My Latest Project

I have been in crochet mode lately, which is good since I seem to be spending a lot of time watching football these days and I can crochet while I watch :-).  I have a lot of cotton yarn on hand from my dishcloth crocheting and have also just bought a bunch of new colors that have come out since the last time I went cotton yarn shopping.  I just can't resist the fun little balls of color lol. 

I am not interested in making more dishcloths at the moment and in fact probably need to sell some of the stockpile I have, so what to do with all of this yarn?  Well, I decided to make an afghan using some of the dishcloths I already had made and then filling in the rest with more dishcloths (squares) made from some of the new colors as well as yarn I had on hand.  I wish I could say that I used more of my stash yarn than new yarn bought, but I would be lying.  So this is my progress on my "dishcloth" afghan. 

I know it is not the norm to use cotton yarn for afghans because it is a little heavier, but I always get a little sad when these beautiful colors are used in dishcloths that get dirty and fade over time.  This way I can look at them and enjoy them while sitting under my afghan :-).  Dodger helped me some too lol. 



He is such a good kitty.  Very playful, but loving too.  We are very lucky that he found us.  Here is another cute picture of him on my office chair.

And don't forget that free shipping continues at My Very Own Quilt Shop through 10/21.  Use coupon code BDAY2012.

http://www.myveryownquiltshop.com/



Free Shipping and Meet Dodger

Free shipping continues through 10/21 at

http://myveryownquiltshop.com/

Use coupon code BDAY2012 to get the discount.

And one lucky customer will get this extra bonus in their package:

Just kidding!!!!  I am pleased to introduce you to Dodger, our latest feline addition. Dodger became my unplanned birthday present when my husband found him running in his youngest son's school parking lot on Friday.  He was dodging cars (successfully) so that's how he got his name.  He went to the vet yesterday and tested negative for diseases but does have a bad case of ear mites and worms.  He is a total sweetheart and hasn't been any trouble at all so I guess we are now officially a five cat household.  Yikes.

My Very Own Quilt Shop is open for business!

My Very Own Quilt Shop is finally open for business!  To celebrate our opening as well as my birthday tomorrow, we are offering free shipping from now through next Sunday, October 21, 2012.  Enter coupon code BDAY2012 to get the discount.

If you are a batik lover, please check out our large selection of Anthology Batiks for only $9.75/yard.

Happy Shopping!

http://myveryownquiltshop.com/

Making Progress!

Well, I didn't get the quilt shop open by September 1st, but I am making progress!  All of the fabric has arrived and I am working on getting all of the information for each bolt on the website.  That is a tedious, time consuming task for sure.  As a reward for taking care of the tedious tasks, I have gotten to remove the plastic from all of the bolts and to fondle all of that gorgeous fabric.  So yummy!!!

As I opened each bolt I also cut a strip off the end to create a clean edge for cutting orders.  These are the same cutoffs that I used to buy from one of my Phoenix shops, so of course I saved them.  My initial plan was for a string quilt, but then I came up with an even better plan.  I have always wanted to make a Snails Trail/Virginia Reel quilt, so I found a paper piecing foundation on the web and I am going to use these scraps to paper piece the blocks.  I shrunk the foundation to just over 4 inches so these will be little blocks that should really sparkle with the batiks.

Here is the basket of cutoffs from the bolts:

And the strips all sorted by light and dark after washing:

And here are some previews of the fabric I will have for sale in the shop.  Please ignore the extraneous boxes, etc.  This room is also my personal quilting studio and office for my CPA business and I am still unpacking :-).

The shelves were already built in when we bought the house and are perfect for holding the bolts.  I had a wish list for the house, but shelves to accommodate a quilt shop inventory was definitely not on the list lol.  God is so good!  He knows what we need even if we don't :-).



Married!

I have been such a delinquent blogger the last six months it's not even funny.  But I did get through tax season, packed up my house in AZ and moved to ND, and got married between the two.  Woo hoo!  The wedding and move went perfectly and I am slowly getting settled in ND.  So many things to change and get set up, but I am slowly working through the list of to do's.  I think I will be done about December 31st lol.  I hope so anyway!  Oh, and my new hubby is using his web and IT skills to help me start an online quilt shop out of our home.  The initial fabric shipment arrived this week, so I must get to that too.  But that will be fun work and I am very excited about it.  We hope to have the shop up and running by Sept 1.

Given the list of to do's, this post will be short, but I wanted to check in and let you all know that I am still alive and to post a few pics from the wedding.  It was a truly fabulous day and we had such a good time :-).  And having our families there with us was an added bonus that we didn't expect when we originally decided to get married in Sedona.  Also, I want to point out that these are all amateur shots taken by family that were at the wedding and the first two were taken by Scott's sons - the 9 year old took the first one and the 11 year old took the second one.  They got some great shots!

Scott & I with Cathedral Rock in the background:

After the ceremony at our creek side location:



Dad walking me down the "aisle" (i.e. the path lol).  You really had to watch your step!:



My guys all waiting for me to arrive:

Oak Creek with Cathedral Rock in the background:

My stepmother, sister and me before leaving the hotel for the ceremony:

What I've Done This Past Week

Scott and I flew back from ND on the 30th.  Since then, I've bought this to accommodate my new expanding family:



I've sold this:

I drove to Tucson to select and buy this:



And we spent a day in Sedona meeting with the minister and selecting this area for our wedding site.  We will get married in June on this little beach right along Oak Creek.



Further up the creek and closer to Cathedral Rock:

And then I took a nap all day yesterday.  Not really, but I wish I had because I'm exhausted!  I certainly haven't been quilting, but I did wash all the new fabric I had acquired over the last month or so and did manage to get unpacked from the trip by the time I had been home for 4 days.

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.