Thoughts of a Grasshopper

Last month I participated in a craft challenge.  The organizer of the challenge sent everyone the above materials.  I have to admit that I was stumped.  The scraps were pretty small and nothing came to mind of what to do with them.  I saw some brilliant submissions that were so clever.  I decided to make a mug rug and a card.  The mug rug is 5-1/2" x 5-1/2".  I need a big one because I drink from a plastic insulated quart jar.  I'll need to find a new cup soon as both of mine are leaking when they are full.

January 2013 I joined a "Saturday Sampler" at a local quilt shop.  Each month you were given a block to do and the following month if you came back with the completed block, they gave you the next block to put together for free.  If you didn't have the previous block done, you could buy the block kit for that month.  I'm thinking it was $7 or $8.  I'm not really sure because I'm motivated by "free" to get things done. There was a Log Cabin bundle of material available to make 23 log cabin blocks.  I'm thinking the instructions must have said to make 24 because I had that many and only 23 were needed to make the quilt below. When I assembled this quilt, I wasn't in love with the yellow diagonal stripes but I did like how the blocks stood out.  I changed the layout of the blocks and used the 24th log cabin I had previously made to complete this new design.  I liked this layout but it was too yellow for me and I felt like the blocks were mu...

I'm doing one lump post on these Valentine's Day cards or I will never get around to it.  A couple are from Pinterest, one is from the catalog.   This card I used the sticker sheet on a back layer (I used white and should have gone with black but originally it was going to be a white card).  I cut the heart in foil red and in black.  I mounted the outline of the black heart on the piece of white cardstock and then inserted the red foil heart.  I then used all of the little pieces of black that were cut out to fill in the red heart.  It looks nifty in person to have the image filled in. Die:  Bloomin' Heart CS:  Basic Black, Real Red, Red Foil, WW Misc.:  Real Red Ribbon, jewels Stamps:  Bloomin' Love Die:  Bloomin' Heart CS:  Crumb Cake, Rose Red, Blushing Bride, Love Blossoms DP Misc.: Sequins (left over from Paper Pumpkin), Pearls, Dimensionals Die:  Bloomin' Heart CS:  WW, Fresh Prints p...

I am in LOVE with this quilt!!  This is the 2015 Quiltville Mystery Quilt.  My second time doing a mystery quilt.  This is just the top.  It still needs to be quilted and have the binding sewn on.  This took me about 6 weeks to make, albeit 2 of the weeks I didn't touch it because I had other things needing my attention or I was procrastinating.  I knew Part 4 was going to take a long time.  I skipped it and went on to Part 5.  Then I had to suck it up.  It didn't disappoint with the amount of time it took to do it. I haven't uploaded pictures to my computer of the different steps but they are on Instagram. This took me about 100 hours and it has somewhere around 2,328 pieces.  So worth the effort.

I've been pretty busy lately.  We had another Webelos cross over to the Troop.  He earned his Arrow of Light and we presented him with his plaque and badge last week. Our weather has been really good lately for this time of year.  I saw a post I made 2 years ago when we were living in FL and it showed the temperatures for the 48 states.  Now we live up north and the temperature is almost 30 degrees warmer than it was 2 years ago.  I'm sure this is all tied into the pacific's el nino . I've been photographing cemeteries so that when the cold weather does come, I can be transcribing the photos and uploading them.  One of the cemeteries is 98% listed so it is easy to add the pictures.  Another cemetery isn't and requires more time.  I'm going to the historical society tomorrow to obtain a listing of who is there so I can be sure I'm accurate with the dates when I transcribe. The quilt ( here ) that I finished at the end of September i...

Back in 1997 or 1998 we were living in Sacramento in a town house.  One evening we went for a walk to look at Christmas lights and decorations.  As we were walking, I saw this light ball hanging by someone's front door.  I thought it was awesome.  A year or two later, I found directions to make it but I never did.  Every year I would have the best of intentions to make it.  On several occasions I bought the cups to make it.  Lights are never an issue.  I have a plastic tote filled with lights. This year I have 5+ projects to make:  1. pine cone light basket, 2. light ball, 3. wreath for the kitchen, 4. wooden candle trio that is 42" tall, and 5. "NOEL" for the mantle.  The other projects are small things that I want to make to give to people.  I made the pine cone light basket on the 8th.  I made one back in 2000 which got wrecked in one of the moves or perhaps water damaged from flooding in the basement in Virginia that happ...

This is the card that brought me to 80.  You can't really see from the picture, but I popped the wall up with dimensionals so that the fire and back of the fireplace are behind, recessed if you will. Stamps:  Festive Fireplace CS:  Season of Cheer DP, WW, Cherry Cobbler, VV, Smoky Slate Ink:  Soft Suede, Smoky Slate, Cherry Cobbler Blendabilities:  Old Olive, Cherry Cobbler, Daffodil Delight Misc.:  Festive Fireside framelit, pool party marker, soft suede marker, dimesionals