My Halloween throw is done YAY! The wind was blowing so I didn't get a very good photo. Anyway here's the top;
And the quilting up close;
And the pieced back, I didn't have a suitable fabric that was large enough for the back. And considering my and my husbands sudden unemployment, I didn't have the money for more fabric, so it's pieced. I'm quite happy with the back it almost makes the throw reversible. (have a job interview Monday, wish me luck)
And last, the fourth block in the Fat Quarter Shops Designer BOM.
Have a great weekend!!

Anna

FLEAS!!!

Two months, sixteen baths later and we still have fleas! WTF!! This poor wet kitty is just 6 months old and severely hates me. I have bathed her every couple days as well as our older cat and dog. And I just can't seem to get a handle on these damn fleas. We had fleas once before about 7 years ago. A couple baths and spray applied to every fiber in the house and they were gone. But this time it has gone on for more than two months. I'm at my whits end, I just don't know what to do now. I'm hoping now that it's fall the outside fleas will die and I can stop worrying that they are picking up more every time I let them out.

This kittens name is Army, we were told SHE was a HE, after a couple weeks we were wondering where the extra little bits were. Since they never showed up we realized the girl who declared her, a him, didn't know what she was looking at. We really wanted another boy kitty, never had good luck getting a friendly girl but this one is super nice and lovable. And as weird as it sounds she is getting used to all the baths. She doesn't fight them anymore just sits there glaring at me waiting for it to be over. She really likes the towel snuggles that follow though.

Anna

Bah Humbug!

Hurricanes, financial disasters, tainted baby milk and war! WTH is going on with this world. Everyday there's more bad news. I want to throw my TV out, but then I'll just read about it on the PC or hear it on the radio. It's so depressing, will it ever end? Probably not :-(



Anyway, I can't find my camera, one of the kids must have run off with it. My Halloween quilt is ready for the quilt frame, now to just get it loaded. I have half cut a Christmas throw, another kit I've been hoarding, I have so many many kits, some kitted by the quilt shop and some I made up myself. Here's a couple pictures of my kit stash.

Anna

There's more than 25 kits in these two storage cases.

The fabric on top of the box below is for some table cloths I am planning to make.

Halloween Quilt "part three"

This photo shows the progress of the Halloween quilt I have been working on. The six blocks and the sashing are just laid up against each other, nothing but the blocks have been sewn yet. I have seven blocks finished, 13 to go.

I recently finished 165 signature blocks for a Christmas with Jane swap. I sent them off and they arrived on the west coast last week. I'm impatiently waiting until October for them to be swapped out. I finished up as quickly as possible as I didn't want 165 blocks hanging over my head :-)This quilt is made up of 88 pink and brown blocks from a swap I was in a couple years ago. It was very hard matching up every one's idea of a 6.5 inch square. I swore I would never join a block swap again but the siggy swap had a no squaring up rule with a generous cut so there will be plenty of wiggle room. I could have never put these pink and browns together without sashing. I am very happy with the way it turned out.

School started today, YAY!! It was nice to have a quiet house for the day, the 4 year old was here but so was his dad and he shadowed him all day, leaving me in peace. They cut and stacked fire wood all day, outside.

Well back to my sewing machine,

Anna

Halloween Quilt Progress

My first two blocks laying on the sashing fabric I plan to use.

I would have had more done but August is continuing to kick my butt. My teenagers are being impossible. They are usually very well behaved and polite, but they are lucky they survived today! I told them (17 and 16 years old) no friends over until they have cleaned their rooms. That was yesterday, about two hours later my daughters boyfriend shows up. So he's gone and they are back to cleaning but did not finish last night. Fast forward to today, I'm up early vacuuming when kids start showing up. Now it's not like they can just come over anytime. We live in the woods, miles away from everything. These kids had to have older siblings or parents drive them over. Apparently my kids decided their rooms would be clean this morning and invited everyone they know over for the NIGHT!! So I sent home everyone whose parents where still in the driveway and ended up with a few for the day, but no one slept over and the boy and girl are currently upstairs cleaning their damn rooms!! Arrrggg!!

School starts Tuesday YIPEE!!

Anna

It's been a loooong month!

Well what can I say really, it's been a horrible month. Let's recap the month,


1. I found out my 2 most trusted family members have been keeping a huge secret from me for nearly 2 years. This horrible secret has evolved into something purely evil. Had I known I could have prevented the worst part of it. Sadly this has changed my relationship dramatically with both people involved :-(

2. It has rained most of the month, ruining my tomato's and corn.


3. I made lovely delicious salsa but stupidly didn't wear gloves when chopping the jalapenos. My hand were on fire for hours, I'll never make that mistake again. Soaking in expensive Rum fixed me right up, hurray for the internet.

4. It's been over 2 weeks since I found out about number 1 and I'm still very sad and hurt.

5. My new SUV that I just bought in January has a slipping transmission and a loud knocking coming from the engine, as I type this it's in the shop and since I live in the woods I'm stuck here until they fix it.


6. I hate seeing clean SUV's on the road cause it makes me think they would be better off with a fuel efficient car. I wish I could buy a fuel efficient car, but it would never make it up my road and I can't walk a mile with my groceries. Well I could but that would really suck. My car is always dirty.


7. I'm putting in a wood furnace because oil is nearly $4 a gallon. I just found out the chimney will cost almost as much as the furnace. But on the bright side that will still be less than oil. I get the wood free right from my own backyard, yay. I have about a cord already sitting out there, only 4 more to cut.


8. I bought one of those rolling carts for my kitchen. I got a huge one with a granite top, it's lovely and perfect. But, it had 2 damaged pieces. So I called the company and they promptly sent out the replacements, in the wrong color LOL! So I called today and the new ones will be here next week, hopefully in the right color.


9. My weed whacker won't start and I hit a rock with the mower and damaged the blade. My yard is starting to look like wild kingdom. I know how to fix both machines but am being very lazy about it.

Enough of my whining here are some photo's to finish this off.



This is the Fat Quarter Shops Designer BOM block number 3.
















Jurassic sunflower.



My latest project all cut and ready to sew, a Halloween throw.




Come back tomorrow to see a few finished blocks,

Anna

Internet aggravation

I ordered 2 pattern from two different online quilt shops almost three weeks ago. The first was difficult to order, I kept getting error messages, so I emailed them that I only really wanted one pattern. I got a reply that my order would ship the following Tuesday. The other went right through and I got nothing but the auto reply receipt, which is what I expected.

I have been waiting patiently for my patterns almost three weeks now. The first just sent me a message that the order didn't go through and could I just phone it in, um no, i'm not giving my credit card number on the phone, no way.

The second just sent a message that they don't have the pattern, sheesh, why is it still for sale on the web-site?

What a disappointment, of course I couldn't find both patterns at the same site and was already paying double postage. I found both patterns on other sites but $3.95 and up for shipping one pattern is way too much.

Well, I plan to call my local Bernina dealer today and see how much they sell the mega hoop for and if it is in stock, given my luck lately it will be $400 or not in stock LOL!

Anna

Is it over yet?

I'm ready for summer to be over. I couldn't wait for it to start but now I'm done. I need a break from all the driving around and the outside chores. I'm not sick of the sunshine or heat though, can't get enough of that.

I went to the quilt show and spent way to much money on this....

I've been wanting to try my hand at bag making and bought enough fabric for 2 plus an Amy Butler pattern for the Sophia carry all and enough Michikanji by Alexander Henry to make the bag. I needed the halloween fabrics for a pattern I found in an old issue of American Patchwork & Quilting.

On another note here's a photo of my driveway being washed away. Ignore the construction, my house is always under construction.

And last but certainly not least, I got a great deal on these...

3 yards each @ drumroll please/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\... $2.99 a yard.

Well I'm off to the shower, it's been a long day already and I still have thousands of things to do so getting dressed would probably be a good idea since it is after noon already.

Anna

Bugs, Babies and Blocks, Oh My!

The first 2 blocks from the Fat Quarter Shops Designer Block of the Month program. Since they are 12" blocks they were very easy to do, can't wait for next months block.







I found the strange bug on my Bee Balm, so I had to take a picture. I showed it to my 17 year old daughter, she laughed and pointed out that it's not just "A" bug, but two bug having sex. SO I'm in the business of bug pornography AND I showed it to my child. Sheesh! I need better glasses.

It's been a long weekend, my wonderful hubby had a 4 day weekend and I couldn't wait for him to go back to work. It seems I get nothing done when he's home and we spend way too much money shopping when we go together. I had make a trip to the hospital yesterday to meet my new nephew, a whopping 9 pound 8 ounce baby boy, and soooo cute. My baby brother finally got his act together and started a family, I've already graduated to grandchildren and he's just getting started. Oh well, another baby to spoil. The hospital is a 40 minute drive and I met my son there and collected my 2 year old grandson. His daycare is closed for the week so I am keeping him for 3 days. He wasn't too happy with the long ride home and was a little crab last night. Today he's happy and dashing through the house terrorizing the cats. He, along with my 4 year old son will keep me busy over the next three days.

And my bonus for the busy week will be the Maine Quilt Show, YAY!! This weekend my hubby and I will spend the whole day Sunday checking out the show and having dinner out, childless. I can hardly wait! ............................intermission, had to dry some tears........................

Anyway I got some lovely cucumbers from the garden this morning, I think I'll go eat a couple. Yum!

Anna

PS: if you haven't noticed, I can not figure out how to format these posts to be more pleasing to the eye.

Weeds!

I hate weeding the garden as you can tell from this shamefull photo.....

Two days a total of 8 hours weeding and I'm still not done....

I got about 3/4 of the weeds pulled from around the veggies and left all the weeds in the rows, think I'll use the weed whacker in the rows since there's plenty of room.

After a terrible start my garden is growing very well. I lost a lot of plants in the beginning, as soon as the seedlings appeared some unknown sneaky bug would eat them overnight. I re-seeded some and bought seedlings from the greenhouse down the road for the rest. Still something tried to eat all my pepper plants and succeeded on some. I had 4 jalapeno plant and now only 2 are growing well. My habaneros got off to a rotten start and so I bought replacements early, now the original plants and the replacements are doing fantastic, so I will have an abundance of habaneros, can you say "HOT"! My tomato's (all varieties that I planted) are doing great, I never have trouble with the tom's, they always grow well here.

My back is killing me and my hands are still dirty (despite several scrubbings) but I have a great sense of accomplishment. Now to get the knee high grass mowed...............

Anna

UFO Finished

It only took a year to make this. One day to sew the top and 364 to quilt and bind. I have dozens of UFO's. I promise to finish up all the things laying around my sewing room, before buying any more kits or fabric ;-) (unless of course it's from a quilt show that only comes around once a year) Lol. Anyway I made this to hang in my kitchen, it's 30" square. It's heavily quilted, it doesn't show up very well in the photo.

Anna

I'm addicted to quilt swaps.

So I must start a blog and update it regularly. Hmmmmm. What to blog about. I'll have to give it some thought, maybe I'll start tomorrow. I also like to procrastinate.

Later,
Anna