Elephant Parade

Look out! Look out!
It's elephants on parade
Here they come!
Hippety hoppety
They're here and there
Yes, elephants everywhere

Look out! Look out!
They're walking around the bed
On their head
Clippity cloppity
Arrayed in braid
Yes, elephants on parade

What'll I do?
What'll I do?
What an unusual view

I can stand the sight of worms
And look at microscopic germs
But technicolor pachyderms is really too much for me!
–Pink Elephants on Parade,
Music and lyrics by Oliver Wallace and Ned Washington

I thought I'd lead with cuteness. I am pleased to introduce my newest nephew, Baby Firefly. Adorable, no? He's such a mellow, sweet, happy little dude.

And now for the backstory. Because there always is one. In the top left corner is my cute sister, Jill, a.k.a Jilly Beans, and her family. Beginning in the 12:00 position and rotating clockwise, we have Lizard Boy, Firefly, Toad, Cricket and Mr. Jilly Beans.

When Jill announced that she was expecting, of course I put a baby quilt in the queue, right behind Christine's Flower Garden {BTW, Christine still lives in her own home, is in church every Sunday and turns 101 in just two months!}, Friendship Garden and Thoroughly Modern Lily. Jill and her husband decided not to find out the gender of the baby, so I planned to make a smaller version of Friendship Garden because I still had a bundle of half-square triangles sitting about and a multi-colored quilt would be great for either a boy or a girl. Those first two quilts in the line-up, the signature quilt and the triangle quilt, were fast to the finish {nothing like a deadline to keep you on target}, but it took me almost six months to finish the lily quilt. That was kind of fortuitous, because Lorna over at Sew Fresh Quilts started an absolutely adorable and completely irresistible quilt along about a month before Firefly was born and since I didn't finish the lily quilt until after he was born, I then knew the gender and decided that an elephant quilt was in order.

Lorna did her quilt in solids. I loved the uniformity; the mama elephants have dark bodies with light ears and the baby elephants have light bodies with dark ears. I decided to use batiks in my quilt but tried to stay true to the original design by using darker fabrics for the bodies of the mama elephants and lighter fabrics for the ears, and vice-versa for the babies. Each elephant is unique. There are 49 different batiks and I quilted each elephant with a different design in the "headdress" and "blanket." I think this is my favorite quilting.

A birdie with a yellow bill hopped upon the window sill. Cocked his shining eye and said: “Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!”
–Robert Louis Stevenson

I loved making these birds and they were fun to quilt too. I pretty much can't do a quilt without doing a few swirls in it.

Inspired by the way that Geta quilts her hexagons, I gave it a go in these octagonal flowers. Lane frequently uses leaf designs in his quilts, so I tried that too. And, of course, pebbling is all the rage these days, so that's how I did the centers. All art is derivative.

Slow and steady wins the race, right? This quilt took about 2½ months, start to finish as my only project. I was on a deadline for this, too, or it might have been longer. Work takes up so much time and gets in the way of my real life a lot. In any case, I love this little turtle! I used the shell fabric in another quilt and it was fabulous there too.

And this little frog is adorable! Lorna put together such an cute quilt pattern. It was so fun to make and the top went together really quickly.

While I was working on this quilt, the foot pedal on my machine broke. As it so happened, it was a Tuesday night. The tension was also really off on my machine and Wednesdays are service pick-up days for the quilt shop I got my machine from. I called to see how long the wait was {minimum is 1 week and I've waited 3 weeks before} and they told me it was a week. So I dropped Grace off first thing on Wednesday morning. And then I went a little over-board with the embroidered quilt label. It was OK that I did, because it was 2½ weeks before Grace was ship shape and back in working order. {They couldn't fix the foot pedal, though, so I ordered a new one and it was here in just a week. Just a bit ironic, don't you think?} I've been using Fabri-Solvy self-adhesive stabilizer for embroidery lately. It is pretty fantastic. You run it through your printer, cut it to size, peel it off the paper backing, stick it to your fabric, stitch and when you're done, it washes away.

I have a number of pieces of batting hanging about which are too large to throw away and too small to use in a quilt, so I did something I haven't tried before. I pieced the batting. Vicki over at Sew Inspired talked about doing that once on a very large quilt, so I asked her about her technique. She told me how to do it by hand and also by machine, but warned me that sometimes when you do it by machine one side gets stretched a little bit. Not wanting to take any chances I joined three strips of batting together by hand to make a piece large enough for the quilt. It took forever. I may or may not try it by machine next time.

It is a very old tradition, dating back to 2010, to use satin blanket binding and minky or ultra cuddle on a baby quilt. This was no exception. I found a pretty silver sating binding that matched the grey background. And I bought a flat-fold remnant of extremely soft ultra cuddle for the back. You can see a peek of it in the photo with the quilt label above.

I suppose that about does it in the way of talking about this quilt. I would like to welcome the handful of folks who have started following my blog lately. I haven't done much in the way of posting since I started working full-time about a year ago. Nevertheless, welcome, and I hope I keep you at least a little bit entertained. Like with this super cute photo of Grasshopper and LadyBug with their new cousin. I can remember when they were that little and hardly believe I have two full-fledged teenagers.

LadyBug loves to hold the babies. I think that is awesome! And I think more cuteness is the perfect bookend for this post.

Today's post brought to you by:

Brag Sheet: 2013

I tried carrying the weight of the world
But I only have two hands.
Hope I get the chance to travel the world,-
But I don't have any plans.
–Wake Me Up, written by Tim Bergling, Aloe Blacc and Mike Einziger, performed by Avicci

I wasn't going to do a post about all of my 2013 projects because it didn't really seem like there were many. But I've enjoyed the other 2013 posts, so I looked over my index page and was surprised that even though it seemed like slow going, I got a nice bit of sewing done this year.

First are the projects I put together using Pat Bravo's Indie fabric line. I made two Stitchy Kits, designed by Lori Holt {pattern here}. I gave one away and kept one for myself. And I made a folded fabric star and put it on a tote bag. Somehow, Pat sussed me out and invited me to enter her Instagram contest, which I won. I received a half-yard bundle of Carnaby Street as my prize {by the way, I still need a sewcation} and Pat used the photo of my folded fabric star as the header on her Flickr page. The post of the finished fold star tote bag is my most popular post of all time, with 9,822 9,823 9,826 visits to date.

I put together a few other non-quilty things this year: two Christmas ornaments in January, stragglers from Christmas 2012; a Christmas table runner for a lady I know whose birthday is on December 24^th; a new reversible ironing board cover; a Magicka Wizard's robe for Grasshopper's Halloween costume; and two little booklet holders.

Although this has nothing to do with sewing, I was inspired by Shay, who included her travels in her 2013 wrap-up post, and thought I'd throw in our family vacation with a few days at Lava Hot Springs, Idaho, a few days at Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming and a quick drive-by of Grand Tetons, Wyoming. Fun stuff! More family travel is definitely in our future.

And finally, even though it didn't feel like it, I got a few quilts done; a Drunkard's Path, Ripples, for a friend for her birthday; a 4" square mini for LadyBug's report on Pennsylvania {which is where the Amish live and the Amish are famous for quilting} and which ended up as a quilt for her Guard Lizard, Gilbert; a scrappy baby quilt, Little Boy Blue, for a friend's new baby; a framed Double Wedding Ring, Echoes of Eternity, for a wedding gift in the bride's colors; a zig-zag quilt, Miss Butterfly's Flower Garden, for my niece, Miss Butterfly, to use on her bed; a batik quilt, Sea Glass, for a friend for her birthday; and even though I didn't make the quilt top, I'm counting the quilting I did for P. on her String Ring Dresden as a finish for me as well. At 75" x 95", it is the biggest quilt I've done.

I'm excited for 2014. My goal for this year is not to over commit. I have loads of Ph.D quilts that I want to work on and I've made out a mental list of things I want to work on, but I'm leaving it open to see what inspires me.

Today's post brought to you by:

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Sea Glass

It was all a part of being trustworthy—of being a piece of sea glass. High tides, low tides, storms, sand and mistakes all contributed to the polishing process. Though difficult to endure at the time, the demanding elements helped smooth the surface, transforming one into a better person, not worse. A person who learned from the harsh environment, who knew the storm would end, and who felt confident she would still be in one piece.
–Maria V. Snyder, Sea Glass

I'm really excited to participate in Blogger's Quilt Festival again! I hope you're enjoying the show. Thanks to Amy for hosting and welcome to visitors! {For those of you who've been here recently, I hope you won't mind if I show off this quilt one more time.}

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats
Quilt Name: Sea Glass
Finished quilt measures: 65” x 71”
Quilted by: Melissa Kelley at Sew Shabby Quilting
Blogger's Quilt Festival Category: Quilt Photographer

I made this quilt for a dear friend for her birthday recently. She was going through a difficult time with some health issues and I wanted to do something special for her. As I worked on choosing fabrics, colors and a pattern for this quilt, it was with a prayer in my heart that I would make something that would be special to her and let her know how much I respect, admire and care for her and her family. Step by step, the quilt came together. The colors reminded me of the sea. The batiks framed in dark brown reminded me of stained glass. I did a little research and decided to call the quilt Sea Glass. The name seemed to fit.

When I took the quilt to my friend on her birthday, I told her why I decided to call the quilt Sea Glass and what I know of it. She told me that she and her family loved to vacation at the beach and that the quilt reminded her of a trip to Catalina Island when she and her family had taken a tour in a glass-bottomed boat and the sun had illuminated the water and sea-life below. At that point, I knew I'd been guided in the making of this quilt. But when I was looking for a quote to go with this post it just underlined how much everything about this quilt was the right for my friend. Even though she's been through a really difficult time, I see her with a smile on her face quietly and faithfully going about her duties.

The photo above is my official entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, but I wanted to share a couple more pictures. The top left photo was taken when I took the quilt to my friend on her birthday. She's on the right.

And this is the back. I like to include an embroidered label with the name of the quilt and details about it. I'd originally planned on quilting this myself, but ran out of time. My first label is in the bottom left corner. When I asked Melissa to do the quilting {she was so great to work with and squeezed in a rush order for me}, I made a new label, the one you see in the quilt back. Unfortunately, her last name will forever be spelled wrong on this quilt. {I'm sorry!}.

Read more about this quilt:
Fabric selection & partial assembly
Finished quilt top {and why this quilt is a Palindrome}
Almost finished
Finished and delivered

Today's post brought to you by:

Sea Glass

Earth and sky, woods and fields,
Lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea,
Are excellent schoolmasters,
And teach some of us
More than we can ever learn from books.
–John Lubbock

Finishes have been few and far between around here lately. I'd almost forgotten that awesome “got it done” feeling. And so I'm completely thrilled to show you my latest quilt, finished in time to be delivered to a very dear friend, Michelle, on her birthday last Saturday.

This amazing lady and her family have a special spot in my heart {see also; Birthday Aprons, Jazz Jammies, Baby Frolic and Echoes of Eternity}. Seven weeks ago, she had a serious health issue and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. I wanted to do something special for her. And by special, I mean make her a quilt. I tossed around ideas of finishing a quilt that I already had cut or one of the ones that I already had partially assembled, but nothing seemed to fit. With a prayer in my heart to find the right design and the desire to make something simple and fast enough to get it to her when she needed it, I rummaged through my stash and came across a page I'd ripped out of a catalog and put with some cute prints with the intent to use them to make that quilt. A plan began to form.

I bounced ideas off Mr. Bug as I auditioned fabrics. I knew that batiks were the way to go. I {re}discovered two yards of a very pretty brown batik in my stash. That amount of yardage is unusual for me. Most of the time I only buy half-yard cuts. The majority of my batik stash is fat quarters {because Connecting Threads sells fat quarters at regular yardage prices. Woot!}. When I bought the piece of brown, probably a year or more ago, the lady at the cutting counter asked me what I was making. I told her that I didn't know, but the fabric was pretty and I had to have some. When I came across it, I knew it would be perfect for the borders and the long rectangles in this quilt.

At first I was thinking of going with a rainbow spectrum for the colored squares. But the turquoises, greens, blues and purples really stood out. They reminded me of the ocean and I started turning over names for the quilt. Enchantment Under the Sea? Cheesy movie reference. How about just Under the Sea? A slightly less cheesy movie reference. And halfway through the second verse of the song of that name from The Little Mermaid, I realized two things. First, I know the whole song, which just goes to show that you never know which bit of useless information is going to stick. And second, I couldn't name the quilt that or everybody would be singing that song in their head every time they saw the quilt. I dug a little deeper and Sea Glass came to mind. The name was perhaps inspired by the sea colors combined with the stained glass effect the batiks create. Or maybe it was an echo of a memory of a quilt that Kelly called Sand and Sea Glass. Maybe it was both.

When considering which solids to use, I wanted something with a similar weight and feel to the batik fabrics. I'd worked with Pat Bravo's Pure Elements solids and knew that would be the perfect fit. I choose Creme de la Creme {reminiscent of sand} and Coffee Bean {because the pattern called for a dark sashing}.

Then I did a little research on sea glass, to see if I was headed in the right direction with the name. What I found was pretty interesting. According to Wikipedia, sea glass is physically and chemically weathered glass found on beaches along bodies of salt water. Sea glass begins as normal shards of broken glass. The glass is rolled, ground and tumbled in the ocean for years until all of the edges are rounded off and the slickness of the glass has been worn to a frosted appearance. Most sea glass comes from bottles, but it can also come from jars, plates, windows, windshields and ceramics, either from waste discarded into the ocean or even from shipwrecks. Among the most common colors are white {clear}, brown and green. Blue is less common and purple even less.

Sea Glass seemed to fit perfectly for this quilt.

I set to work and soon discovered that I would not be able to finish this quilt in the short time period I'd set for myself. I debated back and forth and back and forth again on whether I should have it quilted by a long-armer or do it myself. I decided to extend my deadline, quilt it myself and make it a birthday gift. But time got away from me and my second deadline was looming close. I made a rescue call to Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting, who fit in my rush order and enabled me to finish the quilt in time for Michelle's birthday. {The Voices, Reason and Passion, had a lot to say about that and I couldn't get them to stop arguing. But a third Voice, Experience, kept saying “wash the quilt.” And she was right. Once it was washed and crinkly and soft, I absolutely loved it and it didn't matter anymore that I hadn't quilted it myself. All the Voices were satisfied. Passion did a beautiful job with the colors and precision piecing. Reason got it to the long-arm quilter because that was the only way to get it done in time. And Experience knew how to make Passion and Reason play nicely together.} You can see my original quilt label at the bottom left of the photo below, which was for when I was planning on doing the quilting. I cut the Sea Glass portion of the label {made of French knots in 20 different colors of floss so as to look like bits of sea glass arranged on the sand to spell out the words} away from the rest, made a new “information” section, giving Melissa quilting credits, and sewed it into my strip of fabric along the seam of the quilt {top right photo below}.

As a side note, not only is the top of the quilt a palindrome, but the back of the quilt is as well {cream, chocolate, brown batik, chocolate, palindrome [more or less] strip of colored fabrics w/label, chocolate, brown batik, chocolate, cream}.

This was a fun gift to deliver. Upon opening the quilt, Michelle asked the name of it and curious to see if I'd put anything on the back, she flipped it over and looked at the label. I explained that the colors inspired the name Sea Glass. She told me that their family loves to go to the ocean. Many of their summer vacations are spent at the beach. She told me that they had been to Catalina Island once and took a tour in a glass-bottomed boat. She said that the sun shone through the waters and made everything look vibrant and the quilt reminded her of that.

I remembered the prayers I'd had in my heart while I worked on fabric and pattern choices and when to get it to her and knew that they had been answered.

Today's post brought to you by:

Random Bits: Vol. 10

A destiny is not realized until we let go of the illusion of control.
–Master Oogway, Kung Fu Panda

Getting Warmer
With a little help from Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting, the quilt I've been working on for a friend is right on track to be finished and delivered on time for her birthday tomorrow.

I started this quilt a little over six weeks ago, but have been bouncing back and forth between projects trying to get something finished. {You think I might have figured out by now that picking one thing and sticking to it would get me to “finished” a little faster.} My friend had a pretty serious health issue, which included a trip to the hospital. I wanted to do something special for her during her recovery and I was thinking I could throw together a simple quilt and get it to her in a week. Not so much. The quilt pattern wasn't as simple as I thought {especially since I didn't actually buy the pattern, but sort of reverse engineered it from the photo and dimensions listed} and I debated back and forth about sending it out for quilting to get it done quickly. In the end, to take some stress off I decided to make it a birthday gift, and put it aside to work on other pressing projects thinking I had all the time in the world to get it done.

But at the beginning of last week, I realized I only had two weeks to finish it. Last Saturday, with one week to go and the borders to put on the top and bottom and back to piece, I was really feeling stressed about having enough time to get it done. In desperation, I called Melissa and asked if she could help. She kindly accommodated my rush order and did a lovely job with the quilting. I picked an all-over pattern, dropped my quilt off and in a few days, I had it back, ready to be bound, washed to crinkly softness and given away.

The two voices, Reason {a.k.a. What I Can Do} and Passion {a.k.a. Go Big or Go Home}, are still arguing in my head. Passion says I should have done the quilting {edge-to-edge is usually not my first choice; I think it often masks the piecing. I like to “color inside the lines” and try to quilt a design that accents the piecing}. Reason says that there is no way I would have had time to get the quilting done {especially since I've had a migraine since last Friday night. I'm hoping it is finally gone, but the jury is still out} and finished is better than perfect.

I must pause here to say that Melissa did a great job on the quilting. Her prices are very, very reasonable, she was seriously awesome to work with and the quilting is beautiful. Would I recommend her quilting services? Absolutely. Especially if edge-to-edge is what you're after. Will I use her again? Definitely. I have at least one quilt in the pipeline that is a great candidate for edge-to-edge.

The tug-of-war going on here is my choice to have edge-to-edge quilting done on a quilt that might have been better served with a custom job. The choice to send it out for quilting lifted a huge amount of stress off of me and made it possible to have it finished in time for my friend's birthday. Although I'm not 100% certain, I think the trade-off might have been worth it. At any rate, I'm hoping it will all come out in the wash.

Getting Colder
On Tuesday, we had a new air conditioning unit installed. I like to be prepared.

OK. The real story is that we needed to have our furnace replaced. Last winter was the coldest we've had in as long as I can remember. We kind of limped along with our furnace and had a few times where we wore multiple sweaters and borrowed space heaters while we waited for our repair man to come and fix it. Just when we thought we'd made it through winter and were well into spring, we had one more week-long cold spell and the furnace left us, well, out in the cold. We decided we'd better have it replaced.

But once it turned warm again, it wasn't such a pressing issue. The air-conditioned summer months lulled us into a sense of false security. But the temperatures have dropped early this year {I'm hoping we're not in for another deep-freeze of a winter, but I've heard rumors that it has already snowed in some areas} and we had to get out the space heaters and sweaters again. And the time was ripe to replace the furnace.

As it turned out, though, it was the air conditioner's fault that we needed a new furnace. It has something to do with the coil and condensation and rust dripping down into the furnace. They offered to knock $500 of the cost of labor on top of the pretty fabulous discount we negotiated through our handy, dandy repair man. We decided it would be in our best interest to just do it all at once.

The new furnace is chugging along and we're all toasty warm. It's just too bad we didn't replace the furnace in the spring because, we could have saved quite a bit of money on the electric bill this summer, since in this case it was a package deal.

Kung Fu Piano: Cello Ascending
The Piano Guys are at it again. This time on the Great Wall of China. Seriously. Check it out. And if you're wondering how they got the piano on The Wall, check this out.


Available for purchase from The Piano Guys or on iTunes

Palindrome

“Madam in Eden, I'm Adam.” Thus the first words ever spoken were a palindrome. –Unknown

Palindromes are words that read the same backwards and forwards. There are simple ones like mom, dad and Anna. Radar and rotor get a little fancier. And my favorite of all time is racecar because it's a too-cool-for-school sort of word disguised in an every day vocabulary kind of way. There are longer single-word palindromes, mostly in other languages. But tattarrattat {the sound a drum makes} is a pretty long English one.

I asked Mr. Google what he knew about palindromes. It turns out that aibohphobia is the fear of palindromes. And, palindromes are not limited to single words. Sotades, an ancient Greek poet with a somewhat shady character, is credited to have been the first to use palindromic phrases. Like their ancient Greek counterparts, lots of the modern-day-written-in-English ones are just nonsense. But every once in a while a one of them makes sense. Mostly. Here are a couple of amusing ones.

Never odd or even.

Do geese see God?

Murder for a jar of red rum.

And for party schools — Campus Motto: bottoms up, Mac.

Palindromic numbers, sometimes called Scheherazade numbers {in reference to the storyteller in 1001 Nights} are pretty cool, too. I like to watch the odometer in the car every once in a while to see how close it is to the next Scheherazade number. Last I checked, Mr. Bug's odometer was approaching 247,742.

There are also 2D palindrome squares which read the same left to right and top to bottom and take palindromes to a whole new level of coolness.

--

About six weeks ago, a dear friend had a very traumatic health issue, which included a ride to the hospital in an ambulance. I wanted to do something for her, so I decided to make a quilt. I chose a simple pattern, pulled out my stash of batiks, held auditions, ordered some Pure Elements by Pat Bravo in Coffee Bean and Creme de la Creme and got to work. The Pure Elements solids are very similar to the weight and feel of the batiks and the two fabrics worked together very nicely.

And as it turns out, quilts can be palindromes too. The pattern of colors in the rows from top to bottom are Turquoise, Green, Turquoise, Blue, Purple, Purple, Blue, Turquoise, Green, Turquoise. I kind of love it.

I just finished the top this week. Even though I thought I'd picked a quilt that was going to be simple, it has 793 pieces. A few days into piecing, I realized I wasn't going get this quilt finished quickly enough to use during her recovery. So, I took my friend and her family dinner and decided to finish this quilt as a gift for her birthday. It is this coming Saturday. With a little bit of help, I think I'm going to make it. I'll keep you posted.

What I've Been Doing While I Should Have Been Doing Something Else

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task. –William James

Have you ever asked a child to do something they don't want to do? They fuss and whine and complain and drag their feet and try everything they can think of to get out of it. And after all that time and energy they put into not doing the thing, they could have done whatever it is three times over. I do that sometimes, too. I think that is why it is so frustrating for me when the Not-So-Little Bugs do it .

I've been dragging my feet on the quilting on P.'s beautiful String Ring Dresden for a while. Now don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't want to do this project. I volunteered for it, after all. It's more that I'm scared that I'll mess P.'s quilt up. It is intimidating to quilt for another quilter. I'm a bad, bad friend and she has been very patient with me. The quilt has been at my house for nine months. For the first five months, I ignored it. When I couldn't ignore it any longer, I broke down and started quilting. I got almost to the half-way point and then I lost my mojo. In trying to get it back, I pulled something else out that I thought I'd just work on for a bit. But it turns out that this project was bright and shiny and oh-so-distracting, so I worked on it for just a bit more. After six weeks, I decided it was time to put it away. But I didn't quite. I was the perfect covert dragging-my-feet opportunity and I took advantage.

I kept the little embroidered labels out to work on when I have a few minutes of sitting and waiting. I knew that Grandma Week was coming up and they'd be perfect for when the adults all sat around and talked after the kids had gone to bed. And because I knew Grandma Week was coming up, I decided I didn't want to get in the middle of quilting and have to stop. I embroidered all of the block names and the quilt name in their reds and blues.

After I finished the block titles, I knew that I couldn't work on filling in the details, because that would look too much like avoidance. I decided to keep that "get out of quilting free" card for another time. But except for that really dry spell for the last three weeks of June, I sew almost every day. I needed something else that would get me out of quilting, but not be too obvious. I puttered around with some half-square triangles. And then, just to break up the monotony, I started a completely new quilt. I think that might have been an outright tantrum against finishing the quilting.

Fabric Auditions

Call Backs

Final Casting

Rehearsals

Dress Rehearsal

The performance has been put on hold, though. I stashed the project away to be finished after I finish P's quilt. I finally got up the gumption, put on my big girl Machingers and am quilting again. With any luck, I'll be finished in a week. Photos coming soon. Unless I decided to procrastinate again.

Also, I am officially out of places to stash projects, which {hopefully} means a few more finishes. Soon. Ish.

The Big Four-Oh Giveaway, Day 2: Chocolate Sundae Batiks Fat Quarter Bundle

This life is for loving, sharing, learning, smiling, caring, forgiving, laughing, hugging, helping, dancing, wondering, healing, and even more loving. I choose to live life this way. –Steve Maraboli

Happy Thursday everyone! Yesterday was my three-year blog-a-versary, and to celebrate, I kicked off four days of giveaways, which will end on my birthday. My 40^th birthday. Cue the ominous music ? I don't think so. Age is just a number, and 40 is as good as any other.

I have something really fun for you today, sponsored by The Fat Quarter Shop. I can't think of a better way to brighten up the short, cold winter days than with fabric. Unless you're in the southern hemisphere and the days aren't short and cold, in which case, you all need something to do on summer break. Right? It's the perfect prize for any time of the year.

Today's giveaway is a fat quarter bundle of Chocolate Sundae Batiks by Hoffman Fabrics. Aren't those colors amazing together?

The Fine Print:
• To enter this giveaway, leave a comment telling me what your favorite color combination is. Or just leave a comment. Whichever.
• You can enter each day's giveaway only once.
• Non-blogging/non-Google users and international entrants are welcome.
• If you do not have a Google account, use the name/url {url optional} commenting option and make sure you leave your e-mail in your comment in the following format: address (at) domain name (dot) com.
• Comments with no contact information will be deleted.
• Google account users: not sure if your contact information will be attached to your comment? Click here:


• Duplicate comments will be deleted. Comment moderation is on, so don't panic when your comment doesn't show up. I'm notified of new comments and will approve them periodically each day, after which they'll show up on the post.
• The giveaway will close at 10:00 pm {MST} on Friday, January 18^th. Winner will be chosen by random drawing and notified by e-mail and announced here by noon on January 19^th.

Good luck!

Today's post brought to you by:
The Big Four-Oh Giveaway Directory
• Quilter's Care Package
• Indie Fat Quarter Bundle
• Stitchy Kit

This giveaway is now closed.
Winners can be found here.

Travelogue: {Not So} Sunny California

My guests, you're welcome here,

Be at your ease.

Get up when you are ready,

Go to bed when you please.

I'm happy to share with you,

Such as I've got,

The leaks in the roof,

And the soup in the pot.

You don't have to thank me,

Or laugh at my jokes.

Sit deep and come often,

You're one of the folks.

–Unknown

Thursday, November 15
9:20 am
Mr. Bug just called and said that his work is offering tickets to a pre-screening of Breaking Dawn, part 2 at 5:00 pm or 6:15 pm. It would have been nice to have a little more notice. I'm flying out to California tomorrow morning to meet up with the Twi-Quilters who live there, it is a work night for Mr. Bug and I don't feel comfortable leaving the Little Bugs alone for that long. We decided the responsible thing to do is not to go.

Being responsible sucks.

3:31 pm
My office-mates were talking about headaches and I noted that it's been almost three weeks since I had a migraine.

I hope I didn't just jinx myself.

6:13 pm
I'm off work at last. T-minus 16 hours and 57 minutes. I have so much to do before I leave.

6:43 pm
Where did I put my phone? It's not in my purse. It's not in my coat. It's not in the car.

Of all the days to leave my phone at work . . . I don't have time for this.

9:47 pm
Ugh. Driving to work once a day is bad enough.

9:59 pm
Please let my phone be here. Please let my phone be here. I forgot how much I hate this stupid lock. Please let my phone be here. Please let me get this door unlocked.

10:01 pm
Good. My phone is here.

10:21 pm
Home again. I just want to go to bed. I have too much to do.

11:39 pm
I've been lying in bed for at least 20 minutes. Why am I still awake?

11:47 pm
So close to sleep . . . but I forgot to put my camera on the list of things to take. Oh, and the batteries need charged. And the memory card is still in the card reader on my computer. Maybe I should get up and take care of that?

No. I'll remember. I'll remember.

Friday, November 16
6:00 am
What is that noise?

Oh. That's right. I changed the ring tone on my alarm so I wouldn't sleep through it.

6:00 am and 10 seconds
There's Mr. Bug on the land line with my wake-up call.

Why can't I find a phone?

6:14 am
How am I going to fit everything in a carry-on? I guess I can make due with only one pair of shoes, but where's the fun in that? My hair dryer is bulky and I really do need to bring clean undies. Why didn't I book with an airline that allows a free checked bag?

I remember now. If they loose my luggage I'll have to wear the same undies for my entire trip.

6:21 am
There's no way I'm going to fit everything into a carry-on.

7:02 am
It is not worth the stress. I'm going to pay for a checked bag.

7:07
Why didn't I have Mr. Bug get the suitcases down from the attic last night?

Oh, yeah. Because I have some silly penchant for clean underwear.

7:15 am
It wasn't as hard as I thought to get the suitcases down from the attic.

I'm glad I didn't fall off the ladder.

7:56 am
I just dropped Grasshopper off at school. It's a miracle he wasn't late this morning. He gets up at 6:00 am on weekends, but when he has to go to school he won't get out of bed. Teenagers.

One down, one to go.

8:29 am
Phew. LadyBug is at school.

I need to be out the door in 31 minutes.

9:14 am
Late as usual, but I'm finally out the door.

9:18 am
Longest. Stoplight. Ever.

9:20 am
Oh, no. I left my boarding pass on the kitchen table. I really, really, really hope the electronic boarding pass I had them send to my phone works.

9:47 am
Uh oh. I hope that what I'm feeling on the left side of my head is not what I think it is. I mean, c'mon. Can one person have this many migraines? It's not a migraine. It's just the stress of getting everything ready to go this morning.

Yeah. That's it. It's just stress and once I get settled in, I'll be fine.

10:08 am
Car parked. Row and shuttle stop noted.

Shuttle successfully boarded.

10:23 am
Wait. Is this my shuttle stop? I didn't hear what the driver said. What terminal are we at? What airline am I flying? Is this my shuttle stop? OK. I see the sign. This is it.

I love the airport. So many beautiful people off to exotic destinations or going back home.

10:27 am
I'm cutting it close. They start boarding in 20 minutes.

My bag is checked and I'm headed to my gate.

10:28 am
Which gate did she say?

10:29 am
I'd better make a quick pit stop.

10:37 am
I got through security without too much hassle. I was able to find some Dramamine. And lucky for me, they still have those screens with flight numbers, times and gates.

10:49 am
I kind of don't like flying. Except it is better than a road trip.

Mr. Bug told me that when he was in the Navy there were a few sailors who would throw up as soon as the whistle blew to signal they were underway.

Just walking down the sky bridge to the plane makes me queasy. It must be the same psychosomatic reaction.

11:01 am
We're pulling away from the gate. Eeee! I'm so excited.

12:06 pm
We've moved one time zone backwards, so I've got an extra hour. And we arrived a little early.

So glad I didn't get airsick.

12:19 pm
What is taking the baggage so long? Is this even the right carousel? Did they loose my suitcase?

I knew it. I'm doomed to three days in the same undies.

12:21 pm
False alarm. There's my suitcase.

12:22 pm
There's Iris! I'm so excited to see her! What a cute jacket! And it is so nice of her to pick me up and show me around.

I'm meeting Colleen for the first time. It is really nice to finally meet her in person.

12:38 pm
The city of Oakland is really very pretty. I love the architecture. Those buildings with the green roofs are very pretty.

Oh, and look, there's the Oakland LDS Temple on the hill, there.

1:14 pm
Iris and Colleen picked a really yummy Italian place for lunch. I love it!

2:00 pm
Is there anything better to do than to shop for fabric with friends? Iris picked this particular shop because they have lots of batiks and she knows I'm stash building.

The ladies here are very . . . friendly.

3:00 pm
Those ladies sure were chatty. It took forever for them to get us cut. I got some good batiks, though. I'm excited about that.

Next stop, San Francisco.

3:12 pm
What a fun trip. I'm enjoying catching up with Iris and getting to know Colleen.

3:38
Iris warned me before I came that it was going to be rainy. She said it was sunny the whole week before and was forecast to be sunny next week, but that it would be rainy the entire weekend. It's a good thing I like rain.

Maybe we'll get to see some Cullens.

3:57 pm
We've been across the Bay Bridge, which was pretty awesome. I've never been on a suspension bridge, at least I don't think I have.

We're on our way to the Golden Gate Bridge now.

4:24 pm
It was a pretty amazing thing to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. It's not something you do every day.

Unless you live in San Francisco.

{Colleen, Iris, Me}

4:35 pm
We're going to dinner in Napa. It will probably be too dark to see the vineyards as we drive through, but that's OK. I'm enjoying the conversation.

6:12 pm
It's not stress. It's a migraine. Or maybe it is stress that's causing the migraine. It seems like every time I go somewhere I get one. Good thing I came prepared.

Maybe I'm allergic to travel.

6:48 pm
My meal comes with a goat cheese souffle. I have no idea what to expect. I've never had goat cheese before.

Or a souffle, for that matter.

7:02 pm
The goat cheese souffle is fantastic! Wow!

9:17 pm
Iris is so kind to let me stay with her. I've seen pictures of her girls, but it great to meet them. They are such cute girls!

Saturday, November 17
12:02 am
Sleep-overs are even more fun when you're a grown-up. Iris made pumpkin pie—so good!—and she gave me a tour of her beautiful home. The best part was hanging out in her sewing/craft room. She showed me all of her fun projects.

My favorite was the Twilight quilt she is working on. She has it up on her design wall and she's done some really amazing work.

9:32 am
Today we're going to Sacramento to meet up with Jerri Lynn and Wanda. We're going to see the movie. You know. The one about sparkly, teenage vampires.

11:30 am
What a fun morning with Iris' family. It really was great to get to know them.

I need to remember to bug Iris for that recipe for French Toast Souffle. It was amazing.

1:38 pm
I think Wanda is the biggest Twi-Hard of us all. She dressed up the island in her kitchen with Breaking Dawn themed items, put together Twilight themed swag bags for us and she even invited Edward to the party.

{Iris, Me, Edward, Jerri Lynn, Wanda}

2:12 pm
It is so fun to meet Jerri Lynn in person. I've know her forever, but it is really good to put a face with my friend. She looks different in every photo I see, so now I have a fixed image in my mind. She brought here Twilight quilt. I've seen it in photos, and love it, but it is so much more amazing in person. Wow!

4:04 pm
Lunch was awesome. Again, lots of fun conversation and catching up. Our next destination is the movie. Finally.

It has been hard to contain my enthusiasm.

4:18 pm
Ugh. I just can't stay ahead of this stupid migraine. The medicine only dulls it, but I guess that's better than nothing. I won't enjoy the movie at all if I'm fighting to ignore the headache. Since I'm headed to the concessions stand for a soda, I'll get souvenir cups for everyone. The ones with Edward on them.

I love that I can show my geek with these ladies.

4:30 pm
Squee! It's starting!

6:48 pm
I loved it! I mean, I really loved it. And I loved what Stephanie had to say about it.

11:48 pm
Yep. Sleep-overs are better when you're a grown-up. I'm staying at Wanda's tonight. I have really felt like "one of the folks" this weekend.

Our little group really is made up of amazing women.

Sunday, November 18
3:58 pm
It really has been an extraordinary weekend. Aside from the migraine nonsense. Wanda and I went to brunch this morning, with her adorably awesome husband. Then we went to church. It's kind of an odd combination of things to do. But there it is. My plane is about to take off now.

I'm anxious to get home and see my family. I've missed them.

7:38 pm
Oh, no, no, no, no, no! I put my suitcase in the back of the Trooper, locked the back door, and as it was closing I realized that I am not holding my keys. It's too dark to see in the windows. They're not in my purse. They're not in my pants pocket. They're not in my jacket pocket. What am I going to do? Can I call airport security from the shuttle stop? Do they even help with that sort of thing?

I need a plan.

7:39 pm
This can't be happening. I just want to go home.

I'd better check my pockets one more time.

7:40 pm
I'm a dork. I big one. I freaked myself out for nothing. They were in my jacket pocket after all, just not on the side I usually put my keys.

I'm on my way home, and there's no place like it.

{More} Black & Red Hexie Notebooks

Success begets success. –Unknown

It has been a really slow year for finishes for me. Before this week, March was the last time I finished anything. I got my Phoenix quilt done on Monday and yesterday I finished four Hexie notebooks, showing here:

I love that apple batik. Very Twilight-y. Two of them are already in the mail to their recipients, although that's not really a huge accomplishment since one of them is for a birthday that was in May and the other is for a birthday that was two weeks ago. On the upside, the other two will arrive on time for the birthdays they are meant for in August and September, provided I remember to put them in the mail .

These little notebooks are so fun to make. I think I've done about 20 of them now. I used a 5" x 5" Chipboard Art Journal {Stampin' Up!® item #108495} for the notebook. I discarded the front cover, substituted Pellon Peltex 72F II and a rough approximation of this fabric postcard tutorial for the front cover and fused fabric to the chipboard back cover with Heat 'n Bond Lite. To put the Hexies together I cut the fabric, a layer of Mistyfuse and bit of batting using the largest {5”} Go! Hexagon. I trimmed the batting Hexagon down by ⅜” all the way around and used Mistyfuse to hold it in place on the back of the fabric while I quilted it {I placed the Hexie batting side down and put parchment paper on the ironing board to keep the allowance of Mistyfuse around the outer edge of the batting from fusing where I didn't want it}. After I'd finished quilting, I pressed the edges over and sewed it onto the notebook cover.

LadyBug, smart girl that she is, asked me recently why I don't just stick with one project until it is finished. I didn't really have an answer for her. Obsessive Creative Disorder, I suppose. Sometimes I stick with a project from start to finish, but cranking out a quilt in two weeks is a rare occurrence for me. Even the Phoenix quilt took more time than that and the disappearing nine-patch blocks were already finished. All I had to do was sash and quilt it.

I stuck with the Sesame Street quilt. Sort of. It was fun and challenging enough to hold my interest and I worked on block after block. But when I saw I wasn't going to make the quilt show deadlines, I put it on hold and pulled out the Pinwheel Sampler hoping I might finish it in time. I spent too much time ripping out quilting and trying again and I didn't get that done either.

Finishing the Phoenix quilt and these four little notebooks {which were great FMQ practice} just feels good. I sometimes get in my own way . Starting the Sesame Street quilt in mid-April, while fun, took up a lot of time and kept me from finishing anything else on my quilting to-do list for this year. I plan on finishing the Sesame Street quilt within a year of starting it; I think for me the year mark is when a project becomes a Project Half-Done. And I have plenty of those I need to finish up in the next little while {as well as a few new projects; if only I could quilt full-time}.

I think I'm past the half-way mark on the quilting on the Pinwheel Sampler so I'm going to take LadyBug's advice and stick with it until it is done. You can hold me to it . If I even hint at working on something else before it's done, refer me to this post.