Bobcat Wars

Boy, what a weekend! I may have to stay home for a week just to recover -- lol! We went out to the coast on Saturday - my most favorite place. (The best quilt store for 200 miles around) We had lunch on the wharf - this was the view from our table:

So sad, isn't it? I had calamari and the best fish tacos in the known universe. Of course we hit the quilt store, and DH actually made a voluntary contributation to the cause! He dropped me off and went to find coffee and a paper. I spent a great hour grazing, visiting with aquaintanences and loading up. Because I have a heavy FQ dependency problem, I had to get a hit of that.

I got some yardage pieces also - basics to supplement the stash, nothing really exciting. After the quilt store we went antiquing, and there's where we had a little distraction. I found an old Singer, and the shop owner and I were sitting on the floor in this converted Victorian, examining the old machine. As I stood up, I forgot I was practically under the staircase, and I slammed my head into it at full speed, and knocked myself out cold. Don't you hate when that happens? So we spent the rest of the day in the ER at the local hospital, and that was a drag/ruined my day/wasted a weekend.

But I'm OK - lived to fight another day.
Now this is where the bobcat comes in.
I've lost 3 chickens in a weeks time to something we never saw, just heard. Out early one morning looking for tracks, we could easily tell it was a bobcat, so DH set up the trap on Saturday night, baited with a can of catfood and sure enough; we caught the grandkids cat. Sunday night he didn't get the trap re-set, and about 4 am this morning the chickens started squawking. I threw on the floodlights and ran out, but only heard it, didn't see it, and couldn't tell if any chickens were missing. 45 minutes later he was back! Again, we chased him off. About 6 am, already light, I went outside and there he was - standing 40 feet away from me on the other side of the fence. Amazing. I actually walked to within 10 feet of him!! And he just twitched his stubby little tail and watched me, then turned and casually walked away. Think that was all? Oh no -- I happened to glance up as I opened a kitchen window, and the little cuss was IN the chicken pen! By now, we had a gun out and ready, and I hollared at hunny to grab it. He went out one door, I went out the other to lure the horses away. (Had to laugh - Hunny was standing in the yard aiming a high-power rifle with a scope on it, in his undies - rofl!)
He got off a shot, and we both saw the cat scramble for heavy bushes. (And anyone for a mile or so around is awake now) We stood watching from 2 vantage points and pretty soon the cat, again casually, walked back across a clearing and back towards the hills. THAT is one brazen, or sick, little kitty.
Pretty tho - wonder if Hunny will let me get the carcass mounted?

July Doldrums

Not too much happens inside in July - ever noticed that? Seems like all the really fun stuff is outside. I had our mini-group over on Saturday and that was a blast - we made little ditty bags and had a potluck lunch: Fresh rhubarb pie, fresh blackberry cobbler and fresh angel food cake. ROFL! It's great to be old - you can eat dessert for lunch!
I have a new heartthrob:
MAN is he cute, or what??? This is month old Jayden Daniel, son of my youngest son. And a clone, I might add. I was privileged to see this young man come into the world much to my shock and delight. My other son is expecting his son in another 2 weeks or so, and after I relayed the story and told him how surprised I was to be allowed in, he and his wife sent me an engraved invitation to attend the birth of their son. WHOOPPEE!!!

Not too much machine sewing happening around here - I'm having to spend most of my time flat on my back and that Janome is waaay too heavy to sit on my chest. However, I have learned to embroider!! My friend Leslie has been itching to teach me, but the time never seemed to work out. Finally last week I went online, (bless the www) found pictures and video and tried it - hey! It's nowhere nearly as hard as I thought!

This was my first attempt - I actually bought an iron-on pattern. There's some really pretty ones out there! Then I freehanded a butterfly and tried some different stitches: And the blue washout pen ran when I got it wet. Gee - never had that happen before! I didn't think to put the dime in till it was too late, but the butterfly measures about 3 inches across. Now I'm working on a pretty big vintage Pooh and Piglet that will have my grandson's name, date of birth and all his stats on it, in a frame. I love doing embroidery, and it makes laying around flat all the time a bit more bearable. Now - I have about 240 posts to catch up on, having missed a week of blogging! You all are busy!

Someone Stop Me!

Before I stuff again!! LOL -- The pincushion bug has bitten me BAD, and I'm still stuffing. More Pinheads, (or maybe they're breeding while I'm sleeping) and now pears -


About a dozen so far. They're such a nice size, (oh, maybe 6 inches tall) and so smooth and firm, stand so nicely and of course allow me lots of fabric playing time. I've gotten the time it takes to make one down now to about 30 minutes, start to finish, and I have a big pile already cut to make more!

Well, I reckon I'll never own that many pins in my entire life, so I'm going to send these off to the Country Store that our Guild sets up during it's annual quilt show.

These are a few of my favorites, so far. I can't believe this - I have 2 UFO's on my design wall nagging at me, and a show coming up for which I have no entrys. None. But here I sit, stuffing little THINGYS and having a ball. And pawing thru bags and boxes and hidy-holes for litle pieces of fabrics, and finding some long lost friends. Does it get any better?
Dh returned home at 1 am this morning from a business trip to Las Vegas, and I sure missed him. He didn't take his cell phone, and the one phone call he made cost $27 so he didn't call again, and that was too long to go without talking to him. Even if all we say is "Hows the horses?" "They're fine" just to hear his voice is part of my day. We had a very nice low-key day, I stuffed while he snoozed on the couch. A couple of trips to town and now he's cooking dinner out on the grill. Big ol' steak for him, and for me grilled veggies with garlic olive oil with a few smashed twigs of rosemary steeped in it. Yummmm..... I made an angel food cake with eggs so fresh they never even made it into the fridge, and we'll melt some sugar-free apricot jam to spoon over it. BTW - if you should ever have the chance to do that, be aware that eggs that fresh whip up 1/3 again as high as store-bought eggs! I made this one with 1/2 sugar and 1/2 Splenda - Hunny is diabetic and I am "chubby" so every bit helps. My chubbiness is melting away tho - 30 lbs down now, and suddenly I have no clothes that fit. I'm going to my daughter-in-laws baby shower tomorrow and I had to go buy something to wear. I threw away about 15 pairs of pants last week, jeans and scrub pants - whoo-hoo! The scrub tops can be taken in and are OK to wear baggy, but the pants are tragic when they're too big. Nothing succeeds like success.
Our three oldest grands: Devyn, Zach and Colton (all from next door) are leaving for camp tomorrow - it's going to be '"ver-wy ver-wy" quiet around here! That means Gramma and Gramps can take a nap in the middle of the day without the doorbell sounding off...**VBS** I'm hosting a sew day next Saturday for my mini-group, and before that can happen I have to clean up my sewing room mayhem so that's going to take up any potential naptime I'm afraid.
Hey...what's happening with my dinner, anyway?

Meet the Family!

I can't tell you how much fun this is -- I'm SO addicted! All I need is unlimited amounts of time. Yea, like that'll happen.

They remind me of Tribbles - remember those? Maybe I've been working too hard, but they seem to have personalities; like I'm going to hear a raging party coming from the sewing room after I go to bed. LOL! They just make me giggle - nothing wrong with that, eh?

Such a nice weekend -- too bad it's about done for. In spite of the unbearable heat & mostly hiding inside, a lot of good things came about. Guild meeting was Saturday morning, and I came home with lots 'o loot!! In the Treasure chest drawing I won a bundle of FQs and an American Doll Quilts book - I've been eyeing that one for awhile! From the Freebies table, an entire, brand new Sashiko kit; fabric, thread, patterns, book and needles!!!! Wowza - what a score. Also some fun dragon fabric, a huge piece of turquoise & blue southwest and a full set of the little glass topped tins for keeping beads. Ahhhh....color me happy. Then for a day-topper, Hunny cooked dinner:

I love it when Hunny cooks - he makes the best, prettiest salads anywhere! Becasue it was too %$#^%& hot to play outside or even walk outside, I played in my room most of the weekend. And so did Cuervo -
See anything, oh, strange about my stash? A little fuzzy, maybe? LOL -- that's a tail - the rest of the huge orange body is playing "Explorer-Man" back in the depths. At one point I asked him if he saw any flowered fabric to please drag it out, and all I got was a muffled "Oooowwww". About the only things I got accomplished was a bunch of pincushions. First up, this pear that I've been seeing around blogworld: LOVE it! Well, I would love it if it were about 2/3 the size and didn't weigh 2 lbs! LOL -- it's pretty, but pretty impractical. Got to downsize it just a bit. My coolest idea of the year has me really excited - they're so cute! I've completed 6 of them now, but here's a peek at the first one. Do you think anyone would buy these on etsy or e-bay?
So far I call him Peter Pinhead. I have a bunch of ideas for more and that's a good thing because Hunny went out and bought every last one of these cupcake cups in town. Ahem -- if I don't sell some he'll win a bet and I can't have that now, can I? Gee, it was such a full weekend and I have so much to share but now I have to go Birthday one of the Grands. Miranda is 9 today, and there's a party at their place next door. Inside for the grownups and underwater (in the pool) for the kids -- LOL! Gramps was grumbling about having so many birthdays but just think -- by Christmas we'll have 10 grandchildren!!! Isn't that great? Lucky us.......

Disaster Averted

Just in case you ever doubted, God/the Universe/Angels have their hands on the shoulders of fools and little children.
Like me - you figure which one I am :-)
The winner of the quilt was one of our patients, a tiny little lady of 80 some odd years who needs oxygen 24/7. She was so happy and so excited, and she used to be a quilter. Yes, you heard right. I offered to make her another one or re-make this one, and she said "You'll do no such thing. I can't see it anyway, and who's going to tell an old lady that her quilt is faded?" After we all stopped laughing, I gave her a big hug, and she happily took her quilt, and all's well that ends well.
Whew!!

HELP!!!

I have a real disaster on my hands - namely the raffle quilt I made to raise money for our patients' emergency fund.

This was on display in a north-facing window for 6 weeks, and look what happened!! I have quilts in that window that have been there for years -- and nothing has ever faded even a little, let alone like this. We're supposed to draw tickets and give this thing away today -- what do we do??? I don't want to give this to anyone, yet all those people bought tickets. Now what??
It's my own stupid fault - that blue fabric was some cheapie discount store fabric I got at a yard sale. Notice the red didn't fade? Yep, Quilt shop quality. Any cheapo stuff in my stash is going to the dump, I'm never taking this chance again!
(Wailing, pulling hair and generally freaking out....)