all sewn out . . .

What a fun evening I had, even if it wasn't *super* productive. I'm not my creative best in the evenings anyways, and generally by Friday night, I'm just downright pooped! Don't get me wrong; I can stay up -- I just have a hard time focusing. LOL! Mindless movies and internet surfing are more my evening speed. Ask my husband -- he has a hard time getting my day out of me when I got home at night. My brain just quits!

That being said, I did manage to make some progress with my hexagons!

Look at all these lovelies! I am so loving these colors.

So that set is all sewn, ready to be pressed. Hurrah!

I got my next set of strips sewn and pressed.

And then they went under the ruler . . .

I'm so 'in like' with this ruler! It's so much fun. I do admit I have to be really careful or it moves on me and I don't have equilateral triangles any more. Ooops!

So now my solids/patterned triangles are all cut and cute and ready to be assembled.

They will make either these cute little separator hexagons . . .

Or these fun, funky hexagons . . .

Which don't even look like hexagons because of their funkiness!

And I'm left with a huge pile of these. Triangle orphans, I'm calling them.

Don't worry little triangle orphans! I will find a way to use you! I'm thinking little mixed up hexie pillows. Since this quilt is for a pre-teen girl, I think that would be FUN!

So my long list of possibilities for last night ended up being just that. Possibility instead of reality. *sigh* I really should put up the hexagons and work on CHRISTMAS presents. LOL! Especially if I'm going to meet one of my Charming Girls goals for this month. Yikes!

For now, there's a big day ahead, full of fun, non-quilting things: like daughters and grandbabies (for a bit) and tea and ballet and THE GRINCH!!! I've been listening to Christmas music all morning -- I'm so in the mood!

And my man is on his way home from work and I promised him French toast and bacon for breakfast. Better get to scooting!

Glad tidings!

:)

gettin' excited . . . !

What a great night last night! The speaker, author Irene Latham, was simply wonderful. She was very charming and engaging, and kept us laughing. I love a good book, and am particularly susceptible to books that are historical fiction and involve quilting. So I bought a copy!! And she signed it with a wonderful inscription. I went home last night from the meeting and started reading! Check out Irene's website!

They introduced a "Mystery Quilt" project at last night's guild meeting, too. I've never done one, and it sounds like fun. We got the fabric requirements last night. Evidently, in honor of 2011, the quilt calls for 11 different fabrics. Fun stuff!!

Between work and meeting up before the guild meeting, I had a little time to spare. There was a bookstore nearby, so I made a little sidetrip down the aisles and found this:

Yay!! It was really cool to go through the pages and see the names of people that I'm familiar with, like Julie Herman, Bonnie Hunter (who will be our guild's guest speaker in May), Karen Combs (who will be our guild's guest speaker in September), and Judy Laquidara! And it's full of wonderful blocks. I'm so glad I picked it up last night!! Definitely worth it.

While at that same bookstore, I checked out the Christmas DVD's and found this little gem, which I don't have. 'Scuse me, which I didn't have. :)

And then finally, remember that brown paper mystery package that was waiting for me yesterday?? The mystery is solved!! It was from my darling cousin, Dawn, in West Virginia!

Homemade apple butter -- YUM!!! Thank you, Dawn!!!

Don't forget tonight's the Friday Night Sew-in -- I cannot wait!

:)

whirlwind of activity . . .

Today's post will be a little light, but the next few days? Watch out!

First, I just got a text from my husband that there was a "box" in today's mail for me! I'm not expecting anything at our post office box -- I have my boxes sent to my work, because it's where I am during the day, and because getting packages from a po box is sometimes...trying. He told me who it's from and where it's from; I still have no CLUE! But I dearly love brown paper packages tied up with string! Unfortunately, it'll be a bit before I'm home to open this one!

Tonight is my quilt guild meeting. Our speaker tonight is Irene Lathan, the author of Leaving Gee's Bend.

Her program is entitled, Every Quilt Tells a Story, and she'll also be sharing quilts with us. I'm excited, because not only is Gee's Bend quilting history, it's also Alabama history. If you're interested, you can check out Irene's website by clicking HERE.

In addition to the guild meeting, our Stitcher's group is meeting at Nothing But Noodles for dinner tonight. YUM!!

Tomorrow night is the Friday Night Sew-in! I'm really looking forward to coming home from work tomorrow afternoon, putting away groceries, putting on my jammies, and CREATING!! (It's not too early for Christmas movies, is it?)

I've got a couple of different projects to work on -- the hexagons (which I'd *really* like to finish up soon), a Christmas table topper idea I want to flesh out, and some Christmas presents, too. If Joc's nursery fabric comes in today or tomorrow, I may play a little with that, too! Another *yummy* evening! If you've not signed up yet, it's not too late!! Head on over to Handmade by Heidi and put yourself on the list!

Then Saturday, Kim, Joc and I are going to have a real girlie afternoon! We're going to have lunch at Emma's Tea Room - my favorite tea joint . . .

(click the photo to see Emma's website)

. . . and then we're heading into town to see a ballet performance of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Is that not the PERFECT way to kick off the holiday season?!? I'm very excited!

(click the photo to visit the Academy of Classic Arts)

All in all, a flurry of fun activity over the next few days. I'll look forward to sharing my happy times!

:)

friday night sew-in . . .

YAY!!! There's a Friday Night Sew-in scheduled for *this* Friday, the nineteenth, and it's a perfect date for me!! Thanks to Heidi, at Handmade by Heidi, and a terrific PRIZE sponsor, this promises to be loads of fun!

I've got so many projects to work on -- and now that those pretty tea towels are here, I've got even more to play with. And since Joc, Kim and I are going to see The Grinch on Saturday afternoon, there won't be a lot of sewing time over the weekend. More on The Grinch, later.

So click on the button either up above, over in my sidebar, or click right HERE to get yourself signed up. There's already over 130 folks who are participating -- this will be a GREAT evening!

Happily I sew along . . .

:)

the best laid schemes . . .

. . . o' mice an' men (and quilters), gang aft agley.

In other words, I didn't quilt last night.

Or today, even.

Ah well. On the bright side, Todd and I had a lovely Chinese dinner last night, had a wonderful visit with old friends, and did our grocery shopping for the week.

Today, I made two gallons of potato salad (from his fire captain's recipe, which is AWESOME!) and a gallon of 'nana puddin'. It's one thing to make quantities of these two delights in the RV kitchen; it's quite another to put them in the RV fridge. Especially after we've just gone grocery shopping!

Ummm, can you say no room at the inn?! Luckily, we're close to the pavilion kitchen, and I was able to store my goodies in the regular sized fridge until tomorrow!

I also watched five hummingbirds battle it out over the feeder, I finally saw a blue jay at our new site, and the does and their fawns have been very active (and quite bold) today.

The winner of the hummingbird battles!

He (she?) almost reached up and got a drink!

Plenty of corn on the ground.

These guys are less than fifteen feet away!

Mom's giving the call.

Evidently, this is better than corn. She gives the secret signal and they come RUNNING! What's funny is, when this doe was done, another of the does gave the same signal, and all three of the fawns went running to her, too! Kinda bizarre.

I've had five cups of coffee and two cups of tea. And I polished my fingernails. Not *put* polish on them, but used the buffer and actually polished them!

I've also got this waiting for me . . .

But fiddle-dee-dee . . . there's time for this later!

:)

design wall monday, prepping for friday night sew in!

Wow! It's been ages since I've had the ability, desire, wherewithal, whatever, to do a design wall Monday post! But I woke up this morning thinking about this quilt and the fabrics I'd use, so I took that as a sign to get going!

Since I've finished all the redwork blocks for my "Overall Sawyer" quilt, it's time to put the nine patch blocks together that flesh out the quilt top.

The pattern shows it with a solid red, and a red and white fabric. I've always visualized my final product with blues in it -- a bluesy, denim blue -- so I pulled out my stash this morning and pulled out blues, blues & whites, and reds that I thought might work.

These are what I found:

I thought about doing the blue & white with a more solid navy like this . . .

Or this. I really love the blue in the fabric above; it's got that washed denim look to it. I love it! But the blue and the blue & white just didn't cut it. Hmmm.

So I tried pairing the blue & white with the red . . . I really like that red, and it's perfect with the color of the embroidery thread I used! But, nope, I didn't really like that pairing either.

Now mind you, I'm not going to use the sailboat fabric, but I did decide I like the combination of the red, white & blue with the blue solid. It ties the red in nicely from the redwork blocks and still gives me the blues I want. These blocks are relatively small -- 7-1/4" finished -- so I'll want to find a red, white & blue fabric that's a smaller print, but I don't mind doing a little fabric shopping!

To see what's on the rest of the quilting world's design walls this morning, check out Judy's blog, Patchwork Times.

If I'm able to get the fabric in time, it's probably what I'll work on for the August Friday Night Sew-in!! If you've not participated in this before, you should really check this out. It'll be my first (I really wanted to participate last month, but wasn't able). You can sign up on Heidi's Handmade by Heidi blog. Click on the button to go directly to the signups! It's this Friday, August the 20th.

There's been a flurry of activity out the back window this morning. Deer have been in and out all night, from the looks of the corn -- there ain't none left! LOL! It was still pretty dark when I first lifted the shade, but I could make out two does. A little later on I looked and there was nothing. Then I looked again and there was one doe, then two does, then nothing, then a doe with three fawns! One of the fawns headed out early, though, so I'm assuming it belonged to a different doe. Especially since the doe and the other two fawns headed out in the opposite direction! As I sit here, another lone fawn is crossing the camp road, heading out of the woods behind the pavilion, over for a bite to eat. It hasn't taken them long to figure out where the good stuff is! Not that there's much left this morning. LOL!

It's also light enough now that the birds have come in for breakfast -- they do carry on so! We put a fountain/bird bath out this weekend, but so far nothing's come in for a drink or a splash. Of course, we've had a bit of rain both days - let it get dry enough and they'll be lining up.

Have a great day!!

:)