Featured!!

Boy am I bloggy today!
I just wanted to share, one more time... I'm featured this evening at CafeHandmade - http://cafehandmade.blogspot.com/2009/06/featured-artist-desiree-bowman.html!!

And, while I'm at it...finished pics of my fall leaves quilt! Pop pver to my etsy shop to see the mini wallhangings I've been working on lately.

Smoky Mountain Honeymoon

Okay, finally some pics. Quilt is all done except for the label. I know, I know, you're supposed to put the label on and THEN quilt the quilt so that some theif somewhere can't pick the label off. What can I say? I'm lazy? I have a lot going on? I just don't care? Probably it's all three.

As soon as I make the label and get her new mailing address this quilt will be winging it's way to sunny FL to my very dear, childhood friend Kelli who married in May. She has always loved sunflowers and said she's doing her house in sunflower colors, only darker. I came up with my own interpretation of that color scheme and ran with it.

Using civil war repros and more luck than ability I pieced log cabin quilt blocks and set them in the straight furrows pattern. I used red in the centers as a little nod to tradition and put a thin inner border of the same red print around the log cabins. Then a border of HSTs--I LOVE HSTs! and finally a very thin green outter border from the same fabric as the binding. The binding is doubled fold, continous biased binding so the little red stripe in the green fabric runs diagonally which is really cool.

Again, more dumb luck, my backing fabric of little chickens was not wide enough. I had just enough strips leftover from the log cabin blocks to make a 6" wide (finished) strip of strips, chinese coins style in the middle of the backing. It made it just wide enough and I love the way it looks! I machine quilted it in a random all over meandering stipple, which is so fast and fun.

I washed it when it was all done to shrink the Warm and Natural all cotton batting I use. It shinks up to 3% on its first washing which is not enough to cause problems to the quilt but enough to give it a slightly puckered antique look. It measures 45" wide by 53.5" long (figure that one out.)

As Serendipity would have it, my friend and her new hubby honeymooned in North Carolina, in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains. So I have named it Smoky Mountain Honeymoon. I LOVE this quilt. If it weren't intended as a gift I would DEFINITELY be keeping it!!

Excuse me while I have a nervous breakdown

Dante says the 6th circle of hell is ice. The 5th must be packing.

Tony was off Fri, Sat and Sun this past weekend so Fri and Satruday we spent all day at my parents house cleaning off their back porch (which is roughly 20'x12'?) which was packed to the cieling except for one almost "walkway" with stuff my Dad just had to bring with them when they moved. :-D We seperated out a HUGE dump pile and a HUGE yardsale pile, complete with a stove and refrigerator. Then Tony finished all but about 6 boards of the wood floor they are doing so he's going over after work today to finish that.

While he started on the porch I used Mom's old sewing machine to stipple quilt 3 quilts. My Smoky Mountain Honeymoon which is a wedding gift, a little scrappy squares wallhanging for my etsy shop and the fall leaves quilt I made from disappearing nine patch blocks. Yesterday I managed to get binding made and put on the Honeymoon and little scrappy quilts and get them washed. However I did not manage to get good pics of them, except this one of the scrappy quilt that Hannah--complete with Larry Boy outfit--had to get into. Will post picks of the Honeymoon log cabin later on.

Whenever my kids have outgrown anything I've washed it and boxed it up. For the yard sale we're gonna have with Mom I decided that probably we didn't need all of them anymore and to go through and keep one big box of Jeremiah's outgrown clothes, all sizes and one of Hannah's. I had saved all of them just in case we ever decide to have another baby but I am tired of them and if we ever decide to have another baby we'll just get more. Someone else could use them now and they are nice clothes, mostly name brands like Carters, Children's Place, Adidas...someone else can enjoy them for next to nothing and I can buy drywall with the proceeds LoL!!

Tony got the boxes out of the storage closet yesterday and I spent ALL day opening and sorting them. I probably have $2k worth of kids clothes to put in this yard sale. We did keep one box that's all Jeremiah t-shirts with things on the front to make a t-shirt quilt for him, or for his future kid? This quilt is not getting made any time soon.

Now that I have a bunch more smaller boxes today's agenda is to finish packing up china and clean out bathroom cabinets. Maybe I will get the binding put on my fall leaves quilt. Maybe I will NOT have a nervous breakdown about the fact that we have 3 weeks exactly to be all packed up and my son wants to have a birthday party in exactly 2 weeks! He wanted a Spiderman theme. I told him I could get Dinosaur stuff at the dollar tree. 2 hours later he came up to me and said, "Mama...I can have Dinosaurs if you really want me to." Broke my heart. Now I gotta go to the party store and stock up on Spiderman crap. Wonder if I should make the cake look like a giant web?

Must caffeinate...

Tackling or Trudging?

Today was Tuesday, which meant try to tackle something. I am wondering if I actually succeeded in tackling anything or if I've just moved at my normal, erratic pace?

I finished the applique on my mini quilt and cut the backing so it's already for quilting. With Jeremiah's help we picked out some DVDs to sustain us for the coming weeks and began to box all the rest of them up. Whereupon I promptly ran out of packing tape. So with my packing handicapped I decided to tackle laundry and normal house work.

I took an embarrasing "Before" picture of my bedroom from the end of our bed toward our closets. Since we're expecting a visit from the landlord I'll need everything clean so may as well start in our room. Got the floor cleaned, vacuumed and my dresser clesned off. Still have Tony's dresser top to clean. I folded 5 loads of laundry, washed one and cleaned out my dresser. Then made dinner, sewed something secret for about 2 hours, ran the dishwasher and vacuumed Jeremiah's room. The living room is a mess of boxes awaiting tape but the house is getting more clean starting at the back and working forward, LOL!

A Little Quilty Somethin'

Had to run over to loan office today to prove we had all the downpayment $$ in our account and to give her check stubs, etc. All set now! Need to call about insurance in the morning and waiting to hear back about the actual closing date. It's tentatively set for the 22nd of July which is just ironic because we gave notice on our appartment this morning and have to be out on the 22nd! Our land lord is coming to "survey condition and/or damages" in the next 5 days and I suddenly feel as if I'm about to fail a test.

This afternoon while the kiddies napped I put off packing, even thought I got a ton of adorable little boxes for books and things at walmart last night. Smile at the night crew guys and they fall all over themselves trying to hand you boxes. LoL!! Sure I have to be out of my appartment in a month but you know what else is in a month? The mini quilt swap deadline! And sure maybe a little quilt isn't as monumental as moving but... I can shove random crap in a box at the last minute to move. I cannot shove random fabric in a box at the last minute to mail! PRIORITIES people!!

I got the background done. I can show you because I am secret and the lady getting this doesn't know who I am or what I'm up to, buahaha!

Saturday while cleaning out my stash closet I came across some leftover scrappy nine patch and 6 patch bits from my scrappy squares queen sized quilt. I sewed them together and this afternoon added 2 sets of borders making this adorable little top! I'm going to quilt it and list it as a wallhanging in my etsy shop sometime this week. The center has 120 2" squares!

House pictures

We went over to the house again this afternoon and I took "Before" pics. I was going to post them here, them decided it would be much easier to upload them to flickr!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamncheezr/sets/72157620068712449/

Check 'em out! :-)

A Non Quilty Day

I didn't quilt, but I did sew.

First we got a call from Dottie--more on that in a min. Then a trip to walmart, back home to pack Tony off to work and back out the door. The kids and I went to JoAnn's for batting, plaid fabric and velcro. Then on to Home Depot for some paint sample cards and a 28 oz Eastwing, blue handled, waffle headed framing hammer. A hammer to me, is a hammer. I have been perfectly happy for 5 years with the $2 hammer I got us a Big Lots. A couple weeks ago Tony informed me that is not a "real" hammer and went on to describe the eastwing. Sure. It's $34 too! OMG! I put off buying rotary cutter blades cause they are $8.

From Home Depot to Kroger to wander around without a list, spend $50 and hope to God I ended up with enough food for my family for the week. Back home all the way thru Knoxville in Fri rushhour traffic. Yay. The groceries are still on the kitchen floor.

When we got home I took out my plaid fabric and set to work. Gotta love it, the only aparrell weight plaid fabric they had was a remnant that I liked and I got 33" which did this whole skirt for $2.35! Why do I need a little plaid skirt? I'll not go into detail. Tony requested a while back that I acquire one and Father's Day's as good as any. I cut 2 14" pieces and joined them to ake one looooooonnnnnggggg piece which I hemmed down one long side. Then i pinned 200 pleats along the top, sewed it, added a little no-show waist band. Tried it on, wrapped around me waist and put pins where it needed velcro. Tada! I had to pin it to get it to stay on my dress dummy 'cause she's a lot skinnier than I am. I am really super thrilled I made this, without a pattern, and it turned out so good! If only it was long enough to wear around people. LOL!

A N Y W A Y... This morning at 10 Dottie called and said they accepted ouroffer, with the difference that we pay the closing costs--which apparently wecan get added on to the loan so we don't have to go out of pocket right nowsince our pocket's ain't that deep. (Course that means paying intrest over thenext 30 years on teh closing costs. Sigh.) We are meeting tomorrow with both Dottie our realtor (to sign contracts) andwith Terri, the head lady of the lender we're working with (to sign all those loan paperworks). I am not even going in to the fiasco and extra trip to walmart to get the printer to print my '07 and '08 returns, one of which I had to pay for.

I am officially freaking out now. Packing! Giving notice at our appartment! Itlooks as if we're going to have to move from here about 2 weeks before we will close on the house so Tony and his Mom have already worked out that she willjust go stay with her SO and we can take over her 1 bedroom apt. til we close.

But then WHAT IF the deal falls thru and we are homeless??? Excited, but freaking out...

Happy Blocks

Dottie, our realtor called at 10:30 am and said she was faxing our offer over and wanted to make sure she had the correct, legal spelling on our first names. Guess "Tony and Des" just won't cut it on a deed, LoL! It's now 7:34pm and we haven't heard back from her because she promised to call as soon as she heard something and I'm guessing she hasn't heard anything. I hate waiting. I hate waiting! I am not a let's diliberate and think things over for a couple days before we make a decision. I am too balls-to-the-wall. It took me 2 months of dating Tony to decide that even though he really is the ...whatever... that I originally thought he was, I kinda loved him anyway and sure I'd marry him. So, I think if someone got an offer at 10:30am that by 7:30 they should have at least decided yes or no. Like I said, I hate waiting.

In order to try to keep myself occupied I have sewn today. Sure I could have cleaned, but cleaning slightly resembles packing and the thought of packing brought on waves of hysteria. So instead I decided to sew. I had to cut 100 5" batik charms for a swap I'm gonna be in and since I was messing with batiks I was reminded that I needed only 35 more "Happy Blocks" for my scrappy batik quilt that I think is gonna be king sized. I say think because my notes on this quilt simply say "Need 35 more blocks." I was in a block swap last year and made a bunch of them and this will round them out!

These are the easiest quilt blocks you'll ever make. Take a 4" square and 2 strips that are 8"x2.5" and 2 strips that are 4"x2.5" and sew the strips around the 4" square like borders. Tada! You cannot screw it up. You can even increase the size of the strips and center square (to oh say, 4.5" and 3") and have a bigger block! These are 8", which means 7.5" finished, which means for a king sized quilt I need about 71,463 blocks. :-D However many I need, apparently I have them all now so that's something accomplished at least.

I could put them all up on my design wall and begin to play with the block arrangement but I still haven't sewn together the churn dash/friendship star blocks from the last time I did that. I arranged them, I labeled the rows, I took them down in rows. Now I can sew them together exactly as they were on the wall. I just haven't. Why haven't I? Well because I need white thread and since the only white thread I have is a giant cone which won't fit on my machine, I would need to wind 10 bobbins. And I haven't felt like winding bobbins. However in the piecing of the "Happy Blocks" I used up little misc thread bits on 4 bobbins so I guess now I could wind some...

Good News and Bad News

First the bad news because it really isn't all that bad and if we get it out of the way things will be much more pleasant. Maybe.

Tony called me last night at 6:30 and said he was on the way to the ER cause he had been cut at work and needed stitches. At 8:30 he called and said they were finally about to stitch him up. Freaking Oak Ridge hospital. He cut his elbow on a piece of metal or something at work and have himself a gash that was 1" long by 3/8" deep and needed 5 HUGE stitches. He says "Probably they could have put 7 or maybe 25 stitches." LoL!

My darling husband came home last night finally at quarter to 1--he had to work 2 hrs over because he missed half the day at the ER--looking like this. He is usually this dirty but not usually this bloody. A lot of blood considering he has the thickest blood ever and hardly ever bleeds cause he clots so easily. Apparently it's a good thing, I dunno. Doctors seem to think it is. His arm is really hurting him though. He took a vacation day today because it was hurting him too badly to move today and he wouldn't have been able to move the big pieces of steel at work.

The good news!

He said it wouldn't hurt his arm to drive around in the car and look at houses and since he suddenly had the day off we might as well. We had a list of a few we wanted to go see but he got on the computer anyway and found another which we will refer to as house #1.

We started today with 5 houses to go see. Our realtor made us an apt to go see house #1 (at 2:30pm) while she looked up the other 4. Loved house #1!! Realtor called and said houses #2 sold/had contracts pending and #3 ended up being a trailer in a not-so-nice area. Gave us directions and we went and saw #4. NOT good! Didn't like the house, hated the yard, hated the creek, septic, blah blah. Just bad house.

Mom and Dad drove into town to hang out for the night so we had realtor show us #1 again. M & D had same opinions/thoughts we had, would make same changes, etc. Long story short we called our realtor at 9:00pm and told her to write up an offer/contract!! Meeting tomorrow to sign, etc.This is our first time buying a home and we are really excited/scared. Trying not to get hopes too high, they showed this house 10 other times in the last 5 days and it is super cute and an awesome deal. BUT sitting here talking and thinking about what we could/would do, it's hard not to get excited!!

Not MY Quilt

I thought I'd share a quilt today that is mine in the fact that it lives at my house; but not mine in the fact that I didn't make it. Most people probably don't have to clarify that but since I don't own a handful of quilts I haven't made, I thought I would. LoL!!!

Whilst I was pregnant with Jeremiah I felt like I went into labor several times the last couple weeks before he was born. One of the times my Mom, who loves me just that much, decided when would really help me would be to go walk around all the antique stores in downtown Clinton (where I live). There's only about 20 of them. : ) It was only July. I was only a wildebeast. Or at the very least, a walrus.

Anyway, the trip paid off because we found this wonderful, beautiful, soft, old baby quilt. I am no quilt historian so if anyone knows better, please correct me! I believe the fabrics to be from the mid-late 50's. They look like fabrics my great grandmother had in her stash for making jammies for her first round of grandkids thereabouts.

It was such a find, I think Mom paid $25 for it. It was/is in really good condition! No holes, rips, popped seams. It is backed with a solid yellow loudness and hand quilted outlining the strips of fabrics. My children LOVE this quilt! It is so soft and very lightweight but still warm. I can lay it over them and they will actually leave it on...for a while. Horrid cover-kicker-offers, both of them.

I have been up to sewing things but of a baggy nature instead of a quilty nature. When I get batting this weekend, though, look out!

A Handy Green Purse

Today I am worn out. I am sitting in the recliner with bleary eyes, knitting a little on my sock. I am halfway done with the heel, meaning I am about 33% done with this pair LoL!

We attended church this morning and then drove around and around peaking at houses. We've been going around looking at houses we've found online and scoping them out, before calling our realtor to actually show us one. To date we hadn't come across any we actually wanted to see the inside of. The first house we visited today was a million miles out in the country. We got no cell phone reception (meaning we'd have to pay for a landline). The driveway was a hazard, you had to pull forward past it and then back in, around a hairpin curve. The house was dark brown wood everywhere and had little bity outbuildings littered throughout the grounds and a dilapidated barn. When you walked closer to the house it smelled like mold. When you looked in windows you could see mold on walls, floors, ceilings... so. Bad house. We drove away, quickly.

The second house was not so bad. It too had a barn. It wasn't as far out in the country. We got cell phone reception. It had a nice property though it needed a bushhog taken to it. The house nees a little work from what we can see but nothing totally major. It is a possibility, especially since the price is nice!

The third house is gorgeous. I love it. Tony loves it. Jeremiah loves it! It is the biggest house we've looked at by 200sq ft; and though it is at the top of our price range it needs the least done to it. We could move in as it is. It is beautiful! We called our realtor and she called the listing agent...and didn't hear back from her. Sigh. She (our realtor) said she'd keep on her and call us as soon as she is able to talk to a human and perhaps we can go see it tomorrow when Tony gets done with physical therapy. I am praying already. If this is the house for us, I pray things will progress quickly and smoothly. If this is NOT the house for us I pray things won't progress at all and we will know quickly, so as not to spend time on this to be disappointed later.

On to the handy purse... Tony has been having to have physical therapy for his hand. He crushed/smacked it against a dye at work some months back and it caused a lot of scar tissue between his knuckles making his hand hurt him badly all the time and also have almost no mobility. The woman who does his physical therapy has been being very helpful and nice, even to Jeremiah who had to go with him last week while I had a Drs appointment. Her favorite color is green. Tony asked if I could make her a "little" green purse with a hand on it, because she's into hands (since that's kind of her trade.) I thought I had til Wednesday but nope, his appointment is in the morning so this afternoon I "threw" together this bag. It measures 9"x9.5". Jeremiah and Hannah's handprints are on one side, mine on the other with antique button fingernails. Pretty cute I think! I hope she likes it!

World Wide Knit in Public Day!

Today was WWKIPD... they even had a website http://www.wwkipday.com/. Mom put up fliers all over Clinton (where I live) last Wed so today they showed up at my house--by "they" I mean Mom and all the kids-- at 10 til 10am to go downtown and sit and knit. In public. We had 1 woman and her granddaughter stop. The woman said her granddaughter knits and likes to, but didn't know we were doing this so away they went to browse antiques. We had 5 or so old men stop and sit in the gazebo with us, probably killing time while their wives browsed antiques. So not a huge social success but we got some knitting done. Mom worked on some knitting bombs, which will porbably show up on her blog, Veronica worked on a scarf, Josiah started to knit something then decided to goof off (8yr old boy) and I began working on the second pair of socks I had planned from the Wabi Sabi yarn Mom stuck in my stocking back at Christmas.

I decided to do with abhorant crochet chain cast on toe-up nonesense that let me short row the toe like a heel. I have a limited amount of the Wabi-sabi and am using a solid for the toes and heels so I needed to knit the socks from the toe up. That way once I do the heel I can just knit til I run out of yarn!

Sometimes the Lord knows you will have a need and provides for it before it arises. Then when suddenly you have the answer you need, you are very pleasantly surprised! I have been stewing about what to back my friend's log cabin quilt with. I cannot afford to go buy any backing fabric and the largest piece of fabric I have that would work is a yard. Not big enough by far! I figured I would have to piece backing from random pieces giving it a sort of patchworky look.

This afternoon I sat down cut all the rest of the strips I used for the log cabin blocks in to approx. 7" long pieces. Then I randomly sewed them all together. Ironed the long strip to find that it was long enough, even with about 8" extra! Suddenly I remembered months ago Mom gave me saome chicken fabric she came across in a bin and didn't know what to do with. I think it's a whole bolt, without the carboard! I cut the length I needed, sliced a 12" strip off it length wise and sewed my strip set in place! I now have the perfect, one of a kind backing for my quilt! And Jesus provided the fabric months ago, before I ever knew what to do with it!! Awesome!

Smoky Mountain Honeymoon

This quilt has not been a test of my skill, but of my endurance! I kept thinking "guerrilla warfare"! Everything about this quilt went together "wrong" but it is beautiful now, and lays flat, and is lovely and I love it. I think it is just perfect for my friend for whom it is intended!

I had to take in the center of it to fit the red borders on, then made the HST borders and had to trim the red borders so the HSTs would fit! Then I decided on a very thin (1" finished) green border using the same fabric I intend to use for the binding. I thought it would be neat to miter the borders 'cause the fabric is striped but I don't know how to do that! So I decided to wing it. It worked really well, only I could have saved myself the trouble because with the borders being so thin it really doesn't have that cool mitered effect. Oh well, I love it anyway! It measures 46.5"x57". I am going to piece the backing too since I don't have anything big enough to use. I have an idea for it already but this will have to wait at least until tomorrow.

Yesterday morning my first thought upon waking was that one of total serendipity! I chose the log cabin pattern and the colors/fabrics before I talked to my friend, who called during her honeymoon. She said they were honeymooning in North Carolina, tucked back in the Smoky's in a log cabin! I realized yesterday that the quilt is the colors we have here in the woods of the Smoky mountains and that the log cabin block went right along with her honeymoon so now I have a name for her quilt: Smoky Mountain Honeymoon.

What to do?

I finally finished the yarn I'd been working on. It was the red, black and white corriedale wool that I spun and today plied with solid black black merino. Watching the two yarns twist together was amazing, the merino is so silky and sleek; it looked like wrapping a hair beast (the corrie) with a black velvet ribbon. Beautiful. I somehow (??) ended up with 154yds of this worsted-to-bulky weight 2ply. What, oh what am I going to do with it? It's too cool to knit something to felt. I should knit something for myself since it is my signature colors. I already have a shrug, a hat, scarf, mittens...hmm....

I finished the last 2 log cabin blocks I need for my friend's wedding quilt. For some reason they were an odd size, 11.5" unfinished. I had a major glitch and squared the first one to 11" unfinished which means the outter round of "logs" on each block is thinner than the other logs. And then to add more insult to quilting injury I sewed the top together, cut my strips for the first inner border and I'll be darned if the quilt wasn't a 1/2" longer than the strips were long!! I stewed about this all day and came up with duh, take all the row-seams in 1/8th". Tada!! No. Still too short. So I did what anyone else would do and added a piece to the borders. Then sewed the borders on to the quilt which layed perfectly flat and now it waves. Sigh.

Then I made Diantha cut 600,000 (actually it was only 32) 5" charms from the fabrics I used for the lag cabin blocks to make HSTs from. There will be the red border, the HST border and then possibly another thin solid border. I didn't square up the HSTs, instead I went to walmart.

Why you ask? Because I needed a turkey baster or squirty bottle. Why, you inquire further? Because Diantha was due for her very last olive-oil lice treatment from the pandemic that they've had goin' on. I was assured nothing live was on her head before i agreed to let her spend the night and then I told her not to sit or lay on m y bed or I would kill her. Anyway I covered her in olive oil, knotted her hair up and secured it with a totally sexy walmart bag so she can sleep tonight. I just had to get a pic! She tried to turn away to hide that she had just crammed a whole double stuffed oreo-wanna be in her mouth. Wonder where she gets that??

My brother is 21?

You know your parents are a little off the beaten path when your Mom will drive to the liquor store to sit with your kids in the car so you can go in and get your brother a birthday present. How cute are these air plane sized bottles??


My day was totally shot after blogging this morning. It stormed and so was good napping weather for the kids and I. When we woke, we got ready to head to Mom's for my brother Allen's birthday. He wanted ribs for dinner. He turned 21. Suddenly I feel old. It doesn't help that 3 days ago I had to dye my hair, yet again, because my baby son commented on those wonderful silver hairs I had about every other hair. The good news is my hair is naturally bottle-black and so it's no hassle to just dye it back bottle black. And the other good news is I am still young enough to pull off wearing bottle-black hair without it making me look like a washed out old lady. The bad news is my "gray" isn't gray at all, but streak of lightning, glorious silver as Jeremiah pointed out and will only accept interferance from haircolor for about 3 days.


Between blogging earlier and leaving I managed to spin enough of that black merino that I thought I could probably skein it and begin to ply it. I skeined it and had spun only 100 yards. Meaning I am 76 yards short! CRAP! So oh well, I will spin some more and attach it to what I have and tomorrow hopefully I can ply the 2 yarns together. None of this will be happening tonight. My migraine is back.


When we arrived at Mom's house since the birthday boy was asleep, the first order of birthday biz was to feed Betsy (2) and Hannah (1) each a piece of jelly toast. And yes, Betsy's naked... again.

Log Cabins, Handspuns and Fabrics Oh My!

Finally I have my camera back from my MIL's house where I left it on Sunday and can share pics of what I've been up to!!

First I have actually managed to make 10 whole log cabin blocks over the last 3 days. Not a large feat by far, but it is progress nonetheless! I think I shall need at least 12 blocks. I had 16 in mind originally but now I am wondering if 12 would be better and some kind of interesting borders? This is not necessarily the layout I will go with, just slapping them up on the design wall as I finish them.

Saturday and Sunday I spun 184 yards of merino wool into thick and thin, totally fun yarn. When I bought this 4oz batt it was pure white and I used koolaid to dye it these fun, candylicious colors. Not sure what I will use this bulky weight yarn for but I'm sure I can think of something.

Monday and Tuesday I spun another 4oz batt, this time of corriedale wool which is a little scratchy for my sensitive skin so I will ply it with some merino. I bought the batt evenly divided into 3 pieces and dyed red, black and white. It spun up really fun, striping a little here and there with 2 or all three colors. I think it'll look great once plied! I tried to spin this a little thinner than the merino and thought I had succeeded but for some reason only got 176 yards from this batt. Hmm.....

This morning I began spinning the merino yarn to ply with it. I am spinning solid black merino into a slightly-thicker than sock weight (but not by much!!) fairly even yarn. The spindle it's shown on is 2" across the whorl, which I painted to look like a bloodshot eyeball. Bringing some punk to spindling!!

And last but not least while my dear mother in law was in South Carolina all last week visiting with her mother (the Nana Juanita Jeremiah made a quilt for!) she bought me some fabrics! She said she just loved these bright colors and couldn't resit. There are 4 1/2yd cuts of the semi-solid prints and the others are all 2 yard cuts. I can't wait to think of some way to use these! Maybe for my mini quilt swap quilt???

I got an award!

I don' normally do blogger awards but I am a sucker for questionnaires/surveys and this one has one. :-D I do have a lot of other normal bloggy stuff to share but it will have to wait until tomorrow because I left my digi cam at my MIL's. So I can't share pics of the 183yds of merino I spun yesterday and today, or the corriedale I'm spinning now, or the log cabin blocks I made today.... you'll just have to be patient til tomorrow.



I received a blogging award and it was from Kim's Crafty Apple. Thanks! I totally didn't see it coming!

Here are the RULES of this Award:
Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
Leave a comment on each of the blogs, letting them know they have been nominated.

7 things you "might" find interesting about me:
1. I am ambidextrous when it comes to the art of rotary cutting, much to the chagrin of my righty-only mother.
2. The song Sharp Dressed Man by ZZtop makes me really happy everytime I hear it.
3. I am excellent at organizing stuff other people wouldn't think of organizing.
4. My original career choices were 1) journalist, 2) photographer ans 3) mortician but I never took chemestry.

5. The only man I've ever slept with is my husband!

6. I wax the tops of my feet/toes. Judge me, I don't care. I have naturally dark hair, body hair doesn't stop growing and I refuse to be the old lady in the nursing home with hobbit feet!

7. I think my husband's earrings are sexy.

I nominate:

1. My Thoughts on Life, Yarn, Kids and other Stuff
2. Knittingspinningsewingcrocheting
3. Sunshine and Family
4. The Scrappy Quilter
5. Color Me Katie
6. p.s. i quilt
7. Patchy Work of Mini Gray

Enjoy the award! Have a great week!

Nana Juanita's Quilt

I am getting sick, again. I had gotten over my flu from a couple weeks ago and was fine until yesterday when my husband, who still had a sore throat, decided he felt romantic. Nothing like sharing germs. Luckily I have a Drs appointment tomorrow so if I'm really dying like I feel like, I'm sure she'll tell me.

I stayed up until 1:30 last night, and got the top pieced for Jeremiah's quilt. I should mention that at 11pm he was still rearranging squares. He decided after his Daddy got home that there were still a couple squares he wasn't happy with. : ) I labeled the rows and sewed it together exactly as he had it.

This morning I ironed it and found backing. I found 2 pieces of fabric in my stash that were big enough, he chose the one he wanted. It just happens to be the same fabric I used for binding on his baby quilt! Then we made a quick run out to drive past a house that is for sale. A guy Tony works with said it's in his neighborhood and that it's a really nice neighborhood, good price on the house, etc. The house was cute, nice yard but I looked it up online when we got home and it is listed for $30,000 more than the guy said! Whoa. So that is probably out.

Anyway, pinned the quilt, took a nap with the kids (accidentally), got up quilted it, let Jeremiah dig in my stash for something for binding. He chose something really cute, the same backing I used for my "Delilah" quilt. Doesn't match the Juanita quilt backing but it looks good from the front and he likes it so that is all that matters. Washed the quilt while I fed the kids dinner and ran the dishwasher. Once it came out of the washer I got the label put on. Whew! Got it all done!

Don't know if we're going to go to South Carolina this weekend but if we do end up going it's ready to take. I even let Jeremiah write the label! He did such a good job, I told him which letters to write next and he wrote them all with me only having to show him how to write 2 of them. Underneath his "To Nana Love Jeremiah" I wrote,

"Made for Nana Juanita June 2009

Quilt top laid out and arranged by Jeremiah W Bowman age 3.5

Sewn together by Desiree Ross Bowman

both of Clinton TN"

I washed it in the hypo-allergenic dye/frangrance free baby detergent I have to use on Jeremiah's, just so there's no smells or anything in it to maybe bother her if it gets delivered to her in the hospital.

While that was all in the works I sewed together the squares I cut yesterday in to 4patches. What, oh what, will they become? I am not really sure but I am playing. : )

Another Jeremiah quilt

Today I got the iron in labels I ordered from Jennifersjewels on etsy. I LOVE them! I will have to order more because after ironing them into all my bags and purses I already have made up I only have 5 labels left. The great thing is I can also stitch them into the linings on future bags! I am so happy with them, even though this is a crappy little picture (my camera wouldn't cooperate) you can see the totally cute little cherries and the "Hamncheezr". The second line is my etsy address.

Anyhoo, while I was ironing them into purses Jeremiah was starting to get into things and I remembered that I had come across a baggie full of 5" 30s repros charms the other day. I handed him the bag and told him to go to town. Some of you may remember his rearranging a green quilt I was working on in this post and his ending up with the quilt in this post. He likes to play with quilty things.

I told him to try not to put 2 of the same fabrics together and he went to town. Even ran and got his stool for washing his hands from the bathroom so he could reach! Too cute! When he was all done I helped him rearrange about 3 squares, that's it! He did all the rest and he says he's happy with his layout and I can start sewing them together now. LoL!

I am working on sewing together some 3" squares from some lovely moda fall flannel fabrics. Jenn sent me a bunch she wasn't going to do anything with a while back and I dug them out this evening and cut ONE 3" square from each of them. Is that creativity or insanity? Not sure yet what it will be. Maybe a little quilt, maybe a messenger style purse? We shall see. I really enjoy working on "no-planning" projects. Probably why I do so many scrap quilts. Is it because I'm ADD or because I can't afford to go buy yardages of coordinating fabrics at one time? Or is it because I'm artistic and I just want to CREATE when the mood hits me and usually the mood is scrappy? I don't know. Whatever it is, I sure do have fun.

Please say a prayer for my hubby Tony and his Mom Cheryl. Cheryl's Mom Juanita (Tony's Nana) was hospitalized a week ago when her Dr suddenly found she had ovarian cancer. She had surgery today to remove it and it took them about 5-6 hours to remove 7-8 POUNDS of tumours, her spleen and part of her colon. Her Drs are concerned because she also has a massive amount of blood clots. They found holes in her lungs where the clots had pushed through. They are also worried because without all the pressure of the tumours on her intestines they think they might disintegrate. Juanita is a spunky 75 years old and is mother to 4 children, grandmother to 7 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.

Hannah's bathing suit

I have no quilty pics to share today, they must remain secret for a little while longer.

However, I figured I'd share this pic I snapped of Hannah. Due to some almost-14 month old quirk, she LOVES her bathing suit and loves to just wander around in it. I bought it last week and we've yet to visit the pool, however she has been wearing it every day. This morning I dressed her in a cute little sundress that was hot pink with huge white and orange flowers. Underneath it she wanted to wear to bathing suit bottoms. Whatever, it's cute. LOL!