Postage Stamp Quilt-a-long

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great holiday season and are enjoying the new year. It is crazy cold all over the US huh? Even here in Florida it has been cold. But again anything lower than 70 is cold to me...lol!


I have SO many projects swirling around in my head, and have the fabric to do them, but when I saw Rachel Griffith's (of P.S. I Quilt) Postage Stamp Quilt-a-long post a couple weeks ago, I thought OMG! I want to do! It uses two jelly rolls, a print and a solid. I didn't have a jelly roll (I know! Im the only one! LOL) so I had to buy them. And as luck would have it, Rachel had a deal with the Fat Quarter Shop which gave a 20% discount if you bought two jelly rolls! Not to mention that the jelly roll I wanted, Awesome by Sandy Gervais for Moda, was on sale too! Sigh, it was meant to be.


Well, the first step this week was to create strip sets. I didn't have time to work on them this week so this weekend I spent most of the time sewing and pressing the sets. And I finished today! Bring on Step Two!


I hope I can keep up with this quilt-a-long. I am so guilty of starting and either losing interest or not having time and getting so behind I just quit. Not this time...I hope.

Anyway, if you are interested in joining, there is no reason not to. I'm sure Rachel will keep this up for a while, if not indefinitely. It looks simple but oh so cute.

Take care!

Thanksgiving 2010

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It has been forever since I posted a card I made (OMG over a year ago) so here are two! I have had the With Gratitude stamp set for a long time and finally got a chance to get it inky.

I took the big leaf stamp and inked it up in More Mustard and rolled its edges in Really Rust ink and stamped it on white cardstock. I trimmed around it and mounted it on a white circle cut with Nestability dies and matted it in Choco chip and Really rust (scallop circle). I love the look of the leaf hanging over the edges.

These two cards use this focal image but I changed up the design of the card for each one. I stamped the small leaf from the set in More Mustard on mustard cardstock for a background on each card, and matted them in Choco chip. For the first card I used the scallop lace border punch (how fun is this) on the choco chip mat. I am terrible at random background stamping, need to practice some more! I also used the Happy Thanksgiving stamp in Choco Chip from the All Holidays set. I really love these cards, and the focal image can be created using many sets like this one. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and eats all the turkey they want!

Some Sadness

Sorry I've been away again. Life has been up and down for the past few months, and three weeks ago today we had to put Dexter down. It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life! He was diagnosed with cancer back in April, and the vet said that he could go through chemo but the odds were against him, and if he were to be cured, it would most likely return and be even harder to beat. I decided then to let him live out his last few months happy instead of constantly being sick from the treatments.

About two months ago he stopped eating very much and became very skinny. Almost like a skeleton with fur. He still acted normal, but as the weeks went by he became weaker and weaker until he could no longer jump up on anything and began to have trouble walking. I knew he would only suffer more and we took him to the vet who confirmed he was not well and that it would be the right time. I held him in my lap for about twenty minutes petting him and saying goodbye with tears streaming down my face. I have never loved an animal more than I loved my Dexter. Saying goodbye was the hardest thing.

I still think I hear his claws on the wood floor and every now and then think I see him coming around the corner. I forget and expect him to be waiting at the door when I come home. Every time it's like a knife in my heart. I miss him terribly, especially when my boyfriend is away and I'm all alone at the house. He was my furry companion. I will miss his "assistance" when I'm working on projects in the sewing room.

I don't expect I'll ever get another cat, at least anytime soon. Even if I did, there will never be another Dexter. He was the best. I miss you Boo, rest in peace. I loved you with all my heart!

What have I been up to???

Hey guys, I'm still alive. I've been meaning to blog for a while but time just never presented itself. So I have a few things to show.

I finally finished my "O" quilt a few weeks ago! After a huge hiatus from it due to the biggest disaster in sewing room history (lol just kidding) I got back to work on it and once I got on a roll it only took a few weeks to finish (taking spare moments at night and on weekends). Here's a picture of it basted and ready for quilting:


After it was quilted and the binding attached I spent some hours out on my porch with Dexter stitching the binding to the back (boy that took time) but it was nice to look out at the pond and watch the ducks as I stitched. And of course he had to supervise (don't all cats?)


But after all that work, it was finally done. And I was very happy with it!
It was so late when I finished, but I wanted to take pictures and post on my Facebook. That's why the lighting is so terrible. Sorry bout that!


Also, my boyfriend and I went to Sarasota for the 4th of July weekend, to check out the beaches on the west coast of Florida (I grew up on the east coast in Satellite Beach, near Melbourne, FL). We had a great time, and they had free beach wheelchairs to use! JD pushed me all the way down near the water and set up our little area. The sky was overcast so it never got really hot, although we got sunburned. I am not used to going out in the sun and should have put more sunblock on. Oh well, live and learn. I've finally stopped peeling...yuk! Here's the two of us under our umbrella!


There were adorable terns with black heads everywhere, so I snapped a few pics of them, this one appeared to be posing just for me:


JD had a blast, and has been bugging me ever since to go back to the beach. So this weekend we are planning just a day trip to Daytona Beach, which is just an hour away.

By the way, on the way out of town, I saw this:


So I just HAD to stop in! And I finally got my Margo Pattern and some fabric to make my first Margo bag (Lazy Girl Designs).


I can't wait to get started. These are the fabrics I chose, all from the Cherish Nature line by Deb Strain for Moda Fabrics. I JUST LOVE THE BEES!!


So yeah, I know I've been gone a long time, but I spend more time thinking about quilting, blogging, etc. and less time actually doing them. LOL Hope everyone is having a fun summer, I feel like I need another vacation already... :)

And She Reappears...

Hi all, once again I space out and don't update my blog. Spending way too much time looking at other people's blogs and not taking care of my own! Not to mention the fact I have been LESS than creative for a long time. My sewing room is still a disaster area, as it had turned into a storage unit for things I didn't know what to do with as my boyfriend and I clear the clutter and junk from our tiny home.

In my blog surfing I have come across several organizing blogs which I will post in a couple days, but I just signed up today for 52 Missions, which is a program that gives you a 30 minute mission a week to organize and streamline your life and stuff. And boy I could use all the help I can get.

My dear boyfriend JD has really helped me re-evaluate the stuff I've held onto for so long, like electronics and computer parts/software that are OLD as the hills, and other things like clothes I never wore and still had the tags. He helped me release these things and slowly our home is getting easier to take care of and clean, which is good for him since I am unable to do most of the housework due to my respiratory problems. Sometimes it seems like he's trying to get rid of all my stuff but I realize that I don't need it and its just taking up valuable real estate (and collecting dust...).

We are saving the sewing room for last since it is the biggest, scariest room in the house. We worked a bit in it last week but I got tired both physically and emotionally. I gave an old sewing machine and serger away to a classmate of his who also sews, and she was super-thrilled. Plus it gave me about nine cubic feet of space back!

I am too embarrassed to show pictures of the sewing room, so I won't. It is better than it was, but there's still stuff on the cutting table, stuff in a pile on the floor, and stuff spread out on the pressing area. Its STUFF STUFF and MORE STUFF! And it will be the hardest to let go of, which is why I'm putting it off.

I want so desperately though to get it in order, so I can get back to what I love, sewing. I recently bought the new Maggie pattern from Lazy Girl Designs, and I'm hoping to make one this century...lol!

Anyway, hope you all have a Merry Christmas if I don't get back on before then...Take care.