The Sunday Morning After

I know what you're thinking. But let me explain.

Last night I was high as a kite when I went to bed, but not in the way you might think. I was high on the rush of not one, but TWO finishes in one day! So you know that I was just as high this morning when I got up. It's not everyday that I start and finish two projects. Sadly, I have no process photos to show you, my phone was out of reach when my brain was on fire and by now you all know that I can't stop for anything when I get in that state of "must-get-idea-out-now".

So intoxicated was I still this morning that I just had to get outside to take pictures to share with you guys first thing.

Like right away.
Immediately.

Before coffee.

Before feeding the springy things.

Before clothes even.

Socks might have been a good idea. But there's that little problem of not stopping when I'm all "must-get-that-idea-out-now".

Apparently that applies to picture taking too.
Stopping is overrated.
Even on freezing Sunday mornings.

I can feel my toes again now. And, the magical machine in the kitchen has beeped to signal that the Brown Holy Water is ready for consumption.
This is going to be a good day.

This is the best hangover ever.

Throwing Back For Jen

It's Thursday, and Jen over at A Quarter Inch From The Edge has asked to see some of the bygones, the unblogged, the quilts of prezzies past...I gave this one to my Mum a few years ago. She took such good care of me when my jaw was broken and I was all wired up that I wanted to do something really special for her in return.

I saw this sampler pattern by Liz Lister in a McCall's Christmas Quilting magazine. Had to make it...I loved all the wee scrappy bits, different blocks and the challenge of all those pretty points. The design pleased me...it was not symmetrical, didn't have sashing (I hate sashing), the blocks were all different sizes, and while there was a lot of repetitive sewing of triangles the fabrics were not repetitive so I managed... but mostly, it pleased me because there is movement. This design begs your eye to travel, to look at all the little things that make it whole yet are independent in colour and form. It was simply beautiful. I had no plan of making mine in Christmas fabrics simply because at the time I was having a love affair with the civil war reproduction fabrics...rich earth tones, warm and cozy...yum.

Truth be told I still have affection for all those fabrics, colours and patterns though rarely use them anymore. And it's a damn good thing I still kinda like them...surviving the Stashpocalypse is going mean bringing some of those oldies back into the limelight. Dear Dog. Brace yourself...anything could happen around here this year. It's all stash afterall, and I paid top dollar for all those meters too.

Maybe Ma will end up with another quilt...or seven. Yeah, it's like that.
Holy boat load of earth toned textiles, Batman! Such testament to a long ago (perhaps better left forgotten) era! Rumor has it we'll love polyester again too one day...anything can happen I suppose if certain designers say it's "the thing", but if quilts start turning up bearing patchwork stitched of spandex, I'm out. Just sayin'....   Pay all you want for those tights, Lulu...but they'll  never upcycle like a good plaid shirt or your grandpoppys tie.

And, while we're tossing around old pictures and memories...have a look at this one taken right around the same time! My Springy Things, all of them; unusually still, in one photo, laying down as if they weren't springy things at all...ready to do the Hokey Pokey or begin a new round of "Rah-Rah-Wreck-The-Place!" Pictures like this are rare...well, maybe not rare like hens teeth but certainly uncommon, like the elusive blue lobster. Let me clarify too, when I say "all of them", I mean: all of them at that moment...there were no "squatters" here at that time as I had taken time off from the rescue world to heal.

These dogs,
Old Dog, Blind Dog and Stupid Dog,
Brought and continue to bring so much love and laughter, and dirt, into our home.
Now we are two.
Old Dog left us behind in 2013 but she's not really gone....

Art is a wonderful thing.
Thank Dog for art...
and the talent of neighbour, friend & dog loving artist Sarah Irwin.

Something To Kvell Over

Imagine getting up in the morning, pouring a cuppa, sitting down to catch up on the notifications of the morning and finding this as the word of the day! I barely slept last night. A combination of "brain-on-fire" and just wanting to stare at my evenings work...

I love new words and I love that Dictionary.com app on my Samsung devices that delivers me a new word everyday at 8am like clock work. This was absolutely the perfect verb for me today. You see, yesterday I finished the patchwork for Project: Kona Nerds, Unite!. With a bit of help from Voodoo Duck I pinned and stitched that long final seam that would finally marry the two halves of the flimsy. Talk about Monday night excitement!

Today I put on the borders. And gave it a final pressing....and though I had been racing the sunset to finish in time for an outdoor photo, I ran out of daylight. I so wanted to capture this outside so you could really see all that Kona Kandy in its glory, but the short January day would not hear of it. The bottom and left side borders are Ultra Marine. The top and right side borders are not brown like this silly photo suggests, they're purple...Hibiscus to be exact. All the colours are falling flat indoors, the only brown in the entire flimsy is found in the Chocolate block. This is why I wanted to get some pictures outside on that crisp white snow. Picture it...aah, yes.... Maybe another day this week will cooperate.

Now the question becomes: how do I quilt this monster? It's a big quilt coming out at 81"×100". In fact, the size makes it hard to photograph inside as I just don't have a spot to lay it out properly, here I moved my table and chairs to try the lighting in the kitchen in hopes the colours might translate better, but no. I disturbed all that roving dog hair under the table for nothing. It's also hard to take photos that show the top part as well as the bottom...the angle is annoying.

So, by now you might be wondering...Who Made What?

 JUNGLE by Lynne Tyler, New Hampshire, blogs at The Patchery Menagerie
 WASABI by Adrienne Klenk, Nova Scotia, blogs at Chezzetcook Modern Quilts
 POPPY & FOG by Dominique Gallant, Nova Scotia, blogs at The Running Thimble
 BLACK by Katina Chapman, of Nova Scotia
 HIBISCUS & COAL by Linda Smith, Nova Scotia, blogs at Scrapmaster
 TORCH & KALE by Anja Clyke, Nova Scotia, blogs at Anja Quilts
 BLUEGRASS & CANARY  by Jennifer, Kentucky, blogs at Little Black Cat Quilts
 CHINESE RED by Gale Bulkley, Ontario, blogs at Gale and The Scale
 AQUA by Heather Jarmyn, Prince Edward Island
 SKY by Susan Boudreau, Nova Scotia
 GRAPEMIST by Dena Emaneau, Nova Scotia
 POOL by Krista Fraser, Nova Scotia
 CITRUS by Aimee Semel, Nova Scotia, blogs at Candy Coated Quilts
 CHOCOLATE by Beth McKay, Nova Scotia

All the other blocks and bits are my own.

Now...about that roving dog hair...somebody pass the sticky roller!

Linking up with Lorna over at Let's Bee Social! 

Through My Rose Coloured Glasses

Plugging away on Project: Kona Nerds, Unite! this week...sewing, cutting, slicing, dicing, scratching my head...I felt ultra-ambitious Friday afternoon, bored with making straight lines and filling holes. So I got out my pencil, some Steam-a-Seam Lite and I played. Before I knew it, this had happened....

The glasses were a Google image clip art that I printed out at 195% and the letters were sketched, traced in reverse and then fused in place. I stitched the letters down first and then happily zig-zaged my lil heart out to attach those super cute glasses on top. 

So now the bottom half sits here:

Things are really getting close, through my rose coloured glasses I can see unity in the palm of my hand. A lot of these units are sewn now, I think I'm going to end up a half inch too wide...which is easy to remedy! Chop, chop! Just 4 more chunks of joining patchwork are necessary to bring me to that final seam of flimsy-finishing-glory.

The Stashpocalypse Is Upon Us

Well, well, well...here we are...2016.
A brand new year...clean slate...still water just waiting for some one to jump in and splash it all up. 

I'm jumping right in with Jen over at  A Quarter Inch From The Edge who has written the manifesto and decreed that 2016 be The Year of the Stash. You might want to check it out...and if your cupboards look anything like mine do, go ahead & get on board and for Dogs sake, buckle your seatbelt. This textile-limiting-train is far too easy to jump off; we're gonna require 5 point harnesses, blinders, nose plugs, ear plugs, mittens...anything at all that will prevent the sights, sensations, scents and sounds that induce the need to go fabric shopping.

Because I'm not a dip-your-toe-kinda-girl, I'm going to forego all the nice & polite promises to use up my stash and really lay it out for ya...I'm just gonna tell it like it is. The horror that is facing me on this first day of the new year is what I call "The Stashpocalypse". 

Friends, I am fighting demons. Demons that claw away all my sense & sensibility, that blind me to the numbers that the Visa statements attempt to proclaim and that rob my homes every hidey-hole of the possibly for non-textile storage. The shelves sag, the stacks of fat quarters topple and the scrap buckets overflow...I can bear it no longer. 

The madness ends today.

This ain't gonna be pretty.
I will whine and cry...and perhaps stomp off occasionally.
It may be necessary to isolate myself from non-demon-fighting-sewists.
I will clearly need to self medicate and mend my shattered spirit with "spirits"of another variety.
I may slip off to the darkside occasionally to gather provisions that will make surviving the Stashpocalypse possible...thread, Kona and the odd bit to finish a stash based project.
I will overcome.

I am ready to fight my demons.
ARE YOU???

The STATS Are In!

I started writing this blog near the end of January 2015. It was a "New Year Decision", I don't really believe in resolutions. I had joined forces with some other quilters working on a special project (which I can't talk about yet, it's still under the Quilters Protection Program) and many of them are bloggers. I felt left out...all the cool kids had blogs. Herd mentality is not lost on me, so naturally I needed one too.

Writing is something I enjoy and in fact, before the blog came to fruition,  it was something I had forgotten that I enjoyed. I used to journal a lot in my scrapbooks, and back in the day I loved writing papers for school...but blogging! This has been so much fun! Why? Because people actually read it!

I may or may not be obsessed with a little Blogger feature that lets me know people are reading, how they found me and what country they're reading in... STATS. They make my day. I toss up a new post and bam...people read it! And more, there's proof:

I give you my TOP 10 POSTS OF 2015,
*as determined by you, the readers.

When I hit the button to see the "All Time" results, I was a little surprised at some of the results. I am a new blogger, I rarely link up with anything or anybody and I do very little to promote my blog...I just like writing it so the numbers certainly startled me; 687 hits on the block call for Project Kona Nerds, Unite! Go way, b'y!  So far I have written 92 posts, which amazes me in itself, and only a couple of the posts that made the cut were among my favourite pieces. Though I am certain in comparison to the stats of lots of long standing & popular bloggers my stats are piddly widdly...but, my numbers are growing, which means my readership is growing...this pleases me.

So, thanks for reading along with me this year...I appreciate the time it takes to read my posts.
I ramble...I know.

Snow Day...Kona Day: TAKE TWO

So when I left you a couple days ago I was here...

Looked alright, hey? Yah...but....

When I looked at it I immediately had regrets about that little spot in the joining patchwork between the rows where the colourful triangles turn into a deep blue strip. Had I planned more carefully (or at all!) I could have made what hinted at an arrow an actual arrow. If only...sigh...

You know me...or at least by now you should if you've been reading along for any length of time. I don't like to go back. And, I rarely do. But this spot with all that wasted potential has been eating at me...calling out to me...driving me crazy. I've lost sleep over it. (*Well not really...the lost sleep was more of a side effect of a teenage boy who plays Xbox online, rather loudly, with other creatures of the darkness his friends half the night long; I am almost certain the intent of this teenage activity is soley to torture the over tired parents who attempt sleep in the next room.)  Anyway, while I was awake at 2am my thoughts drifted between this little arrow and the one I wanted to poke in my eye. Or his eye. Take your pick.

So...this afternoon I got out my handy dandy stitch ripper, cut & added in a couple more wee triangles and sewed things back up.

See? So much better! It's the small things that get me every time.

Sometimes reverse is a necessary gear...and sometimes a snow day gives you just the time and all the permission you need to go back, Jack.