Fall and Stuff

 Well, I think this Bats in the Belfry pattern has been waiting patiently for YEARS for me to get around to making it.  And, I really like it.  Bonus, I was able to use all stash fabrics.  The weird flowers are Bethany's Homecoming Court bouquet.  They're spooky just like my bats.

A few Saturdays ago, we learned to do a fancy embroidery stitch at The Applique Society. It's called twilling and is like little knots on top of the fabric.  I loved it and was able to finish it while I was waiting around for kids at their various Homecoming dance activities.  That's the great thing about applique and embroidery, you can take it anywhere.

 After making Bats in The Belfry, I decided to make a ribbon table runner for Halloween.  I tweeked the pattern I used for a similar one for the 4th of July.  I like this one much better.  It's fatter, and shorter.

And who doesn't need some halloween pot holders.

 The same Saturday that we had TAS, I also participated in a quilting sew-along thing.  It was a Jellyroll 1600 Race.  We had a lot of fun!  Everyone's turned out SO much cuter than mine.  Instead of buying a jellyroll, I made my own out of patriotic fabrics.  Then, at the last minute, I decided to use one of my gold strips as a connecting square in between the strips.  Well, there was only enough for a few.  Then my colors were clumped together.  On my last round, I had to rip out the seam and flip it topsy turvy because my gold squares were right on top of each other and there was a huge red blotch in the middle.  Ugh.  I was not impressed.  Then Alice says I should applique stars on it.  Brilliant!  So, once I added borders and a few stars, I like it much better.  Of course, as I was sewing the stars down with metallic gold thread, I ran out of thread on my second to last one.  Ugh.  Eventually it will be a Quilt of Valor.  When I get my act together.

I'd like to make another, I really liked the ones that were all one tone but had a light or dark square.  Chris Y. had beautiful pastels with a medium blue.  Alice had gorgeous florals with a med pink.  And Judy and Pat had super cute kid fabrics that were mostly one one in brights.  Katie had an all medium blue batik jellyroll that I think will be gorgeous.

Check it out!  Only one more block to go!  As I was trying to figure out the assembly and border instructions, I realized I'm missing page 3 of the instructions.  Which, apparently, has all the measurements.  I had just guessed on block size when I started.  Good thing I was right.  Yikes.  She's mailing me a copy of the missing page.

This is Sierra's Birthday cake.  She turned 14 on the 29th.  She wanted a chocolate cake with raspberry filling.  I found the decorating idea on pinterest and thought it was so pretty.  I made a double batch of frosting and it wasn't enough to cover the whole cake so I poured the rest of the filling on top.  That was Bethany's idea.

 So, I bought this cake stand because I've never had one and our cakes always sit out and dry up.  The kids won't cover anything with saran wrap.  So, I buy a cake stand with a dome.  Then I decorate the cake and there's too much frosting to fit under the dome!  I can't win.  And this cake is so rich, no one can eat it.

What the heck? I wanted a less stress New Year!

I have to admit that I've really loved having a 4 day weekend.  There wasn't anywhere for me to taxi the kids to, no holiday to prepare for, just a few days to decompress.  Very nice.  However, the New Year didn't start as stress free as I would have liked.  All the crazy things that were happening on the 1st, (flood in the basement, migraine, Ram's sucking, treadmill broke, car steering going bonkers again), ended up to be non-problems in the long run.  Well, except for Rich having a massive reaction to the cat dander in our treadmill when he tried to take it apart to fix it.  His skin was crawling and his eyes were swelling.  Then he started getting this weird droopy eye thing going.  By the way, the treadmill still only goes 1 or 7.  If I'm going to look on the bright side of things, I can just be grateful for a free excuse not to work out.

In my last blog, I left out a few things I had done in Nov.  The cupcake is from an office baby shower just before Thanksgiving.  I thought they were super cute:)


The quilt is something I made for my niece-in-law in Chicago.  She had a friend that loves Eeyore and needed a birthday gift.  I turned the Y into Eeyore's tail.  I thought it was a stroke of genius, personally.  I hope they liked it as much as I did.


For the life of me, I can't figure out how to move pictures around on this blog so that they look decent.  This is my Twisted Mystery 2011.  I started it last January and we were supposed to meet once a month to make this quilt.  For one reason or another, it seemed like I never got to meet with them or work on the quilt.  I spent several hours finishing the star blocks below the other day. 

I wanted so badly to finish this whole thing.  What can I say, I'm a finisher.  It was like torture for me to sit and work on it.  It's just so repetitive.  So I decided to cut myself some slack and stopped for awhile.  I've still got the Flippin' Flowers and Mist something or another blocks before I can stop.

Above is my latest Quilt of Valor.  All that is left is to have it quilted, bound and labeled.  This took me about 3 or 4 months.  Again, repetitive.  Couldn't handle it for long periods.

Then, just because I could, I started my spool quilt.  A few months ago, my guild had a fabric strip exchange.  I put them to use yesterday & made the spools.  There are about 42, I think.  Each stack has about 6 of the same colored spools.  Now that they're done, I wish I'd had more of the jewel tones.  The green and turquoise are super cool.

And, that is all she wrote.  Happy New Year!

Busy, busy week for a fabric addict!

I'm calling this my Pride & Prejudice quilt. The colors are really similar to the Bennett house in my favorite movie. The bird fabric & some of the coordinates were a gift from my Secret Pal :D I can't wait to find out if she knew that I already had the flower fabric or if it was a happy accident! I was also able to use several of the tools that my Secret Pal from last year gave me. It's great to have friends! (I can't figure out how to format the text & pictures to go where I want them.)

We had the Christmas in July sale at Sweet Annie's this week. And, this is what happens when you send me to a quilt shop everyday for a week...

It's been Christmas in July in more ways than one. My oldest son, Hunter, is restoring a '61 Chevy Apache truck. For Christmas, we got him the wood to re-do the truck bed. We needed to have someone who knew what they were doing finish the wood. Rich's co-worker did a beautiful job! So, I made a Navy quilt for him as a Thank You.