This is the first block I've ever pieced using the bullseye method (start in the center and piece out in sort of a circle around. I was fine until I got here (see photo below) and then realize that I would have to applique something down or well, I'm not sure...a fan? Anyway, it wasn't going to work. (keeping in mind I'm trying to piece this all by machine).

SO! I rushed my antique handkerchiefs to the rescue. The only ugly thing is the one without the lace needed a backing, so I sewed it on (on the machine) and then put it on the block. Worked great!
I also had to piece a little black piece behind the other hankie (you can see the two tone background in this one) in order to not have the background show through.

Here are a couple of detail shots...the top one shows how I'm tacking some black silk ribbon with french knots. Not sure how easy it is to see, but in the middle of that hankie is the most gorgeous embroidered "M" with a flourish and flowers around it...I LOVE using these hankies!


Okay, back to do more french knots (nice cool day today...ended up being GREAT for stitching!) Stumble It!

Matey Moo got up at 5am this morning , so I got an early shower and after checking blogs and email I took the dog for a walk so I thought I'd share a few pictures of my walk in the "hood". I think I used to mention that this neighborhood is on the swing from crack houses (honestly my friend lives in a former one) to trendy...it's always interesting to see the growing pains from this kind of change. Our immediate area is all pretty nice. This is a house nearby that I think is particularly cute

This is a sign that the development has gone crazy....just 1/2 a block from the last house are these...two DUPLEXES! They are selling for over 1/2 a million a side. I can not imagine paying that much and sharing walls with neighbors...they also have VERY little yard.

And I couldn't resist a photo of this. This is under a HUGE pine tree...the branches provide the perfect kid sized canopy...I would have LOVED this sort of a thing as a kid...it's just out of eyesight of the grownup deck....a perfect place to hide and dream:

I planned on posting this much earlier, but I've gotten caught up in doing my black and white block. The block is pieced and I've started to embellish. I had some interesting challenged with it, so I'll post my solution in a bit. Stumble It!

Yes, feeling a little punny!

I thought this was good, the pasty red face with the before glasses and the happy look with the after. At least I'm happy about them and NO! I haven't done a lick of stitching...just got the kids to bed! Stumble It!

So, today is "new look" day...if I get home in some reasonable time I"ll post pictures of my new glasses. I'm hoping they are hip...or at least so "un-hip" that I'll be unique in my "un-hip"ness (keep in mind I have a mind stupidifying cold today). That and the blog....for some stupid reason all of my posts were at the bottom of the page. When I surfed through the templates (I've been too lazy to completely design my own) most of them are having the same results. So, after surfing around, I found one that sort of works with my original design and hopefully doesn't do bizarre things to text.
Oh, and I'm sick. The kids are now fabulous...in fact bouncing off the walls. I have the sitter this afternoon so I can get some web design done and I'm finding I have no mental capabilites at all. I'm wondering if I take cold medicine if this phenomenon would get better or worse? Not sure.
Anyway, I'm hoping to relax and stitch tonight while Rex-y is at his Toastmasters meeting. The kids will be exhausted from having the sitter and so hopefully will go to bed....EARLLY! :-)
So, hopefully pictures tonight or tomorrow morning...I have GOT to finish piecing that black and white block...it's sitting here mocking me! :-) Stumble It!

We are having an ultra lazy Sunday here, absolutely nothing going on at all. I feel guilty, but Rex (can't bring myself to call him Bud) says it's ok! Matey Moo has an ear infection, which is huge relief (his lungs looked totally clear at the Dr.). I still have two grumpy kids and I have a cold too, but relief has swept through the household. Rex (DH) had some tests and all turned out well, so we're back on track! Hooray!

When I'm sick I always think of Pam Rubert's "In Bed with a Bad Cold"...that was when I first started reading her blog and it still cracks me up!

I've been thinking about my new sewing/craft space (not actually doing anything about it I might add) - and ran across this article with lots of great tips for sewing rooms - and links to other stuff (including a fabric organizer...I can't even imagine having that much time!).

Well, back to not working. Hopefully next week I'll be back to my normal self...I'm planning on finishing piecing (WITH the sewing machine I might add) my black and white block tonight, so wish me luck! Stumble It!

However, last weekend's class was machine piecing so I pulled out my fanciest (aka hardest to use on a machine) fabrics and went to class. Apparently I need a walking foot, so as soon as things slow down here (ie we have money! :-)) I'll run out and buy one. Here's what I have so far(not the greatest picture, I guess that's what you get at 4am):



The bottom black piece is a silk velvet (really soft) and the others are all satins..some thick, some thin. The piece in the middle is a lovely piece of cutout lace that I put on top of a metallic silver/black piece of fabric. I think it should all look fantastic when I finally finish it, but I do want to use my machine for all the piecing, so haven't gotten to it yet (wouldn't it be great to have that studio finished! :-)

So, I'm having a bad night here (note the time 4:06am) - the kids got sick yesterday with colds and Matey Moo's is developing into an asthma attack. This is the first one that I have attempted to treat at home with the nebulizer. I think I'm staying on top of it, but it's nerve racking.

So far his breathing isn't too bad, but he's started with the barky cough, but not a frequent cough yet. I am NOT thrilled about another run in the hospital with him (for all the reasons that are too numerous to list), so please cross your fingers that I can keep this one under control. It will be a huge accomplishment for a lot of reasons if I can keep that boy out of the hospital.

Oh, and of course I have HEAPS of web design stuff this week and had to cancel my babysitters because of the cold. I had Rex (ok, is it too stupid to call my husband that? Chloe said "like the King"? - not sure I want to raise him up to that level? LOL!) buy me a HUGE bar of chocolate on the way home and that does seem to be helping. On second thought, bringing home chocolate to a stressed-out wife probably does raise you to "king" Stumble It!

Well, I think I've finally convinced my husband "Rex" (we decided he needed a "nom de Plume") that I need a studio apart from the office space (you may remember my first post with pictures of what that space looks like). Mainly because the office is totally packed with computers and other stuff....it's NOT working to have my fabric and sewing machine in there, so this is the potential space (I purposely didn't clean up because I wanted these to be great "before" photos:



It's an old single car garage that we had to have the old linoleum tile removed (asbestos filled)...so we're going to paint the floor and the walls and put up curtains. The workbench will go in the garage (after it's cleaned out) and this will become "the studio"...cool, eh? Stumble It!

These pictures make no sense until you know the story behind them. We had a speed monitor placed in front of our house for the last week. It basically alerted drivers coming down the street when their speeds exceed the limit. So, when the Denver Police came to pick it up, I was actually glad. First, it limits where I can park in front of the house and second, we couldn't really see the speeds on it anyway (and thus see if it was doing any good). Okay, enough back story....what ended up being REALLY funny was when they came to pick it up. The policewoman was standing there looking at it and I went out to move my car (which was parked in front of it) - she laughed and told me she had no idea how to take it down and thus tow it out. Well, apparently she called in and not just one other cop car showed up but two. So, we had 3 police cars in front of the house with their occupants all standing around trying to figure out how to take it down (they all complained that it should have a manual). So, that's what the pictures above are..."Denver's Finest" standing around trying to take down a basic piece of machinery. It entertained us for the better part of an hour - of course we do have a pretty slow lifestyle!

I have NO idea where I found this gal's blog, but it's hysterical and very interesting if you're a big reader (which I've noticed a lot of fiber bloggers are). However, the post I've linked to, made me laugh and laugh and laugh. It makes you really wonder about people, eh?

Come to think of it, maybe it is kind of linked to the "what is good art" line of thinking.

On a more personal note, I've been working on experimenting with printing my digital pictures out on a variety of papers and then enhancing them with colored pencils. None are really done yet, but I'm having fun and some of the experiments don't look too bad. Not much stitching. Just seems too hot.

Tomorrow is our RMCQ meeting and the class is machine crazy quilting (eek!). I'm taking my machine, so this will either scare me off the machine permanently or inspire me to do great things...we'll see (no pressure on the teacher there, eh?). I'm actually excited to see what you can do and watch someone else, so hopefully I'll learn a lot. Stumble It!

I appreciate everyone's comments on my last post - especially Diane. I admit that for the most part I'm totally new to all of this, up to and including the whole mentality among fiber artists, etc. I have an art degree and having never really pursued my fine art I have not really come across many judgements against what was art, I guess it's why I've waited until I was in my 30's to pursue all of this.

I do think that in a lot of ways it looks like Diane needed a way to "draw the line" in an already crowded list - and I can totally understand that. I also will reiterate that she has done a wonderful job. I really enjoy that list and all of the folks who are on it.

HOWEVER, I will say that I have not had any problems like hers (people complaining etc) with the Bloggers who Embellish list (which I administer). In fact, I just sent an email to all seeing if folks were annoyed when members didn't update and the general thought I heard was "yes, but we understand when people's lives get busy". By the way, I'm working on a way to send out a little "reminder" and I think for the most part I'll follow a policy of leniency.

As for Crazy Quilting, well, I think there are a couple things working here. It seems that Australia is MUCH more lenient about them than the US is. However, I also have a book my Mother in Law (Hi Ellen!) gave me on the history of quilts in Australia and I believe (correct me if I'm wrong here gals) they just introduced what we call sane or traditional quilting about the 1970's in Australia (maybe because of the general heat in the populated areas?). So their history of Crazy Quilting and related quilt techniques is actually much more enduring than it is here in the US.

My understanding is that here in the US it was HUGE at the turn of the century and then fell into dislike as being "ugly" and busy. There was a revival in the 1970's, but mostly kind of a hippy approach (denims and laces and that sort of thing). I think it is only recently that people are reviving it as a true art form with many variations - I can't find the link, but the show in France has an AMAZING range of work. Anyway, that's my VERY brief and probably oversimplified definition. I also know that in the US many cq'ers have a hard time having their quilts show in major shows, etc. All of this is why I find it VERY funny that art quilters who actually see crazy quilting as a more traditional quilting form. I guess we truly are the "black sheep" of the family!

As for me, like I say, I have an art degree and to my eyes all of the most gorgeous pieces I've seen are art. I think all of them are gorgeous and frankly it makes more sense for ALL textile artists of all kinds to bond together. There is a HEAP of criticism for women's arts in the art world and in the eyes of the snobby traditional art world. Fiber art is generally poo-pooed or frowned upon as "women's art". Stupid. Frankly it takes as much artistic design to lay out ANY kind of textile art (quilts, hangings, crazy quilts, etc) as it does to paint a painting. On top of that you have to have knowledge of fabrics, stitches, embellishments (if you use them) and all sorts of other things. I think this is beginning to change, my friend Antonia (who's still in the hospital) recently has a lot of sucess selling her fiber art pieces at a traditional art sale. So, there is room for all of it.

Anyway, that's the end of my soapbox. As for the CQ'ers - all of them are invited to the "bloggers who embellish" ring, as are art quilters, doll makers, scrapbook or paper artists, felters and anyone else who uses and enjoys embellishment in their art.

Today we finally made it to Tiny Town and it was fantastic. The kids and I are exhausted. I have my Rocky Mountain Crazy Quilters meeting tomorrow morning and the local street fair in the afternoon. Maybe I'll sleep all day Sunday (ha, ha...yeah, right!)! Stumble It!

It probably helps that all of you can't see the bag close up! (ha, ha!)that I keep getting all of the compliments! Thanks all of you - especially Brit (you're totally making me blush! I'm really sure you wouldn't rave if you could see the sewing job!)!
Here are "finished" pictures. I say that, because I think I may add and add....seems like the kind of thing that I'll keep finding new patches for and such.
Here's the inside. Just a HUGE (front and back) piece of velcro sewn inside, but it kind of keeps the layers together too:

The denim "patch" is a pocket and I measured it for CD Roms etc. This way hopefully I don't have to lug a purse to carry keys, money, etc too.

Then the front. When I get time, I think I'll do a stem and some leaves on the flower, but I mostly wanted the whole thing functional for now.


Ok, on a more serious note, Allison (Sharon and Arlee have posted her regular site) just joined the "bloggers who embellish" webring (which I run)! Welcome!

Obviously this isn't the serious part. Now, I KNOW a heap of my readers are from the artful quilters list and I've been on that ring for a while now - and I've been starting to feel like I'm part of the group.

However, it appears that Allison has been turned down because she's a crazy quilter. Um, well, I'm the president of a crazy quilt group and 90% of my stuff is based around that - should I be allowed in the ring? YIKES! I'm feeling a bit of an issue coming on here. I do realize that these lists do get HUGE and I've sort of had to wade through a few knitters (sorry, guys you have HEAPS of your own rings there) but I have let them on the "Bloggers Who Embellish" ring because they do show other embellishment and textile techniques and interests on their blog. I'm actually more biased against folks who never update than people who have different interests than mine (that's my little pet peeve!). I think a lot of the work really overlaps. For instance, the great Melody Johnson does a heap of embroidery on her pieces and I've gotten a BUNCH of great tips from her, although my work doesn't look anything like hers.

Feedback please? I'd hate to think us crazy quilters weren't considered art quilters - I feel it's very artistic. I also know that there are a heap of CQ'ers on that ring. So, maybe this is just a philosophical discussion, but I also know I'm excited to continue reading Allison's blog - I guess you all can just easily access her on my ring! LOL!

Update: Keeping in mind that I'm new to this stuff. I truly think all of this stuff out there is fantastic and I appreciate all kinds of creative enterprise. I'm just always totally shocked when anyone is considered an outsider. I guess it's kind of an underdog complex. Stumble It!

Sunday, we felt the need to get out of town.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Colorado, Denver lies just East of the Rocky Mountains, so we went for a family drive to the mountains. Rog is a big fan of "lets just drive"...but I'd rather have a plan, so we "just drove" and ended up after driving through some lovely scenery:


(Gorgeous to have that so close to us).
Anyway, we stopped in a cute, very small town called Nederland (both Rog and I think the town sounds like something Dr. Evil would say) for lunch:


We had a great time. We ate in a very small town bar/pub with very good food. However in order to get it we sat and sat and sat. It turned out that the printer quit working and they had lost our order.
They bought our first round of drinks and except for some mildly bored kids (Matey Moo ate a HEAP of french fries -more on this later) we had a wonderful time taking in the crazy clientel. If you've ever lived in a small town and been to the most popular pub, I'm sure you could picture the scene.
Anyway, we decided to head home. First Missy C proclaimed that she had a nasty feeling tummy and so we pulled over to give her some fresh air.
Then Matey Moo fell asleep. Just as we pulled into town (fairly close to home) he woke up and proceeded to throw up all over. So, we rushed home and threw them into the tub
(not for the faint of heart - although the kids look cute and exhausted...I'm sure a few of you will relate):

I managed to finish embellishing the lappy bag - I think for now I'll leave it a "work in progress" and keep adding to the embellishment, but I will post some photos tomorrow.
Also, in sad news, my good friend Antonia who I stitch with every few weeks (she's in the top of the bottom photo) is in the hospital. Please sent good thoughts her way. Stumble It!

Well, here's the sofa with the completed disfunctional family pillows. I have two more to do, but can't figure out how to do it.

I've updated my UFO list and marked the pillows as completed. I'll put the other two back on if I decide what to do with them.
I was inspired by some other gardening blogs and pictures - this is my garden in progress:

Not sure if you can see it in the photo, but I used old concrete under the composter and I'm planting marigolds in the concrete blocks to prevent buggy infestation. The tomatoes are a start and I have corn and sunflowers planted. Hopefully this weekend I'll get more done.
Oh, and I leave you with Harry...he was playing with my camera strap:
Stumble It!

Good heavens, it's been really rainy here lately. Normally this is "high plains" so VERY dry, but it's been raining a LOT lately. Today, our trip to Tiny Town got rained out. This is the worlds cutest place if you have preschoolers....the buildings are WONDERful to crawl around in, they have a great playground and a fanastic little train ride. it's all been there since the turn of the century...check out the site if you have a chance. I just realized that I've been blogging almost a year because I wrote about our visits to Tiny Town last year (I'm a really huge fan).
We tried to go here, but it didn't open until 4pm (when will businesses ever learn to be open when I want them to be!)
Anyway, after driving around a bit we ended up here - Casa Bonita. A completely cheesy (the website makes it look MUCH nicer than it is), overpriced, bad food, but the kids had a blast and I have to admit for a rainy day it wasn't bad.
So, now you all have an idea what to do with kids (or even for the young at heart!) if you come to Denver! Stumble It!

Well, I had an appointment with my laptop and got to take my lappy bag:

It's looking a little bare, and there's a pin at the end of the yellow flower embellishment, but it was together enough to put my laptop in.
This is going to be the pocket on the one side,

and then I'm going to embellish with some more flowers.
Well, I'm off to bookgroup tonight. I got the book yesterday and have read about 4 paragraphs. It's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston. Looks good, we're having tamales and beer and chatting about the book...can't wait! I'm sure I'll be eager to finish the book after tonight.
I have more to chat about...good heavens there is some awesome CQ eye candy out there right now....boggles the mind! Stumble It!

I admit it, I'm a child of the 80's. We've been listening to Retroactive, which is a "station" that comes as part of our cable TV...it's great. Anyway, so after that relaxing dance break, I'm back to working on this - my bag for my laptop:

That's the "suggested" layout for the appliques, but not quite sure yet, I'm still stitching major stuff like the handle. I really like the way it's turning out tho, but still wrestling with the *&^*%(&G^ Sewing Machine!!! Ugh, it makes me crazy!
According to my good friend (who grew up sewing an hour a day....what a lucky girl!) my machine probably can't handle it and I should borrow a serger, but I have an appt tomorrow and want to take it along, so I'm going to see what I can do my hand, supplemented with the machine. I do have a friend with a serger, and if worse comes to worse, I'll borrow it!
UGH! I hate machines that make me feel stupid and inferior! Stumble It!

Ok, I have a confession to make, and knowing my blog audience, this may be a scandalous revelation, but I hate sewing machines!

Not my machine in particular (I have a great Singer, that Leslie traded me for some webwork) but ALL sewing machines. Now, the interesting part of this revelation is that I'm saying this from complete ignorance.

I hate my sewing machine because I don't understand it. I'm sitting here with all the parts out in front of me, trying to figure out what I'm doing and I'm lost. I HATE feeling ignorant and I can't believe something that should be simple can be so complicated. Stumble It!

You would think I never have a night to work on projects! :-) But tonight I'm ready to go and have my new Ott-lite all fired up and ready (can you tell I'm excited about this stupid new light!?).
Anyway, I'm furiously updating my WIP photos and thought I'd post them here and then update my backpackit list. I'm having fun with this! Talk about a way to see how many projects you have done NOTHING on....it also shows me that I work at a burst on things and then seem to put them away forever.
The funniest one is this:

I started this in Junior High school (maybe 13-14 years old) and I have NEVER finished it, but continued to haul it around. UGH. It must be finished.
I have done more on my butterfly block, but it's stalled here:

Then there's Missy C's Kitty Quilt, which I had a huge burst of creativity on and now it's stalled here:




I hereby swear this weekend that I promise to make some progress and not waste the rest of the weekend taking progress pictures! :-) Stumble It!

This post was going to be called "While the cat's away"...but I thought that sounded too sexist! After all, I'm sure my husband is off spending money and not looking at the bank accounts either! :-)

Well, the kids and I went shopping today! We'd planned on going to a charity garden tour, but it was bucketing down rain (not exactly my idea of fun with two preschoolers) and so we went to Toys R Us and JoAnne's Fabrics (all of our ideas of toy stores! :-)) - At JoAnne's, I found an Ott-Lite for $17.50 (nope, that's not a typo) but it said it didn't lite up in all of the positions...what do I care? An Ottlite for 75% off? So, I bought it. Brought it home and it lit up once. Now to try to get it to do it again! However, even having it repaired can't possibly cost me $50, so I still think it was a good purchase.

Oh, and it seems Chloe and Gina have new laptops too! Wow, maybe we should have a bloggers who embellish and have laptops ring!

Anyway, Chloe said she's watching my progress on my cover...which gives me reason to try to get it finished. I bought strapping for the strap (along with my ottlite find)...because I'm afraid of having it break and breaking the laptop. However, I thought I better point out my source for the idea at Thimble. She not only made a fantastic looking case, but pointed toward this site with more ideas!

Oh, and the picture at the top is peonies from my garden....we've been here 3 years and this is the first time the bush has bloomed!

Update: IT WORK - the OTT lite works! I messed around with the bulb and plugged it in (in a pretty good usable position) and it WORKS! Woo hoo! Don't you love a bargain that really is one? Stumble It!

This is hopefully the first of many progress posts this weekend. I hope they aren't boring to you experts! But here it goes:

Here's my laptop case in progress:

I'm using an old (very old...ie: damaged) patchwork babyblanket for the case and then going to put some denim pockets and I THINK going to make the strap from denim and the patchwork combined, but haven't worked out the details on that yet. I think I'll have to do some applique/embroidery to cover some damaged areas and I'm inserting some padding (thus the batting in the picture) to make sure "lappy" is really comfy!

This, (although much more boring) is going to be a great addition to the living room. These BORING (and easy to get really dirty - especially with a 3 and 4 year old) butter colored pillows are going to be covered with RED cotton duck and that fabulous "dysfunctional family" cartoon fabric I bought in Berkeley California. Again, not a HUGE project, but I'm really excited.


Ok, off to finish getting kids to bed! Stumble It!

Well, hubby is gone. I have the two kids for 4 days and 3 nights (but who's counting! Ha, ha!). Today was a little rough, but tomorrow should prove to be a bit easier...we'll see. I got the house and my projects all organized so I'm hoping to be really productive in the evening.
Surfing blogs yesterday I ran across She Who Quilts - Among Other Things who says she's a crazy quilter...looks like she's just getting started, so it's a good one to keep an eye on. dyeing 2 sew has already posted some LOVELY pictures of her work...go take a look. I'm eager to see more work from her!
If you're looking for something to do this weekend, we've added a heap of new people on the "bloggers who embellish" webring - we're up to 49! Surf around! There are some great blogs there!
Well, the sky is black and I hear thunder, so maybe I should get this posted before the rain hits.
I'm hoping to work some tonight on updating my UFO pictures (on the backpackit list) and then actually working on them! :-) I've started my laptop bag (although the laptop is in Canada!) and the recovering of my living room pillows! Stumble It!

Hubby is on his way to Calgary Canada to visit an old High School friend from Australia. What makes this particularly cool is the story behind the visit to this friend (I think he'll enjoy seeing him too tho by the way!). Almost 7 years ago, Rex saved up a heap of money to come visit me in Colorado.

Let me back up...we had been pen-pals since we were 15...it was mushy and romantic when we were kids. Rex even sent me 1/2 of an Australian Paper One Dollar bill when they discontinued them and vowed that he would bring me the other 1/2 some day. As the years progressed, I got married and Rex and I stayed friends although it tapered off to a yearly Christmas card, etc. My husband died of Leukemia when I was 28 and a couple of years after that, I reconnected with Rex. He had gone through a couple of career and life changes and we both happened to need a friend. We wrote letters, emailed and were on instant messenger.

About 7 years ago he decided to come visit me. So, he got a really wonderful job with 9MSN (you Aussies will know this) as a web programmer and saved up enough to buy a round trip ticket to come see me and to visit his friend Claudio in Canada on his way back to Australia.

Well, the story ends like this...he never made it to Canada! When he came to visit, we started as friends, but the relationship quickly progressed and 10 days later we got married! Rex never went back to his job (he was on leave from a contract) and we broke up his apartment long distance.

2 kids later, he's FINALLY getting to see his friend Claudio. Claudio is married and has 3 kids - the youngest two are the same ages as our two.

So, that was a very long story to explain my busy weekend, but one I thought a few of you would enjoy. I'm going to have the kids this weekend and I'm planning on working a few long nights on sewing projects, so lots to post.

Back to our regularly scheduled needlework programming! :-) Stumble It!