A better day

   Thank you to all you made kind comments yesterday. I am feeling better. Occasionally I get a bit out of sorts, and the filter on the honesty gets out of place but all is better today. I did manage to slice my thumb cutting a tomato but other then that it has generally been a better day.

  I finished the binding on Picnic yesterday and it is finally finished!

The prairie points decided to go the wrong way after going through the dryer...

But a good ironing and everything is fine again.

If it wasn't going to a baby I'd put buttons on the points to keep them down but that is not safe so should I just leave them? Or sew a tack stitch to keep them down?
 Doesn't the backing look so cuddly? It was a b**** to quilt and bind because of it but it is so worth it, or it will be when I see the baby wrapped up in it.

Oh and I forgot the label. That will have to go on too. But all the hard parts (the quilting, and binding) that terrify me are done. The binding even had mostly square corners! And the miters worked. So YAY for progress.

  I ordered 2 yards of the red dinosaur and a yard of the blue "dinosaur skin" for the borders of Tumbling Dinos. I'm going with a narrow blue containment border, which will have the ric rac sewn between it and the tumblers, and a wide red border. I'm hoping to use the blue as binding as well. Or maybe it will be red because I may not have enough blue, all depends on if my math worked or not

 

Funny how they look so different depending on the angle. I can't believe how many fabrics/colours ended up touching, but it doesn't look bad I think. Besides a kid won't notice, and hopefully by the time Landon is old enough to notice he'll love it too much to notice.

Oy it keeps going

WARNING- Ranting to follow.

So I've decided anyone who doesn't look as they walk/drive really does deserve to get hit. Especially in a parking lot. Covered in snow. I nearly backed into a man walking, and he never even noticed! Just walks right behind me as I'm half way out of a spot. Nearly gave me a heart attack. And then a guy drives right in front of me, even though I have the right-of-way.
Oh and I nearly left a bag at the checkout, and almost forgot to pay at Walmart, as if they'd actually let you do that. And the twit at the pharmacy tried to tell me I couldn't get my meds the way I need them, even though it's written on the perscription, by the doctor where the pharmacy is located. Again oy.
 The snow piles were so large at the grocery store that half the spots were gone, and in the section closest to the doors of course.  And I don't know how many silly people driving around the the snowbanks as if they've never seen them before.
This is CANADA people. It snows. Every year. A lot. Get used to it and learn to drive. Ok that particular rant is over.
I know I'm in a cranky mood but I've got no patience today. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
Which is never a good thing because I'll go nuts, or get divorced, living in my apartment without patience. I'm married to a lazy, whining, ungrateful man who is more giant teenager then partner. And my six year old has the cognition of about a 3-4 year old, and the attitude of a 16 year old, on a good day. And my dogs are completly untrained and spoiled.
 Please don't misunderstand, I love them all very dearly, I really do, and they all have so many fantastic qualities but without patience that love gets tested, and things aren't as easy to ignore/deal with. I'm even having trouble finding this funny...

All I can think is if it had that much more in the cup I'd have had a hell of a mess to clean up when it burst. DH "cleaned" the van the other day. As in he finally took his fishing poles out, left all the tackle, and shoved all his garbage and cans into a bag. And left it in the van. Nice huh?

 To make myself feel somewhat better I hit Fabricland for some ric rac to go with Tumbling Dinos.

The red was too dark so I went with a very bright yellow that matches the quilt fairly well. I picked up 7 meters, which is about 7.6 yards.

I have all the rows sewn together, I just need to press them. Which require me cleaning off the entire ironing board, and I really don't wanna. Now I have to decide on a border. I'm leaning to one small inner border, and the ric rac, then a larger outer boarder. Hopefully in the dino print. Any ideas on colour? I'm think red and blue, but which for what?

I've cleaned out my photo files. DH, with much grumbling and complaining, hooked up the external hard drive I got for Christmas from my dad. I dumped the whole 17 mega bytes onto it and deleted the whole lot of my hard drive. I did check to make sure it work before deleting them. And it did. Hopefully my laptop with move a bit quicker now.
Ok I'm going to take a quick nap. Hopefully things will feel better after and I can continue being the most patient person around as normal.

One of those days

 We all have them. But well...I'm kinda talented you see. Today I have managed to have my finger cut by the tinfoil punch outs on one of my pills, had a rubber band snap and hit me in the cheek, been head butted by Little Bit (it took a while to be sure it wasn't broken, it isn't), and had a reaction to the bandage for the finger, which is why it's now wrapped in gauze and paper tape.
After the finger I decided to stay in, so DH will had to have something different for lunch tomorrow because I was not going out to the store with the way things were going and there being about 2 feet of snow over the last 36 hours.

 I did get somethings done on the quilting front though. Brave I know, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. "Tumbling Dinosaur Uproar", my first personally named quilt, is out in rows. I had 6 done, I now have all 14 done.

Wanna see me being artsy with the camera?

Nice eh? LOL

After whining yesterday I was thinking "what is wrong with me?" I want to do this quilt for a little boy who I've never seen, but love immensely anyway. So even though I only sat down to sew one row I felt good about it. That one row somehow turned into 8. And I feel even better.
Which is awesome because it's that much closer to being done. And after a phone call from my father, I'm thinking I might be very busy  for the next little while with a family business project. More on that as it develops.

I'm trying to decide what to do about borders. Should I add two? One large? Rick rac? I found some that matches the line on ebay, oh ebay you are both evil and heaven for quilters.

I did about 20 inches of binding on Picnic but it was just wasn't happening so I decided to leave it for another day.

I'm looking forward to things getting back to normal with Little Bit at school tomorrow, and DH back to work. I plan on hitting the grocery store, and I'm not sure what else but some quiet will be nice. Well quiet and some Galaxy Country.

Good Winter fun

 So yesterday, today and tomorrow the forecast is for snow. Snowsqualls to be precise, the one I think sounds somewhat rude. How much snow? Well...right now their calling for about 6" every 6 hours. We've got a good foot and a bit now. It looks lovely, and the snow isn't falling so fast that the plows can't deal with it. Don't get me wrong, it's not nice on the roads, and on the highways (like US Interstates) have white out conditions in places, and I'm glad DH isn't driving until Monday, but it isn't out of control type snow that will shut things down for a day or two as we try to dig out.

 The temp is very cold, too cold to play outside so my cousin and his family joined us for a fun afternoon of....

Bowling!
I love bowling, especially 5 pin. We didn't do the glo bowling, which is the picture above. It came on just as we were done. The two girls, Little Bit (6), and Jess (10) played a lane and played 3 games, one of which Little Bit won, though she broke 100 in all three. They had a blast. We had the bumpers on both lanes and the kids, including dads lol, love it. It makes it easier, and pretty much they'll always get a pin down.
 The "grown-ups" had our lane and we bowled 2 games. One of which I won, but more importantly both games I beat DH! : )
This is the only non-trivia game I ever beat DH at. I'm just not very competitive but this I do enjoy.
What do you do on days you have to stay inside? And more or less off the roads?

We went to my cousin's and played the Wii for awhile and ordered pizza for dinner. It was a really nice way to spend the day. We also go a slide show, with music and all, of my cousin's photo guild pics and his daughter's. Both are fantastic. I was very impressed with Jess's as she is only 10, and some of them were A+. Steve's are awesome but you know he's old experienced and all : p

On the quilting front I cut up some more tumblers for the nephew's quilt. I really have to find my motivation and get this one done. He's turning one this month lol.

I'm half way done binding the Picnic quilt for my cousin's baby who is due at the end of the month, but having seen her at our grandma's....well I'm not so sure she'll last that long. We carry big but she was VERY big, and VERY uncomfortable, and not just in the I'm-as-big-as-a-whale uncomfortable.

We also found out that DH's other brother, twin to nephew #1's daddy, and his wife are expecting. She's about 2 months along. I'm hoping for an announcement of gender so I can get a quilt done before the baby this time.

I've ordered my Schnibble pattern for January. I love this one and can't wait to get it started.
I think that is part of my problem right now with the tumblers, I want to be working on projects for me, which are new and exciting, instead of finishing things for others....maybe my Christmas/giving spirit has taken all it can and needs a recharge of me time. Sounds like a good excuse to do a bit of one of the other projects doesn't it?

  I need to get something done so I can have some pictures of my own to post. It's getting pretty stark isn't it? This is where blogging works as motivation me thinks.

I'm purposely avoiding making an resolutions, they're made to be broken more then kept so I'll stay with my general push to keep improving in all things. Get a bit better at keeping the apartment, eat a bit better/more, work on getting healthier/better pain control, getting some more finishes in my quilting. Things like that. Be better then I am now I guess would be the resolution if I had to make one. And my overall life goal, be as good a mom to Little Bit as I possibly can.

Happy New Year

Joyeux le Jour de l'An in French, etc, etc, etc.
I'm very glad that 2009 is over. It was not the best of years. I'm looking forward to 2010. Hopefully things will be better, and if not, I will be better prepared for it.
Last night DH and I watched more bowl games, and  at midnight (EST) watched some silly man break the world record for driving his rally car off a pier onto a barge, it was in the air for over 250 feet. Silly is the nice word. I'm not a fan of adrenaline junkies. It's one thing to get your self killed, but they tend to become severely disabled and their family, friends, and communities end up footing the bill, both emotionally and financially for it.

 Being the first of the month it is also Schnibble time! Check out the parades at Pink Pincushion and A Quilting Life of Tuffets, which we all know I have a problem with, but on the upside, Little Bit can have very fancy bean bags lol. Mine wasn't in the parade, again, but oh well. It's still very cool seeing everyone elses, I can look at mine on the table lol.
This months Schnibble is Madelaine! The picture is Sinta's Schnibble.

I'm hoping mine turns out so well, I'll be using the same line...Rounenneries! I'm probably going to look back in 10 years and think "how obsessed was I?" but hey it makes me happy now. I'm thinking I'll add black around the center block so I get a big center star. I loved the look on my table runner so I'm pretty confident that it'll be good. I just need the pattern. Which I will order today and hopefully will get by the end of the month lol.
I also have to order another charm pack because I want to make this. I'm so glad I'm finally finding patterns I like for this line. So many are boring strips, and really don't take advantage of this amazingly versatile line. I'm really looking forward to French General's next line le Jardin. And getting my first installment of the BOM I signed up for from FQS.

 Little Bit just had me put up a static cling to her window and I have no idea what I was going to write about lol. I had something I promise. Or maybe it was just more rambling lol.

 It's snowing like crazy here, we're supposed to get about 6 more inches, Little Bit is in heaven over it.  The wind is up so it looks like a cyclone of snow outside my window, or the somewhat rude sounding snowsqualls.

Ok I don't remember so I'm going to cuddle with DH and pretend to care about whatever bowl game is on. And maybe do some binding, but probably not. ;)

Too funny not to share

Check out Quilt Hallow. She has posted a hilarious thing on pets. My puppies totally agree.

Year of Schnibbles December

 So this month's Schnibble was Tuffets! I already had made up a few so just made one more today. I'm going to order the new set of patterns but it wasn't out in time to get here before the end of the month so I'll order it with next month's Schnibble and save the shipping. See? I can be economical lol.

 This is the new one. I even did a bit of quilting on the top before I filled it up.

Looking at these I'm wondering if my winners have received their pin toppers. I know the grandprize winner did, so let me know. If not I'll send them out again. There has been "issues" with one of the post offices here.

 I'm working on getting the binding on the baby quilt. It is sewed on the front and I've got about 1/4 hand sewn down on the back.  The snuggly back is making this hard too. Good thing there are LOTS of Bowl games this week.

Quilting it was a b****. But it's snuggly, and done, so I guess that is all that matters.

  I have absolutely no plans for tomorrow, New Years Eve. I've never really gotten into the whole thing. What are you up to?