String zip pouch

Does a pouch made with selvedges used as strips count as a strip challenge finish?

We shall see!

Ta Da! 

My friends are lining up, they want these bags.  And now that I am collecting quite a few of them I find I am having to give them away to keep my shelves from falling off the wall.  My book club was over here on Wednesday night and they were fingering my many quilts hanging over the back of the sofas.  I told them they each needed to put their name one one of them, as I was getting too many to continue to keep all of them and still continue to make new ones! LOL.

They thought I was really serious!  Ha.

glen

The Bitchy Stitcher

I have a new goddess to worship!  I love this woman.  She tells it straight, is hilariously funny and is totally unabashed.  I love her. 

One of my CyberQuilting buds sent her Quilting Glossary to me.  That is when I visited her blog and the rest is history, as they say.  See what you think......

http://thebitchystitcher.blogspot.com/2010/04/quilting-glossary.html

I am still laughing, my sides are splitting and did I say I loved her???

After this I am heading to Ace Hardware to find a piece of metal I can adhere to my bird feeder.  The squirrels laughed at my hard plastic door jamb fix.  Laughed.  I am beginning to have a strange kind of respect for these creatures.  I hate them.  But you have to give them their due.  They long ago outsmarted Frank, he just gave up.  They are very close to getting me.

I wonder what the BitchyStitcher would say about them...........

glen

grand dog Hugeaux Paddington

I came across this cutesy photo of granddog Hugeaux.  I just had to share with you!

Squirrels - 7 Me - 0

It would seem that humans with their larger brains and less beady eyes would be superior thinkers compared to squirrels.  But that is not necessarily true.  The wonderful new feeder I purchased has been compromised.

The crafty critters have actually broken the plastic on the feeder windows to enlarge the hole.  That means when the mechanism pulls down to cover the feeding window, they can still access the feed through the broken spot.

I found some pieces of heavy plastic that is used behind door jams to adjust the width of the hole catching the door latch.  And I glued them on the places the stupid squirrels are reaching through.  The glue is drying.  So we shall see if this latest thing thwarts them.........

I doubt it.  They probably have a few more tricks up their tight fitting sleeves.

Now I am off to find a suitable paint color with which to paint the hole in the bathroom wall................

glen:  sigh...........will there be time left for quilting??????????

Design Wall Monday and the lack of water.....

My design wall is very interesting this week.  I have the Wizard of Oz quilt that is just needing a binding being finished up.  And I have a prototype of the block that may be used in Valerie's redwork quilt.

Valerie is doing the Alex Anderson hearts and flowers red work in jewel toned threads on muslin.  And this weekend at the big batik sale we purchased batiks in deep purple, teal and a gorgeous deep red for the outsides of the blocks.  I made a mach-up of the block last night:

The quilt should look like this:

We may tweak it a bit along the way, but it should be similar.  Not sure what we will do with the middle yet,  It could become a larger redwork piece or it could become a block.

The Lack of Water is due to a hole developing in the outside faucet on the patio and 3 years of attempted repairs by my "Tim the Toolman" husband.  So now the plumbers Wayne and Jeff are tearing out a wall and cutting out some bricks on the outside and repairing it for final once and for all....,maybe.

We have been carting water from the neighbors just to flush the good bathroom with.  And the dogs are not happy with the intruders in the yard.  Dutch wants to move them out and Chloe wants to go tell them hello and invite them to dinner.

glen:  who is ready to pee in the yard with the dogs............(no picture for that!)

Left Behind.........

All my quilting friends, and all the people whose blogs I read must all be in Paducah at the big Quilt Show there.  Most blogs have not updated in several days, and very few of my quilting friends were at the big Batik sale at the quilt shop this morning.

I had to drag Valerie, a non-quilter, to the shop with me by enticing her with a trip to the vet's office first. 

glen:  dog people are strange!

War Between the Squirrels

Did you know there are THREE squirrels battling it out for my bird feeder seed?  That is why I could never keep seed in the feeder!  The new feeder seems to have solved the problem, though and thwarted the squirrels, or at least for today.

I can see the wheels turning.  They are laying new plans.  However I think that by restricting the seed availability I have set the squirrels to warring amongst themselves.  When two got into it and chased each other down the driveway, the third quite happily came up to investigate the feeder.

Here are two of them checking each other out.  Sizing up the enemy, as it were.  Checking out tails, how well the others' cheeks can hold a stash of black oil sunflower seeds.  The guy at the bottom of the frame is pretending to be very confident in order to throw the other one off.  A moment later they were tumbling down the driveway and the other one had moved in toward the feeder.The birds seem to have adjusted easily. 

I was on a roll quilting yesterday.  I finished up the baby Wizard of Oz and worked all the way to the quilting stage of the lap Wizard of Oz.  The batting is a piece of flannel I have had for a long time.  The feel of flannel rather than batting intrigues me.  I am marking the borders with Pounce and machine quilting a Celtic cable pattern from a stencil.  It makes nice easy crisp quilting.  I wanted to see the quilting so I am using a gold beige on the dark blue.  Gorgeous. Not sure what I will do with this one.  We are going to visit Sacramento this summer and meeting with some high school friends we have not seen in 38 years.  Cindy and I were best friends and Joe and Frank were close friends.  So it will be interesting to see what 38 years has done to everyone.  (Note to self:  lose 40 lbs before the summer.)

glen:  off to ride my bicycle and think about joining a boxing gym............................yeah, buddy!

Getting Even With The Squirrels

Yes, I am obsessed.  I was considering Andrew's offer of the pellet gun..............

You can't even think you will get AHEAD of the squirrels, the only hope you have is to pull up even with them.  They might be rodents, they might even LOOK like rodents, but they are pretty darn smart. 

I spend a lot of time looking out my breakfast room window, watching to see if the squirrels have figured out the latest way to circumvent my proofing efforts.  Right now my method is to feeder load the pole with the domed feeder preventing access to the tube feeder.  And I think the squirrels are laughing.  I can almost hear them. 

I even sent the cat out to look important.  But all she succeeded in doing was catching and eating a lizard.  (Which subsequently came back up with dinner.)

They have me searching lawn and garden stores, feed stores and even hardware stores searching for stuff to squirrel proof my bird feeders with.  They have me searching the Internet, googling Squirrel Proof Bird feeders, and leafing through online birding magazines for the perfect impenetrable bird feeder.  The best one was from The Droll Yankee.  It had a battery charged apparatus that spun when the squirrel's weight engaged the motor.  People had sent in their videos to show squirrels being spun around on the various feeders.  I was just about to punch the button that said "Buy Me Now" when I spied the price.  Yep, it was about $100. 

So I thought about what else I could do.  Cheaper.  You know I need all extra money for fabric!

When we visited Lowes' to pick up a hose repair kit I wandered over to the bird feeders and found a weight activated pull down feeder.  This one is better than the one I have with the dome over it.  The birds don't seem to want to go under the dome to eat.  This new one, which cost $20, is like the tube feeder that is already the hit of the property.

I hung the dome feeder on the crepe myrtle in hopes that some bird will land on it and say......HEY!  SEED!  and the rest will come to investigate.  There is even a sign on it that says: 

So I will get the full impact in the morning.  I purposefully left the flat feeder (which actually is my favorite one of all of them, and not just because Carrie gave it to me!) without seed so the squirrels will have to try to get seed by robbing my newest challenge for them.

Maybe I can get back to quilting soon.  If this new feeder works like the box says it should, then I have about 35 UFOs to finish!

glen

Cleaning up the old quilt room..revisited

I must find ways to get organized.  There is just way too much stuff in my room and on my floor.  More importantly, I can't find anything anymore, like my cutting table!

I hit upon the bright idea of kitting up some of my fabrics to make it easier to not only remember what I wanted to do with them but also to put the fabric together with the patterns from the magazines! What a great idea.

So I have gone through the batiks that lived on the corner of my cutting table for the last year (or two) and divided them up into 4 patterns that I have been wanting to do.

Then I saw a very cool block pattern inthe latest issue of Quilt. So I bagged those together. Cool.

I am on a roll.

glen

4 for 4`

I was just playing on some blogs this morning, like I have nothing else to do.  And I came across this one that was challenging her readers to a 4 for 4 challenge.  Finish 4 UFOs in 4 weeks.

I am going to challenge myself personally.

But first, I need to get this room cleaned up!   



I am going our to ride my bike for 3 miles then I will be back....and invigorated and motivated to CLEAN!

glen

Design Wall Monday! 4-22-10

OH! OH! OH!  I have gotten to where I LOVE LOVE LOVE Design Wall Mondays!

So here is my design wall.  Dogs from the Buggy Barn with a modern twist!

My Dog House quilt for the Raffle at Southbound Swissy Club garnered over $300 from an Anonymous Donor.  Hmmm...........I think I know who it is, but we shall see.

glen:  who keeps creating UFOs but finishing  very little, must do a mindset change, finish finish finish!

Bathing the Rocks.....

I have been soooo lazy about quilting these last few days.  But I have been very very busy doing other things.   

I spent a few hours every day this week shoveling the rocks from the walk way and the Japanese Garden into a wheelbarrow.  Then hosing out the mud and debris and other odd detritus.  Laying new hardware cloth and respreading the rocks.  In other words I have been giving my rocks a much needed bath!

It looks really good now that the weeds are no longer infesting the pathway.  It was difficult keep up with the weeds as they grew through the soil that was created from about 10 years of debris and leaves falling through the rocks.  And the city didn't help when they came into the yard about 2 or 3 years ago and dug up my pathway to replace a sewer line connection.  They made a valiant attempt at replacing things like they were but many of my rocks got buried in the hole.

We have been adding anywhere from 4 to 10 bags of rocks daily since the beginning of the project.  And now we are finished cleaning up all our existing rocks.  There is a hole for about 15 more bags of rock.  So we get new rock tomorrow.

I will take some pictures of the pathway, my rock loon and rock turtle in the rock pond and my cement bench in the morning to show you what a great job I have done!  And I think I am getting muscles!

But now you can enjoy my sweet Bonnie Doon drinking out of the bird bath.  That was one of her favorite pastimes.  I could never keep that bird bath filled, she drank it down every time she went out!
glen

Crazy Dogz

 My friend Mary and I got together at the Sew In on Tuesday this week.  We (literally) went crazy over these dogs!   Mary found this pattern at Buggy Barn and just knew I would love it as much as she did.  So we sliced and diced our way through the kennel.

This is Mary's dog.  I really like the colors, black always appeals to me.  So I put together these three.  (The first time we did the pattern we just used three fabrics to "test" the water, so to speak.)  The others will be a mix of the same three fabrics, just in different places in the block.  No two will be the same. 

Here are my three. 

 I got the big idea to make a kid's quilt out of the folk country dog blocks!  So here are my more "modern" dogs.  I am hoping that they will find a good home somewhere.  Hint Hint!

I am testing to see which way the fabrics should go.  I think the black should be the inner border.  But then I thought of black and white checks.  Hmmmmmm.  You know......I kinda like the combination of the blue and the black as a 1/2 way border.  New Concept!

glen

 

Quilts of Love and I didn't take a single picture! Huh???

Just wanted to thank Loft Creations for spurring me on with this No Strings Attached project. I just returned home from the Quilts of Love Show. I donated 9 quilts, 4 of which were string quilts.

QOL is a sort of clearinghouse of sorts for charity quilts. A couple of years ago two women decided to do a quilt show that brought together those who wanted to donate quilts to charities and the charities who wanted to recieve the quilts. They hang the donated quilts in a church Fellowship Hall for the weekend, then on Sunday afternoon the charities come and receive the quilts.

This year the ladies said they wanted to surpass last year's number of 70 quilts. When I left as they were nearly finished taking everything down today, they had an amazing 268 quilts.  Among the charities who received quilts were: (there were others I can't remember as well)

Braveheart - quilts for kids in foster care
Quilts of Valor - for wounded servicemen
CASA - quilts for kids in need of court appointed guardians
Hope for Children - not sure about this one.
Woman's Hospital Preemie Ward - every preemie baby goes home with a tiny quilt
Woman's Hospital Isolette Babies - covers for the isolettes for preemie and sick babies
Louisiana Children's Home - Orphanage
Battered Woman's Shelter

It was amazing to see the quilts hanging, knowing that soon they would have some child snuggled in its folds. A child that really needed a hug. It was amazing to see the faces of those receiving the quilts. It was just amazing.

glen

This is why I wasn't quilting today!

Spring time planting.  Frank took today off so I "forced" him to head to Lowes' to pick up 6 bags of rocks to fill in apaces in my  rock walk.  Did I tell you I was digging out all the rock and cleaning them in the wheelbarrow and relaying the hardware cloth??? Well, I am in fact, doing so.

But I saw the most beautiful red begonias at the Garden Center!  And I grow the red ones well.  I got a flat of them for the back pots. 

The Upside Down Tomatoes that failed so miserably last year appear to be doing beaufully this year.  I even have tomatos on one of them. 

The pansies are still going strong.  That means our spring is very cool because pansies love the cooler temps.  This morning it was in the mid-40's.  Just perfect biking weather.

 

The purple Wandering Jew has survived the snow covering is slept under for a few days. 

And the strawberry plants actually have two strawberries.  Way better than that blueberry fiasco last year.   And Chloe the Smelly Basset helped by picking up and relocating her pine cones.

Quilting has taught me nothing!

If I had truly learned anything in my years of quilting then this would not have happened.

Sassi Strippers Guild is doing a Judy Hopkins Mystery Quilt.  It is simple enough with just two colors.  One of our newer quilters found the pattern and is presenting it to the group each month.  A great task for sure, but one that is welcome in a group that has done little in the past.

So we have to sew half square trianges to a square.  It is supposed to look like this:

But about 1/2 of the 48 I need look like this:

Subtle change, big difference!

So you know what I will be doing.

glen:  sigh.............

insipired by kaleidoscopes

One of the blogs I love to read recently had a tutorial on making these fabulously easy blocks.  And I knew I had a ton of diamonds I made a while back.  I had no idea what to do with them until I saw the kaleidoscope blocks.

So here is my meager beginning.  Some are really nice and the center points meet but some are not so nice and they needed to be trimmed so the center points do not meet.

It is going to be a charity quilt anyway if I can get it finished in time for Saturday.

glen

4-5-10 Design wall monday ---- sigh

Unfortunately, nothing has changed on my design wall.  It is still the same as it was last Monday.  But things should be different this week.  I will acually have some time to complete the quilt and get some of my room cleared up.  I'll admit, it is a total mess.  Stuff lying everywhere.  But I am glad to have most of it!  glen and Dutch........who loves me in spite of my messy rooms!

glen and Dutch.............

Easter Bike Ride

Dan and Amber, Valerie, Frank and I hauled the bikes down to LSU Campus for a nice bike ride around the beautiful campus grounds.  We first went to Dan and Amber's house for yogurt and fruit and to get bikes adjusted.  Then off to LSU.  The campus is truly beautiful this time of year. 

We circled Death Valley, the football stadium where LSU plays.  Then went on to the Pete Maravich Center for basketball.  We rode by the outdoor Greek Theater and the sorority houses by the lakes. 

Then as we headed to the Cow Palace we passed a bus that had burst into flames.

From there we rode by the Memorial Tower dedicated to the fallen heros who attended LSU over the years. 

We tried to eat at Louis' Cafe but it was closed for Easter so we found this odd little Mediteranean man who was selling Gyro Pitas from a storefront on Chimes Street.

We did get to see Mike the Tiger, the mascot of the sports teams for LSU. The Fighting Tigers are named for the Fighting Tigers of the Louisiana Regiment in the War Between the States. Southern soldiers so tough they left destruction everywhere they went.

But nowhere did we see any bunnies! 

It was a good ride.  We are planning the next one for Downtown next weekend.

glen: Happy Easter

LOL. I seem to have a lot of things going on on Sat April 10th.   It is like the world woke up from winter and scheduled everything on that day!

Today is Frank's birthday and he wanted to cook for everyone. So he got 10 chicken breasts, 3 lbs of sausage and made a mess of broccoli slaw, dirty rice and a huge salad! I asked how many people were coming and he said it was just Valerie, Carrie and Andrew. Huh? All that food?????

I got a call from Dan and Amber looking to go out to lunch with us, so I said to get their butts over and eat with us. And they did.  Lucky we had all that food!

I made the most amazing cake.  It was like a jelly roll cake but with a merainge type cake much like a chocolate lady finger.  And I used philly cream cheese thinned with a tiny bit of chocolate mile as the filling.  It was heavenly.  And not a lot of carbs or sugar!

I gave Frank a safari hat from the Zoo, tickets to Global Wildlife Center and a new pair of Wrangler jeans. Carrie gave him a gift certificate from the Backpacker to get his hiking sandals and a signed copy of Edwin Edwards: Governor of Louisiana. Leo signed it with a personal note to Frank! And Valerie gave him a gift certificate for I-Tunes. So he racked up with cool stuff.

Yesterday we bought new seats for our street bikes. We had new tires put on last week and we are now ready for some exercise. Dan said he can set up the bike to be ergonomically correct for our bodies so we will head over there tomorrow.

On Sunday we will cart the bikes out to LSU and spend the morning riding through the campus. It really is beautiful with the lakes and all the azaleas blooming. And the new seat will be so wonderful on my butt! the new seat is a gel seat that cushions well!

I am looking forward to that ride with Dan and Amber. Carrie left her cell pnone here today so I have to ride over to her office and bring it to her tomorrow. I get to see what she is working on. There is amazing stuff happening!

Have a happy holiday and enjoy your families!

glen