February Flashback

First of all, Happy Valentine's Day! 

I hope you are spending the day, or at least part of it with someone special, two-legged or four. 

 

As the title implies, I will be flashing back to February of last year.  As I was getting ready to post this, I felt a twinge of guilt, because Lilly was watching me from the "window box".  I felt guilty, because I forgot to tell you all that not only is it Valentine's Day, but it's also Lilly's birthday! My sweet Princess Tiger Lilly turns 7 today! I can't believe it's been so long. (not the greatest pic. Blame the cell phone and the sun being behind her.)

 

So in keeping with the "flashback" theme.  Here's Lilly when we brought her home; she was 6 months old. 

The inspiration for this post was that I promised my friend Stella to send her pictures of my finished quilt, that I made in a class we took together, when I visited her in Phoenix last year. I flew on Valentine's day and stayed through President's Day. It was a fun, fast trip. We always have a great time when we get together. We've been friends since tenth grade and even though we don't get to see each other much, when we get together, it's almost as if no time has passed. She is my dearest, most treasured friend. She has more recently moved to NJ, so I'm excited about the possibility of a trip to visit there and see what kind of adventures we will have.

Stella is one of those fabulous people, who is creative, smart and fun. She is always up to date with stuff and of course, a terrific friend. She is into quilting, x-stitch (she taught me in high school), knitting, photography, travel and food (and more, but those I know for sure). I think she should have her own show, but I might be a little biased. 

 He we are (that's me on the left), at dinner on Friday night. 

Here is my finished quilt. The picture is much darker than the actual quilt. the lighting is bad. The only free wall space in the entire tiny house, happens to be right next to the bed. It measures approximately 44" x 58" We made the whole top in the class and even got to sandwich it. The instructor even taught us how to baste it with spray adhesive. I've never done so much in a 4 hour class.

 

Here's a close up of the quilting. It was an image I found on Pinterest. I had only tried to free motion quilt once before, so I cheated a little on this. 

I adjusted the size to what I wanted and arranged several on a page, and printed. Then I "traced" the image with my needle.  I didn't connect them, so there were a lot of thread tails to tie and tuck, but I like the way it came out.

 

Riley was supervising my work. I think he was wondering about those weird flat birds. 

 

The back. 

 

I just wanted to show you my thrifty smarts. I bought these 3M Command Strip Clips (I think I found them at Office Depot) to hang my quilt. I planned on using them to hang my design wall, and thought it would be good for photographing the quilts as well. The best part is, unlike the spendy, magnetic quilt hanger I bought, I can move these easily, without leaving holes in the walls. The quilt is still hanging there, and Bruce even admitted he liked having it there. We have nothing on the walls in there, but tons of furniture. And of course, critters. 

 

We took the class at this fantastic shop, in Mesa, called etc. Scrapbooks, fabric & more. And the name really does say it all.  They have lots of great stuff and a really nice classroom. Here are some of the goodies I got there.

On Monday, we did our own version of a shop hop. There were quite a few quilting stores in the area. I was so jealous! One of our stops was at Zoe's Trunk.

Another stop: 3 Dudes Quilting was wonderful.  They had free coffee and cookies and it just so happened that on that day, they had a free pattern and quick (really quick) tutorial on the pattern. They obviously knew we were coming.

 

And the final stop was 35th Ave Sew and Vac. They had a surprising amount of fabric and some good bundle deals. 

I found this cute sewing machine fabric, that I bought to recover my ironing board. Of course, it's still sitting in my drawer, waiting me for get to it. Maybe it will be my NewFO this month.....

There was more than quilting during my visit, but I've decided to make a second post, since there are a lot of pictures.

Thanks for stopping in! ~Amy

Finally Friday

Well, I survived this week of both a nasty cold and turning 40. The cold was harder to deal with than the birthday. As I type this, my left ear is totally blocked from blowing my nose several hours ago.  Whose silly design was that?  I'm swallowing and making silly faces to try to get it to pop, so far to no avail... Fairly uncomfortable and quite annoying.  Other than that, I am feeling much better today than I have all week.  Today was the first day I didn't go straight to bed when I got home. Even on my birthday, I had to sleep a couple of hours before we went to dinner. Tonight, I came home, danced around a bit (literally), to songs like "Twist Again" and  "Runaround Sue". Bruce was streaming Pandora through the surround sound. He was also laughing at me as I danced around with Riley hugged to my chest. Bruce said he would laugh if the poor cat threw up.  Thankfully, there was no vomiting, only purring.  Then I tackled some laundry and cleaning off the kitchen table. It had become a small mountain of paperwork, unopened mail (Bruce's) and various random dropped items. Then I took some pictures with my new camera!

Rather than getting out my old camera and taking a picture of the new camera (didn't want to hurt it's feelings about being replaced), I borrowed a picture from the internet.  Bruce did apologize for it not being green (my favorite color), but they don't come in green, so this is pretty cool too.  It has all kinds of new features for me to figure out.  I've sort of figured out the Pet "scene" function. It actually frames their face and takes the picture when it thinks they are ready. So far I've only gotten blurry images, but then again, the subjects weren't exactly cooperative.

 

My friend, Kelly, made me this lovely "Triple Twist Bracelet" from a post on Pinterest. Notice, it's mainly shades of green.   :) Of all my hobbies, I have not really ventured into jewelry making, but I really like this bracelet and might give it a try. Kelly and Gary also made a donation to the Humane Society for my birthday present. How thoughtful is that?!

Since I got sick on Sunday and have been pretty much useless all week, we never got any further with the kitchen floor. This weekend, since I'm feeling better, I will try out the new tool we got last weekend. Hopefully we'll get further than last time. I had become accustomed to the funky flooring, but I don't think I can live with this for long.

 

 About a week ago, when Bruce went to the boat store to look at some new electronic fish finder, bottom scanning gizmo for the boat, I took a detour next door to Pier 1. I can only stand there listening to Bruce and the salesman speak boat computer stuff for so long. Anyway, I found these two cuties, at a fairly reasonable price, so I adopted them. I just need to figure out place for the dog in my already overly cluttered abode, and which plant to put in the cat. I have several prospects that need re-potting, but I haven't decided yet.



Since we're on the subject of cute. I have to share these.  My mom had them in a gift for Bruce's birthday back in April. They're hollow, and come apart, like plastic Easter eggs. Mom had filled them with peanut M&M's for him. Bruce is a big fan of Snoopy. 

 And again with cute. I just love this cat. Someone told us the other day, based on our description of how he flops over when you go to pet him and how he doesn't put his feet down when you try to set him down (like most cats), that he might be part Rag-Doll cat.  I always thought that was a specific breed, with fluffy hair. Bruce looked it up and said that it was based partially on their actions (or in-actions) and not solely on their appearance, although he would only be partially Rag-doll.  They are mainly a fluffy bunch.  Riley is hard to get a good picture of, since he's still a kitten and every time I get near him, he flops over and paws at me to get petted - as if I could resist.  Please don't think I play favorites with my pets.  I love them equally. As far as the cats go, you will probably see the boys Oliver, Bob and Riley the most, because they are out and about the most. The girls are quite shy most of the time.

 One last, kind of random thing.  I make and collect miniatures (another tab in the works). For those unfamiliar with the hobby, it's all things small, as the name implies, and is mainly centered around Dollhouses and vignettes of different scales. I found this cat at Ron's Miniatures in Orlando, when I went with our club on a bus trip a few years ago.  Being  of Irish descent (and Italian and German), I love stuff of an Irish persuasion. I wonder if that's why I love green?  Anyway, I thought she was spunky looking and had to have her.  She's been sitting on a shelf in a protective case, until I figure out exactly where she belongs amongst my menagerie of collectibles. A lady whose blog I read daily, just went on a trip to Ireland for a quilting show and tour (color me jealous times two!), and she loves everything cat, so I wanted to share this, in case she happens to stop by.
 

I know I had some more interesting things to tell, but through all the goings on, I forgot them. I wish I had a smart phone to record all my interesting and intellectual thoughts that I want to share as they pop into my head. I think my old phone actually had a recording feature, but my current one doesn't - at least as far as I know.  I'm slightly technologically challenged. I'm always a little behind the crowd. But that's ok, because then I can ask all my friends how to use the stuff when I finally get it.  The point was, that I always have great ideas and insights to share and that by the time I get to write them down, or type them out, they've vanished. I will make more of an effort to jot them down, when I can.


Well, Bob's crying to be let in (again) and I have some more laundry to fold.  This stupid ear still hasn't cleared and I think my Dayquil has worn off.  I'm still feeling better, so I'll be appreciative of that (the sensation of swallowing of glass shards is over and that is a good thing). I will hold off on celebrating until the coughing and sinus junk has passed, though.
Blogger doesn't like me. Every time I try to post, it doesn't save the entire thing - even though I hit "save" after every paragraph and picture. What am I doing wrong?  Aaaaaack!