Lucky me!

If any of you read Stash manicure, you probably laughed already today at the description of Cavemen husbands. I am blessed to NOT be married to a caveman-- in fact, I am blessed to be married to a Man Who Appreciates Quilts!!! My husband loves the quilts I make, and knows how much thought, time, and effort goes into them.

On top of that, he likes to spoil me every once in a while... like yesterday...

We had to run up north to get some errands done, and he took me to my formerly-almost-local quilt shop! I would have been happy with a few random FQs... but he kept pointing to bundles and trying to find one I loved, and he did, which is how I wound up with a bundle of Boutique Chez Moi. Can you believe he picked it out? That's how awesome my husband is- not only does he spoil me, but he knows the colors I love! 

I also learned from him that I'm not "earthy." I was pointing out the Origins line, and told him I really like it because it would go with out house wall colors, but I don't like it enough to actually buy and use- I would rather have something brighter. Which he diagnosed as me not being earthy. :D

What am I, then? I tend towards bright red, yellow, intense blues, lively greens...hmm, sounds a bit like I might be LOUD!!!!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~

Tomorrow I'll have the hexagon Kindle Cover tutorial. If you want to make one with the same size hexagons I used, you will need 92 hexagons with .75"sides in various scraps. It sounds daunting, but being that this is a hand=-pieced project, it's not meant to be fast! 

Treats

My list of things to do was 96 miles long today!

No, really!

I had to drive up north to pay a bill (ok, could have mailed a check, but had to go within a mile of the place so I saved a stamp), and get all my jewelry checked to keep the warranty up to date, and get dog food with a $10 certificate I had earned from the pet store last time I was there, and best of all, SPEND A $10 GIFT CARD ON MYSELF at a quilt shop!!!! 

My spoils, meager as they may be, kept me smiling all day. A charm pack of Buttercup (total TREAT since I know the math works out wicked expensive) which took care of the entire GC, but then I also picked out one pretty fat quarter for a spring project to be determined, and then got a spool of Mettler thread on the recommendation of a very nice lady who was delighted to find such a "fresh faced hand piecer!"

I was looking for a thimble... I'm almost glad they didn't have one that fit my needs, since I was able to find such fun delights. It feels like my birthday! Well, technically, 27 years ago I was *made* around this time... :D

I also had a great visit with my Mom. Lunch at Olive Garden, then a bag of marshmallow hens and chicks Easter candy.... YUM. 

It's been a pretty darn good day... now, off to a new form of evening entertainment... it involves a hostess gift for my upcoming vacation... and sewing, of course.... 

:)

Cute and Cuter

I went back to JoAnn's today since Mum didn't suggest another gift idea until after dinner yesterday... so today, I picked up some more Christmas finishing fabrics, as I described them when answering the habitual "What are you making with that?" But I couldn't resist these little Santa Gnomes! They are too cute. 

What to make with them!!!

Mug rug? 

Gift bag? 

Coasters? 

Maybe all of the above!

The kids were getting along great tonight. They still squabble, but I love when they curl up together like this... so sweet. Earlier, during the National Anthem before the Notre Dame-Army game, I sang along (always do!) and it was like doggy dance party they got so excited! I knew Prudence loves it when I sing (no idea why fi dogs really do hear better), but I was surprised that even before she mobbed me, Matt Lauer was a wiggle worm of happy puppy love. Which means I'll have to contain some of my usual holiday singing or be prepared to deal with ecstatic dogs!

3 bags of 50 units, plus a 4th bag with 28. 

Just to show you, I did get the last units for the mystery quilt cut- that pile of strips from earlier brought my total to 178!!! YES! I only needed 172, so hooray for an appropriate amount of extras! I really hope somewhere along the way I'll get to use the rest of the 2" strips I cut... I underestimated and have a TON of green strips left, and a bunch of pink.... which would be perfect if these units are meant for 9 patches... that's right, I'm guessing already! This is probably why I haven't done a mystery quilt before-- NO PATIENCE!

I'm sure you've all seen the latest Subway commercial where the "hot" girl asks the nerdy guy to be her boyfriend, then takes his sandwich and justifies it by being his girlfriend... Well, Tim and I saw it several times while he was home this week, and the first time he whips his head towards me and gave me a face before saying, "Gee, sounds familiar!"
Needless to say, that's our favorite commercial right now!

Have a good night, everyone! If this motivation continues to percolate, I might go run tomorrow morning... Tim has a PT test, so I told him I'd try to do the run portion in spirit with him as a practice for Thursday.

Can you hide ugly fabric in "Hidden Wells?"

SCORE!

So, today, I did a bad thing... well, sort of. I went to JoAnn's (the Other one in our area) because I wanted to get the fusible web stuff for Benny's T-shirt quilt while it was still on sale, and I still had the lovely additional 10% off.... well, after running into my mother-in-law and getting thoroughly distracted by talk of other projects, I decided to peruse the clearance at this location... 9 yards later, I had added to my clearance binge from yesterday. HOWEVER: I think I can justify this mini fabric binge. Had I paid the original price for all the fabric, it would have been over $120 for yesterday and today... I paid about $40!!! Hooray for clearance, and remnants, and remnants of clearance fabric!!!!

My challenge now is to stay busy from this stash. I am going to pledge not to revisit any fabric stores until after we hear about Tim's job... he's got the interview on Wednesday, and could possibly hear by Friday... say prayers! MANY, MANY PRAYERS!!! This job would get us out of our moldy house and out of this town and (hopefully) into a HOME that we would OWN!

I was good today, too-- I sorted my fabric in an attempt to fit it all in my two storage carts (FAIL). During this process, I came across some really ugly fabric.

YUCK.

WHAT WAS I THINKING??? Given that it was only about 10" wide, never cut yet, I must have gotten it as a remnant. I do remember having it in Indy (7 years ago!), but for what, I have no idea. So I reached out to the Stashbuster group for ideas for uglies... but in the process, I got one of my own. I'm still looking forward to their suggestions, though, because I have some other fabrics that I wouldn't call ugly, but rather "awkward."

The answer: Hidden Wells. I have never made this pattern, Ever. So, why not pull out a couple other *special* fabrics?

When they won't play nicely with each other, throw them in the wells!

The two batiks are what I call awkward fabrics. They simply do not want to join into any group. The one on the far right is semi-awkward now that I ran out of the fabric with which it had been previously been used. the green is the ONLY one I like, but it's a smaller piece left over from the rose quilt experiment.

To the cutting!

They look better already.

Bad lighting doesn't help the colors any.

The process was simply enough. By number four here, I had one well all lined up perfectly! Yay! But, given that I was using the Uglies, I didn't care enough to rip the others apart to fix small spots where they weren't perfect.

Better light... still not "pretty," though.

I sent Tim a picture. He called them "snazzy." He also asked what I was going to do with them... and I'm not sure. I have some of the pink/white batik left, which I could use for one border, and I also have a solid pink that might go well enough if I wanted to make this into a usable baby quilt, but it's SO AWFUL.

I might just leave it this size and add it to the collection of orphans. I have some random flying gees, a shoo-fly, and an oddly-sized grandmother's basket thus far, plus a collection of sewn strips ends. Why not make an entire Ugly Quilt?

Perhaps I will ponder that. As long as it doesn't keep me awake!

Goodnight. Time for a late snack, and then to fall upon the delight that is our Tempurpedic mattress!