Exciting night

Last night was exciting because it was our Modern Quilt Guild meeting and I got to see all my besties!

But Tonight was exciting because McGee is such an idiot.  He got hold of one of Frank's syringes and we found the packaging and the body of the syringe but not the needle.  While I was panicking, Frank was tearing the dog beds apart.  He found it in one of the beds in our room, where we have the baby gate and he is not supposed to be in there........just sayin'

So McGee lives to tell tales another day.

From last night's meeting.  

Tracy is such a color wizard!  

This is the funniest pumpkin I ever saw!  The classes got to create their own pumpkin displays for the school.  I have no idea if this won, but it should have!

Crissi gave is a presentation on Containing Your Scraps and Cleaning Up Your Room  I got some great ideas.    

Lori always has great ideas.....just sayin'

This is Brigitta from Germany, she is really a member of  our group all the way in Germany.  Now we have two German members, one in country and one out of country!  That's amazing.

Leafy Quilt Blocks Oh Oh

Yesterday I had a total of 6 blocks.

Today I had a total of 5 blocks.

Cannot figure out what happened...…..

Over .....for now

One of my friends Suzi M posted on her facebook page, well, folks.  We can breathe again until the next one, because we know there will be a next one, right?



I am  pretty sure I will need big time meds to get through any more of these.  I guess I need to go see a a PTSD specialist.  This was so draining that I am still exhausted.

I put the stuff in my sewing room back down where it is supposed to be.  I vacuumed all the nooks and crannies that don't normally get attention.  And I cleaned out the EyeVac that picks up all my stray pieces of fabric when I drop them.  Wow, what a pile of dirt!





The Sewing Room is nowhere even close to neat and tidy.  I need to clear up about 40 things I have started and are languishing in various stages of unfinished-ness.














I have a trip coming up to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham England in a couple weeks.  I might just sleep until then, get on the plane and lose myself in the clouds.

Candace the Therapy Dog and A Bit of Good Fortune

My house looked like this December, a year ago in 2017.  This fairly rare snowfall lasted all day long.  Here in Baton Rouge we have snow about every 6 or 8 years.

The Basset Boyz were totally amazed at the white stuff.








Today the beaver was in my next door neighbor's yard munching down on some acorns.  The tree there is a huge oak.  I odd to have a beaver rambling around here.  We are used to opossums and rabbits and armadillos.





At the hospice today, Rodney's son Chad brought Candace Marie, his Certified Therapy Dog.  Chad and Candy work with Autistic kids.  She is able to calm them.


He brought her here to visit his dad, who is struggling to breathe since he is in what they call Transition.  I didn't read the book they gave Diane, but I imagine they mean between life and death.








I did have about an hour or so this morning to work on The Good Fortune Mystery quilt.  I chose the oranges, and then stripped them.

I made about half of the needed pieces.  Since Bonnie requested about 3 times the amount of orange I used, I am thinking that there will be another use for the color.  

I will spend some time tomorrow at Hospice with Diane and Rodney again.  I am hoping for peace and calm.  We spoke today of letting go.  That is the tough part.

Still Not Speaking to McGee

We had been invited to join Monika and Gestur for dinner on Sunday and I decided to bring a big pan of Potatoes Au Gratin made from Havarti and Sharp Cheddar cheeses.

Oh my, did it smell wonderful.  And it was beautiful, too.  And in
my favorite sized Temptations bakeware.  I've had it for YEARS!

We were 10 minutes from leaving for Monika's and it happened.  McGee had gotten up on the stove ……..

and knocked the whole thing down, crashing to the floor.

Too late to do anything else.  OMG......really dog?

He was covered with potatoes and Havarti ---

and my floor was covered with potatoes, Havarti and fractured crockery.

I  am still not speaking to him.  I wanted to eat those potatoes so badly!

He still is licking his legs because they taste like potatoes au gratin.  For the next 24 hours DiNozzo followed him around trying to lick him.  I kept urging him to try the cannibal life.

he still looks at him in a very uncomfortable way.

I  really needed that wine.

Tomorrow we have Sawyer.

He has requested we visit the park and drive around in his wagon!

Temps are expected to plummet and get to 34 tomorrow night.  We will all need coats for the park!

Here are some beautiful photos from Carrie's garden this weekend.  Look at those tomatoes.  Hope they survive the freeze this week.

For My Next Trick......

I finished the Little Farms quilt for Lyen's baby on Monday.  I did a photoshoot with it around the house.

 For National Dog Day, I asked McGee to model for me...……...

My next quilt?  You are going to love this...……………..

This quilt was begun in a Modern Quilt meeting.  Daisy Auschoung was the speaker.  She does a lot of modern quilt

s that are in the Modern Patchwork magazine.  Very graphic, you should check her out.  She was our President for a while before she moved to Norway.

Her program that day was to talk about people like Joseph Albers who creates with color blocks.  You should check out his art at:

Joseph Albers Foundation

Our project was to divide into groups of two and work with scraps of solid color fabrics.  Daisy had hung batting on the walls to use as design walls.

I was paired with Alice and together we put the block together.  I later added the grey borders.

It was interesting to see the difference in concept and design the other teams came up with.  Each one was so vastly different.  I have not seen any of them finishes and this was several years ago, before the flood even.

I took this photo this morning.  Changed it to black and white.  I used a small ruler and a pencil to audition  several quilting lines.

I would like to do this on the long arm but I am not sure how to do all the angles I require.

A few months ago I bought Jacquie Gehring's book Walk  that is like a workshop in machine quilting lines using a walking foot on your DSM.

I think I need to read that at night while I lay out the quilting lines on this booger during the day.

Hopefully you can see the lines on the copy.  You can always click on it to enlarge and it should be easier to see.  If you do this, make several copies so you can audition several sets of lines.

Even so, it is subject to change I guess.  It is a pretty large quilt.  But it should be a spectacular one!



(PS Just so you know, this is a printed out photo of thw quilt, not the actual quilt with quilting.  I am not that far into it!  

And this quilt is pretty large, maybe 80x70.  )

What's the Buzz?

I spent the weekend working on bees. 

I love paper piecing.  And I love these bees. 

So I decided to make nine of them, just because I love bees.  And because the quilt just seemed like it might need nine bees. 














After I made all nine, I put them on the design wall and thought I should have made twelve.  Oh well.  Nine it is!  LOL.



I had a Quilt Meeting tonight, not modern, more of a traditional bent.  But a lot of people there are doing modern and we may be hijacking the meeting!  LOL. 





These faces say Mom, we love you more than life itself....because you have your hand on the dog bone jar.

Mom Hires a Hit Man

I am going to kill him.

I have hired a hit man.

I am going have him killed.

This is so totally the last straw.

Herblets Planted and $60 Saved!

For the first part of the creation of the herb garden please click here. 

Parsley, rosemary, lemon thyme, basil, some sort of mint and Italian oregano.  And some lettuces.  Still need some lemon grass though. 

And lettuce.  I got three packs of assorted lettuce babies.


I went to two nurseries and priced herbs after lunch.  A bad lunch.  Well, a good lunch that was bad for me. California BLT, basically a BLT with avocado and my favorite onion rings.  Yes.....I ate onion rings today.

But I digress.  I priced the herbs I wanted at two nurseries at $3.50 and 4.39 for the same herbs at different places.  So when Dee called me to discuss a mutual dog cyst ailment and the drugs to treat said ailment, she said they were heading to the LSU Horticulture Club Spring Sale.

I headed out there figuring  the herbs would be somewhat cheaper, regardless.   I actually priced the same herbs at various prices throughout the Cow Palace at various booths.  All were cheaper, certainly.  I ended up at the booth asking $2 each for all my plants except for a pot of rosemary with three plants in it for $5.

Math......Cover your ears.

24 plants at average of $3.95 would be $94.80

and I paid $29 since she was getting ready to pick up and go home plus $5 for the rosemary at another booth plus $5 admission for each of us.  That was $44.

Saved myself $50!  Well, $50.82 plus all that tax!  Yay!

So I also had gotten some Vermiculite, thanks Suzette.  I  did need to put that in there.

I filled the pockets with EarthBound Soil mixed with the vermiculite and shoveled it into the pouches.

Then planted my little herblets.  They are so freakin' cute.

And stood back and admired the whole thing.  They looked infinitesimally small.  Hopefully they will grow larger.

We will see what grows and what doesn't.

And don't worry, the mint won't take over, the pockets are individually separated by that center rib.

I didn't realize that until I stated cuttin' the hardware cloth..........
Phase 1 ---------  COMPLETE

This is the view McGee and I have when we are sitting in our chairs watching the back yard go by

. 








My roses are doing well.  Two weeks ago I bought two knock out bushes and two new pots for the driveway.  Knock Out roses are disease free, resistant to bugs, heat tolerant, bloom all season.  Let's see if they love.  So far it seems they do.




 Today I also bought a Lantana bush for the Tufa Pot I made maybe 5 years ago.  Hypertufa is a sort of cement base pot you make in a variety of shapes and sizes.  Anything really.

A lot of artists like it because you can do so much with it as a medium.

I have several with moss growing on them.  This one was made in the bottom of a plastic tub.