (who never does this) peed in the corner of the room.  Frank heard it in his sleep.  He jumps up and tosses the cat out, gets the new Spotbot and cleans it up, retrieves the cat and gets back in bed.  How he heard it in his sleep is a mystery to me.  He used to hear Carrie turn over in her room across the house when she was a new kid.  I never heard the child.  So much for the Mother/Child umbilical cord.

At 4:30 AM McGee throws up.  Frank heard it in his sleep.  He jumps up and tosses the dog out, gets the new Spotbot and cleans it up, retrieves the dog, gives him some tummy medicines and gets back in bed.  How he heard it in his sleep is a mystery to me.  This time I pretend to sleep.

At 6:05 AM McGee poops on the rug.  He has never done that before.  Now how Frank heard that I will never know.  He jumps up and tosses the dog out again, gets the new Spotbot and cleans it up, retrieves the dog and goes out for breakfast and to feed the dogs.  I got up because I had that medical test today.  It went well, not much pain involved, and a good report.

Back at home I have wild dogs since the weather is really cool.  I have taken everything I own out of McGee's mouth, DiNozzo's paws or Chloe's bed.  The spool of thread had been previously chewed by a certain unnamed dog, so I used it for bobbins.


Several of the bobbins only filled half way or less before the thread was broken.  So I had to change bobbins very often, and had enough to do all but 12 inches of the last corner.  So that is done in a nice purple!


And the clamp that holds the light on the machine broke.  It is very difficult to quilt like this.

The flashlight I use to look up under the quilt for the tension on the back, refused to turn on.

But I got a chance to play and doodle and circle and do anything anywhere and go wild!  It was wonderful!

I am ultimately happy and the dogs are finally settling down........finally.


glen

Design Wall Monday 10-29-12

Off to the doctor for tests to see what is going on now.  Of course I won't know anything until who knows when.....it is all so secretive like.  And Frank's heart monitor goes back on Monday and the same deal with him.  I am sure they will read the tests and see what the want to do next with both of us.  Seems like we are both falling apart at the same time.

Here is what I have in the works.  And I am off to the Houston Quilt Show on Wednesday for the weekend.  Fun and excitement!

Now that I have a huge roll of batting I have 5 quilts to be quilted.  Parenthetical, Southwest and Matt's Saints are all ready to be put on the frame.  DiNozzo is sitting on my new xmas tablerunner I did yesterday, fun and easy and I really love it.  I am thinking of doing one for all the holidays and giving them to people for xmas presents.

Stash Report and a New Addition

Yes, I was weak.  I went to the quilt shop to purchase the Christmas Dog Fabric and fell in love with this.  So it will become my Christmas Table Runner.  Sorry Dogs.

With that purchase I added 1.75 yards of Christmas delight!

used this week	-6.910
used in Oct	-59
added this week	6.250
Add in Oct	66
Used YTD	-203
Added YTD	177.25
Stash Reduction	-25.75

Here is a tease of what it is looking like this Saturday afternoon.  Going together quite nicely.  It was no particular pattern.  I just opened EQ and went to table runners and thought this would fit the bill for a cute Christmassy runner that would showcase the fabrics, be easy and quick and not too much cutting and sewing.

I got it finished just before dinner.  Dinner was Leek and Corn Chowder I cooked this morning.  I know Ann is on the road and probably hungry right now for some of this deliciousness.

I finished and wanted to take a picture of my amazing Christmas Table Runner and this happened.  Which is what happens any time I try to take pictures.  I put a Santa bowl for effect and they thought it contained some marvelous new doggy food and would not leave it alone.

Obviously bassets are pretty smart because after they decided there was nothing in it, DiNozzo sat to wait for it to be filled!

That is about the best picture you will get until Frank gets his stuff off the table and I can take the picture in the REAL place it will be.

I failed to think about the binding, so I have to head back to the store on Tuesday and get binding for it.  Black.  I have enough of the green, which is the back, but I wanted black.

Oh, here is the back......What you see on the design wall is Patch No Work Moroccan which is the bed quilt for my room.  That is a corner of the queen sized quilt.  Hopefully I still have all the pieces because for sure there is no more fabric left.  The quilt shop it came from is long gone......

Hey Amelia.....I miss you!

The most perfect piece of fabric

You know that feeling when you find just the most perfect piece of fabric for a project?  Well I hit that just now.

I have a commission for a baby quilt for a friend's daughter from some of her clothes.  They want to remember her first year.  (I wish I had thought of that for Carrie all those years ago!)

And I have been searching for just the right fabric for the back.  And here it is:  Don't you just love it?  Well, don't you?

942 Marvelous Posts

Thought I would update you on the number of published posts for the blog.  The people who comment on #1000 will be in a drawing to win some marvelous patterns and who knows what else.  This makes 943 marvelous posts.

So we are counting down.

You saw where I finished Jack and Gourdy Throw A Party, huh?  Marvelous.  Good to have it finished.  It was a UFO but somehow not on my UFO list at the guild where they are tracking finishes and giving prizes.  Of course.


Elephants are at the quilters.  Can't wait to see that beauty.  Charlene Harp does a gorgeous job on these things.  It will be a marvelous masterpiece.

And I am putting Parenthetical on the marvelous frame this afternoon.  No clue as to how I will quilt it yet.  I bought a new book, Modern Quilting
Designs that I might try.  It is heavily patterned so you won't see any mistakes.  I am sure there will be quite a few, I am always backing myself into corners I can't get out of.  The back cover exhorts you to step outside of plain stippling!  I chose that blue for the backing so it should be bright and light.  Not sure what I will do with it just yet.

You can see that my marvelous helpers were tuckered out by the evening and needed their beauty rest.

Halloween Party to Benefit CAAWS

This is in Baton Rouge, LA.  One of my pet peeves is that blog people don't realize that they are international!  They say, come on down and go to this event/quiltshop/lunch with me.  But I have no idea where they are.  If they tell me they are in a nearby city, or one that I will be in on vacation, it would really help me a lot!

 My dogs have always been put in costumes and humiliated.  We do the Mardi Gras Krewe of Mutts Parade, Santa Photos, The Jones Creek Christmas Parade, Halloween at BREC Parks.  You name it, we dress them up and go!

Bonnie Doon won a $100 basket full of doggy stuff for her portrayal of Bonica Lewinski in her blue dress with the paw stain on it.  She also won a plaque that says she was the Best Dressed Dog that year.

Chloe HATES to dressed in anything, including her beautiful sherpa coat for cold days.  This is as much as she will do.  The Swissys were perfect, they were big and easy going and willing to do anyting for me.  We shall see about DiNozzo and McGee.

And don't forget the Wicked Blog Hop, I will be setting my post out on Oct 30.

Bonnie Doon as the Easter Bonnie

Bonnie Doon as the Queen of Hearts

Come out and play with your doggies!

Raising Cane's Dog Park at Forest Community Park and BREC invite you to the annual Halloween Trick and Treat event for all dogs on Friday, Oct. 26 at 7 p.m.  CAAWS will have a PR and Education Booth at the event!

Everyone loves to be a part of the Halloween season, dogs included. Think your dog has the best costume? All dogs in costume will be entered in the Best Costume Contest. Booths from local pet organizations and treats will be on-site to create a fun Halloween atmosphere that your dog is sure to love.

The event is free and open to the public.

Dutch as Jimmy Buffet

Pissed off Chloe

Raising Cane's Dog Park at Forest Community Park is located at 13900 S. Harrell's Ferry Road in Baton Rouge.

For more information, contact 272-9200 ext. 570 or facebook.com/brecdogparks.

Come out and see us and play.  I am sure my stalker will be there too!

glen

Jack and Gourdy Throw a Party

Finished!  I spent the day with Ann at the Red Stick and put the binding on the Jack and Gourdy quilt.   I chose the black and orange stripes because it looks like a witch's socks.  Stockings, I guess, stockings.

It is MARVELOUS!

This is the binding I used

My Uncle Buddy used to say that all the time.  Marvelous, he would say.  My father would say, why did you make so many mistakes on that quilt?  My Uncle would say, Marvelous.

So Jack and Gourdy are throwing a Marvelous party!


glen

Design Wall Monday 10-22-12 and Flying Monkeys

Jack and Gourdy back

Let's see if I can get the month correct here!  LOL.  My Stash Report still is using the September designation.......Maybe I am just that far behind.

The mornings I get up early to do the Design Wall post, Judy does not.  When I am late, she is early!  You would think a woman up with the chickens would be up up.

What?

This week I finished quilting Jack and Gourdy Throw A Party.  I need to do the binding yet this week, maybe it will be completed before Halloween this year!  I showed Frank the finished quilting and he looked at it pensively.  I said...what?  He thought some additional seconds and then ventured cautiously.......that white around the edge, is that really the color you want to use?  I said.....what?  So far I am in the dark as to what he is even saying.  That white....he says again, repeating the intelligible once more as he is wont to do.  I point to the batting sticking out of the edge, This?

Yes, he says. Hmmmm.....You would think he would have gained some knowledge by living with me all these years........


I am working on another UFO from about 4 years ago now, the Morocco Quilt that is a Patch No Work pattern.  It is intended for my bed and will be queen sized.


I have 4 more quilts to go on the quilt frame and a couple of customer quilts to put together   One will be a baby quilt that cute baby who already has one of my lovelies.

See my witchy shoes and great ghostie socks?  And the flying monkey sleeps.........