It's been a long week...

And I have been crazy busy and not feeling too hot for a couple of days.
Had myself a little bladder infection that started on Sunday.  I hate hate hate those.  But it's doing much better now.  But I hate antibiotics too, but this is one of those times when there is NO choice!!!

I've been busy sewing all week making collars and such.  Doing some days of the Creative Journal and missing a couple of them and one of them is not finished. 

Last night in the middle of the night the phone rang at 3:30 ish am.  A freaking fax machine, from Canada no less.  ARGH!  So that got me up and I didn't get back to sleep until it was about time to get up! So I've been really sluggish all week.

Sugar's been kind of icky this week too, not sick and not bad, but not herself.  So I've been pampering her! 

I started a wonderful bible study and have been doing that every day too.  I've been trying to deal with the heat, and boy oh boy it's been hot.  My phone tells me it was 102 today, but on my porch, it was well over 110.  There was a nice breeze and it wasn't bad.  It's going to be in the 100's until at least Monday and then just under 100 officially which means probably 104-106 on my porch.  And, by the way, my porch is covered and doesn't even get a lot of sun until mid afternoon and then it's through the trees.

Rudy is doing great!  He's such a bundle of energy, but even he gets sluggish in the heat!
Here's a picture of him a couple of weeks ago, of course, carrying a stuffie around!

And a picture of the sunset tonight.  You can see all 4 I posted on my 365 creative journal site!

We do have some fabulous sunsets here, this isn't the most beautiful one, but it was very nice!

I'm off to bed, have a great Friday and God Bless.   Anne

Show and tell!

Back in January I joined a group of very talented women to do a Cotton Robin.  Actually if you've ever heard of a round robin, that's what it is.  And since we've now all got our blocks back, I can show you mine and the ones I worked on.

This is the block I sent.  My very favorite teal with some greens, beige and yellows.  

This is my block when everyone was finished with it! 
See all those little squares?  Those were fussy cut and each little square has a bird on it!  The next border with the white chapel windows and the whirly gigs in the corners was the second row.  And the last gal quilted it!  Amazing, just absolutely amazing!









Then, the first block I got I had to put on a border and it had to be a pieced border.  And I didn't tell anyone, but I'd never done a pieced border in my life!!  teeeeheee. 

This is the block I got.  the first one.  I sat and looked at this and looked and looked.  And then put it up on my design wall and looked and pondered and looked and then started pulling fabrics!

And this is what I did with it! First I put on a dark blue border to match up with some of the colors in the original block, then  I put on the pieced border and then a small border to stabilize the pieced border.

The next gal put the light blue and then the larger darl blue borders on and then the awesome applique ribbon.  Then the last gal sandwiched it and hand quilted it and put on a lighter color binding. 
This turned out soooo awesome, I'm so happy I was able to have a hand in it!!

This was what I received to put on a second border.  I looked at it and put it up on the design wall and stared at it some more.  I honestly thought it was awesome just the way it was!  I dug through my fabric and dug and then looked at fabric on line.  Was looking for something to go with the circle motif and in the blues.  Found nothing I liked.  

So I took a darkish ocean blue and a patterned fabric with blue and the green in it.   I did another pieced border!  I love doing the pieced borders, but getting them just right is not easy!

Anyhow, when it was done it just didn't feel done yet and I knew that the next person would sandwich, quilt and bind it, no more borders.

So I found some orange fabric just like the blue and green fabric I used....

And I put a bright orange border on it!  :)
It really made it pop and made it come together in my eyes!
I sure hope the owner loves it as much as I did!

And this is the finished quilt!  Very cool.  :)  Again, proud that I was a part of making this awesome wall hanging!













One more to go!

This is what I received.  There really are two borders on this, the original block  is on point.  The reds are the first border and then the green and blues are the second border.   It took me a few minutes to gaze and understand what folks had done to this block!  So I sandwiched it and quilted it.  Nothing fancy just mostly around each triangle. I thought it was very neat with the applique on the green triangles and that it really didn't need a lot of fancy quilting. 

And here it is all finished.  I love it, hope it's owner did as well!








And that's my first Cotton (round) Robin. I had a blast and cannot wait to do it again!  I might get even more daring with the next blocks.  :)

I did it too!

I created a blog just for my 365 Daily Creativity Journal stuff!  :)

My new blog

So I won't be posting here about that stuff anymore!  :)  Stuff here will be just my plain old quilting and my plain old boring life!

And speaking of boring life....

 Some of the horses that roam in the pasture behind me.  :)  They are too skittish to come to me, even when I have something good for them to eat, but I enjoy watching them and often can be heard talking to them!

 I've never had horses this close to my house before, I'm rather fond of them!

And this gal is running away from me, evidently my truck was making her nervious!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.  It's breezy here at about 103 degrees.  :)  It was 106 at this time yesterday, so we're having a little cool down today!!  

Fun fun fun doing the 365 day of creativity!

Ok, it's been a day! Internet is still spotty for me.  And was off a lot yesterday.  So when I make this post will certainly depend on my internet connection.  :)

No rules!  I love that.  I have changed some things.  :)

Yesterday.  Make a stencil, use it in your work.  Well, nope, that didn't do much for me, so here's what I did:

I did some applique.  Since that's one of the things I really want to concentrate on, I changed it a bit!  This is just plain raw edge applique.  And I think it's going to make a neat block to put in a quilt.  Maybe I'll make enough blocks with this challenge that I'll be able to make a wall hanging.  :)

And today was to transform an old book.  I don't have any books that I don't love and want to keep!  Since most of my reading is on the Kindle these days, I don't have 'extra' or 'unwanted' books laying around.  So, since there are no rules, I changed what I did!

I figured that since tonight is a supermoon, I thought I'd applique a coyote and a supermoon!  We are kind of cloudy here today, so I might not see much of the moon tonight.  So I made my own picture!  :)  This one too is raw edge applique.  :)   I have some more stuff in mind.... I have friends who need gifts, gifts just because I want to make them something.  :)

I'm having a blast with this 365 Daily Creativity Journal! 

No, I wasn't ignoring the blog, my internet was bye bye for about 2 days!

At first I thought it was my computer.  You know the deal, you call the provider and they tell you that everything looks fabulous on their end, no problems at all, must be you.   And that's exactly what they said. 
So I futzed and futzed and futzed with my computer and nothing made any difference.  No email.  I could occasionally get on and get to a page, but then it would go away again. 
So I called back and got a female tech.  I had company coming up on my deck as we were talking.  I have WiFi here and there are about 10 people on it.  And after asking others, I knew that none of us had internet.   So I told Tamera, I have company and I have to go, but it's not just me, it's other folks too, none of us can get to the internet.  You work on this and I'll call you back when my company leaves.  And I hung up.  So after my company left, I called her and she had dug into it and told me that there were some big issues with the line somewhere and she was sending someone out.  LOVE it, took a gal to at least take me seriously and then find that there were indeed issues.   So about 5 or so, I had internet.  My whole day had pretty much been shot with this issue. 

So my 365 stuff is late!
So day 4.  Take a walk and use materials that you find, make something and leave it there for someone else.
I walked and found pine cones.  And so I then played with my pine cones!

Very girl scoutish, but hey what the heck!  I glued fake pearls on it with gold colored beads and made some kind of something!


Put it back outside by the mail boxes and someone nabbed it almost before I got back into the house!  I sure hope they like it.  I know it's kind of juvenile, but it was fun to do.

This one I watered down glue and rolled it in spices.  Smells great!  This one went bye bye too.  I sure smelled wonderful!  Again, kind of silly, but fun.  :)













Day 5 was to work with a collection. 
I have 2 collections, sewing machines and greyhound quilts and wall hangings.  I sewed for a while and that was working with a collection!  No pictures of that!

Day 6: look in kitchen and work with first fruit you see.

I walked into the kitchen and the first fruit I saw was an orange.  I wondered if eating it would be enough "working" with it, but decided that wasn't very creative.  :)

So I fired up the bernina and dug out some orange embroidery thread and decided to sew something....

So I made an orange and I put leaves on it! 
I tried to make the little round things in the skin but my machine wasn't as smooth as I'd like, but it does remind me of the orange skin.  :)

I figure I will add at least one more fruit and then quilt it and hang it up in my kitchen!



What I've done here and add to it making some harnesses and collars and such and that's pretty much been my life for the last 3 days!  It's been hot, 106 in the shade yesterday.  Rudy is good and Sugar is back to her normal self.  And God is good.   Have a great evening and God Bless..   Anne

365: Day 3

Make something from paper, but no drawing and no scissors and no glue! 
So I thunked and thunked and thunked.... and this is what I came up with!

Paper flower!  Felt like I was back in high school, that's the last time I made a paper flower.  :)   Brightly colored tissue paper and I have a flower.  :)

365 Days of Creativity: Day 2

I spent quite a bit of time on today's project.  It's about my favorite animal.  Well, hello, that would be dogs!  I love my dogs.  So I tried to use thread and make a greyhound.  It was actually kind of funny looking and I thought it was pretty icky so I pitched it.  :)
So I had a granny block that I made that wasn't needed in a quilt, so I guess you could call it an orphan quilt block.  I have some applique greyhounds that I have left over from a project a few years ago.  So I grabbed one of those and appliqued it to the block after I sandwiched the block..  Then once it was raw edged appliqued, I echo quilted it... and I like it! 

Before borders

I did the echo quilting with silver thread, it matches the silver on the applique.  :)

It was a lot of fun to do the echo quilting.  One of my favorites!  :) 

The back....  You will find that I rarely use pretty backing on quilts that are wall hangings.  No one sees the backs of them, so why waste expensive fabric!  White or black is my usual and lots of muslin too!

Finished project.  :)

10" x 10" 

And this is how I'm keeping a record.  I'm going to use this book up and have a wonderful keepsake by the time my year is up!
And if you look closely, you'll see that I cannot spell!  :) 



It's REALLY muggy outside!
It does appear that we might get some more rain!

I watched a great movie this morning, The Descendants with George Clooney in it.  Love a good movie.  :)

Hope everyone is having a great Sunday!  :)   God Bless,   Anne

It's Raining It's pouring, the old man is snoring.....

Tons of LOUD thunder boomers started the afternoon.  As soon as they started, I grabbed Rudy and we headed outside!

I made him chase his froggie the entire time it was thundering. He did really well, only deserting the frog one time for an especially LOUD boom!

He was like 'Holy Cow what is that noise and do I need to be afraid?'

I want him to get used to thunder and think that it's not a big deal.  I never want another dog living in my closet!!!

He's looking, trying to figure out what is making that loud noise.  He didn't lift his leg even, first time in MANY months he's gone without lifting!

NO, too loud, the heck with green frog, I'm outta here!

Green frog abandoned in the dirt!

YIKES, here I come Mom, it's LOUD out here!

I threw that frog until it was raining pretty hard!  Lots of time outside today to wear off some of his puppy energy!  We had a really good time!

See those splotches?  That's HUGE drops of rain.

Sugar says, hey, it's my closet now, leave me alone to be in fear!

Then it really started raining!   Hurricane like rain!

LOOK at that rain!  Like we're having a Monsoon or something!!  *grin*

Yup, it's raining!



And it's in the 70's now, but humid! 

I hear more thunder off in the distance, I'm sure we'll get more rain and lots more noise.

We really need the rain, and I am grateful for it.  But If I can help it, I am NOT NOT NOT going to let Rudy be terrified of thunder!
It took a while for me to get back online.  That's pretty common out here when we have storms.  But it's part of where we live and we do get over it!  Ok, more thunder, time for more thunder training for Rudy! 

What a great day...

Maybe I need to get out of bed at 5am more often, I sure have accomplished a lot already today!

My friend GLEN, take note, this is ALL YOUR FAULT!  Truly, your fault.  My right hand is going numb on me because I thought I'd join in "something" Glen is doing and it involves quilting those UFO's that we all have awaiting us.  I have many, but I also have some wall hanging sized ones that are already sandwiched and pinned and waiting to be quilted, so what the heck, I thought I might do one or two of those and get them out of the way!

Ok, he's some pictures of what I'm doing right now!

This is a quilt I must of put together about 5 years ago!  It's a bargello but it's not the color runs that one usually does with bargello, it's color runs, but there are several and not just one run... Yeah, I know, weird explanation!  (sorry, the best I can do)  I had some bandana fabric and wanted to use that, so I have pink, blue and purple runs of graduating colors in each. 

I'm going up and down each fabric and then crossing when it goes from going up to going down and so forth.

It would have been a lot easier to just put swooping quilting but I started it, so I'll finish it the way I started!

It's another high humidity day with lots of haze in the sky.  I WANT RAIN!  

Have you noticed yet the foot I'm using?  I just never gave it a thought and off I went and yes, I'm using the quarter foot here and nope, not going to stop and put in knots so I can change the foot.  I'll change the foot when I HAVE to stop and put in knots and bury threads!

Got a lot more to go, but my right hand is going to sleep and so I needed a break.  Thought I'd fix me a salad for lunch and relax with something cold to drink.  :)  

Are you having a sewing kind of day?  I love these kinds of days and I'm going to sleep well tonight!!

365: A Daily Creativity Journal

Yes, it starts today!  And I've already been creative and it's not even 7:15 in the morning yet!!  I woke up at 4:50am and figured there was no sense in trying to make myself go back to sleep, so I got up.  Sug ate breakfast at 5:15 am and that means she will probably be hungry by 8am again.  Oh joy.  :)

Pictures, I have pictures of my first creative project.  It took me less than an hour to complete.  I am focusing on fabric and quilting and pushing myself to do more actual quilting and (even though it's not obvious in this first project) working on applique.  And (again, not obvious in this project) working in a SW theme when I can.  :)

 I took some half square triangles I made and never used.  I put 4 of them together.
Then I started quilting with my quarter inch foot on my machine.  So each of those rows of quilting should be about 1/4" apart.... give or take a smidgeon.  :)

Quilting is finished.  

The back. 

 Almost trimmed.  I had to put on a binding, I didn't want to serge the edges, I like a really nicely finished edge.

Trimmed and ready to sew down...

The finished item.  It's either a mini mug run or a coaster, you choose.  It fits in my hand... sort of.  It's small anyhow.  :)


Remember the rules: There are no rules.  :)

Happy Weekend everyone! 

Thunderstorms??? Halleluljah!

It's been humid out for a few days now.  I was just outside watering and doing some stuff like that and I know it's only 78 degrees, but I was sweating like crazy.  Humidity.  Again, 40% humidity.  Remember, we like it about 7% or 9% at tops, that's what makes the high heat doable.
So I looked at the forecast and we MIGHT get some thunderstorms today.  that would be so awesome!
I loathe humid weather, but if it rains that would be awesome, our cactus is dying due to lack of rain.  I'm tired of watering trees and plants.  PRAY for rain!!  LOTS OF RAIN!




TOMORROW is the big day....  what day you say? 
TOMORROW we start the year long:

Daily Creativity Journal, 365 Make something every day and change your life! 

It's going to be so much fun!!










OK, I'm off to feed the dogs and then turn on my Bernina and make some quilt blocks.  Hallelujah!!!