Look Ma, No Fingers!

Ok, that's probably not a very good title for a post, but I bet it got your attention, didn't it lol?  I find that many times in the winter time, my hands are cold but the rest of me is fine.  I've always thought I should get some fingerless gloves, but never got around to actually doing it.  When I was in Hobby Lobby a month or so ago, I found a free pattern for some really cute crocheted fingerless gloves.  Score!  I've seen patterns before, but they were always knitting patterns.  Since I don't know how to knit, this posed a problem.

I pulled out the pattern last week along with some cool twisted yarn that I had found at the Humane Society thrift store many moons ago.  It looked like it would work perfectly and I was right.  After a test run and making some modifications to the pattern to accommodate the yarn weight, I was on my way and had the first glove done pretty quickly.  The second went even faster since I wasn't trying to modify and adjust as I went along like I was with the first one.  The pattern called for cuffs, but I left those off because I liked them just the way they were without the cuffs.

So here are my new fingerless gloves, which I am actually wearing as I type this.  I have two more colors of the twisted yarn left, so I think I'm going to make a couple more pairs.  As a side note, I found it very difficult to try and take a picture of my hand while holding the camera with the other hand!

And of course the felines are still around and keeping me entertained.  I got a couple of pictures this past week.  After two years of watching the other two go up on the plant shelves, Echo finally figured it out a month or so ago and now it is favorite past time.  So here are the boys up on a perch overseeing us girls down below.  I have vaulted ceilings, so they are about 8 or 9 feet up.



And Sassy looked so cute sleeping on the bed yesterday that I had to take a picture.  The first picture is the first picture I took and the second is after she covered her eyes and begged me to stop taking her picture cause she needed her beauty sleep lol.

Hope everyone is keeping their stress to a minimum as they get ready for Christmas.  I am flying north on Sunday for about ten days.  I am all packed except for toiletries so way ahead of schedule.  Half the stuff packed is either Christmas gifts or extra towels I'm transporting since we are hosting Christmas and are a bit short in that department.  I had a set of brand new ones down here, so it seemed silly to buy more up there if I could just bring these.  Thanks to space saver bags, I was able to fit them in.  I put Scott's quilt in one of the bags too, so that is also in my suitcase, along with my hand mixer, some food items I am taking, a pinking shears, and some large pocket knives that Scott bought at Cabala's while he was here for Thanksgiving.  I would love to see what TSA does with all of that!  I hope they don't mess up my stuff too much.  It is perfectly packed right now so everything fits.

As I was previewing this post, I heard the birds scatter outside and looked out to see this guy on the wall.  Guess he wanted breakfast too.











Cutting Corners...

No, not as in short cutting.  But rather as adding the final piece to each of the cute little batik string blocks I have been making.  As part of my batik stash, I have stack of 5 inch charm squares that I have purchased over the years.  They aren't die cut so they need to be trimmed in some manner prior to using them.  Which makes them perfect for my project. 

When I got to the final corner pieces for my string blocks, if the corner was too large to use one of my short strings, I found a coordinating charm square and whacked a triangle off the corner.  And soon I had a pile that looked like this:

Shortly thereafter, I had 28 more finished blocks.  Only a bazillion more to go lol.

And a closeup:

Batiks and strings are two of my favorite things, so I am love, love, loving working on these blocks!





 

New Project!

I have had a bag of bright batik strings saved for quite some time to use to make 5 inch string blocks.  I had fifteen foundations cut and ready to go, so I finally pulled out the strings to get started.  Unfortunately, they had been in the bag so long that they all needed to be pressed before I could even start with the sewing.  Sassy helped with the pressing lol.

Finally the sewing commenced and it didn't take long before I had fifteen cute little blocks pieced and trimmed.

And below are the trimmings from those blocks.  Which I didn't save for pet bed stuffing, or for any other reason.  Go me!  I didn't even pull out the "big" pieces that would have been perfect for crumb blocks lol.  Maybe I have finally been reformed from trying to use every little piece and can now throw away trimmings like these with no guilt.  I'm thinking the prospect of moving in less than six months is probably helping in that regard lol.



After making these blocks, I decided that a  bed sized quilt made with these little blocks would look fabulous, so now I only need about 273 more blocks by my calculations lol.  I've cut more foundations and strings, all from my batik stash, so I'm ready to go as soon as I can get back to my sewing machine.





Scott's Quilt is Done!

Scott's quilt is done and awaiting only the label, so well ahead of schedule for Christmas.  My quilter did a great job with the quilting and I am thrilled with how it turned out.

Before our weather suddenly turned cold, we had a few days that were in the high 70's/low 80's.  The felines spent some time at the open front door enjoying that weather.







A Good Mail Day!

Last week when I noticed that Connecting Threads had put their Essentials thread sets on sale for 40% off, I ordered two of the neutral sets, as well as the black/gray set.  While I was shopping, I also found a book that looked fabulous based on the preview pictures and the price was right at less than $13.  All that put me 5 cents shy of $50 for free shipping.  Yes, 5 CENTS.  So I ordered a half yard of a batik as I've heard great things about Connecting Threads fabrics, but had never tried them. 

Today my box arrived.  The threads are wonderful, the batik fabric is awesome, and the book is even better than expected.  A few weeks back I also bought Carrie Nelson's second Schnibbles book when I was placing an order off of Amazon so I threw that into the picture too.  Oh, and my issue of the latest American Patchwork and Quilting finally arrived today.  I was getting antsy after seeing it on several other blogs.  It is a good issue, but I only found a couple of quilts that I'd like to make.  I did enjoy reading the contribution by Thelma of Cupcakes 'n Daisies blog fame and her quilt is amazing!



Thanksgiving Engagement!

Yes, it's true.  Scott (previously known as "S" lol) came down to spend Thanksgiving with me and he proposed on Thanksgiving Day.  It was perfect and of course I said yes.  I spent enough years in a wrong relationship to know when I am in the right one.  He was here through Monday and it was just the greatest Thanksgiving weekend I've ever had.  We had to tell the kids over the phone and they are thrilled, as are our families who thought we should have never broken up in the first place lol. 

We are planning a June 2012 wedding in Sedona when he and the kids come down to help me move back to ND.  It sounds like all of our immediate family will also be coming down to attend, so that will be nice.  Small and intimate is what we are going for.

Here is a picture of us at Zoolights at the Phoenix Zoo on Thanksgiving night.





Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe Thanksgiving!  S flew in on Tuesday and we are enjoying what will likely be my last warm Thanksgiving.  For awhile at least.  I am keeping my Phoenix house so it would be a possibility to come down, but I can't imagine that I would skip Thanksgiving with family just to be in warmer climate.



A Flurry of Finishes!

I have had a very productive weekend and managed to finish up a few projects that have been hanging around for awhile.  The first finish was this Friendship Star wall hanging, which was one of the quilts that I made in my beginning quilting class in, ahem, 2001.

And the back.  If you enlarge the picture, you can see the quilting outline of the stars on the front.

This afternoon I finished up this ornament while I was watching the Bears game.  S and two of his sons are huge Bears fans and I don't get to see many games down here since I pretty much only have the main network stations, but today's game was on Fox, so I was able to watch.  Our AZ Cardinals pulled out a come from behind win over the Eagles too, so good job to them.  Please excuse the wrinkles in the ornament.  I didn't take time to iron it before taking a picture.

The other thing I finished during the game was this cat mat for the shelter that was started on one of my airplane rides this summer.

I actually have some feline pictures to post as well.  First I have Tyrone testing out S's quilt.  I got the binding attached by machine this weekend, and also did the same for Chocolate Covered Cherries, so now I can work on the hand stitching as I am watching Christmas movies.

Sassy was sleeping yesterday all curled into a tight little ball.  If you look closely, you can see her little foot tucked behind her shoulder.  Cats are so flexible!

And finally, here is Echo being his usual dorky self.  I have been going through the contents of some of the drawers in my rolling sewing cart and Echo took advantage of finding one empty and decided to take a nap in it.  As you can see, he's a little too big, but that didn't seem to bother him lol.

And I had to add this final pic.  What are the chances?  No, not of having your bobbin run out, but having it run out when you are exactly at the end of attaching a long binding to a quilt.  That is what happened to me yesterday when I attached the binding to Chocolate Covered Cherries.  I hit the thread cutter, pulled the quilt out, saw the empty bobbin, and thought oh, no, I have been sewing without bobbin thread for who knows how long.  But lo and behold, the binding was attached all the way to the end.  Amazing.

Back From the Quilter and Echo Approved!

I was back in ND the last couple weeks of October working on the house some more and seeing family.  It was a great trip and I have been accumulating pictures for some blog posts with before and after photos of what we have done so far with the house.  Guess I should probably finally post those for my bedroom down here too since I completely forgot about that.  A sneak peek of the bed and one of the lamps is in the picture below.

When I got back from my trip, S's quilt was ready for pickup from my long arm quilter, so here it is, all quality control tested by Echo and ready for trimming and binding.  I am hoping to get the trimming done yet today and the binding attached by machine.  The binding is made, so I should be able to get that done.  I want to start sewing it down while I watch the new Christmas movie on the Hallmark channel tonight.  I just love that channel during the holidays.  It seems to have the best movies.  In my opinion anyway :-).

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yes, it is my birthday today...43 years old.  I have a thing about the number 3, I hate it, so I told S that I may just tell people that I'm 44 for two years and skip 43 lol.  As a little birthday gift to myself, I bought these yummy batiks from Jackie during her sale last weekend.

Of course I had help with them when I started getting them ready to wash.

Echo simply moved to the pile once I pulled the pieces out from under him that he was laying on in the above picture.

On an unrelated feline note, I have an orange and white cat that has started coming around, usually in the back yard. He drinks out of the pool and hangs out a bit from time to time.  This morning I was laying in bed when I heard the most awful sound.  It was cool outside so the windows were open and apparently Echo and Tyrone were looking out the front window when the orange and white cat showed up outside the window.  To say that Tyrone wasn't happy to see him would be an understatement!

Panels, Books, Patterns & one Kit for Sale

The paring down begins, even if it is only a tiny baby step.  I figure if I start now, I might be about 50% ready to move by the time the move date arrives next June.  I thought I'd put these things on my blog for a bit first before heading over to Ebay or Etsy. 

So here's what I've got for this round.  I have a number of panels, a number of books, a few patterns and one kit.  Prices do not include shipping.  All items are new, in excellent condition, except for one small exception noted below, and they are from a smoke free home.  You already know this isn't a pet free home, but none of these items were harmed in any way by the felines that live here lol.

Please email me at pawsntailsquilts@gmail.com if interested in any of the items.  Thanks for looking!

Monster Machines Panel from Northcott - $5.00 (SOLD)

Jungle Animals Panel - $5.00 (SOLD)

Whimsical Workshop Panel by Heidi Pridemore - $4.00 - note, the upper left hand wrench has a small cut in it

Fabriholics Forever Panel from Moda - $5.00 (SOLD)

With All my Heart panel for Marcus Brothers - $5.00



True Friends by Nancy Halvorsen - $10.00

Shadow Quilts - $10.00

In The Studio With Judy Murrah - $5.00

Quick Cozy Flannel Quilts - $5.00

Garden Club Quilts - $10.00

Scrap Happy Quick-Pieced Scrap Quilts by Sally Schneider - $10.00

Easy Applique by BH&G - $5.00

From the Heart quilts to cherish - $10.00

Turtle Party - includes 2 patterns - $4.00

Candy Hearts pattern - $4.00

Tulips kit - $20.00

Checkerboard Chickens - $4.00





Sassy Strikes Again!

Yes, Sassy has managed to break something else.  This time it was my ancient blender with a real glass container, not the plastic ones you get now days.  You can about guess what kind of mess that made when it met up with the ceramic tile.  She managed to get the thing, which probably weighed as much as she does, all the way from the back of the counter to the front and off the edge.  Here is what part of the floor looked like (you can't see the pile of crushed glass under the counter) and what the pitcher looks like now.

It's a good thing she's so cute or she would be looking for a new home!  Just kidding.  Really :-).