I've Moved!

To a new house!

*sigh* Just kidding...this beauty is $1.1M, and really close to the area where I ride Sammy...but WAY out our price range.

But...this blog has moved - a website was totally in the price range!

You can now find Michelle's Musings here! And you can re-link me in your feed reader of choice using the spiffy little button on the left sidebar.

Still working on tweaking the layout of the new blog (Steve was a HUGE help last night, he's just better at this stuff than I am), but now I'll be posting over there. So come on over for a visit...and don't forget to look at the "Love Note" page @ the top. Plus, you can hop on over to the main website to have a looksie, but there is a lot of work to be done there at this point. My bloggy was the 1st priority!

Sweet Baby!

Oh my goodness, I just had to post this picture as soon as I saw it. This is an updated picture of Leah, my friend Miranda's baby. I'm in process of making quilts for Leah and big sis Jacqueline.

Isn't she the sweetest baby, in her cute lil Pooh outfit?? She's laying on the 4th quilt I ever made (and technically, it was my first finished quilt), given to Jacqueline for Christmas 2007. We had used Miranda's house in Denver as a hotel for a night, as we drove home for Christmas that year. So I had to bring something with me as a thank you. Now I do have to confess...I didn't actually piece the top. It was a remnant of a cheater cloth I found @ my local fabric store for $1. Yep, $1...coupled with some yardage from Joann's bought on sale, I think I spent less than $10 to provide protection for babies laying on the carpet!

Now the first quilt I ever made is still sitting in a box, waiting for the quilting to be completed on it. I should finish it, because I'm proud of my effort...but the thing is, it's sort of ugly (at least in my head). I bought some interesting fat quarters @ Joann's (because I had NO IDEA what I was doing at that point, including fabric buying), and took a beginner quilting class.

My 2nd quilt is the purple quilt you see if you look @ my Blogger profile. It went to my mom for Christmas...she loves purple (her garage door on her house is purple), and it's my favorite that I've made so far. I curl up under it every time I'm there to visit. :) That quilt was hard work, triangles attached to 1" strips...lots and lots of ironing and trimming. I spent one whole quilt class @ Joann's just figuring out my layout for those squares.

Ah, memories!

The Problem with Being a CPA

...well, besides being asked for help on taxes (I don't DO taxes...I barely get thru my own...FYI, CPAs can do other things besides taxes, such as normal financial accounting), it that I live in the past for my job. Still looking @ 2008 - tweaking, etc. before we are audited.

So I just reviewed my post from yesterday, and I noticed the year on the SMS Swap cards I made is 2008...now I need to revise those when I get home. Good thing I haven't mailed anything yet!

New mantra: The year is 2009, the year is 2009, the year is 2009. Rinse, lather, and repeat!

Confession Time

So I have a confession... I hate pom-poms. Not these pom-poms...I love those - I was a cheerleader in HS, after all. What I'm talking about are these kinds of pom-poms...you know, embellishments... Oh Fransson just posted a cute 9-patch quilt, which I love...except for the pom-poms on the top. And don't get me started on the trim...I will NEVER decorate a lampshade in a pom-pom trim...eww!

If you are a lover of poms, I apologize for this rant...to each her own, I guess!

Monday Mail Scramble

As Monday was President's Day, and a no-mail day, I knew I needed to use Monday night to get some items ready to post today.

Up first, Katie's block for Pieced Together. This free-piecing business is a little crazy...but fun! I had to add in a few little bits from my own stash, I wasn't keen on using every last bit of red Katie sent.

As you may know by now, I spend a lot of time in my car, driving to work & back. And on these drives, I think about a bunch of random things. While driving, I came up with the plan to make a similar block to each block I do for Pieced Together. So here is my version of Katie's block:

Now all this free piecing business leads to a lot of starts & stops, so you can press your seams. So I was doing a lot of the leader/ender business, including piecing the borders of Steve's Rocket Scientist whirlygiggles quilt:

Seriously, those giant rockets are fantastic!

I also put a baggie full of selvedges in the mail for Sonya in Australia. My first time mailing international, so of course I didn't realize I needed to fill out a customs form! But now I know, which is a good thing, since I will be sending some FQs to Katy in the UK, as part of Darci's FQ swap.

And speaking of FQ swaps, Sew Mama Sew hosted another FQ swap. I signed up for 2 groups, so I'm sending 8 FQs. I got my swap partners today, and will mail in a couple of days. Here's a copy of the card I'm including in each package:

I made the card in Publisher using postcards I still had from save the dates from our wedding (so they are at least 5 years old @ this point, I sent the save the dates super early).

(Top to bottom, left to right) Flutterby, AMH Good Folks, Hoffman's Mercer St., AH Spotted Owl (x2), Valerie Wells Olive Rose, Heather Ross Lightning Bugs, and AMH Good Folks again.

Brushfire Quilt Project Blocks

So when I heard Tia was going to put together some quilts for the victims of the brushfires in Australia, I signed up right away, and worked on some blocks this weekend:


Unfortunately, none of my blocks managed to finish at the requisite 12.5", so I need to add a little border to each one to get them to size up. I may fudge it a little, and just do borders on 2 sides. The blocks are supposed to be wonky stars, so I guess it's OK if they're wonky blocks all over. And yes, the top middle block has both unbleached muslin & kona white floating around the star, but I don't really care!

The Conservatory Overcoat GIVEAWAY!!!!

The Conservatory Overcoat GIVEAWAY!!!!

Le sigh...this is really wonderful!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day & Happy Birthday to me (9 days and counting)...

Steve got me a great gift (dual gifting here) - he set up my own website...er, well, our website, but now I'm going to be working on porting this blog over and hosting there.

But I have to play around with everything first!

*squeal* I'm so excited!

Walking in a Spiderweb...

...leave a message and I'll call you back...

I've been wondering about these spiderweb blocks, since that seems to be one of the new trends floating around the blogland quilters these days, including ones being done for another virtual quilting bee, Block Party. One of the peeps in Pieced Together is polling to see if we'd be interested in putting these together for her month; I decided it was time to try one out.

I wasn't overly concerned about getting this perfect (or even changing the orientation of the photo in this post - lol!). The tutorial recommends you use a glue stick to tack down the center fabric; I didn't do this, as I didn't have a glue stick (must look @ work tomorrow). So I think this led to a little bit of shifting, which is why my seams aren't quite matchy-matchy where the pieceing begins. And I didn't bother to switch to a heftier needle, which I agree would have punched the paper even more and made easier to remove. But other than, it really wasn't difficult, and I could definitely see myself doing something like this again. It probably took me an hour to do the block, but that time also included cutting the templates and running back & forth between the kitchen (where the iron lives) and the spare bedroom (where my sewing machine lives). Plus, I was trying not to disturb the homework process:

I'm going to call it a success! But now, what to do with that block??

Life Without Cable

Life without cable means more PBS, which comes in loud & clear on the HD antennae. Sunday morning, I had to scold Steve for turning off Mister Rogers.

Because, you know...it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood! And how dare he interrupt my trip down childhood-memory lane!

Anyway, so in the same vein as my last post, this is a great article about how Mister Rogers is awesome!

Muppets: Origins

This has to be the best article I've seen on CNN in a long time: Surprising stories behind 20 Muppet characters. The fact that Miss Piggy is from Iowa totally cracks me up!

DWTS: Part 7?

The lineup for Season 7(?) of Dancing with the Stars has been announced, and it looks to be an interesting mix of characters. No Cloris, but Lil Kim should shake things up. Actually, for the record, Cloris annoyed the heck out of me - I was happy to see her go!

I think it's great for a couple to be competing directly against each other - Ty Murray & Jewel. Now if only we had been spared two separate seasons of Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin...alas!

Chuck Wicks is also competing - current boyfriend to Julianne Hough, but I don't think she is going to be a pro this time around, I thought she's supposed to be promoting an upcoming country album? So I wonder who Chuck will be paired with... EDIT 2/10: I guess they will be paired together - so much for her country music!

My prediction for the contestant who needs their dancing shoes for only one week of competition: Steve Wozniak. But I hope he surprises me!

Flurry of Finishes

So after not completing ANY projects in the month of January, I'm finally on my way to getting some of these things off my plate.


First up, the B&W couch quillow. This is how it looks all pillowed-up; it's very small (11x12, I think), which makes sense, since the quilt is only a yard of fabric (approx. 36"x44"). Next time I do one of these, I think I need to attach the quillow part so that it's not perfectly flat, and allow some wiggle room to convert it into pillow. Seriously, I love the cheater cloth print - looks like I did so much work, when I really did nothing at all!

Second... I finished up the sling bags for friends Miranda & Carrie, using some of the Cotton Blossoms charms, along with some extra CB fabric I bought to coordinate. These suckers are pretty big, so they'll function quite nicely I think. Miranda's straps seem long, but she is a bit taller than me, and maybe her torso is longer than mine. I'll send Mir's with the baby quilts (more below), hopefully it works for her. I'll see Carrie in a couple of weeks; she's flying down to San Diego from Seattle for the weekend right before my birthday, so we'll head down to spend Sunday with her & boyfriend Dave (zoo or Sea World, not sure yet).

Third... I pieced most of the top for Steve's rocket scientist whirly giggles quilt. I don't know what it is, but these whirly giggles mess with my head. I used Michelle's post as a guideline, but things fell apart in my brain. First, she says that the blocks finish to 9"...so I knew I needed 4 to get the size I wanted for the wall-hanging. Except my brain forgot to factor in that I was working with 5" squares, so I wouldn't actually need very many to complete one of the blocks. I think I ended up cutting enough to make 16 blocks - plus I cut double the amount required for the lime green solid. So I have a ton of extra pieces. These pieces came in handy, because then I thought I would be OK cutting a ton of fabric @ once, with the fabric folded up, so the pieces weren't all going the same direction. So I had too many pieces, some with the whirlys going the wrong way.

Any guesses as to what's wrong with the blocks above? If so, you did better than I did when looking @ it for the first time. I didn't even realize until I came back later that I still managed to get the wrong pieces in the quilt - the bottom right corner is all messed up. But I'm not going to take that mess apart, and try to put it back together again. It will stay how it is. You know how they say the Amish intentionally put an error in each quilt to demonstrate humility and how God alone is perfect? Yep, I'm definitely humble, without even trying! I don't why this has been such a brain teaser, but it has been. I think I'll use some of the extra blocks in a pieced back. I did iron everything, so it's all ready to go.

And now for the good stuff... A quilt for Baby Leah:

Most of the pieces are Tula's full-moon forest cut into 5" squares. I mixed some things up, and there are 2 four-patch squares in there, along with 2 5" squares from the Flutterby line. I'm totally in love with this quilt top, the colors in that line play so well with each other. I know I could have done better with the layout, but I just sewed a bunch of squares together, then a bunch more to form 4-block strips before I laid them out to figure out placement. 120 squares is a lot to work with!

Steve thinks the random owl (which is from the same line) is sort of scary-looking...do you agree? I personally love it (but I'm obsessed with owls, so what do I know?)...

And finally...it's Katie's month for Pieced Together, and here are the fabrics she sent. Basically, she wants something ala-Denyse Schmidt / Project Improv. The white is not to be used in the outside of the block. The red & blue are also incorporated to make the quilt cohesive. A lot of people already have their blocks done, so I'm feeling some pressure to work on this. I think I may make a sample block from some of my scraps, just to get the feel for what I'm doing, since I've never done improvisational piecing before.

On the homefront, 2 days without cable & counting. It's been mostly OK; the rain in LA has caused the HD signal to come in a bit fuzzy at points. And I'm going to miss watching Big Love on HBO. But some oldies-but-goodies (at least, to me) got me thru my crafting weekend: Notting Hill & Moulin Rouge. Thank goodness for the portable DVD player, which I can set on the dresser in from of my sewing machine (and that little thing can pump out the sound).

Wishing it was Spring

Darci, one of my Pieced Together buddies, is hosting a fat quarter swap. Do you wanna join in? Sounds like fun to me!

Purple Rain

This is freaking awesome! I listened to Kat tell her tale last night on KROQ as I was driving home, but had to read this blog post today, along with Rolling Stone's account of the evening... How much fun would that be to party like it's 2009 with Prince @ his pad? WAY fun, my friends...WAY fun...

New cat bed?

Seriously, that cat is a minx... This is the photo Steve emailed me this morning - he must have been checking on the cats before he left, and found Radar utilizing the bottom piece of my sewing machine case as his own personal cat bed. And look how innocent that cat pretends to be...but I'm not fooled! Notice how Sylvester, who is our box-obsessed kitty, didn't deem the case bottom worthy of his box cravings; instead, he prefers the cozy fleece blanket in a patch of sun.

Disney, Super Bowl, and a Whole Bunch of Lazy

Saturday was a complete lazy day, I gotta admit. Which is fine, I had a long week. I am now the queen of 1099 forms...or at least I was for 127 of them this week. What a pain! Coupled with a lot of month-end & year-end reporting we were wrapping up from December, I probably worked more this week than I have in quite a while.

Anywho, today I got started on my Disney perpetual photo calendar. First things first - I need to make a mental note that Super Bowl Sunday isn't the best day to go to Disneyland, especially when it's 70 degrees and perfect outside. I decided we should wander California Adventure for a couple of hours today, as it is usually less busy. DCA was still pretty busy, but we first managed a short wait for Screamin' (7 minutes), so at least we got on one ride today.

The numbers I managed to find in that short 2.5-hour time frame included 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29, and 30. 21/31 is pretty great, and I'm confident I'll find the rest in Disneyland. If anything, I can cop out on a couple of the lower numbers, as the ticket booths have numbers on the outside. I also managed to find January, February, March, May, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (or at least a letter or abbreviation). Steve had fun watching people watching me and trying to figure out what the hell I was taking pictures of.

The Disney pictures are intentionally random, I took over 100 pictures today, some of which weren't at all related to my project, but I liked them anyway.

We went over to Shannon & Cory's to watch the game. My favorite commercial was the LMAO commercial (and boy, do I wish that could really happen, because there are some days when my A would invert, I've laughed so much...*sigh*). And if the Steelers has not managed their game-winning touchdown, and could only muster a field goal instead, I would have been $100 richer from my office pool...but alas, it was not meant to be. But I liked the purely random format of our office pool, and I hope it will be resurrected for the NCAA b-ball champ game.

TTFN as T-I-double-guh-rrrr would say! Here's hoping that I can finish my couch quillow, and the swing bags this week, along with some piecing. And I MUST go to the gym this week!