Country Cottages and Other Stuff

I've finally finished the Country Cottages quilt and I wanted to share a photo with you.

Due to a series of mishaps, which I might talk about at some other time, it's taken quite awhile to finish this quilt, but now that it's done, I'm very happy to have it hanging up in my home!  I've added all of the buttons and embellishments now, although I'd like to find some apple buttons to add to September's block; but I can do that later.

When I took down my 4th of July quilt to put up the Country Cottages quilt, I also took down the floral garland that ran across the top.  Miss Spike soon found the garland and wrapped herself in flowers!

She's a funny girl!

My computer difficulties last night turned out to be related to the fact that Blogger no longer supports IE8, which is what I was running.  Actually, they stopped supporting IE8 last fall, so it's a mystery to many of us bloggers why everything worked fine until yesterday.  Because I have Windows XP, though, I couldn't just update to IE9.  My options were Chrome or Firefox; I decided to go with Firefox because I've had a problem with Chrome once before AND it's a Google product--kind of childish, I know, but since I was annoyed by Google/Blogger at the time, I just wasn't in the mood to select Chrome.  So we'll see how this works.  At least I can write my posts for now.

I mentioned before that Hubby and I are going on a cruise to Alaska--in fact, I asked for some input from those of you who have cruised before, and I appreciate all of your help--it made it much easier for us to decide to give it a try.  We will also be staying in or around the Seattle area for a couple days, and I wanted to get more input from those of you familiar with the area.  Hubby and I vacationed for several days in Seattle before, so we've seen most of the highlights.  We've talked a little bit about traveling out of Seattle but we don't know what else in northwestern Washington would be fun to see and do.  Keep in mind that Hubby uses a wheelchair.  Any suggestions?  (We've also stayed on Vancouver Island/Victoria and Vancouver--great places but we'd like to do something different this time.)  Our vacation is coming up in just a couple weeks so there's not much time to plan.  Thanks for any help you can give us!

Not So Great . . .

I don't know if I have a cold or simply allergies, but I'm just not feeling all that great. THEN I've discovered that sometime between yesterday and tonight, Google/Blogger has done something that's making it impossible for IE8 users to write blog posts in "compose" mode, rather than HTML. In other words, the world universe is working against me, so I'm just going to give up and go to bed. I'll be back tomorrow, God and Google willing.

Recommendations

I'm so glad so many of you took the time to recommend your favorite blogs and I'm equally glad that several of you remembered the last time we did this and said you enjoyed it then.  I can see I have many hours of blog reading ahead of me as I did last time.

I randomly selected a winner for the giveaway, and the winner is Doris R., who said:

"Hi Kim, thanks for another fun giveaway! Three of my favorite blogs are:  humblequilts.blogspot.com, it belongs to Lori, who features other quilters' work, her quilts and her life adventures, AND, she makes quilts for the Alzheimer Project!  quiltingisstillmypassion.blogspot.com, and it belongs to Patti, who shares her quilts and her life events.  patchalotmore.blogspot.com and it belongs to Marcie, who designs patterns, and shares her work and has free patterns that she offers at times.

These are a few of my favorite quilters because their work speaks to my quilting spirit. I love their colorways and designs! I LOVE eye candy and these three blogs give me plenty of them!  Thanks for the chance to win."

The nice thing about this giveaway is that even if you didn't win the prize, you still ended up with a list of highly recommended blogs to read and be inspired by!

Sometime in the next couple days, I want to talk about book recommendations, so start thinking about what books you've read lately that you'd recommend to the rest of us.

Doris, please email me your mailing address and I'll get your prize out to you this week.  Thanks everyone!

A Tisket, a Tasket, Four More Blocks from the Basket . . .

I was almost late to my own party this week!  I just finished my four blocks at around 1 a.m.--normally I have them made the Sunday before or, at the latest, sometime during the week.  But not this time!  Here are my four for this week:

When I tucked these four away in my block binder, I checked how many plastic sleeves were empty and by my calculations, I should just need four more blocks to have enough for the quilt.

Now, why didn't I get busy on my blocks earlier on Saturday?  Well, I got up fairly early so I could make a trip to the farmers' market--our super hot weather finally broke and now we just have plain ordinary hot weather, which means it's pretty nice early in the day and late in the evening, so a Saturday morning trip to the farmers' market is an attractive idea again.  Then I made a quick stop at Trader Joe's for a few other things.

And I don't quite know what got into me, but with all that beautiful fresh produce, I decided I needed to do a complete cleaning of the refrigerator--even going so far as to move it out from the wall and clean under and behind it.

Whew!  That was quite a job!  I kind of thought after that--and after fixing a very, very late breakfast and being comfortably full--that it was time for a nice nap.  So there went most of Saturday.  By the time I did a few other things around the house, fixed dinner, and took care of a couple stitching tasks, it was Saturday evening and way past the time I should have started on my blocks.  But it WAS a very nice way to spend a weekend day.  I hope your was good too!

Scrap Basket Sunday Sign Ups!

My stitchery friends and I went to see the movie The Heat with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy this afternoon--it was the funniest movie I've seen in a long time, and I'd definitely recommend it!  I'd read a couple reviews beforehand that were critical of the language used in the movie, which is admitted pretty rough, but I think it was necessary to the the characters and to point up the difference between the personalities of the FBI agent and the Boston street cop.  The movie would not have been nearly as funny without it.  Still, if you are very offended by swearing, this wouldn't be the movie for you.  Personally, I hope they make a sequel--these two actresses were terrific together!  After the movie, we all had dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant; the food was good and so was the company.  All in all, a really nice evening!

Driving home tonight, I started thinking about Scrap Basket Sunday--boy, I need to make my next set of blocks so I have something to show on Sunday!  Once you're ready to show us your scrappy project, please add your name and blog link to the list below.  Hopefully I'll have made by blocks by then!  "See" you on Sunday!

Your Turn

What are your three favorite quilt-related blogs?  The lesser known the better.  Here's the deal:

A year or two ago, I asked people to name their three favorite quilting blogs, and many of us found new, interesting blogs and bloggers as a result.  I'd like to do that again.  Don't name mine, and don't name Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville blog--since we're all HERE, we all know my blog, and I don't know anyone who doesn't know Bonnie Hunter, right?

It would be excellent if you could also say what you like about the blogs; i.e., good quilting tips, beautiful photography, funny writing, lots of giveaways, lots of free patterns, the blogger's tastes are just like yours--whatever it is that draws you back again and again.  And I'd be okay if you list TWO quilt-related blogs and ONE that's not, as long as the one that's not a quilt-related blog would appeal to the average quilter-type person.

And to get you to participate, I'm doing two things:  First, I'm temporarily taking off that thing where you have to decipher and type some random words and numbers to prove you're not a robot when you leave a comment.  Second, if you comment about three blogs, you have a chance to win a prize.

Two charm packs--Papillon by Three Sisters--and a Schnibbles pattern called Paganini.  Sort of "oldies but goodies" from my stash that I picked for you because I think they'll make a cute, summery little quilt.  I'll draw a name from the comments on Sunday night and announce the winner on Monday's blog post.

I'm looking forward to your recommendations.  Thanks!

Pulling Off a Bandaid

About quitting smoking--or probably any other type of addiction--a couple people said they, a spouse, or another loved one have been trying to quit, and I wanted to throw a couple thoughts out there.  There are SO many ways to quit these days, that sometimes the hard part is chosing a way that will be successful.  I think maybe the most important thing is to know what type of person you are.  Look at the analogy of the bandaid:  Some people prefer to remove a little bit at a time because it seems less painful; some people prefer to just rip it off and be done with it quickly; and some people would rather have someone else do it for them.  Quitting smoking is a little like that.

In making my own personal decision, I felt that cutting back slowly would take much more willpower than I had.  Whenever I tried to cut back, it felt like all I was thinking about all day was when I could have the next cigarette.  And thinking about smoking constantly make it much harder; soon I'd give up on cutting back at all!

And I had worked with a woman who swore by the nicotine patch; but she'd been using the patch for a couple years.  To me, the point of quitting was to QUIT--not just to change the method of delivery, although changing to the patch meant not inhaling smoke into my lungs, and that definitely was an improvement right there.  But when I thought about it, I didn't want to trade one habit for another.

So for me, it came down to ripping off the bandaid.  I was pretty crazy for those first five days and I tried to sleep away the time as much as possible, but I knew that if I could just wait it out, it would work for me.  Just think--what were you doing five days ago?  That would have been last weekend.  Does it seem that far in the past?  No, probably not.  And I bet all the other important things in your life have taken much, much longer to achieve, right?  So I say go for it, if that's what you want--but you have to really want it and make up your mind that anything else is failure.  But also, decide what the right method is for you--there are many more ways to quit and aids than I've even mentioned, and the right method for you might not be the same as the method I used.

Enough of that though--I know it doesn't really apply to many of you, so here's something different.  One of the ongoing projects I started last year but didn't finish was the Merry, Merry Snowmen pattern by Bunny Hill.  When I set everything aside last fall, I only had the last of the nine blocks left to make, so a couple weeks ago, I prepped the block and then I carried everything back and forth to work with me every day--but I never got around to working on it!  Finally, I'd had enough of carrying my stitching case around, so I made the last block my main project these last couple evenings.  Now I can say that last block is done--woo-hoo!

I have a couple of those corner snowmen left to applique to complete the quilt and I'll need to press the blocks before I put them together.  Then there's the border, of course, but I'm getting very close!  Tomorrow I'd like to get the blocks up on the design wall and see how everything looks.

If this is a quilt you've been working on, you may notice I made one small design change--in the original pattern, the body of the snowman "chef" was sort of straight up and down; I decided with the feminine looking apron, my chef needed some curves, so I made the chef like the traditional "three-ball" snow figure.

My 4th of July will probably be spent mostly in the Sweat Shop with a few breaks for cooking, barbecuing, and hanging out with Hubby.  I hope you have a great day planned too!

Personal Celebration of Freedom

On the 4th of July, Americans celebrate the anniversary of the country's beginning and the freedoms we enjoy.  On July 3rd, however, I celebrate the anniversary of my personal freedom--from smoking and addiction to cigarettes!  Woo-hoo!  It's been four years now, and I have to say that after those first five days, it's been pretty easy so far.  If you're interested in reading about my smoking (and quitting) history, you can find it HERE.

Did you see that this month's Schnibbles pattern (from Sinta's and Sherri's A Year of [Vintage] Schnibbles) is Lincoln?  Sinta's very pretty version can be found HERE.  I thought while I was thinking about it that I'd show you the Lincoln Schnibbles I made a few years ago--

I made it using leftover scraps from my Halloween 1904 quilt.  Here's a photo that shows a bit of both quilts--

I plan to make it again this month, unless I run out of time, but I'm leaning toward making a baby quilt from the pattern this time--just to have on hand in case I need one.  How about you?  Will you join the Schnibbles parade this month?  I hope you do!

I Think a Hampster Died in my Keyboard

I have a Microsoft keyboard that looks like this:

Or maybe I should say it DID look like this when it was new.  Not so much now.  Over the past couple of years, the keys have gotten a little dusty and dirty along the edges and sides, and I'm wondering how to clean the keyboard well without ruining it.  You see, my normal method of cleaning most surfaces is to spray some type of cleaner (more often than not, Windex) onto a surface and wait awhile for it to soak in and loosen the dirt.  That doesn't seem like such a good idea for cleaning a keyboard.  I've gotten these things wet before and they don't like it.

So I was sitting here, pondering the gunk on the sides of my keys when it occurred to me to grab a dental floss pick and see if I could scrape or rub some of the gunk off.  After all, those things get gunk off teeth, right? 

No, I didn't floss between my keys; I tried the pointy end but it didn't scrape anything off.  But it DID pull up a bunch of dust and hair when I ran it between the keys.

Really, it was quite disturbing.  Where did all that hair COME FROM?!  It clearly wasn't my hair--or any other human hair for that matter.  In fact, I wondered whether one of my cats had learned to type and has been surfing the net while I'm at work--I'll have to check the computer's browsing history for kitty porn!

By the time I was done cleaning the spaces between the keys, I probably had enough hair to transplant onto a half-bald hampster.

And my mouse?  Well, I was on such a roll, I had to clean that too, and now I'm pretty sure there's more reason to call it a mouse than just because of its general shape.  Again:  Where did all this hair come from?

Unfortunately, my keyboard cleaning odyssey means two things:  (1) I haven't had time to do anything in the Sweat Shop this evening and (2) I'm going to have to shut down the computer now and get very serious about cleaning those keys.  If you don't hear from me for a few days, it's because I've killed the keyboard.

By the way, what in the heck do THESE dental floss picks do?  I came across them when I was looking for a photo of a dental floss pick to show you.  These guys look like they could crack a nut and then remove the residue from between the teeth, don't they?

Gotta go clean now.

Buy, Buy, Buy!

Sometimes I go a couple months without feeling I need to buy very much quilting stuff.  I've been pretty good the last month or two, in fact.  The mere mention of spring quilt market makes me close my eyes and hum quietly to myself so I'm not tempted by all the new and wonderful fabrics, patterns, and things.  But then there comes a time when I feel I need to buy a lot of stuff, and I think I'm coming into one of those times now!

Remember the scrappy quilt top I mentioned yesterday?  The one I thought I'd get out and quilt soon?  Well, I pulled it out of the quilt-in-waiting basket and laid it out on my bed.  Then I checked my stock of potential backing fabrics and nothing seemed right.  Sure, I could have pieced a bunch of random color blocks for a back, but that seemed like a lot of work; so I let my fingers do the browsing for wide quilt backs on sale and I ordered what I needed--a nice lavender print.  Here's the quilt top I was talking about--it was the result of a scrap basket clean out a couple years ago:

Then, while my fingers were doing that browsing, I thought I might as well order the roll of batting I'd been thinking about ordering, because I only have enough batting for a couple more quilts.  So sometime in the next week or so, a big roll of batting will show up on my porch and a big charge will show up on my Visa statement.  Oh, well, it had to be done, right?  I like to get my batting by the roll--it's less expensive per yard and the rolls last a long time, but it's a big chunk of change to lay out all at once!

I can finally show you the quilting on the last two blocks of the Country Cottages quilt.  For October, I quilted a crescent moon--hard to see but it's near the right side of the sky--along with some wispy clouds and a spider in a web.

And January's block has a background of swirly snow, just like December's block--but they're on opposite ends of the quilt, so it seemed a good balance, somehow.

Now I've gone on to work on the rest of the quilt, and I hope to be able to show you more in the next day or two.

Have a happy Canada Day!