I Hab A Toad In My Doze

And I don't feel berry good! I got home from the retreat Sunday afternoon. I felt fine. Monday I was great. Tuesday morning pretty good until about 10:00 and then it started. Sneezes, runny nose, sore throat. It jumped up and smacked me right between the eyes. Not fair, says I.

Crystal and Mike and the kiddos were on their way out here. Mike likes to cut firewood and I refuse to take his fun away from him. After a while, all I wanted to do was sleep. So when the kiddos took naps, Gramma took a nap. I woke up feeling worse than before. I sure hope I didn't share my germs with my babies! But I think maybe they may have shared with me.

Poor Hubby was on his own for dinner--he manages just fine so don't go feeling sorry for him. I need the sympathy here!!! About 8, I headed for bed. I don't know how many times I woke up in the night but from the pile of Kleenex on my night stand, I think it was alot. Maybe I should have taken something but I didn't. My stomach muscles hurt when I cough, my nose is raw and I can't smell or taste anything. Leave me alone, I am going to take a nap.

Aaaarrrrgggggggg CccccHoooooooooooooooo

We Have A Winner

Congratulations to Jo at Pieceful Afternoon. Jo and I have been on some of the same Yahoo groups for years. We have yet to meet in person but I know someday we will. Jo, watch your mail for a box filled with some fun things.

Today I will finish getting ready for my quilt retreat. I've got 3 projects cut and ready to go. I have to have "no brainers" when I am retreating. I have a tendency to loose focus on things when so much is going on around me. So I will work on a Turning 20 Again, a Hanky Panky and Next Door Neighbor . I also have a kit ready for Between Friends Junior from the book Happy Hour. If I possibly get these 4 tops complete, I have a bin overfull of novelties that I want to use for Yellow Brick Road.

So now I must get ready to go into the city--I don't mean Battle Ground, I have to go all the way into Vancouver!!! I know a big day for me. Talk to ya soon.

PS: Hubby thanks everyone for all of the nice birthday wishes. And I cheated and bought the cake. Sometimes a girl has to do that. So I guess I owe him a home baked cake.

200th Post Giveaway!!!

I can't believe this is my 200th post! I started blogging as a way to keep up with myself and my projects. (I have a tendency to get a bit sidetracked--yeah, really I do!) I have enjoyed going back and reading past posts and seeing all I have accomplished. And the changes in the grandkiddos! Oh my.

I never thought I would meet so many fascinating people through my little blog, but I have. I have learned so much from others, gotten some fabulous recipes and great quilt ideas. I have stepped out of my comfort zone and tried new projects just because "you" have shown them to me. Thank you.

So I've decided to celebrate with a fun giveaway. I don't know what it is going to be yet but I know it will be fun!

Leave me a comment that I can respond to via email and I'll put your name in the drawing. Then on October 21, I'll put you names in a bowl and have hubby draw out a winner.

Today is hubby's birthday--Happy Birthday Honey--so I now must go into the kitchen and bake the birthday cake. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and there must be cold milk to go with it. Yes, we live the simple life.

What Have I Been Up To??

All kinds of things. Today I played with buttons. I made button fairies for the first time. I signed up for an Art 4 Mail swap and decided I better do my part. I had no clue other that a tutorial on the net. After seeing them for the first time, I knew I wanted to play. Being a bit nervous about my artistic skill level, I put this off until I recieved one. She is beautiful so I kind of copied her. Mine, I think, are kind of funky looking. First time making button fairies, first time using a polymere mold for the faces. Actually, it was the first time I had played with polymere clay. I might have to play with that stuff some more.

I found these plastic like leaves at the craft store for a quarter a stem. I thought they kind of looked like fairy wings. Tuesday, I made some faces and today I made my fairies. I got out my button box and started in. Then I wanted some super dooper big buttons and didn't have any so I went exploring in my Gramma's button boxes. I have buttons from both of my Gramma's but I am being very selfish with them. I only used 2 and there were several like both of them.

So after an hour, hour-10 (that means most of the day without a trip to the Home Depot), I decided these were pretty good. Not quite up to what this flicker pool has but pretty good. And I had fun.

Tomorrow I will take them to the post office and send them on there way. One little one will travel all the way to Cyprus. I hope she has a safe journey.

I've spent alot of time with my quilting machine. Tomorrow I will spend some more time with her. Then I have a retreat next weekend so I have a couple things I'd like to finish for show and tell. I am not going to pressure myself to get them done though. I am not going to pressure myself to do much of anything anymore. I found out it isn't good for my mental health.

~~TTFN

crossing my fingers that my picture will show up

Lovin' on the Dial Up

Here it is! Love my dial up. Someday I'll get to play with the big kids. LOL

I Should Be....

I should be doing other things this morning-like finishing up garden stuff but it's really cold outside and I want to work on my newest quilt. I was blog hopping one day and found Quilter Going Bananas. She has a fabulous quilt picture in her header. I loved it, wrote to her telling her this and asked where the design comes from. She remembered it came from a magazine several years ago. She would look for it if I wanted her to. Aren't quilters just the best people! I said no, I would see if I couldn't figure it out for myself.

Being a mega fan of Debbie Caffrey and her book Open a Can of Worms, I knew the basics of the block. So I get out my scrap paper and crayons (yes! crayons) and start to draw, then it's time for some 2 1/2" strips and the sewing machine. After a bit, I had it figured out. (You would think I would use EQ5 since I have it on my computer but I haven't take the time to learn all the goodness of it yet.) Anyhow, I decided it was time to use up some of the older strips from my 2 1/2" strip drawer and some of my older bricks--2 1/2" x 4 1/2". There are some really old fabrics in this quilt. And I really want to fill the drawer up with newer fabrics.

This has been my project at our Wednesday sewing day for the last 3 weeks. I got to the point yesterday that I needed to start counting sets. Then I knew I needed more and after waking up at 1 this morning and thinking about this for 2 hours, I decided to get working on it. I made all my units and am now working on blocks. I only need 120 and have 60 or so sewn together. Then I start to get antsy and have to see what it looks like on the wall.

Then another day on the internet, hopping around webshots, I see another quilt like this. The caption says it is called Barbed Wire from the book called Twosey Foursey Quilts by Catherine Wierzbicki. So I did a search for the book and now I will have to own the book.

I think I will stop for a while and work on being a domestic goddess. I'd really rather keep sewing!

Okay! Enough Already!

Look Sissie, a new post. Are ya done naggin' now???

This picture is a little bit of Sonya's quilt that should now be hanging in Craft Warehouse. It turned out very pretty and now people can ohh and ahh as it is being shown off promoting their fabric and the book the design came from. I can't remember the book title but I know it's by Karen Snyder.

I have been spending some time at my sewing machine. I have been working on some crazy quilt blocks for a swap. They were suppose to be send out by September 30 and for some reason I had October 15 in my brain. I feel horrible about being late. So I spent last night doing some embroidery on my blocks so I can get them in the mail ASAP. My skills are quite rusty. It's been a very long time and I had to look up the very basic stitches on the internet just to remind me. It's fun but I'm afraid to start collecting for one more project.

My focus this week is on getting my quilting machine running good again and getting some of my stuff sorted out so I can rearrange my sewing room. I've been working on that for such a long time. I seem to take 3 steps forward and 2 back. So that means I am making a little progress. Now I am going to finish sewing my last block so I can finish them. Hopefully I'll remember to take pictures.