in and out

Recently...

In:

(from so very long ago) a coordinating! doorstop and a plastic bag dispenser from Corrie for (the first!) Urban Home Goods swap...

my stunning dqs9 quilt from Anita...

and lots and lots of bee blocks and swap blocks for the second Mod Bento Block Swap.

Out:

spider web blocks for Greta...

sampler blocks for Leanne...

and 3x6 mini-bee blocks for the whole hive.

on the machine now: Corrinne's giveaway winnings.  More on that next week, fingers crossed. 

Happy weekend!

the right track

Most times, when I make something, I picture it and then do it. Which is not to say that there aren't changes and mistakes along the way (case in point)--but the finished product is usually pretty similar to what I had in my head to begin with.

This swap was different.

What I ended up with could not be farther from my original plan, which I had deliberated over for quite some time as it was.

I do like the finished product, but there's a part of me that's kind of grieving for my first idea. I'm not sure there will ever be another time to use it.

Maybe, someday, for myself.

Onward. The front is fairly straightforward, though I did get a chance to play around with positive and negative space.



I had planned to hand quilt the entire thing, but then I discovered that I really know nothing about hand quilting. I kept the bird (since that motif from the back...



...was the inspiration for this final version), but opted to machine quilt the rest.



Bound, labeled, sent (again!) with hometown-made lemonheads, with half an hour to spare.

alex in wonderland

The amusement park, not the fairy tale.

We visited Amarillo, Texas this past (Labor Day) weekend, where my husband was born and lived until he was four.

We rode horses, saw cars growing out of the ground, "hiked" Palo Duro Canyon, went to a rodeo, toured his family's old stomping grounds, and had tacos and margaritas for (my birthday) dinner...

...but the highlight was certainly our trip to Wonderland.

Which Alex loved "this much"--

which was delightful in itself, but not too bad either was the perfectly glorious sky that was the backdrop for the perfectly glorious colors of this place.

See any quilts in there? Thought so.

Also, I somehow managed to photograph a rainbow.

eggplant and bone

first attempt.



first-and-a-half attempt.



the right track.





finished now, and in the dryer...just needs a label.  photos tomorrow, before I mail it, right on time.

an owl haikoop

Have you heard about the Embroidereading Contest, hosted by Melissa at Checkout Girl?

Alex is into owls—like really into owls—and loves to ask me again and again about where and how they live. One day on a forest preserve walk, he asked, “why don’t we see owls?”—even though he knows they’re nocturnal. It’s as if it fascinates him that there are creatures that are allowed to stay up past his bedtime. That question became this (haiku) poem about what an owl is doing while we’re up and living.

The only things I bought for this project were the floss and the hoop—all the appliqué fabrics are scraps or cut from thrifted things…the cloud is batting, the owl’s body is from a wool herringbone blazer. My fabric is less than organized, but I just knew I had this tiny scrap of yellow dots, and I was miraculously able to find it to make the sun.

My one regret (besides the fact that the word "sleep" looks a little bit balloonlike--I was using my own handwriting!) is that the weather here is dreary and so therefore is the photo. He is much perkier looking in real life.

I'll be celebrating my birthday and my blogiversary in Amarillo, Texas...see you next week!