Cookies!!!!!

I think I have turned into a native Oklahoman. There are storms in the state this evening and I have had the dumb tv on for 5 hours watching this tornado watch and warning come ever closer and closer. We have had hail and lots of wind and rain, but thank goodness no tornado close by.

However there was one that touched down north of us not too far away. I have watched it go over the small town on the west side of OKC that my youngest daughter lives in and now I am watching it go over the town to the north my oldest daughter lives in. They are showing pictures of the damage that the tornado caused to the north. So far there are no deaths, thank goodness.

So, to keep my mind from going bonkers as I watch this wonderful spectable on tv , I have decided to tell you about my favorite storebought cookie . I never could get it in Houston during the summer, but I can't remember if it is available up here during the summer or not.

Anyway, I just love them to the point that when I buy a package of them, I know I will eat all 12 of them in the space of two days. This is the only cookie I have ever found in the grocery store that I will buy and know that I will enjoy it. When they are fresh, and this package was, they are so good, they just melt in your mouth. They are covered with dark chocolate, and there is a marshmellow type filling in it. Oooh, it is so good....I saved you one bite, but then I decided to eat it, lol. SO GOOD!!!!!

Now I ask you, what is your very favorite store bought cookie? Inquiring minds want to know!

Friday Shopping Report

I love The Fat Quarter Shop.

It is always with mixed emotions I open her Monday or Friday email and then go to Kimberly's site and look around. She always has the newest fabric and just when you think you might be safe for a week or so, she springs something else on us, lol. Well, I think she has outdone herself this week. There are several things on there I have to have, and I want everyone else to be as tempted as I am.

Remember, we have to boost the economy, and we have a refund coming, which the IRS gurus have spent 41 million to tell us all we are going to get in May. There is something wrong with that picture, right?

The new Patchwork Party is going to start pretty soon and this is the finishing kit she has. Isn't it gorgeous? It makes me want the Prairie Paisley line more than ever. I am going to have to find something to make this line out of if I don't join the Patchwork Party.

I think I have found the perfect thing for quick Christmas presents! Check this out. There are four different ones, and they are reasonable and will be quick to make and if we get them now before she sells out of them they will be patiently waiting when we hit the panic button in November, lol.

Have you ever seen a batik quilt like this one? It is so fine looking. Just think, if I start it when it gets in I could have an Irish quilt for March 2009 ready to put on the bed.

Here's My Heart Quilt Kit is made from Hemming House and I just love, love, love it! It should be winging its way to me even as we speak. I was just checking all of the links and this seems to have disappeared. I bet she has sold all of them.

The other store you might like is The Cotton Club. They have something new called Berriangles. I got a sample of them and they look very interesting and easy. Might want to check them out.
http://www.cottonclub.com/cgi-bin/Store/store.cgi .

I can always find fabric that I can't find anywhere else, like this . Isn't it gorgeous? And they have a great notion department and carry Aurifil thread in lots and lots of color.

Ok, that's all I am going to share with you this round. I have to get busy now.

Swan Lake

This is absolutely amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOqxSaW05p4

Heart Crazies

Sometimes when I take a class I get lost in the little stuff and don't get much out of it. However, as I become more proficient as a quilter I seem to be more at ease when I take a class, and have gotten to the point when I am relaxed and "who cares" if I make a mistake, it's my quilt. It is a shame that it seems to take several years to get to that point. Look at all the worry wasted on something so trivial, lol. I used to be that way about other crafts too, as well as I remember.

All of this just to say that the class on Heart Crazies was fun! Laid back and very enjoyable. So I cut one side too small on one block when I was cutting it out. Who cares, I will put a filler strip on it if I need to and no one will be the wiser.

The following pictures are the steps we went through to make one block. This was after we cut out all of the blocks using freeezer paper templates and storing each color family in a pizza box. It was kinda funny to see everyone with 6 pizza boxes on their table, lol. It didn't even occur to me to take pictures of the class, I haven't been around Ms RGC enough yet to remember to do that,

After we cut everything out we sorted it by the putting the top one on the bottom of the stack and shuffling until there was a different print of one color family in every pile.

Then we picked out the main heart pieces from another color family and put that on the top of the pile to use with the outside pieces of the heart. Next we picked the surrounding blocks of the heart from a third color family and put that on the top of each of those piles.
Then using a little hocus pocus which I won't explain here (it is in the pattern), we proceeded to start sewing the seams together. The first seam went together effortlessly. From then on it was anybody's guess as to whether the seam would match or not. As each piece was added, it was sewn on and then trimmed to fit.



The heart all done and trimmed, now for the edges of the block.
Moving right along, trimming as I go.

Ready for the last piece
All the pieces sewn on and then the block is trimmed. Only tons more to go, but isn't it going to be pretty? The blocks will end up being a mixture of 7 colorways. I had to put them away when I got home, because I have to finish up a couple of others before I can bring it back out again, but I love, love, love it!

Updates on Projects and Stuff

I trust everyone had a wonderful Easter with families and friends. I know Aud and I did.

I spent the afternoon getting a little better organized for the week ahead. I am taking a class tomorrow night using the Heart Crazy pattern by The Buggy Barn. I have had Robyn Pandolph's Bed of Roses fabric to make this quilt out of for 7 years, and I figure the only way I am ever going to make this quilt is take a class in it, lol. So I have all of my fabric ironed and my patterns traced off and I am ready to go.


This is Bed of Roses. Isn't it gorgeous? Robyn Pandolph was designing for Moda when this collection came out.

This is Gatsby, all cut out and marked and ready to go. I am making a total of 81 blocks so it will be a queen size when I get around to making it. Hopefully soon.

My Kaffe Fassett quilt is coming right along. I have these blocks finished and the rest of them in order to be sewn. I only work on this quilt during my Wednesday sew in at the LQS, so it is going slowly, but it does give me a change of pace.
And my poor Web Sampler blocks. I now have finished 8 of them, thank goodness. There is a lot of piecing going on in these blocks and I have to get away from them ever so often for a few days. I moved our deadline on finishing this to July 1, so I am hoping to get it done by then.


And this is what poor Aud's arm looked like today. Can you believe the mess her arm is in? I am still so p. o.'d, to put it mildly, about this I can't think, but Aud wants to let it go, so I guess I am not going to be able to do anything about it. I will take this picture to her doctor the next time she goes in for a visit. And I don't expect her to be billed anything for this. We will see.

UPDATE: Monday 9 AM....Would you believe a lady from the hospital just called and told Aud to come in for a catscan? I don't believe it, but they did!!! Aud told them there was no way she was coming back for a catscan...she spent 4 hours in that hospital Friday and she wasn't coming back. Now she has a call into her doctor....I think this is going to be a fun day!

A Cautionary Tale and a Full Moon

Friday the day started off with a bang. My good friends from Kansas came to town and stopped to see me for a while. Kathy is a quilter and we let Kim go along just because he is a special person and makes my friend Kathy very happy lol. PLUS, he is a neat guy!

We went to Quiltworks to look around and Kathy bought some stuff and I picked up the fabric necessary to make my Gatsby a queen size quilt. Here are some samples they had.

Rusty Hearts - this one has applique and embroidery in it. I don't like the colors in it but I do like the quilt pattern.

Indigo Flowers...navy and beige...small wall or table quilt, they have kits made up.

Crazies for Daisies..made from 30's fabric, but it doesn't have too much of a 30's look, they also have kits of this.

And this is the sample of Gatsby. They have kits for this too.

After we left there we went to Pei Wei and ate Chinese. Then we stopped by a new quilt store and looked around. I forgot to take pictures. I will do that and post about them soon.

Then we went back to my house and visited for a while. My daughter and grandaughters came by to visit. This is Kyra with my chocolate egg and a chicken for both Aud and I. Aud also got a chocolate egg. Oh, and a bouquet of tulips that are just beautiful. I forgot to take a picture of them. As Kyra said, if we didn't bring you some Easter you wouldn't have any, lol. How true!

Here is Katy being a little shy. Kathy and Kim were still there and she is very timid around strangers.

Here is Kyra with ribbons in her hair and acting silly with me, lol. I am not posting the picture she took of me. I looked like the wicked witch of the west.

Then Kathy and Kim left, and Dana and the girls left, and then I left to take some movies back, and do some errands.

Aud calls about 5 minutes before I get home and says "I have to go to the hospital". Ok, I will be home in a minute.

Thus begins the strangest 4 hours I have spent in a long time. I am still not sure whether I believe it actually happened, but I have proof with the pictures I took.

One of the radiologists that works with Aud's doctor was checking the xray taken Tuesday when I took her to her Doctor because she still wasn't well. At that time they took a chest xray and determined she did not have pneumonia, gave her some antibiotics and a Medrol dose pack and sent her home. Friday this radiologist calls around 4:15 to tell her they found some nodules on her lungs and she is to go to the hospital immediately. Then he tells Aud his nurse is going to call her and tell her what to do.

The nurse calls back and tells her to check in at the ER and they are going to run a cat scan on her. Everything is ready for her and she should go immediatetly. So we get to the hospital a little before 5.

So she checks in at the front desk in the ER, tells the young idiot why she is there and then has to answer all of the thousand questions that help contribute to the bulk of computer documents and the lost of trees. Then we wait, and then they take 2 chest xrays, and we wait some more. Then they take 6 vials of blood and put us in a room. After a while a PA comes in and talks to her and does a short physical, listens to her chest, pokes around on her and asks her a million questions.

Up to now I haven't said too much, but I am starting to ask if anyone knows why we are there. And I explain to this gorgeous young man why we are there. So he says, ok, let me go see what I can find out. I am going to send the nurse in to put you on a monitor.

In comes Howard the nurse, hooks her up to a monitor, puts the heart pads on her, the pulsox thing and all that garbage, and then he puts an iv drip line in her other arm. And why is he putting this in her arm? Why, in case they need it. He has trouble with gtting it in her arm and Aud is about to faint and I am getting a tad upset. And I tell him he needs to get the specialitst that handles difficult ivs. He tells me is is the specialist...hmmm....not good, but he finally gets it in there. Before he has done all of this, he gets a urine sample which he leaves on the counter, and remarks, now we are all ready for whatever they want to do. Aud and I kinda look at each other.....

Then the gorgeous young PA comes back in and tells us, you are free to go home, this is all a mistake and you shouldn't be here. I am sending the doctor in to explain everything to you and then you can go home. Your blood work is normal. He tells us they found another xray and that the nodules had not enlarged from the last time she had had an exray. And no one could find the orders to do a cat scan. It is now 8:15 and we have been there over 3 hours.

At 20 to 9 I go to the nurse's station and tell them we are leaving in 5 minutes, and the nurse says you have to wait for the doctor, and I tell him, well tell the doctor to get his a** in here in the next five minutes or we are out of here. Strangely, the doctor shows up in 3, isn't that amazing.

He says, it was all a big mistake, she didn't need to come, the tests could have been run during the week at her convenience, so sorry, you can leave now. And actually, since the xrays showed nothing had changed, she didn't need a CT anyway. The nurse probably just got panicky, but didn't ever call the ER or make the CT appointment. And so why didn't they look at this xray before the called Aud and scared her to death? He doesn't know.

The nurse comes in, finishes unhooking what we haven't managed to so far, and we go check out. Oh, the urine sample? It was still sitting there, never even tested!

Do you think I was upset?

Just a tad......I am still not sure that this really happened...it is like a nightmare. I took a picture of Aud that shows her in the hospital bed with all of the hookups. I am not sure what can be done about it..probably nothing. But can you believe this?

I know the moon was full, it wasn't Friday the 13th however, and I cannot believe the inefficiency of this whole group of doctors she deals with. It really worries me. But, we won't be going in for a CT on a Friday evening again, that's for sure!

I've Got Mail!!!!

The postman bought me a package and it was from that sweet lady that takes all of those pictures and goes everywhere and live in California...hmmm...what WAS that woman's name again....oh and there is a beautiful flower attached to her name, somewhere along the way....hmmmm....oh, yeah, I remember now, her name is Sharon, aka Red Geranium Cottage
Having a senior moment here, lol.

Anyway, I did a happy dance and finally found the scissors I can use to open boxes with and, voila! Lavendar tissue paper!!!! And a sweet Easter card that is now pinned to one of the wall hangings in my sewing room.




And look what was under the lavendar tissue paper...a lavender birdhouse! Is this not the cutest thing? It too is now hanging on a wall hanging in my sewing room!!!! I showed it to my granddaughters when they were over here and they just ooed and ahhhhed and Kyra ask me if she could have it, lol. I told her I was going to save it and hang it on my wall hanging because a friend had given it to me and everytime I looked at it I would smile and think of her.
And of course there was more lavendar paper, and hiding in that was this cute, cute plate. Well the granddaughters thought that was wonderful and Katy wanted to know if she could eat off of it. I told her she could eat her snack off of it, which she did, but, "no memory grandma" forgot to take her picture, lol. Next time I will.




And under that layer was this really neat pincushion! I love pincushions and this one is sitting on my sewing table with the other one sweet Sharon gave me. See the little bee on it? And it came with pins already.
This was a wonderful Easter present, Sharon! I just love all of it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Quiltathon March 18th

Click on Title for the Quiltathon link.

I have done all I can do for one day. I have my hsts made and my squares marked to sew on the edges of these hsts. Then I will fuse on the leaves I showed earlier. Thanks to Judy for giving me the impetus to sew today. I thoroughly enjoyed it even though I had to do part of it last night and the rest tonight.


One side of hsts sewn. I had to quit, it was after 11.


Marking and sewing the half square triangles.

Ironing on the Soft Fuse for the "leaves" that go on the half square triangles. I will probably do a blanket stitch by machine on them.

Cutting out the large squares for the half square triangles

This is called Gatsby and is a Timeless Treasures collection. The pattern is on the Timeless Treasure website.

Message to Kimberly

I have had another one of my brilliant ideas. Anyone that has checked out The Fat Quarter Shop in the last 3 days will appreciate this idea, I am sure. And if you haven't checked it out lately you should. There is the most gorgeous BOM for Christmas on there I have ever seen!

I think we should just give Kimberly our credit card numbers and an amount we can spend each month and let her just make automatic shipments to us. LOL...would save us a lot of time and trouble, and she could make up labels and what ever else she has to do in advance when she had time.

In the case of this BOM she would know that we can afford this because we are ALL going to want this, and we need to get started on it immediately, right? She could have had all of this ready and we would have it today instead of having to wait two more days. So we don't eat for a day or two each month, so what, most of us won't miss the calories, that's for sure, lol.

What do you think? Should we sign a petition, have a demonstration, or just beg! LOL

The Sun is Shining!

I am doing a happy dance! The sun has been shining for 2 days, I'm not coughing much at all, and I got some more music and pictures uploaded to my IPod Touch. Now if I can just figure out why I can't send mail from it, I will finally be able to utilize the technology I bought it for.

And, at my LQS sew-in on Wednesday I made some progress on my Kaffe Fassett quilt. I love the way this fabric looks with this pattern. The colors are so rich.


This is a piece of batik I bought yesterday. It is just gorgeous, and I had not seen it before. And the bottle is some spray that takes the place of starch. It is really terrific when you are pressing your blocks. Not sure what it does, but I can tell a difference.


This is a pattern called Modern Thinking and some Kaffe Fassett fabric to go in my KF quilt and a piece from Marcus Bros. that is going to make a wonderful background for something. I bought some of this a couple of months ago, but I like it so much I bought some more of it.

This is the quilt kit that Quiltworks is making from the Modern Thinking pattern. It is all Kaffe Fassett fabric. Isn't it neat looking? I think I am going to make it from batiks (one of these days).


I don't remember whether I have shown you this before. It is called a reducing glass. If you don't have one, invest in one. You will see things when you are making your quilt that you normally would not see during construction.

This is what you see when you look through one. I can tell by looking through this at the Kaffe Fassett that it is all blending together very well and none of the fabrics look out of place.

Gatsby, Car Troubles, More Stuff

I have had a continuation of the curious and aggravating things that seem to be happening to me lately. After recovering from being without the internet and phone for 3 days, I wasn't ready for a Lemony Snicket Sunday, that's for sure.

The commode handle came off in the "guest" bathroom and my SIL Mark and family came over Sunday morning so he could fix it. He fixed it and we visited and ate some junk and shared Nintendo DS games so we can all have the same ones, lol. Of course they have a much different time schedule than I, so this happened early, by that I mean before noon. :>)

After they left, I took a nap since I didn't go to bed until 4 Sunday morning, lol. Then I get up, the weather is warmer than it has been, and I go get some gas and pick up some bread and buttermilk, get myself a Starbucks, and come home. Pull in the garage, turn the car off, and the brakes lights do not go off. So I fiddle with them and try different things and finally decide I will just have to let the battery run down and have the car towed Monday morning.

I come in the house, have a nervous breakdown for a couple of minutes, and call Mark, my SIL. They live a good 40 minutes from me, but I am hoping he will know what to do. He ends up coming over, bless him, and we fiddle with the car, and he cleans 4 years of gook off of the battery, and checks everything and the brake lights do not go off. In the meantime he has shown me how to open the hood and he has disengaged the battery as a last resort. I can't remember about taking pictures all the time, so of course I have no visual record of all of this. Then I follow his instructions and undo one of the battery cables and have all of this down pat in my head. We leave the hood up so I don't have to fool with that. And he goes home, and I have a plan.

Ok, the evening progresses and about 11 o'clock, Aud is hungry and so I decide to fix us a milkshake and some cinnamon toast. Aud has been sick for a week now with the same stuff I have, only hers is worse, bless her heart. So I fix her milk shake, taste it to be sure I have put enough vanilla in it, and guess what, are you sitting down?......I have made it with buttermilk!!!!! Have you ever tasted a buttermilk milkshake? LOL....not good! So I remake the milkshake, fix the toast and nothing else happens, thank goodness. By now I am spooked real bad, so I didn't try to do anything but watch tv. Of course I couldn't sleep either.

I intended to get up real early this morning to rehook the battery, clean out the car because it has quilts and coats, and all of that cold weather gear in it "in case we get stuck somewhere", and get my car down to the dealer. My daughter calls me at 10:30 to see where I am since no one has heard from me and Mark wants to know if I have made it to the dealer yet. They have a bet as to whether I am even up yet, lol. So I get out of bed, call to make sure they can fix it, and get dressed, tighten the battery cables, the brake lights come back on, and take the car to the dealer. Dana picks me up, we have lunch, go to the bank to do some stuff, drive the bank person bananas, lol, and my car is ready, so she takes me to pick it up. It was only a wire that had come undone, and bless their cotton picking hearts, they did not charge me for this! Talk about perking my day up!

So I am firmly convinced (maybe) that my Lemony Snicket period is behind me for now. I could smell spring in the air, even saw it peaking around the corner as I was driving home. And the best part is it is going to be 72 tomorrow!! Yea!!

If you have held on through this long diatribe then you deserve a picture.

One of my missions in life at the moment is to help the stash situation at my lqs, lol. Take some of theirs and add it to mine, that's reducing stash, right? It doesn't have to be your own. So, in the interest of "helping the economy and reducing stash" I picked up this kit. It is made with the Gatsby collection from Timeless Treasures, and it is just gorgeous! I tried real hard to resist it but, alas, it called my name. The pattern is on the Timelss Treasures web site, not a very good picture, but it will be a beautiful quilt if I ever get to it, lol.

Piece & Plenty, Calico Craze, Grandchildren

I have been twiddling my thumbs since Thursday when my phone and DSL line got cut, thanks to the person who marked the yard so we could repair our fence. I have had serious internet withdrawal, a WHOLE THREE DAYS!!!! with no internet!! Ohhhhh, I think I am going to faint just thinking about it again!

With all of this time on my hands I actually got a little quilting done, lol. I now have 6 Calico Craze blocks done. It is coming off the design wall because I need to concentrate on the Web Sampler and there is not room for both of them up there. So you won’t see it for a while I don’t think.



Here is Piece and Plenty in all of its glory. I cannot believe I have managed to stay up with this BOM. It sure takes a lot of time, but gosh, I am loving these blocks! 6 months completed! I get a great big star! Kudos to Fat Quarter Shop for the nice way this BOM has been handled. Everything is right with the blocks when you get them. It is amazing!



Here is a picture of Kyra with her hair braided in a heart for Valentine's Day. Isn't this a neat idea? I know I am a little late with this, but it could be for Easter too! :>)



Here are Kyle and Aud, playing cards.


And here is Kyle laughing his head off because he is beating us!!! He spent a couple of days with us about the time I got sick and we had a great time. Played Crazy 8 until I thought I would turn into one, lol.