Out With The Old -

I don't know if you can see it - but there is a grey smudge on my pink flying geese triangle.

RATS!

And this has been happening more and more with this danged iron.

WHY?  Its Teflon coating is wearing off and leaving yuck on my piecing.

At first I wasn't sure that was the cause - but take a look at this:

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Christmas Miracles -

Meet Stark.

Or Starky.  Also known as Starky Barky or "NO NO NO!"

Also answers to "OUTSIDE!"

I've been waiting to share this story until we had an idea of what was going to happen, even if I knew in my heart just what was going to happen.

It started the week before Christmas when Ashlyn was on her way to work and witnessed a car pull a hit and run on a helpless puppy.  She immediately pulled over.

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The Season of 'Chrimbo Limbo' -

What do YOU call the week in between Christmas and New Year's where you kind of forget what day it is?

Don't know if things are open or not so you have to google them?

Decide that things on the to-do list can just wait until NEXT YEAR to get done as it is less than a week away now?

We call it Chrimbo Limbo and that's just what it feels like.  Life is on hold as we wait for this year to run out so we can jump into the next one ready to tackle what comes our way.

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From Backing To Quilting!

It's the weekend after Christmas - I'm sure everyone is still pretty much in a holiday stupor, but hopefully getting things back together and able to spend some time recuperating in your sewing spaces!

On Wednesday (Christmas Eve Day) I spent a few hours at the QPO stitching the big pink behemoth backing together from the squares I had finished the previous day.

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Lupine & Laughter Mystery - Part Six!

Happy Boxing Day, friends!
"The Day After" can come with a sense of relief that we have made it through yet another Christmas season - 
I know many of you may still have family around and need something a bit lighter this week, 
So how about we put some more things together?

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Christmas Eve In Pink!

It's a crazy idea, right?

To spend an extra couple of days piecing a backing out of hunks and chunks of forgotten yardage when it would be SO much easier to just buy 3 yards of a wide backing fabric and be done with it and onto the quilting phase of things.  Right?

Maybe.  But then there are all of those trimmed margins of that extra wide backing fabric that would be considered good enough to save for future use - and then I'm just adding to the scrap bins instead of whittling them down.  

This is how my brain works on repeat!

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It's Coming Together!

My design floor is full!

Or at least it was as I was putting this beauty together.

"Why don't you use a design wall?" comes the question I know I'm going to find in the comments.

I do not have wall space in the studio.  If you've been inside, you'll know why.

And I just find this easier.  When blocks get sewn together, they often don't stick to a design wall without pins.  I don't want to deal with placing and removing pins.

And it's good to bend and stretch and rearrange while I can.

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Crackers & Jam & Winter Solstice!

Things are coming together faster than I thought they would!

Of course, those little cracker blocks have many more small pieces and took longer to stitch/trim/de-paper than these blocks - 

Before I knew it I thought I had all that I needed and the layout process began yesterday!

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Binding In The Done Column!

It's done!

And it was well worth waiting for.

I had cursed this quilt, I had cursed the quilting machine having issues and the 2 months that it sat partly quilted, unable to go further -

And I cursed myself for not having the knowledge or the know-how to just jump in and fix everything myself.

And yes - all of that was exacerbated with worrying about Jason and the brain tumor surgery and recovery and everything that came between the quilting machine malfunction and last week when I was finally able to resume quilting.

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Lupine & Laughter Mystery - Part Five!

FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!!!

But not Five of a kind for this part -

Guess what we start doing today?

We're going to start putting some things together!

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All Into Fours!

This is where things start to get really exciting!

I have loved making the little Cracker blocks...making them a bit more scrappy than "usual" in an attempt to use up the many small pieces of various fabrics just big enough to do the job.

I love watching a pile of possibilities find their way into adorable blocks with really nothing left but trimmings and dog ears.

Did I completely sew up ALL of that bounty?  Nope.  There is plenty left over so I'll have to find another paper piecing project to dig into another day - but for now...this is all I need of these!

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It's That Time Of Year -

I don't do a lot of baking anymore -

With my type 2 diabetes and hubster Dave's needing to be gluten free, there just isn't a lot that will work for either of us, even if it works for one of us but not the other.

But there is one thing that we always fall back on - 

Crockpot Peanut Clusters.

The recipe is found under the recipes tab at the top of the blog.

It's the one listed under the subtitle *CANDY* beneath the Sweet Dessert Stuff. And it's a keeper.

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Binding Day!

This happened!

After months of waiting -

But have you ever done this?  After prepping a binding and thinking it was the *right* thing, when it came to actually time to put the binding on months later - you decided that was NOT the *right* thing?

I second guessed my binding and I'm glad that I did.

I had originally thought I'd use this:

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After The Weekend -

Happy Monday, folks!

Still alive and kicking over here - and yes, still taking the Hunter Shuttle from the top of the drive to the bottom where the cars are parked in order to get out and about anywhere.

It's winter.

It's just what we have to do around here, though with a warm up coming over the next week, we should be able to drive the cars back up to the top again.

Let's live on the side of a mountain he said - it will be fun he said! HA!

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Big Things Happening!

After two months of trying all the things to no avail, I finally succumbed to the embarrassment of begging My APQS master tech and Intelliquilter guru Patty Butcher at Katidids.net for a slot on her fully packed travel/installation schedule.

I contacted her about a full "spa" treatment for my Millie, which includes changing out worn parts like thread guides and old bobbin hook, cleaning, detailing, repacking gears with new grease - the Full Monty.  

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Lupine & Laugher Mystery - Part Four!

12/12! Can you believe we are at Lupine & Laughter Part Four already?
(Okay, I'm writing this ahead - I honestly have no idea what will be going on in my life by this date, but I'm pushing through anyway!)
Part One had One Thing, Part Two had Two Things, Part Three had Three Things, Part Four has Four Things Times Two!

Today I'm Sharing a bit of our waterfall wonder from our Iceland Adventure!

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Festive St. Wolfgang!

At the heart of every Austrian village stands the church.

The establishment of the pilgrimage church of St. Wolfgang goes back to a legend in 976. The Bishop Wolfgang of Regensburg was living as a hermit at the Falkenstein and made ​​the decision to build the first church here. The location of the building was inspired by his famous "Axe throw", considered to be a divine dispensation.

He threw the ax with the vow, that where it landed he would build a church. When he found the ax after three days he built the church at this site on a rocky hill next to the lake.

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Our Home Away From Home!

This was our home away from home - Hotel Zur Post in Ruhpolding, Germany!

It was built in 1308 (NOt a typo!) and became a tavern in 1424. It has been a Rechl family-owned business for over a century, evolving from a historic inn into a modernized hotel, receiving awards for its Bavarian heritage and sustainability.

The first time I stayed here was 13 years ago - and there has been much renovation since yet still retains the old world charm it always has had.

I loved staying here and would come back in a heartbeat.

The best bonus for us?  We stayed here our whole trip, using Ruhpolding as our Bavarian home base, and our day trips  radiated out from here.  It was a wonderful spot to come "home" to!

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Snow, Glorious Snow!

Hi guys!  I'm home!

And no, this was not my view last evening - but it WAS the view this morning as the sun came up over the ridge and let me know that blue sky and sunshine does happen!

We arrived in New York on Sunday afternoon.

By the time we went through customs and gathered our luggage, waving good bye to folks who had become family over the past 10 days...wandering off to catch our next flights, or an Uber, or in my case - taking the air train to where I would jump into a hotel shuttle, it was nearly 4:30pm.

By the time I'd checked into my hotel, made it up to my room and unloaded my stuff, it was close to 5:30pm.

My body said it was 1:30am!

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Lupine & Laughter Mystery - Part Three!

It's Friday again!
And here we are at part three of our Lupine & Laughter Mystery.
Part one focused on one unit.
Part two had us creating two different color ways of geese!
Guess what part three means?
Three different sizes of half-square triangles!
Don't worry - this trend isn't likely to continue, but I thought since the tutorial for all of these was basically the same we'd make some major headway by getting these done at the same time.

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