This, That and Some Rehab

Imagine this one...I have gone weeks without blogging and here I am twice in one day!  Shock of shocks!

Last evening after I did my post, we made a homemade pizza for dinner...we had gotten an Italian bread dough at the grocery.  Now whenever we do this, he's in charge of the dough.  Well, he got a bit carried away and thought it would be fun to try to throw it in the air like you see the pros do...silly me said "Oh wait, let me get the camera"...yes we are a little goofy here, but we do have fun!  Assessing the situation...

preparing for the throw...

up in the air!

And what made it even better was that he caught it...YIPPEE!

It's rained again, almost all day...we did have a few times of no rain and we were able to get the boys out without getting soaked...they were much happier today.  The sun even tried to peak out this morning...

well you may have to use your imagination, but this is as close to sun as we've seen in about 4 days.  We've probably gotten 7-8 inches of rain since this started and they're telling us that we're in for a bunch more before this silly storm moves on.

Back to Rehab

...again a big Thank you to Sinta...I got all caught up with the Cotton Club blocks...Month 8

Month 9

and look what arrived in today's mail.

I'm ready!
And while I was in Birmingham the first block of the new Designer BOM from the Fat Quater Shop arrived...it was sure fun to do

...this is going to be a wonderful quilt!

Eye doctor appointment in the morning...maybe he'll have help for these old eyes...I'm sure I need new glasses.

love...Mamie Blocks...Fabric and Cutting

I'm going to give you the amounts for what I did in my quilt...you can very easily make it bigger or smaller....just add or subtract blocks...or if you want you can change the size of your blocks...easy peasy!
The blocks in the inside of my quilt are 6" finished and I needed 72 blocks...my border blocks are 3" finished and I needed 80 blocks.  To change the size of your blocks you're going to cut the size of your squares today the finished size you want plus 1 1/2"...so my blocks are 6" finished I'm cutting my squares 7 1/2"...we're going to use Billie Lauder's method of making these 9 patches and we'll end up with 2 from each combination we sew...it's lots of fun!  She has a great video online if you want to check it out...I just Googled Billy Lauder's 9 patch.  OK, so enough chatter from me let's get down to business...

For my size quilt (which is 68" X 74" finished)  you will need to cut..72- 7 1/2" squares...you want 36 to be dark to medium in value and 36 light to light medium in value...you just need a bit of a contrast...as you can see in mine I used the different colors in some blocks as my contrast because it's hard with 30's to get a real difference in value.
You will also need to cut 80-4 1/2" squares...40 need to be dark to medium and 40 need to be light to light medium in value.

I'll be back Wednesday to sew these blocks together!  Have fun!

All on a Very Rainy Day

Got up this morning at my normal 5:30...looked out the window and it was already drizzling...at 6:30 when it was time to walk the boys it was raining a bit harder...we all know the boys don't like the rain, so they were quite unhappy...out to potty and back inside...no exercise walk today...just the necessitates.

It hasn't stopped raining all day...so thinking I probably needed a little couch time, I decided to hand stitch down the binding on my Lil' Neighborhood Schnibble from several months ago.  I saw several bloggers talking about these Clover Wonder Clips,

so since I'm a binding clip lover I thought I'd give them a whirl...

now you know, I've told you I'm not a real gadget girl...my old binding clips did the job just fine...but I gotta tell you...I LOVE these!  They stay on, they don't pop off if you move the quilt around too much...no clips down in the couch this time.  They hold the binding nice a tight...did I say I LOVE them?  I'll be getting some more of these "Wonderful" clips!

As I got up off the couch to get another glass of water, I happened to look out the window and look who was standing on top of the house behind us.

  I think he had a perfect view of the pond...I'll bet he had a good lunch today.  Andy looked out and thought they had added a weathervane

to the top of their house...oh that man makes me laugh!

I'm Stepping Out...

Happy Saturday...I'm finally rested and am back on a schedule again...and the boys are so happy!  Mom's back...YIPPEE!  As you can see from the picture, Howie's not getting too far away...Zack is actually right there too, but just out of the camera frame.

I'm sharing a bit of me today that I've only shared with some very close friends over the past several years...I've decided now that I'm happily 60...is that a woman of age our what...that it's time to get going with a dream that I've had for years.  A bit of background...when I had the shop I did patterns for kits and for special events, but there was someone that always insisted on "doing the math" for the patterns...as far as she was concerned I never was very good at that.  As a shop owner I was always busy and just let her take care of that...well, I guess somewhere along the line I started to believe that I just couldn't do that.  After I retired, several people said that I really should start doing patterns...I politely thanked them for their confidence but I really didn't think I could do that...Hmmmmm...move forward a couple of years, I did a quilt along with Darlene over at Quilting Daze and thought it was so much fun...I was even able to double check the math.  Then a year or so later Kelly from Cotton Charm Quilts asked me to do a quilt along with her...she was going to do a small version and I did a large version...I did the math!  Got me thinking that maybe there was hope.  So now I'm ready to jump in and give it a whirl...I'm going to start out with a quilt that I had so much fun doing

...it's really easy, even with its lots of pieces. It's called "love...mamie" (sorry for the not so good photo...it is so dark and grey here today, lots of rain on the way...it's really cheery, all 30's fabrics) I'm going to do a tutorial on it beginning next week if there's interest...just let me know if you'd like to do it.  This is step one for me...this is my year to go for it!

Where's Carol Been??????

We'll give you a hint...or a few hints...

Dance class....Camden's in the turquoise

Swimming lessons

Playing with this sweetie and kissing those cheeks

She's been in Birmingham with the kids and got back last night...and she seems to be pooped...she says she'll be back to her old self by tomorrow.  We're sure hoping so because we're bored...

Howie and Zack

Sheer Delight

I just had to share this picture today...Katie took Camden to get her ballet shoes for dance class...can you believe the happiness on her face.  She is sooooooooo excited about her dance class.  Can't wait to share this with her!

June...Really?

Everyone keeps saying it's June..so I guess I have to believe it...WOW!  May was a busy month...2 trips to Birmingham for me and not a whole lot of sewing.  I had a blast with the kids and am heading back Saturday for another week...Katie's teaching Bible School so I'm going to watch Peyton for her and then we'll be doing swimming lessons and dance class...it's going to be a busy week...I have my running shoes.  Can't wait!


I did manage to get my Designer BOM finished and I LOVE it...

...this is my Rehab entry for this week...thanks Sinta, you were my motivation to get this done...I needed it done before the new BOM starts and YIPPEE!  it's done...it's too big for my quilt holder to hold it up so we laid it out in the foyer for I could go upstairs, lean over the railing and take a picture.  It really does lay nice and flat, but there's a rug there by the front door, I probably should have picked it up before I put the quilt top down...it was getting stuck on the rug and we didn't want to pull on it too much...so please forgive the wrinkles...so it's off to the quilter with this one...bring on the new one!