UFO for December

This is our last UFO Project for 2012.  Judy at Patchwork Times has chosen #4, which also should be the last one, obviously, on our lists....unless you're like me and have another list waiting in the corner to be worked on completed as well!


My #4 is from a pattern called Hidden Spools by Rhonda Dohna and published in The Quilter magazine November 2004.  It's made of scrappy Churn Dash blocks set on point and with setting triangles that give the appearance of two spools in the layout.  I need only quilt and bind this one.  I would love to have ONE finish this year, but happily, have made progress on several, which is more than I accomplished in 2011.

Pinned to design wall and checking borders.

Top finished and layers pinned ready to be quilted

Judy will be changing from her annual UFO Project to a "Get It Done" feature, where we'll list four things we want to accomplish each month.  I'm going to have to start thinking of those things.  Most of my projects are UFO's at the need-to-be-quilted stage, so....my lists of four are going to be quilting, quilting, quilting, and quilting...or I have to start some new projects!  Now wouldn't that just be awful? ;P  I think I'll go pull some fabric for Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street (see my post of yesterday).    

Easy Street

Last year I followed along, though didn't participate in making, Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery quilt.  At the reveal, I thought it was an absolutely beautiful quilt.  Sorry, if you're not familiar with it - but who in the quilting world isn't? - if not, you'll have to do your own searching for it.  It's no longer available on her blog as it's gone into print in a book.  Many quilters had/have photos on their blogs, so a Google search should help.  

This year, I'd like to actually do her mystery quilt known as Easy Street, but I know myself too well, and with all I need to be getting done yet am not, I'll probably only get so far as saving each installment to my computer.  I've added the linky on my sidebar anyway.  Maybe I will just do it. 

Cat Tails

And I can imagine you were imagining the plant that grows next to a pond or in a ditch in some of those parts of the country that actually get rain, something we see little of, but have about a 20% chance of getting, sometime later tonight...maybe.  That also equates to an 80% chance of not getting any rain.  I digress.

This really isn't about cat tails but is more of a cat tale...best viewed in video form (see below).  Raven seems to be a chewer.  Yes, I've been known to call her my puppy-cat, I'm a cat person - not so much a dog person.  Both my aunt, and my daughter, and my first husband's ex-roommate, have or had black labs.  Labs are chewers.  Well, Raven must think she's a black lab.  She chews on everything: paper, cardboard, plastic, bottles.  Yes, she has found my water bottles and tipping them over, bitten into the ends so that they leak.  She has knocked the cat treat container to the floor and pried the lid off to get the treats.  She's quite the character and I guess that's what you get when you have a cat with a higher IQ.  Don't forget, she's the one that plays fetch too!  Maybe she really does think she's a dog!

Now if this video will load.....I apologize for the low light conditions.

What she was doing here was playing with an empty Pringles container...attempting to pry the lid off!

What Do You Do When You Have No Oven?

You get invited to friends for Thanks-Giving dinner.  We are blessed by Nick's best friend Tino's family inviting us over.  We will be three of the expected 17 participants.  I saw her menu - if anyone goes home hungry....it won't be for lack of food...or dessert ;p    Our contribution will be a green salad and canned jellied cranberry sauce.  That was what was requested of us, and we will happily provide it.  And you know what's just as great about this?  No cleanup afterwards!  At least not at home, though I'm sure I (notice I did not say 'we') will help our host and hostess in that aspect.  

And to everyone out there, please do have a wonderful day of Thanks-Giving and Praise to the One who provides richly, abundantly, and in more ways than we could ask or deserve.

And be safe in any traveling you may do!

Fina-Lee Friday

I'm happy it's Friday...especially this week. 

• Next week, I won't have to drive Nick to and from school, a daily total of 44 miles!  That also means I get to sleep in a wee bit if I so choose :)  Oh but I am SO thankful.  Then he'll have three weeks of school and it'll be Christmas break for two weeks.
• We have clouds today! and some expected rain! it was wet when I went out this morning.  This makes me very happy.  And for the next 10 days, the projection is for highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s - perfection.
• Two more boxes are packed up from the kitchen: some collector tins (repros from the rage in the late 70s/early 80s) and some cookbooks.  In one of the tins - they all had to have the dust washed from them - I found these (see pic below); I'd forgotten I'd put them there.  Do you know what they are?  LOVE BEADS, originals! ca 1970-71. I once wanted to be a hippie...I'm so-o-o glad I outgrew that phase! One set was from a classmate, the other two made by my then boyfriend.  He and I had chokers that he made with small wooden circles with our initials (he wore mine and I wore his) that he'd made and the fishing line was melted together so the only way to remove them was to cut them.  I don't have those any more. 

• I paid the price today for my junk food binge yesterday...ok, I confess, I've been on a sweets kick since stocking up on Hallowe'en candy, and now all the Christmas candy is in the stores.  Mint chocolate M & Ms, Butterfingers, and don't forget the Cheetos and the Pringles, oh my.
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Too Much Work

Before I can pack up my kitchen for that remodel I keep talking about, I need to have a place to put what is packed up.  We have a 3-car garage or so the house description says.  There's a dividing wall between the 2-car side and a 1-car side and these pix are from the 1-car side because we use it as a collect-all-until-we-get-around-to-disposing-of-it-all room, as well as it houses my laundry 'room' and the chest freezer and some storage shelves.  Sometimes, I really wonder if I DO have hoarder tendencies, because I have things in boxes that I look at and find some excuse for not getting rid of.  In all fairness, there are a lot of empty boxes in here stacked willy nilly as I was gathering them up in order to put kitchen items into for storage during the remodel.

The folding chair belongs in the house.  It was here because I needed to sit down while I was sorting; the back and the foot still are painful when used for extended periods of time when standing on concrete and bending a lot.  That orange chair...it's solid, it's heavy, it's ugly.  Have I said I'm not a huge orange fan? How many cat litter buckets do I need?  Maybe they can store something? They're useful...for something.  hmmm, hoarder?  What about that box of college textbooks?  Anyone studying deaf culture or need to learn ASL?  Seems I promised to take them to our deaf ministry ahem, years ago (we get hearing students who sit in during second service in the deaf area with the interpreter, they may be interested in them).

That fan back there.  It hasn't worked in years.  Marty bought a part to hopefully fix it.  It fried it even worse.  Surely it can be recycled for the metals, or someone more capable could fix it. Oh, and anyone need an old Bell & Howell straight tray slide projector?, or a photo enlarger?  Most of the boxes are empty.

All the items on the pallet, except for the empty boxes, are packed with donation to charity items, or destined for an as yet never had, garage sale.  That skateboard doesn't go though, it's Nick's and for some reason it's always there and gets in my way.  Maybe he should have it in his bedroom?

Ok, this side has some legitimate storage shelves, and lots of empty boxes, and some other odds & ends.  The milk can?  I got that from the neighbor, had/have plans for it, but it's sat here for who knows how many years.  He was a smoker, and played the lottery and it has smelly lottery tickets still sitting in it! Yuck! And that's our flag too, it's too big for the holder outside, so we just rolled it up on it's pole and it sits there. I have another milk (in the first picture in a black plastic bag) that I brought home from up north a couple summers ago.  It had been my Grandma's when she sold milk to the local dairy from her farm back in the 1950's.

Ahhh, here's the starting point.  The cabinet on the left with the towel is teak, it's supposed to go into my craft room that has been another project for more years than I can count.  My laundry stuff is on the other side of that cabinet along with the door to go into the house.  The two boxes that have stuff in them?  Well, one is filled with just a few of my daughter's little girl clothes and baby blankets.  I know, I could take a pic of them and pass them on and out of my house, but there's something about their tactile presence, being able to actually touch and feel them, brings back those memories of when she was little, and since she lived with her dad and step-mom in another state after she turned 5 or 6, I think I'll hang onto them a little longer.  The other has pieces of used sweatshirt material and denim...yeah, I still think I'm going to use them in a quilt some day. 

Some day, I will get this all cleared and dealt with.  Some day needs happen sooner than later.  Some day we will get started on that kitchen.

Haaaappppy Birthday

Today is the day that is listed on her 'adoption' papers as her approximate birthday.  So here's a great big happy first birthday to our Flame.  She's staying warm in that box next to my desk.

Themeless Thursday

Or maybe that should read "Thoughtless Thursday" as I have little thoughts for today.  I have no specific plans, and little motivation to do the things that need to get done, other than to get Nick to and from school.  

I was thinking I would like to start a new project.  But I have so-o-o many unfinished ones that I feel guilty thinking  that way.  And I was thinking I'd just open my notebook of projects, close my eyes and choose one randomly...how scary is that!?  

Then I look around and see so many unfinished chores and household projects and think I should get started on one of them.  But then I think "oh, which one?" and lose all thought.  

So, I've accomplished little, but it is still relatively early in the day.

I think I will open the blinds and let some daylight in.  I won't say sunshine because we have glorious and wonderful clouds and a little wetness today - and we expect to have that for a few days ... YAY!!!!

And along with this "stormy" weather, Marty tells me right before he heads to bed last night, that he's taking two days off work and he and friend are heading to a State/National(?) Park several hours away 'for a couple days' and that's the extent of what I know.  What I think about that....well, you don't want to read what I think about that...but I will say I have encouraged him to go, but oh my, a little better communication or conferring would be nice, don't you think?  And I'm thinking I may just go ahead and sign up to take an all day quilt class at a quilt show in March because I have a friend who is planning on taking it and asked if I'd like to join her....and I think I may keep that info to myself until I walk out the door that morning!

Yeah, that's what I think.

Oh Phooey!!

That can describe a lot today, but is intended only to describe my recognition that I haven't posted here again in a week.  No excuses. But there is nothing happening of note either, including no quilting, no remodeling, no broken bones (thank God), no nothing or should that be no anything, lol? 

Nick had his second highest bowling score yesterday though in bowling a 245!  Way to go!  However, they only won the first game and going into the day were only one game in the lead, so have now dropped to at best 2nd place, as they lost both of the next two games and total pins.  His 3rd game of the day was a meager 145 :(  (his middle game was 180-something). The 'junior doubles' league only has five teams of two and Nick has the 2nd highest average at 176 prior to yesterday's scores.  The highest average is held by one of the boys (17) on the team they played against.

This afternoon I will spend some time with my quilting student.  She hasn't been able to meet during the last two weeks because of sick children, so today, we will figure out where to start with what she has :)


Help, LORD, for the godly man ceases to be, for the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.  Ps. 12:1