I WAS on a roll!

It's been snowing and blowing with icy roads for the past week. Here is my lovely view.

 All my fun stuff has been cancelled so I decided to be productive.  I went though all my stuff in my two cubby holes, got rid of tons of stuff that should never have moved with me, and decided to keep the momentum going and go though nooks and crannies in my craft studio.
Then this happened.

 There was a light dusting of snow on top of a very icy side walk and I fell and sprained my wrist.  At least I didn't break it and it's my left hand, but still...….

 Lucy hasn't made an appearance on my blog for a while so she thought it was time.

I have a cat now

Yes, it's true, but it's not your ordinary run of the mill cat, she is a joint custody cat.  How does that work you ask?  Well let me tell you, quite well actually.  She stays at my friends house most of the time, then when my friend is going to be gone an excessive amount of time, she come here.
She is a year old, was born and spend most of her life in a shelter, so needless to say, she has a lot to learn.  Some might say she is a bit of a wild child. She loves to jump on the fireplace mantel, refrigerator, table, counter and such, then she takes a swing and knocks random things to the floor. I don't keep a lot of things on my counter, so when she could find anything unattached to amuse herself, she took to batting at the hanging light above my island.  Uff dah!  A spray bottle of water is helping but she is keeping me on my toes.

She is so sweet when she is sleeping.

I haven't dared to let her into my craft room, partly I'm afraid of the damage she will do and partly because there is so much stuff in there I fear she may disappear never to be seen or heard from again.
For a while she was okay with waiting outside the door for me to come out, when something came over her and she made it in mission to come in.

It didn't take her long to figure out how to slide that barn door open.

So I locked her out with a broom.  She tried with all her might to get in.

And just in case you are wondering, she is getting along just fine with Lucy Lu.

Back from vacation

I'm back from vacation and decided it was high time I post to my blog.  I didn't get much crafting done but I did manage to crochet two more Rapunzel scarfs.  I got the pattern over on Ravelry. 
 I didn't have a real person model so this cutie pie will have to do. She usually like to model but I may have taken it too far this time.

 


Here are a few pictures from our trip to Florida.

Before you judge me

Let me just say I have a hard time passing an "everything for 50 cents clearance rack" and I have the cutest dog in the world. So when I was heading into the Thrifty White Drug Store I stopped dead in my tracks at the clearance rack and picked up a couple of packages of hair chips then spotted some small clear bands. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with either but for 50 cents I couldn't pass them up. When I got home I saw some ribbon and them my dog, need I say more?

It took me all of 2 minutes to make them, then another 10 minutes to get them in her fur and another minute for one to fall out.

I think she was only slightly embarrassed.

The problem with them is that they don't have much elasticity to them so I guess that is why they were on clearance.  Now I just need to figure out what to do with the other 48 of them.

Crazy Quilting

This is my latest crazy quilt project. I really haven't been doing mush of it mainly because I'm running out of space in my house to display it and it's a lot of work just to have it sitting inside a trunk. But when our local quilt shop offered a class with wool I just couldn't resist. We started embellishing the seams in class then I finished on the long trip to Fargo this week end.

This is how Lucy Lu utilizes her time. She's not as productive as me.

 A closer view.  Next time we will be adding wool applique pieces such as flowers, bees, a crow, ect.

Random Stuff

I have been patiently awaiting the arrival of the hummingbirds and last year I came across this cool map that shows exactly where the ruby red-throated are.

 Here is the link if you are interested. Where are they now?

Always match your dog to your carpet. 

At last but not least, I finished a project.

This is a kit I bought and the pattern it's from the book Bits and Pieces 18 small quilts from fat quarters and scraps by Karen Costello Soltys.  Then keeping in the oriental theme I made some cute little origami book marks.

Another table runner

Here is another table runner that is almost finished.  Don't have a clue why I didn't finish it, I like it, so that's not it. And just in case you are getting tired of looking at all my unfinished projects, I thought I would try to make it a little more interesting and take a picture by one of my sewing machines from my sewing machine collection.

This is what the machine looks like when it is in it's cabinet state.  As you can see it gets put to good use, even if it's not by me.
And as you can see, our house is well protected, when they see someone coming, Sophie make a beeline away from the front door and Lucy makes a bee line to the front door.

Say Cheese

I'm trying to teach Lucy to smile on command.  So far she hasn't really caught on to the concept, but now that I know she knows how, I'm really going to work on that trick. She just did this on her own, I wonder what she was thinking. She had been just sleeping in her chair so I know she wasn't mad.

A Great Find

I stumbled across this wonderful magazine called Creating Vintage Charm and found I just had to have it.  You can find out more about it here.

Unfortunately I haven't had much time to read it cover to cover since I had to brainstorm idea to insulate and sheet rock out garage.

We aren't really do-it-yourself-ers kind of people. But when our son volunteered to come home and help, it just seemed to be an offer I couldn't refuse.

With a little help from our friend and neighbor, we did manage to get it pretty much done.

And in the end we were all dog tired.

Isn't she sweet?

This is where Lucy is when I get up in the morning.

This is usually where she is when I leave in the morning and get home late afternoon. She leads us to believe that's where is all day.  But then one day this week I had to come home early to get something ..........

And this is what I found. Actually she was sound asleep but when she saw me this was the look I got from her.  I tried to scold her, I really did, but just look at that face.  I don't think she took me seriously.

This is the last time..... really it is

I know I said you wouldn't be seeing any more pictures of the red work wall hanging but I forgot to add a crucial element.  We went to Fargo this week end and I woke up at 5:30 in my hotel room and remembered I had totally forgot to add the cute little snow flake buttons.

 

I'm just glad I remembered to add them before they got lost forever in my sewing room. Yes, that could easily happen.

Just thought I would add this one just for fun.

Red Work Snowmen Done at Last

Remember this?  It's the wall hanging that my friends Jeanette, Kathy and I all bought at the same time and decided to work on them together. It's gotten more blog time that anything else I have ever done and it's finally finished so I can move on to posting other things.

 

I am really pleased with the way it turned out.

  

This has nothing to to the the wall hanging, I just thought she was so stinkin' cute I had to show somebody. She sleeps like this quite often.

Lucy Lucy Lucy

For all you guys that have been following my blog for awhile, you may remember the post "You can't keep a good dog down".  In case you don't you can read about it here.

Well, its months later and she still hasn't given up hope.
I've been asked why I just don't let her go up there so in case you are wondering too here are the reasons.  #1 She is still a puppy and loves to destroy things, #2 It's the one place the cats can feel safe, #3 She loves to dig in the litter box and eat the tasty morsels if she can find any, and lastly , she seems to think it's OK to peddle on the carpet in our bedroom. If only she would put all that effort and energy into doing useful things.

The joys of a puppy

I know it hard to believe this cute little face could be such a trouble maker.

She jumped up on a table and took down a wall handing that was waiting to get hung up in my foyer. She evidently didn't like this particular snowman as she tore the face right off.

Luckily it was needle felted on and was a fairly easy repair, but she is back on probation and the gates went back up blocking off the dining/living room.

I swear it was the cat, not me. 

Holiday cheer

Here are two of my favorite things

#1 Fabric post cards

This one is from my blogging friend Jenna Louise. If you haven't been to her blog, you really should pop over there and check it out.

# 2 favorite thing - cute pictures of my puppy

 

Isn't she adorable?