Punkin' Tutorial

We made these cute, easy punkins' at retreat this past weekend and I wanted to share with you. Our wonderful Retreat Mum, Kerrie, brought the instructions for these, but I don't know where she got it. You'll need fabric, at least 7 x 14, and twigs, twine and leaves. I used real leaves here, but silk would probably last longer. You can use raffia, twine or decorative cording - they all look great! You also need a glue gun or some kind of tough glue.

Cut your fabric 7 x 14. Any dimension that is rectangular will work, and different proportions will make different shaped punkins. This measurement makes a punkin' about the size of a grapefruit. Fold it over right sides together and sew up the short side:
Press the seam out - any old which way. Then you need to do a bit of handwork. With a doubled thread, fold over one edge just once about 1/4 inch and make a long running stitch all the way around.
Gather it up as tight as it will go, but DO NOT cut off the thread. You'll have a puckery little belly button:
Turn it inside out and stitch the puckers closed, as sloppy as you want! NOW you can knot it and clip it off.
Do the same gathering stitch to the other side, again DO NOT cut your thread. Stuff your punkin' as firm or soft as you like. BTW - if you've stuffed things before and not liked the "lumpy" look, tear off that stuffing in wispy little bits instead of grabbing a handful. When it's as firm as you like, pull up that thread into another pucker, knot it off and clip the thread.
I think it takes something less than a yard of cording, and here's where you wrap it around the punkin' in equal divisions. Put the first strand directly on the seam (for camouflage) and wrap it around, tying it in the center. Do the same for 2 or 3 more divisions, whatever look you like. When you've done all the wrapping and tying, you have this:
Finally the fun part!! Pick a good stem and glue it down into the opening. If you want, you can twist pipe cleaners or florists wire around something skinny like a paintbrush and glue those in next to the stem.
Overlap the leaves, gluing each one as you go. Suddenly, VIOLA!
You have a punkin! Check my previous post for a group shot - all the different fabrics looked great! And a big basket of these will decorate clear thru Thanksgiving - and make great gifts. Have fun!

Retreat Time!!

Retreat is always the high point of my year - 4 days of self-indulgent quilty behavior and chocolate! What else could you want? I always have a blast, make new friends and spend too much at my favorite quilt store. Plus I get to enjoy cool, foggy coastal weather and get away from the heat of our little inland valley -- bliss!!
So for a quick report before I scurry back to the real world office that awaits me, here's what we all did as a Take'nMake project:

Thes pumpkins were so adorable!! I'll try to get it together and do a tute on them - too easy, too fun and waaaay too cute!! I didn't work on any one big project this time, I worked on a bunch of little ones. Remember the FSQS? I made a cute flowery applique quilt for my partner in Oz, and have wanted to make another one for myself ever since. So - here was my chance! I had a ball playing with the placement:

I even scrounged bright scraps from other retreaters so I have scraps of memories in there too! I have more to show, but I have to hustle off to the Outside world now -- and my bags aren't even unpacked yet! ***sigh***
Thanks for stopping by!

Sewing Again

You have to love quilt shows - there's definitely something magic that just gets the mojo turnin'. Sure enough, I finally, finally got something moving in the sewing room! This will be a re-make of a Fons and Porter design that I made several years ago and promptly lost to my daughter. (Oh thanks Mom! I love it!) Huh? Wait....oh dear. I've promised myself over and over that I'd make another one for me but of course then couldn't find the pattern again. This afternoon I made a concerted effort, went thru 4 towers of magazines and finally found it. Why don't we ever look in the last place first? How come it's ALWAYS in the last place? LOL -- so without further to-do, let me introduce the new-born witch sisters Hetta and Gracie, and two of their playmates; nameless spirits at this point:

Geeeesh.......never thought 2 blocks would make me feel so accomplished.
I promised you more of Judy Mathieson, and here ya go. I love this quilt, the lowly 9-patch with applique. I know there's one in me somewhere, I drool over every one I see. This one is beautiful. I snapped the first picture from 20 or 25 feet away, (so the flash wouldn't wipe it out), then checked it out in the camera. I enlarged it and when I did I noticed something odd.

Peculiar. Weird, even. So I ran up to look closer..... (you can click on it)

It's all dogs!!!

None of those flowers are flowers, they're all fussy cut dogs, every last one! It's brilliant! While I stared in amazement I could hear Judy giggling - she says "I love watching people find that!" Oh man, I bet! I had to hang around and watch a few folks find it too -- what fun! Just proves again what I've always thought. The woman is a genius.
It's off to bed for me - cross your fingers that this go-sew swing hangs on for awhile. Maybe long enough to clean up my mess?? LOL!
Thanks for stopping by!

Eating Crow

Well -- by now you're familiar with the whole sorry tale of the Civil War battle that raged in Northern CA a few weeks back and resulted in a quilt known as The Rebel. This past weekend was the annual Falling Leaves Quilt Show in Lakeport, CA. and The Rebel comes home a decorated war veteran. Third place!!!

I was shocked - you should have seen the rest of the entries in that category! They were awesome! So, Humble Crow Pie it is, and I guess I have to be nicer to my rebel vet now. ROFLOL!!
The featured quilter this weekend was Judy Mathieson, a wonderful sweet and mad talented lady from not too far away. Her quilts are jaw dropping!

Oh my gosh -- scary beautiful.

It really does glow....

***sigh***
Oh my. What eye candy. She had another one hanging that you would never have guess was hers - I'll show you that one later. Two days hanging around all this eye candy was enough to even get me off my lost-mojo fanny, and I started cleaning up my sewing room. See, I haven't sewn a thing since finishing The Rebel but I have dumped stuff in there. Erk. Now I have a little more than a week to get it together and get ready for retreat, so I better get on it.
No change on the home front. It's getting sad, lonely and scary being here with him down the hall. Thank you SO MUCH for keeping us in your prayers and good thoughts. I'm hanging tough and keeping faith and trying to remember that Life has to keep on moving...... if I could just channel that into the sewing room!
Thanks for stopping by!

One Day at a Time

There's that word again -- TIME TIME TIME......... I have this sneaking suspicion that TIME is not my friend: but on we go.  No change on the home front.   I've picked myself up off the floor and planted my feet so we have what's called in these parts - a "Mexican-Standoff".  No un P/C intention there, it just an old description of two unmovable forces.   SO -- he says "I want" and I say NO.  

Meantime, I had a long-planned yard sale this past weekend, to unload piles of stuff that has been clogging up closets/storage sheds/cupboards.    Amazingly, I did really well!  What little was left fit into the trunk of my car and will go to Goodwill today, and I am $450 richer!  Whoo-hoo!   My daughter came up Saturday to hang out and help out with the sale and we had a wonderful visit.   I only had to restrain her from beating up Hubby 3 times, I thought it would be more.........**jeeeesh**

In other good news, the annual Quilt Retreat on the coast is coming up and boy am I looking forward to THAT!   My friend that usually goes with me cancelled out because she's pretty upset with me still for leaving the dialysis clinic.  (See, we were a team there)  so I'll miss having her there, but another friend of mine stepped in and bought her place so I wouldn't be there alone - how nice!!!  She told me I need a friend with me at all times, and so she's going and I love her to bits.   

I leave you with these funnies - thoughts to live by:

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative

on the same night.

2. Don't worry about what people think, they don't do it very often.

3. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than standing

in a garage makes you a car.

4. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

5. If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never

tried before.

6. My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

7. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.

8. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice

person. (This is very important. Pay attention!

It never fails.)

9. For every action, there is an equal and opposite government

program.

10. If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the

trip.

11. Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.

12. A conscience is what hurts when all of your other parts feel so

good.

13. Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.

14. Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it.

15. No man has ever been shot while doing the dishes.

16. A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.

17. Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the

waist change places.

18. Opportunities always look bigger going than coming.

19. Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks

before you need it.

20. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.

It's all Bad

I feel like an emotional roller coaster - normally my personality is upbeat and happy, but the past few years Life has thrown some doozies at me and I fight to keep my head up.  Now I have another really BIG one.  My husband, overwhelmed by his grief and depression, has formed the opinion in his mind that I am responsible for Tims death and he wants a divorce - immediately.   To say I'm shocked is the understatement of the century - all the air has been knocked out of me.   This blog will probably be going dark for quite some time while I figure out what to do and how to do it and how to survive this.  Keep up your wonderful blogs - I love reading them and I can't get my day going without seeing what everyones' up to.  

Guilds are a GOOD THING, Martha!

How do you like my NEW LOOK? There's some things I want to add and the banner's not right, but I'm workin' on it!

Saturday was our monthly guild meeting, our last one in the tiny hall that we've outgrown. Our speaker was Don Linn also known as Mr. Quilt. He brought his Quilt 'O' Matic to demo and it was hilarious! What a show! And what quilting - this guy is fantastic. We even got to pass his quilts around and take a close CLOSE look, and there's no fault to be found. It was a terrific lighthearted day! Maybe the best part was when he picked on my dear friend Rosie to come up and "make a quilt" using the energy ball. Her first one wasn't so great, so he held her hand to "add his energy" to hers -- ROFLOL!! She was a great sport and played along and we all howled with laughter -- it was campy and ridiculous and just what the doctor ordered!

I took this with my i-Phone and for a cell phone picture it's not bad. I haven't even edited it yet! I think this definately has to be in the newsletter, don't you?
Thanks for visiting my newly re-vamped blog -- one of these days I'll figure out how to get all my fun thingys back.....

As the World Turns

Sometimes Life just sucks - that's all there is to it. And oftentimes - quite often in fact, bad things happen to good people and everyone is left to deal with the mess the best they know how. About a month ago, the 19 yr old son of a friend of mine took his life because of a failed romance. I wish these kids could see just how the destruction they leave behind ruins the lives of everyone they love. In their pain they assume no one will care and of course not only are they so wrong, but they can't imagine how far the ripples of their selfish act will spread. His death ripped open unhealed wounds in our house of Tim's death 4 years ago; also at age 19, also by his own hand. DH had a complete meltdown, becoming in turns nasty and surly, or weepy/inconsolable or just silent. To make matters worse, Tim's birthday is approaching and of course it's always a hard time. I'm clinging to my newly-found good mental health and trying to figure out the best way to help my husband and deal with my own sadness and thoughts of Tim and there just hasn't been a lot of room in there for much else. Relentlessly, Life goes on............
Last Sunday, I pecked a bit in my sewing room and DH pecked a bit in his shop, and midway thru the day our pastor pulled up to the house, hopped out and handed Hunny a package saying "I was thinking of you two today" and drove off, all in a minutes time. Hunny brought it in to me - a HOT loaf of fresh bread, right out of the oven! The first thing I did was take a picture.........

OK OK -- so that was the second thing I did. Now as amazing as that is - here's the rest of the story. Pastor and his wife live about 15 miles from us! This bread was HOT - it melted the butter! That simple act felt like a huge blessing - like rain breaking a heatwave or a warm quilt on a cold night, or hugs from Grandma. It felt like someone was telling us - "I care" and of course, Someone was. It had quite a profound effect on me. And Life goes on.........
Remember the cute little carved wooden seam ripper I found on my vacation a couple of months ago? Well, I showed my friend Rosie, who ran home and told her Honey, who owns a lathe and started making some! Today at Guild she gave me one for my upcoming birthday!

Is that gorgeous, or WHAT?? It's made from madrone, an extremely dense hardwood native to California and very beautiful. The handle as you can see is large, fits perfectly in my big mitt - and I can't hardly put it down! It's soft and smooth and feels like a worry stone in my hand - I think I held it most of the way thru the guild meeting. Oh shoot -- I have another early birthday present to show you but forgot to take a picture. Gee -- you'll have to stay tuned! Life goes on..............
I took the Rebel to guild for Show'n'Tell and got a good response, and even tho we're more than a month past the quilt show deadline they were a few quilts short so the Rebel will stand again. Guess I better finish clipping all the threads. If it wins so much as an honorable mention I guess I'll have to forget all about the PAIN it caused me!!! ROFL -

There's probably someone in your life struggling to deal with the fact that Life does go on. If you're so inclined remember them in your prayers, or take them a loaf of bread. What looks healed on the surface after some time has passed could still be raw underneath and you might just light up their day.

Still around - sorta

We're having major LIFE happening around our house lately so I've been really quiet.  Don't know yet if everything will be OK - it's a day-by-day process.   Not too much happening in the quilting either - except the binding is done on The Rebel and now I really like the quilt!   I'm still rolling through everyones' blogs and I'll be back when the dust settles.

Have a good one, whatever it is!

A GRAND mail day!

It was Bren!! Bren was my swap partner for 4SQS/summer, and looky what she made for me!!

To say I'm excited is a little understated -- I love this! And BREN made it! LOL - it's fantastic, and check out the hand stitching, it's so fine! AND to make it even sweeter - 2 magazines that I really like and never buy for myself -

THANK YOU Bren! It's so cool to have a Secret Sister and have it turn out to be someone you "know" - I'm so tickled! In the same mail day was my new exercise bike - quiet, comfortable and easy to ride:

(Looky, Mama! I got it!) My Mom has one of these and I rode hers a bit in Utah and gee, you can't ask for nicer. I need to exercise more - who doesn't? - and DH hates my treadmill with a passion, it's too noisy. I like to watch TV when I exercise, and do it early in the morning, so that pretty well killed THAT. So the bike is silent, nary a whisper from it, and as comfortable as my easy chair. Our local stores don't carry it so it came from a CyberStore, arriving yesterday with my beeeyootiful 4SQS. Happy me!

Today I'm cleaning like a crazy woman - I host Bunko this Wednesday night and it's always a huge production. This group always goes all out, and every party is a Martha Stewart production, complete with full dinner for 12, dessert/coffee/great prizes/etc. So the carpet in my family room, under the bike above, was kind of grungy and it got shampooed this morning. HUGE job - all the family room furniture is outside in the carport. I need to come up with a menu, shop, get all the gifts together and wrapped, make up fancy score cards, shop some more and on Wednesday thank goodness I get off work early. HOWEVER - I don't have tomorrow to do anything because tomorrow I have to make that dreaded 150 mile round trip for DGS' first birthday party and that will effectively wipe out an entire day of preparation. PLUS I haven't finished the tablecloths. Am I in trouble or what? Guess I better get a move on....Thanks for stopping by!

Civil War Skirmish Won by North

I don't get it - I really don't. Last night I sat down with the Rebel again, after changing a 3rd new needle and re-threading for the 32nd time. And it was like BUTTA!!! I got the whole top quilted in about 2 hours without a single broken thread!

Why? What was different from Sunday when I stomped out in a rage? I didn't do anything that I hadn't already done over and over and over....... I just don't get it. I'm beginning to convince myself that this quilt is possessed by the spirit of a prankster Rebel solider, harassing me because I live in NORTHERN California. No? OK, so that's pretty far out there, but do you have an explanation? Did I earn some good quilting juju somewhere? LOL - who knows? But isn't it fun?
On the new job front, it's like Heaven!   Tuesdays are our busy days when she sees patients in the office and I do an anemia clinic, meaning I give injections to patients with nephrogenic anemia. Between us there can be 10 or 20 patients in a day and we're hoppin' so no chance of boredom there, but on Fridays I could give myself a complete manicure and pedicure and not disrupt anything. Can't have that! I'm one that needs to earn that salary and stay occupied.
Not quite as occupied as the last job tho - oh no no. I still talk to folks over there on a daily basis, and my heart bleeds for them but at the same time I take a deep breath and SMILE. Not this sista - I'm all better now!
Now how's YOUR day?

A Rant and a Rave

WARNING - seriously disturbed quilter about to GO OFF!
I've been wrestling ALL DAY trying to quilt The Rebel, and I have 3 squares done to show for it. Three. The entire rest of the time I've been fighting my sewing machine trying to figure out WHY the thread breaks every 4 minutes!!! (see previous problem with the Bunco dice appliques....) What gives? I got out the book and did everything it says to do, and I did everything I could think of. New needle. Re-thread (no lie, did that about 30 times!!!) different thread. Adjust tension/foot pressure/speed. I'm so ready to throw something! I could just scream, I'm so frustrated. WHAT could possibly be going on that suddenly I can't quilt? This is free-motion straight line quilting I'm doing on this, more or less kind of following the lines of the block but no, it's not in the ditch or 1/4 inch. There's one 4 inch line of stitching on one block that I've picked out SIX times because the thread broke in the middle every stinkin' time. Not even over a cross seam, just right in the middle of a perfectly flat piece of fabric. Now that I've decided that obviously my Janome is sick and needs to see a doctor that makes me even madder because the Janome is only a few months old and the Janome Doc is 75 miles away!! Have I mentioned I hate hate hate making that drive and it's time consuming and expensive? I need to scream and throw something REAL BAD. I know, "temper temper.........." and yes, I'm in one for sure! Maybe the underlying reason for the tantrum is that I didn't go to the quilt show after all. DDIL's mom and aunt are both sick, and 80% of my reason for wanting to go was to spend time with them. DDIL isn't too into quilting so I didn't drag her along, and I'll get to see them both next weekend at DGS's first birthday party. Geez, another 1 year old grandson! Since I was home I made myself a bright summery new purse:

The stripes are pieced and I put in my first purse zipper! Whoo-hoo for me! I'm so tickled with that. It has problems, to be sure, but it zips and everything! LOL - it's also loaded with pockets, inside and out. The outside has 3 pockets on each side, of varying sizes. Sunglasses, cell phone, pens - see the pens sticking out of their pocket above? I design my purses to be the way I want them, and I want pockets.

And wonder of wonders, I even got the strips to match along the zipper - that was amazing, can't believe I did that. And the stupid sewing machine didn't give me any grief on that!! I really think it's The Rebel - it hates me.
Ahhh, flowers. I still don't have much of a yard or garden, but I do have some bloomers and these are amazing - they're plain old 4 o'clocks, only they're not plain, for sure:

There's every conceivable combination of pink, yellow and white all mixed up in the same flower. They look like clowns! Or like a 3 year old painted them. No two are the same even on the same branch - it's so fun to see so many odd looking flowers all together.

Well, I'm still pretty hot so I guess I had better go eat some ice cream and try to calm down. It might take 2 bowls of ice cream in this heat!
I hope you're having a better sew day than I am -- Happy Sunday!

it's FAIR time!

Summer is fair time all over the place and last night I went to the "big" fair 75 miles away with my daughter and DGD. Actually - my daughter dragged me, coerced, begged, threatened, whined, cajoled......get the picture? All because of a band that was playing there - 3 Dog Night. A zillion years ago, (1973) I was pregnant with my second child and I loved that band, so decided to name the child after one of the singers, Cory Wells. Nice neutral name, uncommon at the time and I liked the ring to it. So when the child was a girl I fretted about the name being too androgynous and I wanted to make sure she would never be called by the draft board thinking they had a guy - so her middle name is Elizabeth. "Make no mistake, Draft Board Guys - this is a GIRL so don't draft her!!!" Children being what they are, she grew up and joined the Air Force and went to war in Bosnia. Oh well -- what are ya gonna do? So this has been a favored family story since then and one my daughter loves, and loves to tell. When she heard that THIS GUY was going to be in her town, at a free show at the fair no less, there was no question but that we would go see him.

On a 'school night' no less, I left work and drove 75 miles to her house, we jumped in her truck and beat it to the fair. The concert was a blast - we were surrounded by my contemporaries and we all sang and danced through the entire show. DGD loved it, she didn't know any of the songs but she loved being there and dancing and had her Ga-ma and Mama and everything was perfect. If you remember one of their big hits was a party anthem, "Mama told me not to go" about some poor guy ending up at a drug-soaked party he didn't really want to be at. They launched into that, and about half way through stopped and told a long story about music, changing times, yada yada yada that culminated in a RAP version of the same song! ROFL - it was really funny, but they about got booed off the stage. I don't know if it was tongue in cheek or not, but it was hilarious.
After the show we hit a few of the fair 'must-sees', including the crafts buildings where this magnificent 6 foot tall model of San Francisco was displayed:

Made entirely from toothpicks!! Intertwined all throughout is a slide that the guy rolls balls thru, they go all over the place. Amazing. Of course I had to go see the quilts, but only a fast trot thru there because DGD was starting to whine. This was my favorite --

Finally we dragged ourselves back to DD's place and I crashed there for the night. This morning I got up way early, showered and cleaned up and in the kitchen was met by the cutest coffee-maker in the world! She climbs up there and gets coffee beans down, measures out the right amount and grinds them correctly, fills the pot with the right amount of water and pours it carefully into the coffeemaker and makes a FINE cup 'o joe. Did I mention she's 4 years old?

Armed with that sweet cup of coffee I high-tailed it 75 miles back up the road and skidded into my office with ONE minute to spare. Whew! Glad I don't do that every day! Except that, first thing tomorrow morning I jump in my car again and go BACK DOWN to meet up with my DDIL and 1 yr old grandson, then we'll go another 30 miles south and meet up with her mom and aunt, and the 5 of us will take in a quilt show and a bit of fabric indulgence. Whew! No wonder I'm pooped!! Quilt show pics coming soon! Have a great weekend and thanks for visiting!

Shhhh --

No pictures today - Sorry!  I really am working on quilty things, at least I'm trying to!  You know those days when you're all revved up, in the groove and ready to sew and create all day then the whole WORLD decides that's the day they need you more than anything?  Well, that was my weekend!  LOL - That phone started smoking by noon, scaring all the folks who dropped by.  I love love love having friends and family in my home - I waited a long time to be able to have that and it's a blessing - but sewing?  Heh - not so much.  Suddenly it's deadline time for quilt-show entry forms and I don't have anything ready!  ARK!  The peephole of time I had without company or phone calls I had to use to paint one of the decks, oh goody.   Is there anything on earth more fun than painting a deck in 90 degree heat?   Maybe changing sheets on built-in bunk beds?   How about this - a phone call in the dark of pre-dawn that opens with "This is Officer Smith from California Highway Patrol.  We have a report of horses in the road in your area  - will you check yours please?"   Oh crap.    That wakes you up real fast!  Ours did in fact get out last week - and gave us a heck of a fight to get them back.    Paco is a sheer genius at un-latching gates and finding loose boards, so getting a call like this isn't totally out of the blue.   In fact, CHP has our phone number because of an escape a couple of years ago!   So Hunny and I went flying outside to check, he to the east side and me to the west.   I went scampering around a corner and almost ran smack into Paco who was really surprised and reared up!  That startled me as I was skidding to a stop and I slipped and fell smack on my fanny, not far enough from where his sharp little hooves came down.   On my lower leg.   Oowwww!   Remember it's not quite light yet and everything is surreal and I was hoping none of this was happening and I'm sure Paco was thinking "How cool!  You came out to play!"  and now Hunny is calling to me - "I can't find them, we better get the truck!"   so I hollered back - "yea, get the truck and give me a ride back to bed, OK?"  Geeesh..... all that then we have to go clean up and face a Monday morning at work.   (giggle) I'm still having fun!  I like this new brain I found somewhere; nothing fazes it!    A nap would be nice tho - 0500 is kinda early to be in high gear.  Yaawwnn...

Ahhhh - the weekend!

Gee, it seems like Saturdays are more fun these days since I'm all calm and not trying to recover from a terrible week. Now Saturdays are back to being a day to actually practice relaxing and having fun!! This Saturday started off with a SEW DAY at my house with Leslie, Rosie and Chari - my own Ms. No-Blog. Somehow I managed to not get any pictures of the SewDay (!) but I did get snaps of two little guests who were too shy to stay very long:

We've been watching these two cuties for a few weeks now and boy do they grow fast!! The first time we saw them they looked like house cats with long legs. They're probably thigh-high now, still in spots and so so cute! I'm glad we're on their daily circuit.
So for my Sew Day project I didn't work on a quilt, I worked on my Bunco table cloths. Each of them is a modified 9-patch that is custom fit to the table top, and each has the black center so you can see the rolled dice better. The side borders will be fitted at the corners to make a box-shaped topper that won't slide all over the place as we play. They will also each have the 3 appliqued dice on the sides although each tablecloth will have different colored sides, this one is red. The second one I think will be aqua, and the third maybe dark gold - I'm still debating.

The dice are printed on fabric adhered to paper-backed fusible and cut apart. The plan was to do a quick machine zig-zag around the sides of the dice to secure them. Easy project to do while visiting and giggling, right? Well, my machine started right off skipping stitches. I fooled with the tension and that didn't help. I got a new needle and that didn't help - still skipping stitches. I un-threaded and re-threaded top and bobbin and that didn't help. I changed bobbins. I changed thread. I changed MACHINES and still skipped stitches! I changed stitches - maybe straight stitch instead of zig-zag. Nope - still skipped but the straight stitch looked much better. I changed needles again, to a larger size 12, and switched to a heavier thread - no dice. (ug - bad pun!) I switched back to thinner thread in the larger needle - still skipping stitches so I pulled the whole thing out of the machine, wadded it up and threw it behind the couch. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!! I had 3 honest to goodness ladies in my house so I didn't say what came to mind, but I'm sure they heard anyway - LOL!! It was still a wonderful, terrific, relaxing day with good friends and good food and that sure made the aggravation bearable, even funny. Thank you my dears!
After my friends left, I got a quick nap then we packed up the 2 oldest GS's age 16 and 14 and went to the boat races. At a paved racetrack! ROFL - it was hysterical! Here's the premise - you get your old beat-up jalopy and old unwanted boat and paint them up with gaudy designs and personal slogans. You hook the boat to the car with rope and don't bother with a trailer, just drag the boat on the road behind you. Then put 20 of these outfits on a racetrack that's been raced on by real cars for a few hours so it's good and slick. Oh yea - get the biggest water truck you can find and water down that oily track real good - spray the crowd too while you're at it! OK - the last car still running with boat still attached is the winner, so you want to wipe out your opponents as fast as possible.

We laughed so hard our faces hurt! There was debris everywhere, a few times wild boats went screaming past us skidding along ON THE FENCE and the noise was incredible! Any boat was a target - another driver would take aim, accelerate and smash into it as fast as he could! Every couple of laps they'd stop the race and remove drivers, but the wrecked cars and boats stayed right where they died!! So if there was a big boat that ended up right across the track that's where it stayed and got turned into trash by the next car to come by. There was no holding back - these guys were putting on a show and all 6,000 people loved it. You can see we're very close to the track which adds to the thrill since those wrecks happen less than 15 feet away!

It was certainly the highlight of the nights racing, and this time NO ONE left early! I've never seen the racetrack so crammed, and parking was a nightmare but I'm sure glad we went, it was quite a spectacle. The boys were beside themselves and all the way home talked about fixing up an old car and racing. Well, Grandpa raced, Dad raced, Uncle raced; heck I even raced motorcycles many years ago so it's about time for these guys. Grandpa and I told the boys we'd buy them a car but they have to foot the bill for everything else, then we dropped them off at their house and scurried into our house locking the door behind us so Mom couldn't get us!! LOL!!
Back to my derailed table cloths. I still love the idea and I'm not ready to give it up so back to the drawing board. I sure wish I knew why all of a sudden I can't get a decent stitch with that fusible; it's always worked fine before! Plan B will be to print on plain fabric backed with freezer paper and just pinned onto the background. I know that method works! How's your weekend?

Lazy Weekends

I love the slow lazy days of summer with nothing pressing, nothing demanding attention and nothing getting in the way of doing, well, NOTHING! LOL! For all of the nothingness, I've really gottne a lot done. For starters, I finally got the sleeve done on the Siggie Quilt and hung it in the living room:

Fun, bright and colorful for summer, isn't it? Most of yesterday was given over to "chores" like laundry and picking up around the house, but for a few hours last night I went camping; LOL, yes, I said a few hours! DD and DGD are camping with friends at the lake a few miles from here, and they were anxious to have me come visit for dinner and Smores. Madeline is normally a fastadious little fashion plate, and prefers to be clean, just like her Mama, but camping means you're going to be dirty. That's just the way it is, and face it - a dirty kid is kind of charming!

The white smear across her nose is self-applied sunscreen, there's some dinner around her mouth, grubby little fists and plain old honest dirt smudges all over and she's pretty pleased with it all! A short time later tho, it turned to upset when her marshmallow flamed:

She huffed and puffed and it still wouldn't go out and OH the pain! It was tragic, I tell you! ROFL!! Ooops, excuse me. I really do try hard not to laugh at Small-Girl-Trauma, but c'mon! It's so cute! Ok, I confess, I didn't laugh out loud and I did help put out the fire and comfort my little chef. Then she toasted another totally perfect one and all was well again.
Back home today I tackled a BIG UGLY job that I've been putting off for a couple of years. I painted the exterior trim of the french doors in our bedroom - UGH!!! I really hoped Hunny would cave in to the whining, but alas he never did so I finally dove in. Actually it wasn't too bad; we got a good quality paint and top notch brush and those both made for a smooth easy job. I only did one coat because as it creeps up over the 90 degree mark outside, I hole up in the cool house! Still it looks a world better and I feel like I DID something. In the cool of the house I got my Summer FSQS ready to go to it's new home, to my swap partner ????????? who lives in ???????? (is it you?)

Now, after such a slow lazy weekend I'm going to pop a top and go see what the rest of you have been up to!
Thanks for visiting!