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Monday, May 24, 2021

Weekend Sewing, Midnight Bears (and a Basket Toss Drawing!)


There are always some projects that will grow slowly along side the others that are more rapid-fire-get-out-of-here.

The crazy sunburn that I gifted myself with on Friday's hike plagued me through the weekend.  What a dummy I was to forget my hat AND the sunscreen.  It was a great reminder of what I need to implement through the rest of the oncoming summer months as a fair-haired, pale-skinned, blue-eyed girl.

All those memories of childhood sunburns came flooding back.

By yesterday afternoon (Usually around day 3 this happens) the itching began in earnest.

I sat at the sewing machine for a minimal amount of hours, and spent the rest of my weekend slathering on lotion, aloe vera gel, and spritzing occasionally with vinegar which is supposed to remove the sting, but rather made me smell like an Easter Egg about to hit the dye bath.


Still- there are happy moments in between!

Do you see the rooster head?  LOL!  Now I'm wondering where his headless body will show up next.

I've been using my smallest crumbs and string strips to make these blocks.  There are 24 pieces in each block, so they take a while, and they don't seem to be making much a dent in anything - but they are rather brainless and painless and made me forget about the sunburn for just a little while.

Pattern will come when the quilt is done - down the pipeline - off into the distance.

I'm mostly working from the hunks and chunks that were left from the Rockabilly Swing Snail's Trail quilt - that pattern will be coming sooner rather than later, so hang on!


A bit of Caturday on the porch.

Ivy has decided that she actually LIKES to be outside just a bit - but not too much.

And when she starts to wander too far, Zoey jumps in and herds her right back to the house.


What are you sniffing, guys?

Well let me tell you what - it turns out that we have a BEAR who has been prowling the yard at night.

Last night while watching TV, Zoey got her hackles all up and started growling, all excited.

She didn't find anything, but she was very aware.

Last night while in a deep sleep, we woke up to her growl and a couple of short barks.

It turns out that The Hubster had left the garage door up by mistake - and the bear had come in, rummaged around, stole the trash can and hauled it off down below our cars on the drive.

The Hubs jumped up - found the door open, closed it and went back to bed.  Twice more during the night the motion detector lights came on - and he had to go out onto the porch and clap his hands and make noise to scare the beast away.

This morning in the light of day - the trash can lid was found between the cars, and the can itself had rolled down the hill - the bear and the one kitchen trash bag that was formerly in the can were both gone to who knows where.


I will say it here that *I* was not the one who left the garage door up.  But in the future I will be the one who makes sure that it is shut every time I come by and before I go to bed because there is a certain tractor loving man that just FORGETS.  I am forever shutting the door behind him, and I will continue to do so.

I'm sure he will also be so much more cautious now that this reminder has happened.

It's a small price to pay for a driveway that is now so level and smooth - No more washboard ruts. No more potholes.  It's still steep, but at least it's not bumpy and rutted!


Design wall happiness in the Quilting Quarters!

The quilters have been busy at Quiltville Inn!  Blue Skies blocks from String Fling  are about to get all of their outer half-square triangles added!

Tulip Time blocks are up on one design wall!


Beautiful completion hanging for all to see!

I know the design is one of Gudrun Erla's from GE Designs - Not sure if it is available as an individual pattern or found in one of her books. Isn't it gorgeous?

There will be more shares and peeks at design walls as this group is here until Wednesday morning!

Drawing Time!!

It's time to draw for the THREE prizes for THREE luckily winners from the Basket Toss  kick off!


Two winners will be receiving a Basket Toss PDF pattern directly from me. Our Grand Prize winner will also receive a "This & That!" Fabric Roll from Cotton to Quilts!


Irene at Cotton to Quilts has chosen a wonderful array of fabrics perfectly suited for enhancing your own fabric pull while making Basket Toss.

Need more neutrals?  Be sure to check out the Noteable Neutral Rolls while checking all of the fabric bundle offerings!

Here we go!  We had ***DRUMROLL!**  7,410 entries in this Gift-Away!  I am SO THRILLED with the response!
Winner #1 - Marjorie Holloway!
Winner #2 - Barbara Nichols!

These two ladies will be receiving the printable PDF pattern for Basket Toss as soon as they reply to the emails I have sent to the addresses they provided!

Our grand prize winner is:

Karen Rudar!!

Congrats Karen!  You will be receiving BOTH the PDF pattern for Basket Toss and the gorgeous This & That bundle from Cotton to Quilts!

Please reply to the email I sent along with your mailing address nd I'll have Irene get that gorgeous fabric out to you and I will also reply with the pattern once your email address is verified by replying.


As promised, the introductory price for Basket Toss is already marked 25% off - no coupon needed!

This price drop is good through May 31st, and will revert to the full price of $12.00 on Tuesday, June 1, 2021.  Don't delay!

If this is your first time downloading digital patterns from my store to a computer click HERE.

If you intend to download to an iPhone/iPad click HERE.

Scrappy baskets twirl in a whirlwind of color! Fill your background areas with your favorite neutrals, and finish your border perfection with an easier than it looks gently scalloped border! Step-by-step directions with full color graphics and photos. A wonderful way to sew happily through your own scrap basket!

Quilt Size: 88’’ x 88’’

That was fun!  Now I can't wait to see how your Basket Toss blocks and quilts turn out!  Please keep up the sharing.  We are using hashtags #baskettossquilt and #quiltville for your social media posts. Please tag me so I can see what you are up to.

Today - slathered in sunscreen and bug spray - 5 of us are heading over to Damascus to ride the Virginia Creeper Trail!  

My bike is in the van, and I am ready to go grab 4 quilters from Quiltville Inn and head out on our adventure.  It promises to be a gorgeous day, and I can't wait to spend the day outdoors sharing one of my favorite activities in Southwestern Virginia.

How will you be spending your Monday?  Did you have a good weekend?


Quiltville Quote of the Day -

Tumalo Trail quilt from my book Scraps & Shirttails II available in the Quiltville Store.

Everyone can do simple things to make a difference, and every little bit really does count.
Have a great Monday, everyone!


 

30 comments:

  1. The story of your bear reminds me of the house in the mountains of Colorado where my daughter and her family live. When the previous family lived there, they forgot to put the stick in the sliding glass door (to keep it from being openable) one night when they went to bed. They woke in the middle of the night to a bear IN their house, smelling the food in the pantry closet. The bear couldn't get to the food, so took a bite from the corner of the wall, gave up, and wandered back out. There's now an unsightly hole in the wall, but who would want to spackle that and remove all traces of an amazing story??

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  2. Your bear story brought back memories. When we lived in Upstate NY bears were frequent visitors. But we didn't have a garage so our garbage cans were outside for the pickin'. Problem solved...the top of the can got anchored down with a bungee cord and a rag soaked with apple cider vinegar was placed underneath the cord. No more midnight snackers! Thanks for bringing a smile this morning!

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  3. So, this is going to sound weird, but if you find yourself in another situation like the other day, on the trail, without sun protection, facing certain sunburn..... dirt makes a surprisingly effective sunscreen in a pinch. Just a thin layer of dirt rubbed over your skin does a better job than you might think. Hey - it works for elephants, right? You'll look funny and will need a shower, but it can keep you from pain and sun damage if nothing else is available. *shrugs* Super weird suggestion, I know, but maybe it'll be handy someday.

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  4. Perhaps install an outside camera pointing at the garage door, with the screen viewer at the final "going to bed check point"? There are so many install-it-yourself cameras now.

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  5. Our community just saw a few bears in the area within a few miles of our home. We are populated community/rural area. A lot of building has been going on and taking the land that the wildlife has been inhabiting. My biggest wildlife right now is a squirrel that is getting high on hummingbird sugar water. LOL Also I seem to have a rabbit that enjoys birdseed. Who knew?

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  6. The bear story is part of life in the country. I never saw a wild bear until I was in my 40's we were out driving, I saw a large animal just getting to the side of the road. I asked my husband if that was the largest dog he had ever seen. He took a good look a d said no that's a bear. It was ranging about 10 to 20 miles a day. The paper carried a story about him.

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  7. OH my goodness! I am glad the bear was not in the corner of the garage and get locked in by your dear hubby!! What a fun plaid/nine patch quilt you have displayed, with your wisdom of the day. Love it!

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  8. Sun burn, I like to slather liberally plain yoghurt on, leave it for an hour and then wash if off with a tepid shower. That way the next days are much less painful and the peeling is often avoided.

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  9. My grandmother always used tea for sunburn relief. The Tannins relieved the pain by reducing inflammation and you didn't end up smelling like the Easter egg you mentioned. Grandma used tea to cure everything that ailed you - inside and out, but she was from Ireland so it makes sense to me! LOL

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  10. The GE Designs pattern above, the blue quilt, is Athena and is in the newest Gudrun Erla book called Stripology Mixology 2

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  11. My husband has a game camera in our backyard and recorded a bear coming through our yard last summer. On the way through, he decided my daffodil bulbs smelled good so he dug up over 500 of them. (I have alot). He must have found them unpalatable as he didn't eat any that we could tell.
    He just dug them up! He left our trash alone and our bee hives alone. We figured it was a yearling male pushed out from Mama and didn't know how to find food. That was good for us.

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  12. Congrats to the lucky winners!

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  13. Sorry about your sunburn. It’s so painful! I guess you have to make sure all the doors are closed! Your designer’s brain is amazing! I can’t believe how many patterns you’ve been cranking out! ❤️

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  14. Appreciated your sunburn adventures! We didn't have much that would really save our skin - except zinc oxide- and those burns really hurt! Hope it's calming down.

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  15. It's great that you have your own grader blade---and a now experienced operator. With the steep hill he'll have to grade regularly to keep the washboard under control.

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  16. We had a bear in the neighborhood a few years ago. Mashed one neighbor's bird feeder, scattered another neighbor's trash in the road, and one day we found trash on our property that had been removed from another neighbor's garage. The garage theft was a little unsettling, because that neighbor only had the door open when he was in the garage, though he didn't see or hear the bear!

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  17. I love seeing the quilts coming together on the design walls. In another life I would be one of your retreaters, quilting, hiking and bike riding.....I can dream from my wheelchair here in the UK haha 😄

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  18. Sure glad he didn't leave the door to the house open too! I constantly follow "mine" around turning off lights! LOL!

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  19. Which book is String Fling in?

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  20. We left our garage open several times and there’s an app for that. Now we know when it’s open and when it’s closed. It also will let us know if it’s been up for more than 15 minutes.

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  21. We have a garage remote velcroed to the tractor. No more excuses, and no more climbing up and down several times to open and close the garage door.

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  22. GE Designs quilt is Athena from Gudrun Erla's newest book, Stripology Mixology 2.

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  23. Similar sun story, but my brother said I smelled like a pickle.

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  24. The smell of Noxema brings back childhood memories of summers at the beaches in New England and the many summers I had sunburn. The product of choice for Sun protection in the 40's and 50's was baby oil with mercurachrome(sp?) in it. Didn't work very well and you smelled like a babyy!

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  25. Even before seeing Holly's comment about using tea to help sunburn pain, I was going to suggest it. That was my Grandmother's cure for sunburn and her maiden name was Kelly. If you spent a day at the beach and even your eyes were hurting, she soaked tea bags, had us lie down with our eyes closed and put the tea bags on your eyes for a few minutes. The other thing I remember working well for sunburn pain was Noxema which my Mom swore by for her complexion. I recall the Noxema felt cool and good, but it definitely did not smell as nice as the tea bags. Fair skin and the sun are not a good combination.

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  26. Hi, I know this is not an easy question to answer, however, maybe one of your followers can help me with an answer. Probably 3 or 4 years you were at a retreat and showed a photo of a wood item someone's son had made for his moms foot pedal so she could regulate the speed on the pedal better. I have the same pedal on my machine and am in desperate need of one of these gismos. Thanks for any help you can give me on this. My email is naydewdrop@gmail.com

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  27. The pattern for the quilt by Gudrun Erla of GE Designs that resembles a Hunters Star is called Athena. It is in her book, "Stripology Mixology 2".

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  28. String Fling is the title of the book.

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  29. In my experience vinegar will help your sunburn, but it takes a compress and not being sprayed. My granny used it for everything skin related. Heavily diluted with water, she'd soak a washcloth in it and hold it to the skin. Sunburn, insect bites, etc. Always took the sting and itchiness out, but it took time and the willingness to smell like a pickle for a while, lol.

    So glad I don't live anywhere where I have to deal with bears! I about have a heart attack every time my great pyrenees decides to challenge the local coyote!

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  30. What a shaggy bear story! I set an alarm on my phone for 8 pm to close the outside door to our launderette (former carport now enclosed). We keep it open during the day for the cool breezes.

    Love all these recent quilts--and past ones too, of course!

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