Wednesday, November 29, 2017

little hats, big hearts

i first saw a call for itty bitty red baby caps on FB with the women of the ELCA group.  in their post, was a link to the american heart association and their call for volunteers.  well, i am now officially one of those volunteers!



during lunch, i started my first cap made with a very soft blend yarn.  originally last week, i had three skeins of red cotton in my basket, thinking about how hot it is in the houston area.  but then, i thought about how they are looking for the caps for the month of february, so the blend would be fine to use, plus it's softer on the skin.

will you join in raising awareness for congenital heart disease and knit or crochet a hat or two?  you can find your nearest office on the website in my link above.

Friday, November 17, 2017

a late quilt fest posting

now that my best friend has moved back to town, i get to go hang out with her at the quilt festival.  we haven't been there together in 7 years!!  she wasn't sure she'd make it, but her hubby told me i had to kidnap her and take her.

so we got there early as usual, found fabulous parking next to the GRB and when we came up the stairwell into the park, we were instantly distracted by a really nice art fair.


westychic purchased a ring at this vendor.  we both got earrings and a handmade glass bead vendor and i got earrings at a silversmith.  we almost blew our fabric budget... could have if we didn't say no a bunch of times.


i barely took any photos this year.  i forgot my regular camera at home and just didn't feel in the mood to snap pictures of everything for some reason.  but we managed to get a cow selfie at the stitchin' heaven quilt shop booth.

mostly, we were on the hunt for fabrics to replace everything westychic lost in the harvey floods.  she knew of 180 yards worth and didn't calculate up the smaller pieces.  i gave her a variety of fabrics from my stash (some of which she helped pick over the years) and some patterns/magazines to get her started.  she picked up some fabulous patterns - a kaffe fasset, a sasquatch pattern from elizabeth hartman and something else i can't think of.  then we searched for the fabrics she wanted to use for each pattern she purchased and not much more than that.  we searched for more coordinating fabrics for a bundle westychic put together for the two of us to create a collaborative quilting project.  not sure what yet we're going to make with it, but i'm looking forward to starting.

my 15 yo redhead is obsessed with llamas as of late.  it started with his first "llama-esque" haircut early this year, as noted by one of our friends.  since then, it has run rampant.  i found this elizabeth hartman pattern and sent a photo to him jokingly, asking if he needed a new quilt.  he wrote "YES!"  and then later when he was home, that was the first thing he wanted to know if i got.. the llama pattern...


it has two quilt sizes and a pillow option.  one llama, two llamas or a llama close up.  :)  oh fransson was one of my earliest quilt blogs to read when i started really getting into quilting.  i'm thrilled to see her super fun patterns.

this quilt:

"cum et iris" by sandra ruano navarro

the spiral and how it joins is A-mazing.  i have no idea how she did it, but i'm in awe. 

and then there was danny amazonas.  holy cow.  that's him in the photo talking about his work.  



i can't begin to think of how he did this.  but the realism created from these oddball pieces/scraps of bright fabrics is unbelievable and beyond what i could have imagined.


all in all, a decent show.  seemed there were a few extra junk booths, which we skipped over.  and the show itself didn't allow as much photography as i wanted in the places i wanted to take photos.  the red xx project was eerie and made quite the statement.  the super traditional quilt portions didn't draw us in to look this year though.

Thursday, November 9, 2017

a few october happenings

i'm a wee bit late... but a few highlights for the end of october.

my son officially passed his Star rank board of review and was awarded it at our troop court of honor.

a happy  mama and a troop tradition:  the mom's kiss
and for some reason, the cats hated the newest halloween costume.  can't figure out why... 


it's a wee bit big on her.  she tried to climb away.

but it fit the big boy hurricane harvey refugee perfectly!  i did not attempt to put the chicken feet on him.


his daddy was visiting and sent a different photo to westychic (mommy).  she didn't think it was nearly as funny as we did.