Where's Bear?

Ever since Bear was kitten, he has liked to get under (or TRY to get under) anything that I lay on the floor that I've pieced. I've tried to fool him by laying out a piece of uncut yardage, or even a towel, but no, it has to be pieced. This is especially trying when I only have blocks layed out that are not sewn together yet. They end up completely mixed up and in a big heap. This weekend I was making good progress on a class project that is constructed in rows -- surely he wouldn't find that interesting enough to get under...

I think that he thinks he's hidden under there. That crazy cat.

Weekend Fun

I had quite an eventful and fun weekend! On Saturday I met up with my sister and nephews at a park in Dublin. It was a great (and popular) park for kids. There were multiple playground areas and a rock like structure with two slides that they could climb on. I meant to take a larger picture, but we were off and I forgot. By that time it was getting pretty crowded. The boys seemed to really like it.


Next we did some Geocaching. Lance and I haven't had much luck with the last few that we've tried, and the weather hasn't been conducive to caching, so it's been a while since we tried. I decided to see if there was one near the park where we were meeting, and it turned out there were several in that area. I chose one that listed the cache as a large container with small toys as trade items. We told the boys we were going on a treasure hunt. We had a great time hunting around for it and finally found it. Here's a picture of me and Jackson near our find before we opened it.

Next, Lance and I did some shopping, and found the item below. Now I ask you, who could possibly pass this up??? By the way, yes, the pancakes were great. Thanks for asking.

I did some sewing on Sunday and made some good progress on the next class project (even if it isn't exactly how I envisioned it).

And lastly, I made eclairs for Lance that I had promised him a while back. I haven't made them in almost 20 years, so I was very pleased that they came out so great. The only thing I would need to change is to make them bigger. They were a little on the small side. I guess I'll have to make another batch to correct that error!!

Happy Valentine's Day 2008!

I know I haven't posted lately, but I couldn't let Valentine's Day go by without comment! Check out this website called Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. They have a tutorial on how to stamp your own messages onto those ubiquitous conversation heart candies. I love this idea, and if I had seen this earlier, I certainly would have made a few choice ones up for my sweetheart. Maybe next year...

BTW, Love you Lance!

Latest Update

Well, as usual, I've been busy. I am the Accounting Manager where I work, so this is my very busy time of year. Aside from that, class started a couple of weeks ago, so I've been busy with that as well. On Friday, I took an all day class from Jill Schumacher "Quiltmaker to the Queen" in machine quilting. I have always been very apprehensive about machine quilting, and my few attempts at free-motion have not gone well. I heard very good things about Jill and decided it was time to bite the bullet and take a class. I must say she is a very positive person and gives a lot of encouragement, which was much apprectiated. She does excellent work, and has won many national awards. In the end, my practice pieces are still pretty bad, but now I have the knowledge and all I need now is practice. She says three days a week for a half hour a day and we'll have it down. Below are a couple of my practice pieces, which are not very good, but better than I thought I could do for my first pieces. They are the backs of the practice blocks, because I used the blue water-soluable marking pen on the front and I haven't wet them down yet, so you can't see the stitches on the fronts in the pictures.


I also finally found some pirate fabric on-line so that I could make a special crayon roll for my nephew, Jackson. I made one for his brother, Maxwell for his birthday in December, but couldn't find just the right fabric for Jackson. The fabric for the front worked out really well because it was a stripe of pirates in a row that worked perfectly for this project. Below are the front and inside.


On to more projects next week. I've got a few things planned for the next class session that I've been working on, so that is exciting, but I don't want to spoil any surprises here! However, I just started work on a quilt that I drafted out last year and have been really excited about, and I just saw one with the same layout in a magazine that I got this week. Oh well. I hear that happens a lot. It is an old setting, but I hadn't seen it around in a long time and then, there it is. A little disappointing, but the colors and other things will make it very different.