Happy Birthday Hubby!!

Happy Birthday Rob, I love you!!



As I was going through all the pictures I have of Hubby I realized something....he is half naked most of the time lol. Since it is always hot here in Florida Hubby and Robbie walk around shirtless most days. The only time they are fully dressed is if we go out somewhere. Then they are both stripping as they walk in the door. I told Rob we needed to get some nice photos of all of us fully dressed. A family photo would be nice too. I don't see it happening any time soon though. Guess I will have to learn PhotoShop.

Perfect Purse

sorry about the glare but the weather has been weird here

I receive weekly emails from Lion Brand Yarn. Last week I received their latest newsletter and saw their crochet pattern Perfect Purse.  I love the lacy look so I had to give it a try.

I didn't bother to line this since the main part is done in single crochet. The top portion needs to be blocked but I love the look.

More swapping going on here

Over at YOE the theme for July was snails. My partner this month was Jenny from The Red Bulletin Board. She sent me some lovely goodies this month. A couple packets of tea that Hubby and I are going to try out soon, my snail ornie and a fun journal. I love how she made the snail on the journal cover from a swirlie sticker. Isn't he cute?

Here is the little snail. He's so cute :)

Table cloth progress

I've been slowly working on Tammy's table cloth. As you may have noticed I prefer bright colors for myself so it has been different working with these colors. They do remind me of Fall ~ which is just around the corner.  Plus, I hear Christmas is 5 months away. Yikes!

PotHolders

I joined a potholder swap over at Aunt Pitty Pat's.  It's been a busy swap month for me.

My partner for this swap was Melinda.  I was going to use these selvages for day purses but never got around to finishing them. They have been sitting next to my sewing machine for awhile now waiting for me to decide what to use for handles.

I happen to glance down at them the other day and realized they would be perfect for potholders. There are selvages on both sides of all three. They may not be the standard potholder size but I like my potholders a bit longer than the ones you can buy at the store.

When I was flipping the potholders over to get a pic of the other side I accidentally snapped a picture. I love this shot.

Birdie swap

I was in NoodleBubble's Birdie Swap this month. This is the wonderful package of goodies I received from Ngaire. I love the birdie in the cage. Ngaire made some gorgeous birdie cards for me also. If you are a swap partner with me in the future you just might receive one of these beautiful cards.

Orange Sorbet

This month's Schnibble was Joy Luck. I had some orange fat quarters and decided to use them on this project.

I made my rectangles larger and used my Go! to cut them and the 2.5" black squares. I also put mine together sideways 'cuz that's how I roll (quilt) lol.

It's hard to tell in this picture but I used bright orange thread to quilt it. I love how the orange thread pops out.

The back, binding, and sashing are all the same fabric. It looks like an orange camouflage.

I actual managed to get this one posted in my shop.

January's Schnibble was Madeline....

I was way too busy in January to even think of making it. This month I had some time to whip up a smaller version.

I skipped the setting triangles because I always struggle with them and I didn't feel like fussing with it right now. With this fabric and layout, Madeline isn't even recognizable. Leave it to me to take a perfectly good pattern and change it all up.

I will use this little beauty on a small side table as a table topper. Perfect size for the top of a little filing cabinet I have. I have officially made a Schnibble each month for the Year of Schnibbles. I feel much better now :)

Quilts For Kids

I finished another Quilt For Kids project.

Love the frogs on this one.

Lookie what I won!

I participated in Loft Creations string quilt challenge. I was one of the lucky winners and one these fabulous prizes from Simone. The picture does not do them justice. I love the bags!  Strip bags are fun. They let you use bits of your favorite fabric without using it all up at once. The quilt pattern looks fun, not sure when I will get around to making it though.

Little things

Not too much happening around here lately. I did finish up a couple little projects though.

This poor little bird was supposed to be a bit rounder but I missed an increase row so now he is tall and long instead of short and fat. I've done that several times in past projects.

I love the eyes on this little snail :)

This turkey pin cushion was supposed to be a flower wrist pincushion. I made the circle too big. When I started to put him together I realized because of the fabrics it looked like a turkey instead of a flower so I added the face. I think he came out kind of cute though.

Our weather

The weather here in Florida can seem strange sometimes. We have been having lots of rain storms. The weather guys say we are seeing some tropical storms coming through. Lots o big booms and power outages. I'll take these over hurricanes any day though.

We noticed this storm coming through the other day. This is the view from my back door.

I love watching the rain fall especially when it isn't right over my house.

Someone is getting a heck of a storm. See how smart I am? I keep the slip n slide stuff under the dome. It only takes once chasing it around the block before I come up with a simple solution. lol

While the storm was brewing in the back yard, this is what I saw out the front door. Beautiful sky out front. No matter how long we live here (28 years) I will always love the thrill of watching it rain in the street but not in our yard.

Local Fire

This is the scary sight I saw on Tuesday. I was out front and saw some black clouds. I went out back to see what was going on and saw that there was a fire a couple streets over. Knowing the area I knew it was unfortunately someone's house.

The flames were shooting way up. You could tell the fireman were having a difficult time getting the fire under control. There is a video about it from one of our local news stations. We found out later that an older gentleman was cooking in his garage and somehow started a fire. Chances are he was deep frying something.

Unfortunately it looks like the house is completely destroyed.  The owner spent a day in the hospital. He burnt his hands and bottom of his feet. Most people don't wear shoes for most of the year down here. The house might have been able to be saved if we had enough firefighters to battle the fire. With all the budget cuts we have been having lately there wasn't enough firefighters available. The firefighters that did make it were having a very hard time dealing with the fire and the heat. Our heat index is over 100 right now. The firefighters were having to go into the ambulance to sit in the AC and receive IV fluids to battle heat exhaustion and dehydration. Those guys are just amazing. I don't think they always get the respect they deserve.

Samoan Stars

I haven't found my MoJo yet but I think I am getting closer. I've just been feeling a bit off lately.  Nothing serious just not feeling motivated. I have been doing a bit of sewing each day though. I think part of my problem is spending too much time on the laptop. I spend way too much time reading blogs. I use Bloglines and it tells you how many blogs you are reading...449!! Way too many to keep up on. I have been going through and deleting blogs. I found some that people haven't posted on their blogs since 2008, others since February 2010, and any time in between. Those are now gone. The rest were harder to decide whether to keep or not. I have several favorite blogs that I would never think about getting rid of. The ones I know I comment on each time they post were kept. I managed to whittle my list down to 168. I still have a bunch to go through and decide whether to keep up with them or not. I'm hoping to get my list down to 100 or less. We'll see how well that goes lol.

I'm still working on my Samoan Stars during break times at work. I bought some orange fabric yesterday and decided to put some on the design wall under the stars to see how they look. This piece is a one yard piece. As an estimate I can figure that if I do a total of 9 of these 1 yard "blocks" than I will have enough for a king size quilt. So if I make a total of  450 stars (plus the connecting diamonds) I should be OK. Yea, that's alot lol. I'm still thinking that the yellow will be the right color for the connecting diamonds. Next time I might try them out on grey though just in case they look good on grey.

Gnomes

Over at the Year of Enchantments June was the month of Gnomes. I made my partner the two gnomes in the bottom left of the picture and the gnome banner. Gary the Gnome in the middle stayed home with me. You can read how he spent his 4th over at the Swapper Spot.

Happy Birthday Mariah

Today is our Granddaughter Mariah's 12th birthday. Like any other preteen, Mariah loves High School Musical. I found this fabric and there was just enough to make a pillow case for her. I had this lime green fabric that I wanted to use for the band but of course it has "disappeared" somewhere in the stash. I guess it didn't want to be part of a pillowcase.

Another quilt checked off the to do list

Bright Baby has been quilted and bound. I used a bright orange thread to meander around the quilt. I love how the orange pops. Of course you probable won't be able to see it in this pic.

It has a bright and scrappy binding and fun froggies on the back. I really like this quilt.

Lost my sewing mojo...have you seen it?

*** I'm featured over at Stitchin' Heaven today. WooHoo!!  Pop on over and say Hi ****

I can't seem to find my sewing mojo. It has got up and gone all of a sudden. I have a few projects I can work on and several more I would love to start but I'm not "feeling" them at all. Oh well. I have "forced" myself to sew a bit each day hoping to get back in the groove.

This is the mini quilt I made for the July door prize for the YOE swap. It's a Michael Miller fabric panel.

The back is a red with white polka dots....

I also made the last two blocks for the Patchwork Posse quilt along.

We just received the instructions for the background fabric and finishing instructions. I need to get going on this so I can call it done.

Off to go force myself to do some more sewing. HoHum.....

BackPack tested

During my 3 day holiday weekend I did get one project done. I made an owl backpack from the pattern I am testing for Katie.

I love this owl fabric. I made this bag from the stash. It still needs the little drawstring clamp but other than that it is complete.  I need to find somewhere I can buy bunches of the clamps because I plan on making many more of these.

It was a great pattern to work from. Katie did a really good job with it. I use my back pack all the time now and it works out really well. I can put it on my back and not worry about a purse slipping from my shoulders while I am shopping. It is also roomy enough to take a project in when I'm at the doctor's office. I had a knitting project in it and there was plenty of room for the needles and skein of yarn.

Mail Call

I hope everyone had a terrific weekend! My weekend was spent shopping, cooking, watching the backyard fireworks and a little bit of sewing.  Not as much sewing as I had hoped for but I did get to work on a couple things.

I won this fun pear fabric from Craft Passion  last month. Spoonflower had some printing troubles so it took a bit for it to arrive. From a distance the pears look like water droplets so I plan on making a water bottle holder out of this fat quarter.


I also received a surprise package from Di that had two aprons inside.

This first one reminds me of when I was younger. I remember seeing these brown checks all over the house. There were tablecloths, napkins, and placemats.

The second one is just adorable!

Look at these cute Dutch (?) people. Aren't those mushrooms cute?


Thanks Di and Joanne for some great packages!

*****Happy Fourth of July *****

I hope everyone is having a great Fourth of July weekend!

I work every other weekend and was lucky that this is my scheduled weekend off. Plus, my boss said they don't need me on Monday so now I have a three day weekend. WooHoo!! I plan on spending it with the kids and Hubby. We are going to cook out all weekend and then light off fireworks Sunday night. From where we live we can also see a few of the big firework displays from the nearby cities. Unfortunately, Ft. Myers (the nearby city) didn't have the funds to purchase fireworks this year. They had one of the better displays too. Plus, we could sit at the end of our driveway and see them really well. Just another sign of the times.


I will also be spending as much time as possible with my sewing machine. I have several projects that need to be finished.

While out shopping this weekend I will be carrying my new backpack purse. I won this fun bag from Katie recently. This is a bag she designed. Isn't it great?

I love this paper pieced Uncle Sam on the flap! Katie has been preparing this pattern for a book she is working on. I asked her about purchasing the pattern but unfortunately since it will be in a book she cannot sell the individual pattern. But, she was looking for a pattern tester and asked if I would be interested. Of course I am!! I will be testing this pattern this weekend. It looks like it will be a fun bag to make in different fabrics.  The flap is such a great canvas to put all kinds of fun things on. I was thinking it would be fun to put some quilt block designs on it.