Snap Happy.

I have been wanting to make one of these for a long time. The open and close mechanism is made from a spring metal tape measure. Yay dollar store!  The pattern is by Stitchin Sisters.  Wissinkah@aol.com.

And check out our sweet peas sprouting.  These pictures were taken just 3 days apart. Wow!

Happy Father's Day!

Braved the traffic and the sun to take in some NASCAR racing at Sonoma today. Great race, great day.  Hope you all had a good one.

This is not helping my AADD

Why do I have this look on my face? Porque I have made this "vow" sort of thing to FINISH some quilts, make the quilts I have already cut up, planned or bought the fabric for. . . but, in addition to the Happy fabric I raved about in my last post, I had to go and travel around the blog world, and find the amazing quilts of Don't Look Now! I mean, clearly it is not my fault if I take a detour to make the I (heart) pink quilt or the monster quilt. OMG, must have, must make. Maybe I can make a DLN quilt with Holiday Happy fabric.

. . Hmm, I love it when a plan comes together -- (nice A-Team reference, yes?)

ok, but there are also the awesome new fabrics and quilts out there, like Caramel Town, also by Lecien, Cherry House quilts and the awesome book, City Quilts; Elizabeth at Late Bloomer Quilts and her gorgeous, fun, happy, bright new fabrics that, in my opinion are like electric versions of Cath Kidston's fabrics. Then there is Holly Holderman of Lakehouse Dry goods. Check out pictures of her booth at market on the blog and her new fabric line Fun Flowers 1, 2 and 3. OMG again.

I am back to head spinning, quilt planning and drooling on my computer. I love love love the amazing variety of fabrics and inspiring designs out there. It is worth the AADD despair of knowing I will not be able to make all the quilts in my head and out in the quiltiverse, just to be able to make a few and admire the rest.

Hey, back to my AADD, I realize that I have an apron that I got in an apron swap that would fit right in with that black, white and hot pink and orange color theme of the Lakehouse booth:

(modeled by my blonde twin, ha ha) Actually it's me when I was blonde, about a year ago. Speaking of hair color, today I was brunette and tonight, I am a red head!! Well, Cherry Chocolate is the actual name of the color that I gooped onto my head tonight. (why are hair colors named after food??) It seems like a very mild and subtle color here at 11 pm in my house. I can't wait to see it in the sunlight tomorrow. ciao

Revised. Table Topper, finishing projects, I heart Sundays

Summery table topper I made out of my stash. Perfect for this warm breezy day. It's 36 inches square, no overhang off the table to make your legs all hot when dining "al fresco" (Who's this Al Fresco guy anyway?)

So my adorable man pointed out that this is one of the only projects he has seen me complete from start to finish in the almost one year we have been together. HMMM, got me thinking that I am not a "finisher." I am a starter, a dreamer, a planner. I have AADD. Artistic attention deficit disorder. I am distracted by new fabric, new patterns, dreams, greeting cards, whatever idea pop in my head, so I leave the boring old quilting or binding or rest of the piecing on one project to start another.

I took his comment to heart and (drumroll please) I actually put the binding on a fairly good sized quilt last night as well. My celebration (party cake) quilt. So, yay, cross another one (well, one) off of the list.

BUT I CONFESS! I really want to start a whole new project using Miss Happy Zombie's bright and happy Christmas gnomie-licious fabric. It's actually called "Holiday Happy." Luckily, the fabric isn't available to me yet, but when it is, I will be hard pressed to avoid my AADD - I dreamed up a great design for this. I love that she used such fresh, bright colors for Christmas, don't you? I have decorated Christmas in this color scheme before and it is truly holiday happy.

Sundays are such great days lately. It has been really fun for us to find new restaurants to go to, and then going to eat and out to the movies with youngest son. He is so much fun to be around. Even if he wasn't my kid, I would want to hang around with him. This past Sunday we decided to go for pizza instead of our usual breakfast fare, and saw the "A-Team" and it was GREAT. Surprisingly great. I mean, I love action movies, but I thought this was going to be very cheesy and kind of immature. BUT it was a wonderful balance of funny, unbelievable stunts and plans, great dialog, great casting. I highly recommend it. Pay for the big screen to see the big action. Then, go home and bind a quilt. Like I did. If I can finish a project, so can you.

heck, I might even bind another one of the multitudinous unbound quilts roaming about the abode this week.

So close

I thought I had all of my pieced arcs complete at drop in tonight but alas, when I laid them out on the table, I was, you might say, a few tacos short of a fiesta pack.  But don't they look purdy.   Next step is to piece those curves eh? But I am not afraid.  Nossiree, bring on the circles.
Queso,  why can't the rest of life be as cheery as these dotty fabrics? I think my weekend will be just that:  dotty. I think that's my new word for great/ wonderful/ happy.  How was your weekend? Dotty, thanks.  What kind of movie should we see? Action? No, how about a dotty one this time. Queso clearly it's time for bed. Dotty dreams all.

Week in review: dots, frickles, dads, tickles

Happy week. Dots: got a lot done on my spotty quilt
Frickles: found a great BBQ restaurant that serves fried pickles aka frickles. Also great breakfast as younger son will attest, battling his chicken fried steak. (The steak won.).  Dads: Went to visit family. We took "pumpkin" aka "princess" aka "sweet pea" on a road trip to northern AZ to see my Dad. So we both got Daddy time.  Tickles: playing with pumpkin / princess / sweet pea and reading the latest Skippyjohn Jones book was so much fun.

Dizzy. Spinning dots

I have started the spinny circling dots quilt, everyday best, and here is my proof. This one is going on the bed. We went and bought dotty sheets at Target to match. Yay! I wonder if I will have spe-dotted dreams?!

Promilicious

My youngest went to prom last week. In his words, it was Sooooo Awesome!!

I am not permitted to "tweet the deets" actually I am not allowed to even know the "deets" but here are some sooooo awesome pictures:

Prom attire has changed quite a bit from when I was a teen in the Awesome 80s. Remember these getups?

OOOh, yeah, lots of shiny taffeta, asymmetrical hemline, off the shoulder and a big poufy flower. ALL the ingredients for an awesome dress. I can almost hear "True" by Spandau Ballet, or Journey "Faithfully"

Queso, if you are in need of a diversion, google this: ghetto prom dress. or redneck prom dress. but don't be hatin' on the most awesome vision ever, the Hello Kitty prom dress:

2 words to describe this: sah-weet!

Wish I had an appropriate event, alls I'm sayin' Here me, honey? Bust out the top hat, tails and cane, dust off the ruffled shirt and we will go to town.

Deep thoughts about perfect paper pieced points

The Spiked Melon Class has been so much fun to teach! One session left, and we all have such different quilts in progress. I do love paper foundation piecing; the results are so fantastic. Perfect points rock. I have actually started the dotty one, too; that's how much I love paper piecing. Photos to follow; for some reason I can't mobile upload them to my blog.

HERE THEY ARE:

What should I ask to teach next schedule?? I am thinking Peppermint Twist, my original design Christmas quilt. hmmm.

I will ponder that on this rainy day, while I ponder why my feelings run so deep, and why life keeps trying to give me lemons even though it knows I just love lemonade. Keep the faith in whatever you're passionate about - I believe that you know what you are doing, and that it will all work out if you stay true to you.

Spring has sprung, and is launching us into summer.

I LOVE QUILTS

Can I just tell you how much I love quilting?? And teaching quilting. And shopping for quilting stuff. . . and reading about quilts . . . and watching an episode of Hoarding on TLC that featured a quilter who had shloads of fabric strewn about. Oh, my sewing room looks so tidy in comparison.

It was so nice teaching a class at Thimble Creek yesterday. I so enjoyed helping everyone with their fabrics, figuring out how to make their quilts work for them. I love it. I am teaching the "spiked melon" class again, based on Karen Stone's book and pattern. Here is my quilt:I can't wait to show you all the different versions in class, from Kim's miniature "fruit punch" batiks, to Christina's melange of happy and colorful florals and geometrics, to Pam's baby quilt in soft blues, greens and tans, to Cindy's wonderful mix of greens, rusty reds, golds in all types of fabric from batiks to 1800 reproductions. Marvelous.

Oh, and mine that I am making in class too, which is based on my lovely "ugly" fabric in gold, cheddar, brown, purple and black, paisley weirdness.

I am looking forward to session two on May 15 and our final session on May 22.

I also visited a few quilt stores this week as my work had me travelling from Sacramento to Newark and San Jose all last week, so might as well make the most of it, right? oh, I got the cutest pattern at this little store in Fremont. For a minature dracula. TDF. I love Halloween, too. And, let's see, some cute bird in a tree fabric from the fabulous folks at Quilter's Inn.

QUESO

I have this habit of sayin, "K, so . . " when I change topics, which when I say it, sounds like the mexican word for cheese, "Queso" which is pretty funny because I do love cheese. K so, I am going to use "Queso" whenever I introduce a new topic, as such:

Queso, my boyfriend and I are working on finding some great breakfast places. Easter we took the boys to Sandy's Home of 101 omelettes in Fairfield and the men all had "kitchen sink" omelettes. 6 eggs, all manner of crazy fillings. I went for the less major 3 egger with stuff, lotsa cheese and linguisa. The biscuits were awesome. I highly recommend.

Next up is a place called, "Lois the Pie Queen" in Oakland. We are going with the boys for Mother's Day. I can't wait. They are famous for chicken and waffles, and of course, pie. Lemon icebox pie. My younger son and I are crazy for lemon desserts. crazy, I tell ya. I will report on the grub after we check it out. I will present our greater bay area findings on breakfast joints here when I have something to report.

Queso, went to the movies with same younger son last night. Saw "The Losers" and I know it is based on a comic book and all, but it was pretty cheesy. (queso fits, right?) although the bad guy is kinda darkly hilarious and the character Jensen is quite buff and funny. I think this is a definite wait for dvd/netflix/on demand kind of flick.

Queso, I love baseball. BF does too. He is a Phillies fan, I am a Giants fan. So we really enjoyed going to the game last week! Especially since the Giants won! YAY!

Back to Quilting. . .

I am anxious to start a new/waiting project, so I am going to continue the paper piecing progress and work on a dotty one from Linda Jenkins and Becky Goldsmith's book, Quilts with a Spin. This one is called Everyday Best, and I have been collecting the fabrics for it for a couple of years, so I think it is ready to come out of its box and be sewn now. I have even precut about a squillion rectangles so I am ready to paper piece. I am only using dotted fabrics, so it should be quite cheery to go with the sunny weather. I think I may even make it big enough for the bed. we shall see.

And look at this version made by the wonderful quilter at redpepperquilts

I really shouldn't start on this one, though because my friend Kim and I are trying to finish 12 quilts this year. My first quilting year I made 34, so 12 should be doable, especially since we are talking about finishing, not start to finish, and we both have a lot of works in progress. I have a tough time getting my quilt tops to finished. I even have a hard time getting quilted quilts finished. that binding always taunts me so.

So, Kim has finished 3 and I have finished 1, but have 3 that just need binding, one needs to be quilted, one needs borders and then quilted, two that all the blocks are done and just needs to be pieced into rows, and about 5 more in various stages of over half way done.

Until next post, have some pie, and think about joining in on the 12 finished quilt bandwagon.

I am going to read some quilting blogs. Did I mention, I love reading about quilts??