Waaaayy Too Much Stuff---Crumby Giveaway

I spent an entire day rearranging my sewing room. It needed a thorough deep cleaning and that meant pulling furniture out from the walls. Since I had to wrestle with the shelves and cutting table and all that, I figured I might as well try a new arrangement. I'm a re-arranger at heart. When I was a kid, it used to drive my Mom crazy 'cause I was forever moving the furniture around. Dear Honey is used to it after all these years. He never knows where his favorite chair will be. He doesn't really mind; just so it has a good view of the TV.

What I discovered (I actually already knew it) in my cleaning frenzy was that I have way too much stuff. I don't mind the unfinished quilt tops or the folders full of magazine clippings. I don't mind the yards & yards of fabric or the bins of strips and squares. I love all the books and patterns I've collected. The stuff that bothers me is the dozens of containers with partially done blocks and abandoned projects. I've been working on some of it. There were a few string blocks in a baggie. They are now a top.


It's kinda small but I needed to make 8 more blocks to add another row of those diamond things down one side and there was no way I wanted to do that! I'm not real fond of making string blocks. I made these on phone book pages and ripping that paper off is a real pain. That's the last of these babies.The leftovers will go into the back. I still have to tackle the crumb blocks. There must be 60 4.5" blocks and several containers with crumb fabric ready to be cut into squares. In fact, if anyone would like those blocks, you are welcome to them. I've already used hundreds in several crumb quilts. I'd love to pass these on to someone who wants them. Leave me a comment if you'd like them and I'll send them off the next time I get into town.

This morning I started in on a plastic lettuce container full of bonus triangles. I have 3 containers full of these things. Some are as big as 2.5" but some are ridiculously small. I've always wanted to make a basket quilt. I used a few of those bonus triangles to test a basket block pattern. I've only made one so far.



Isn't it cute? I probably spent 2 hours at least on this one little block. Now that I've got the measurements all figured out I'm hoping the next one will go faster.

A little package showed up in my mailbox yesterday.



Esther, one of my fabric swap partners from the Red & White Snowball Challenge, sent me a valentine and adorable red jeweled pins. Thank you so much, Esther. What a sweet and thoughtful surprise. You made my day.

It's been snowing steadily for several hours. I'm sure glad I made a grocery run yesterday. We are provisioned for the rest of the week. And yesterday I finally caved in and joined Netflix so there are movies winging their way to my mailbox at this very moment. I just may get Mulligan Stew with Orange Zest quilted by the end of the week.

This and That

So...is it snowing at your house? It seems like winter is hitting everyone hard this year from east to west. It's been alternating between rain and snow out here at the barn so we have constant slush. Good news is our power has stayed on. That means I've been sewing. Remember that scrappy quilt I started right before I escaped to the coast on vacation? I got the piano key border on before I left.



Then, when I got home, I set to work piecing a bunch of old, unloved fat quarters and chunks of random fabric into a queen sized back. I spray basted this baby in the house since it was raining outside. What a chore!! I've gotten spoiled using my ping pong table out on the deck. I had to use my cutting table in the sewing room. This involved taping edges, clamping, spraying and smoothing, untaping, unclamping, shifting unwieldy layers, re-clamping and taping, more spraying and smoothing. Sheesh...it took me hours. Then I turned on my computer to take a break and catch up on all the doings in blogland. Chris left me a comment that alerted me to a mistake she had spotted.



Oh, Nooooo! Do I fix it? I thought about it for a couple of days. In the end I decided that it isn't worth the effort to correct my boo boo. Chris is a "no-reply" commenter so I feel bad that I can't reply personally and thank her and explain why I've decided not to fix the mistake. So I will just confess here in public that I'm lazy and perfection is definitely not one of my traits. I'm going to leave it there as a reminder to double check the layout before I baste my tops. Once it's basted there's no going back for me. It's onward to the quilting and get the thing done and on my bed!

One more photo before I go fix dinner. This is for you, Lori. Buttered Toast, the second little quilt I made my over zealous cutting and sewing while joining in on your Cheddar Cheese quilt along.



This is my first attempt I named Butter Cubes.



I know they look pretty much alike but they really are different. Cubes is larger and each has different cheddars and borders.


Butter Cubes


Buttered Toast

I love them both.

Pizza and salad for dinner. Quick and easy.

Hugs for Illene

Lyn at Bluebird Quilts is putting together a quilt for Illene, a sister quilter. Illene's daughter is seriously ill and they could use some hugs to help them through a tough time. Since they live halfway around the world, it's not easy to put my arms around them but it's a simple thing to make some cheery 9 patches and send them off to Lyn. My little 9-patches can represent my hugs and will join others to become a quilt and send a big hug from around the world to Illene and her daughter. Perhaps you would like to send a 9-patch to Lyn, too. Just click on Lyn's link for all the details.

A Timely Escape

Yes, I've been missing of late. Dear Honey and I took another holiday (we love our timeshares!) Since airplane travel has lost every last bit of the glamour and fun it once held, we travel more often by car these days. There are advantages to car trips, not the least of which is that one can take along anything and everything one might possibly need including tweezers, nail clippers, corkscrews and bottles larger than 3 oz. of various liquids with which to make adult refreshments around mid-afternoon. Not to mention small libraries of reading material and sharp objects or bladed implements used for quilting that the Office of Homeland Security considers erstwhile components that could be assembled into weapons of mass destruction. And auto travel places no extra fees on additional baggage. If I can cram it into the car it goes along.

There is a limit to how far we are willing to haul our carload of stuff, however, so our destinations are much closer to home then they used to be. This time the destination was Carmel, California. This scenic spot on the coast isn't new to us. We were here last year about the same time. I posted about that trip and how the idylic weather was a welcome respite from the freezing temperatures at home. This time Mom Nature wasn't so kind. The storms that pounded the western US came ashore with a direct hit on Carmel. Still, it was a blissfull week, sitting in front of a wood burning fireplace, sipping my wine and reading a good book while the lightning flashed and the wind howled. All the while snow was piling up back home at the barn. So, when my brother called with an offer of a few days at his timeshare at San Luis BayInn that he wasn't going to use, we decided to postpone our return home and extend our getaway for another week.

It is a lovely old inn on the hillside above Avila Bay on the central coast. The sun came out and the elephant seals came ashore about an hour up the coast to give birth.




These fascinating mammals are only found in two spots on our Pacific Coast and have been threatened by development and polution from oil drilling in past decades. They are making a comeback with protection from the state. There are Americans who feel the ecomomic benefits of drilling for oil in Pacific waters far outweigh the very possible extinction of species other than ourselves, especially one that doesn't offer any business opportunity. I disagree. It saddens me that so many in our country equate everything to dollars. Some things can't be valued by the almighty dollar. Some things must be done just because it is the right thing to do regardless of the cost. Sometimes we stand to loose too much of the quality of our lives if all our focus is on economic prosperity.

These creatures are not particularly attractive by our human standards. This fellow is a perfect example of what the female elephant seal finds most appealing in a mate.



The ladies love him. His harem is several dozen of the more desirable females.

These charmers are more my taste.


I got my grandbaby fix with a short visit on the way home to the snow covered mountains.

While we enjoyed the storms all settled by a cozy fireside in Carmel, it was dumping buckets of snow back home. Our power had been out and the temperature inside and out was chilly but the old barn was none the worse for wear. I've got some catching up to do in blogland. I left some projects scattered on my cutting table and I'm not sure where my thoughts were when I left them there. I'm sure it will come back to me once I get re-aquainted with the various little baggies and piles. More snow is predicted next week. It's fun to travel but it's sure nice to be back home.

Adding Some Spark

Well, that's better. I admit it. I'm trying to use up a bunch of old, uglies in this top. I still have plenty left but I've made a good dent. Adding a few blocks with orange and a fushia eye popper certainly distracts the eye from all those dark blues, old browns and muddy greens. It isn't exactly a beauty but I'm sure it will please someone. If you stand back a little or squint a bit, you can see the great graphic cross hatch. My pitiful little camera really doesn't do it justice.

I think I have mentioned that I started working part time at a neat little quilt store called Timeless Calico Designs a few months ago. The big news is that Lindy, the owner, is having a Grand Opening celebration starting tomorrow through Saturday. Since she has moved from her previous location in Columbia State Park where she operated the Columbia Dry Goods, there may be previous customers that don't realize that she has moved and now has a new shop dedicated strictly to reproduction fabrics with a focus on quilting. It is a cute little shop.




It may be small but it is chock full of wonderful fabrics, patterns, books, and kits. Lindy has started offering classes including the new Civil War BOM using those great reproduction fabrics by Judie Rothermel and a beautiful sampler taught by our local expert Cheryl Jordan. There's lots of fun stuff planned. I'll be there tomorrow to oversee the refreshments and pass out some free goodies and door prizes. We are on Hwy 49 in Sonora. Look for the little quilts billowing in the breeze by the road. Come on by and say hello.