Stash Report February 12

Used this Week: 5.5 yards
Used year to Date: 6.6 yards
Added this Week: 3 yards
Added Year to Date: 4.3 yards
Net Used for 2012: 2.3 yards

I made pillowcases for the family for Valentine's Day.

For TMOTH:


For the Karate Kid:


For the Small Man (I think this one is my favorite):


For the Lovely Daughter:


I bought three yards of Kona cotton - 1.5 of an orchid that just didn't work, and 1.5 yards of purple to finish this challenge quilt:

The problem with my ironing board

Is that it's always covered in cat hair. Or cats.



It does make a nice spot to lay and look out at the snow.

This is Ralph's "not gonna do any good to move me, ya know" look.


I need multiple covers, I think.

Stash Report 2012 - Week 3

Used this Week: .1 yards
Used year to Date: 1.1 yards
Added this Week: 1.3 yards
Added Year to Date: 1.3 yards
Net Used for 2012: -0.2 yards

I went to G Street this week to buy a Secret Sister gift (for the quilt show I had to skip for a sick Lovely Daughter) and also picked up a bag of scraps. Part of it was unusable - I don't approve of them sticking in 0.5" strings - but most was lovely.

The used was tossing, again. I'll eventually get through all of Lois' stuff that came home with TMOTH.

Stash Report 2012 - Week 2

Used this Week: 1 yards
Used year to Date: 1 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2012: 1 yards

The stash "used" this week was actually tossed - it was part of stuff I got from my MIL, and was not usable by me, or probably anyone else. At any rate, it is OUT of my house.

Fossil Hunting

The Peace River sure lives up to its name, doesn't it?



We went fossil hunting on Thursday.
The Lovely Daughter did not approve:


We gave her photographer duty since she didn't want to wade in the river:


So, of course she amused herself by taking pictures of our butts:


Basically, you dig up some gravel (here, Uncle J. is providing a shovel full to the Karate Kid):


While Uncle J. demonstrates proper fossil sifting technique:


The Small Man was initially not very happy at getting wet, but then embraced it fully:




We started at the wrong end, but we eventually found out that we wanted lots of GRAVEL so we moved to the shallower portion:


TMOTH and the Karate Kid did some digging in the deeper parts and found some of the larger shark teeth (but still small):


We found a bunch of tiny shark teeth, a oouple of larger (maybe 1 cm) teeth, some ray tooth plates, and some other fish tooth. Not anything earth-shattering, but fun never the less.

Stash Report 2012 - Week 1

Used this Week: 0 yards
Used year to Date: 0 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2012: 0 yards

That, at least, is an easy start:)

A lovely day at the beach

It started out cold here in sunny Florida, but warmed up enough to go to the beach. We went to Lover's Key State Park near Ft. Myers.


We had a lovely time playing on the beach.


The Small Man really digs the beach!


He's also quite the ham:


And also gets Dad in on the action:


The Mid-Kid played in the sand for a long time:


Until he got bored:


The Lovely Daughter sunned herself:


And hung out with Uncle J.:


We had a great blue heron come out and pose on the beach:


Kids watching the heron before it flew off:


Small Man and I returning from a short walk on the beach:


And we left as the sun set.

Ginormous bag

Working on a Secret Santa gift: NEEDS to get done soon!

The divider for the middle - Kona cotton on Peltex.


Piecing a star:


Hmmm. It looks like a pocket!


Off to work on some quilting of the sides.

EEK. Almost four months without posting.
I got DH to hide FreeCell today, so hopefully will get more done!

The first order of business is to thank my online friend Donnely at BlueRose Goddess Arts - I won a giveaway from her blog *quite* a while ago, and never posted a thank-you.

Look: A box stuffed FULL!


Inside the box, a whole lotta goodies: pretty mug and mug rug, tea wallet with some yummy-sounding teas, raspberry brownie mix, and FABRIC. Yum.


Thanks, Donnely - it made a dark phase a little brighter.

Isn't this the coolest insect on the planet?

This is the first one I saw, on the gate to our garden.


This guy (girl?) was hanging out in the asparagus.


We have a bunch of mantids in our garden every year - this year they seemed to expand to other parts of the yard, but all the photos I took were in the vegetable garden.

It's a Darwinian garden. Every year we start out with hundreds of little itty bitty baby mantids, and by the end of the summer, we're down to about 6 or 7 territories. Somehow, I think we'll have babies next year as well.

Stash report week 35

Used this Week: 0 yards
Used year to Date: 60.85 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 57.8 yards
Net Used for 2011: 3.05 yards

I have some hope of reporting more used soon - I finished a top for TMOTH, and have two tiny journal quilts that should be done soon.

Damage in our yard from Hurricane Irene

Lid off the trash can:


Small limbs off the trees:


This is the biggest limb TMOTH could find in the driveway:


Pine needles on the road in front of the house:


All in all, we were very lucky.

I need a kick in the butt

Or at least a nudge.

I have this small top for a haiku quilt:


My problem: I really like it, and I'm worried that I will screw it up when I quilt it. This hasn't been a big problem for me in the past, so I'm not sure what my issue is right now.

Any suggestions, either specific to quilting, or just how to get over this block?

Vacation fun

We're at my mom and brother's house in Florida, leaving tomorrow.

The Lovely Daughter and I went thrift shopping one day, and she found lots of clothes (of course!) and I even found a few - some nice jeans, new shorts, a shirt, and a couple of dresses. I found a big lot of paintbrushes for $1.98; turns out there were 36 brushes and two palette knives (and one pathetic yellow pencil). All but one or two of them are really nice paintbrushes. I found a new-in-box Scrabble game from the 70s; it's not clear if I can sell it on Ebay for more than that or not! The boys joined us for a while and found some games - a Lord of the Rings Risk game and a travel Etch-a-Sketch. Four quilting books for less than a dollar each; one was one of Carol Doak's paper piecing pattern books WITH the CD. Maybe it's a nudge from the Universe to try paper piecing.

We celebrated the Karate Kid's 13th birthday; now there are TWO teenagers in my house.


Since there are deserted roads, The Lovely Daughter has been practicing driving. I took her out in the van once, and my brother took her out in his little truck.


We went to the beach on Friday. We got there fairly in the morning, and had the beach pretty much to ourselves for a while.


I love the beach, and I DID use sunscreen, but wound up with a burned back anyway :(


Lots of nature - bunches of conchs in the sand, most alive.


And at one point, a small pod of manatees off the beach! You don't actually see any part of the manatees, just the people watching them. As soon as I would give up and put the camera away, they'd stick up a head or a tail!


And just for gratuitous cuteness, Toffee, who is away at puppy camp for the week.

Stash report week 34

Used this Week: 0 yards (on vacation!)
Used year to Date: 60.85 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 57.8 yards
Net Used for 2011: 3.05 yards

I did *look* at a couple of antique quilts while antiqueing with Mom and TMOTH yesterday. And I bought some bobbins and feet and buttons at the antique stores. And Mom gave me a Seminole jacket she's had for years (since the 80s, I think, so not an actual antique).

Stash report week 33

THUMP. I fell off the wagon again, pretty heavily this time. I was looking for asphalt fabric for a challenge quilt. One trip to Pins and Needles in Frederick: One fat quarter (mottled black, although The Lovely Daughter swears that it's blue) and 2 yards of blue that may work as borders for The Lovely Daughter's Quilt. One trip to G street: One fat quarter (mottled black) and a scrap bag (1.4 yards). One trip to Hancock's: One yard of grey Kona cotton (I was thinking of painting it to look like asphalt at this point) and another two yards of blue to audition for borders. Finally, one trip to JoAnn's: A half yard of material that looks like ASPHALT. The top is pieced (and painted), but not quilted.

Used this Week: 0 yards (sigh. I have worked on TMOTH's quilt this weekend.)
Used year to Date: 60.85 yards
Added this Week: 7.4 yards
Added Year to Date: 57.8 yards
Net Used for 2011: 3.05 yards

Clearly, I need to get busy :)

Stash report week 32

Another boring week this week :)

Used this Week: 0 yards
Used year to Date: 60.85 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 50.4 yards
Net Used for 2011: 10.45 yards

I've been working on my two "sewing areas" - the playroom and the dining room. Most of my stash resides in the playroom, and I mostly sew on the dining room table. BUT, the playroom's really gotten out of hand, and I need to get in there and get the floor cleared off (mostly my junk, not TMOTH's or the kids) so we can move the TV from the living room to the playroom, since I finally let TMOTH buy a flatscreen. AND I now apparently need to shift priority to the dining room - which has EVERYBODY's stuff in it - because TMOTH will need access to the wall that has the pipes in in so he can replumb the downstairs bathroom and kitchen. Whew.

Great deal on a birthday present!

Unfortunately, it's for The Lovely Daughter, whose birthday is in November, and not for the Karate Kid, whose birthday is coming up in a little more than a week.



"Regular" price at Michael's is $199.99 - but this week sets were on sale at 50% off. SO down to $99.99. That's better...but wait! Michael's sends me a coupon for 20% off my entire purchase, EVEN SALE ITEMS. Now it's $79.99! YAY! So I buy the set, and then remember that one of the online sites I was checking prices on (Blick - I LOVE Blick) had a note about a $10 rebate. SO I went to the Prismacolor website, downloaded the rebate form, and have it ready to go in the mail. WOOHOO!

This will duplicate some of the colors she already has, but most of "her" pencils are actually the family set of 48 that we scored at the Blick outlet for $10 a couple of years ago, so the bonus is that the family set moves out of her room!

Stash report week 31

Nothing to report until this week, when I fell off the wagon with a flourish.

First, there was the 20% off entire purchase coupon for Joann's...so I bought fleece to make a Totoro stuffie, and a couple of blue fabrics to audition for borders for The Lovely Daughter's quilt - which still needs some cats appliqued onto it. Plus a couple of queen-size cotton batts.

Then, today, an unexpected bonus - the Karate Kid forgot all of his fishing tackle at Boy Scout camp and somebody had to go get it. An hour and a half drive - BUT - for only 20 minutes more driving I was in Hershey for Quilt Odyssey!! A yard of blue, four fat quarters, a bag of scraps I'm estimating at 2 yards, 5 spools of thread, a packet of needles and a beautiful Singer 301-A later, I came home, stopping by the camp to pick up the tackle.

Used this Week: .5 yards (the Small Man wanted to make pillows)
Used year to Date: 60.85 yards
Added this Week: 10.5 yards
Added Year to Date: 50.4 yards
Net Used for 2011: 10.45 yards

Yikes! That net used number is going in the wrong direction!!!!!!