My Big Adventure Today

Before I begin telling about my big adventure today I wanted to answer some of the email about the pattern I am using for the lighthouse quilts. It is a pattern pack from Thangles called Milky Way Quilt. If you are interested in the pattern it is available at www.thangles.com Really it is just a 14.5" sawtooth star (with the lighthouses in the center) and a four patch of 2- 7.5" sawtooth stars and 2-7.5" plain blocks. You could do it without Thangles if you wanted, but the paper makes for better (more perfect) HST units (or so I am hoping!!)

Now on to the big adventure. Today was the day I went to the eye doctor for an evaluation of the cataract I have developed in my right eye. Things have been a little blurry and my depth perception has been a little off. (gross understatement!). I did find out that he is the dr that did the cataract surgery on my gyno's wife, so if another dr is using him he must be OK. LOL. Long story short...my surgery is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct 6th!! OMG what am I thinking??!! I am so nervous. I know, I know, your aunt, sister, friend or whatever had it done and sailed right through it. No big deal you say. yes, I guess I *know* all that , but IT IS MY EYES!! I really need both of them to work properly. Have you ever listened to what can go wrong?? Scary stuff. Then you have to decide monofocal or bifocal lens? I wear bifocal contacts and I love them. If I go with the BF lens, no contact in that eye, bonus right? If I go with the MF no additional cost, bonus right? There is a $1200 difference. YIKES!!! Let me just pull that out of a deep dark hole. But no contact so there is a little savings there too. He said I am a good candidate for the BF lens since I wear that kind of contact already.

Now, no pressure, but they need to know tomorrow and I need to drop off part of the money either tomorrow or Monday. What would you do? Do you know anyone who chose either one and were they satisfied with their choice?

I had quilting tonight and kept wondering what it will be like to do this a week from now after the surgery. It is bed time, yeah like it will be easy to sleep tonight...

What are friends for?

What happens when one of your bestest friends gives you this pattern and some fabric and needs your help?


Well, first you do a lot of this with all of these.

Which after some more time miraculously turns into some of these. LTW found a project in her "stash" that she wanted to make for her mom. She was telling me how she didn't have time but really wanted to get this one finished and off her "to do list." Now you all know how many quilts I have on my side bar on my own "to do list" but what are friends for, I ask you?

Especially when bribed by this. I love the stuff by Don't Look Now and she knows it. Drat one of my many weaknesses!! In all seriousness I am happy to help. (Have you looked at this pattern? I don't think I could ever finish it in my lifetime, but I love it and I love all her patterns!!)

Thanks, LTW! Now I need to sew some more Thangles. Oh and I forgot to tell you that in addition to making the one for her mom she tells me, BTW there are enough light houses to make a second one for the raffle. Oh really? I guess with PTM doing my binding I should be doing my share of stunt sewing, huh? I'll keep you posted. Maybe she will let me have the pattern once I am done, *sigh*. Such a slave driver! LOL!!

My Weekend So Far

It has been quite a jammed packed weekend so far. On Friday night I went out to dinner with my friend Yuki and we went to Joe's Crab Shack. Isn't she adorable? I got to see her new apt and it is so nice. We had a great time!


Then I had to get to bed because I was going to the Sewing Expo on Sat morning and meeting Allie and Mary Kaye. I love it when you get a chance to meet IRL! This is what the inside looked like. There were many rows like this. LOTS of make it and take it's and demo's. More about that later.


Allie and I had planned on meeting at the Baby Loc booth as her friend Kathy wanted to check out their new Sashiko machine (which is extremely cool, you should check it out too)
I got to the booth first so I was standing there waiting and watching the entrance when this woman came up to me and said, "Look green shoes, you must be Pam" this is when I realized it was Mary Kaye. (I told them both I would have my green shoes on). She is such a warm and friendly person. We spent a few minutes talking and then Allie came in. Now Allie and I have talked on the phone but have never met. We all hit it off immediately. I decided to go around with Allie and Kathy and we would meet MK for lunch. Then we were joined by Allie's other friend Kathy (reminded me of Daryl and my other brother Daryl, if you ever watched Bob Newhart) . Both Kathys were very nice. I somehow ended up going along by myself (I guess I wandered away from the group) and we ran into each other periodically.
In the picture, me, Allie and Mary Kay.

In my wanderings I came across this quilt. My friend, Shirley, one of the CL's, has been making these fairy quilts like crazy so I took this pic so she could see another layout design. Are any of you making these quilts too??

I was somewhat disappointed because I had expected there to be more vendors. I subsequently found out from Allie that she was disappointed because it was not a large as previous years so at least I knew why. I somehow still managed to spend money, wow what a surprise huh? I found these cute Asian prints for a certain someone of my friends that is gaga over Asian fabric. She is always doing such nice stuff for me and when I saw these I thought of her. In face the cat print kinda looked more like her dog Buster, LOL. Oh drat, now she will know who it is for, oh well.


This next purchase is for my DH. He has been complaining lately about all the cat hair on his clothes. Well, duh, with 5 cats what do you expect? I got 3 of these, this one is the big one, then there is a little one and a tiny one. It is like a sticky rubber and you roll it over the hairy spot. It picks up the hair and you rinse it off and all the hair washes right away, dry it off and you are ready to use it some more. We will see how much use it gets and if it was worth it. I'm thinking I can do the stairs with it and that would be great, I hate vacuuming those!!

Now for what you have all been waiting for. My purchases! I found some great Halloween fabrics. I thought those ghosts were too cute. In addition PTM and I wanted to make another spider block so we needed more web and so I got that too. I want to make a haunted tree with a cauldron and isn't that fabric all the way on the right perfect for a tree?? The dots are for some more owls and I thought introducing blue with little witches was too amazing.

Then I found a great button shop. I got a crow and ghost for PTM too but shhhhh it's a surprise so don't tell her, ok? I just had to have that cat. He is so creepy!!

All in all it was a grand day. I left shortly after lunch with 2 new friends! Mary Kaye is from Canada in Windsor so I hope to see her again sometime too, Windsor is like a part of Detroit, lol. Don't be a stranger now MK! And Allie, you either, it was so much fun meeting both of you IRL. Now you both have my phone number so call me sometime!

Still ahead, stitching around owls and stunt sewing for LTW is up for today. I may design the cauldron block too who knows. Along with laundry, and cleaning and of course Farmville. What does your day hold for you today??

TGIF

It is *finally* Friday! YESSSSS. I have a lot to do today here at work and then I have the *annual* check up at the gyno, yee haw, that is not something to look forward to but then I am meeting my friend Yuki for drinks and dinner. I have not seen her in awhile and I am looking forward to our getting together to catch up tonight.

Gratuitous picture of Mosen relaxing on my quilting stuff. This is why I always have cat hair on everything!



My friend, Deb came over last night and wanted me to "help" her put the borders on a lap quilt. Well you all know how that ended up, right? I did it, she watched and she was finally on her way just shy of 9pm. UGH another night lost. Oh well, the quilt came out great. I will take a photo when she brings it for the quilting.

The baby quilt made it to Brazil. Fabiani was thrilled and my friend Karen was able to video the whole thing for me! If you go to the link you can view her too. She seemed to be very happy.

I have another friend that will be at the expo besides Allie and her name is Mary Kaye. She doesn't live in MI but is coming so I am hoping we can meet IRL too. What do you think MK??

I have been so busy and am so far behind in my blog reading. I have many blogs sent to my Bloglines subscription to read whenever you all post new things. With working full time, running 2 quilt groups and blogging and running a household, along with trying to get my own quilts made, I have come to a decision about my blogging. I love, love, love all the comments but I just don't have time to respond to them all. If you are writing with a comment that would not require a response I probably won't be sending one. Rest assured, I will read and cherish each and every one of the comments though. I will try to answer all questions or any comments that seem to require a response. I hope this doesn't stop you from commenting! That would make me sad indeed.

Are any of you of Facebook? I am on FB. I would love to be your FB friend if you are so leave me a comment and I will email you with my name, if you don't know it, and we can be FB friends too. If you are on FB if you are on Farmville let me know and we can be neighbors. I am so addicted to Farmville!!

I hope you all have a great weekend. Mine will start tonight with Yuki. I will take lots of pics for you all of the Sewing Expo too so you can live vicariously through me!

It's almost the weekend!!

I told you I would take some photos last night and I did. Here is what one of the burp cloths looks like that I made for our craft show. I think it turned out rather well.



So here you can see the nine patches I have received from the swap. I am missing one because the spider ones we re-did didn't have enough to make one for me or Pauline. We are planning on supplementing them anyway. As for the themed ones...aren't they too adorable?? I love them all. I have 2 crow blocks, from PTM. She is making me a third one too. I only have one of my owls finished but plan on making the other 2 to put in this as well. I think the themed ones may be the front and the 9 patches the back, but we will see.

I still need to stitch around the spider block too. I have found a couple of other things I think I want to add to the quilt so will be making a few more of those too, but you will have to wait for that = ) And I am planning on doing individual swaps for a few more blocks too. It will all be on temporary hold for now until I finish the LTW projects though. I began the cutting on it last night, there is a lot of cutting. I am going to get to use Thangles again too. I have not used those for a long time, since one of my first quilts. Should make it go quickly, no marking and no thinking eh?

I handed the bindings over to PTM last night too so that is great. She is such a peach!

On top of all that my blogging friend, Allie, called me last night and we are going to meet IRL at the Sewing Expo this Sat. I am very excited about that. I have never been to the Expo and I'm even more excited that I get to meet Allie. If you haven't done so already, stop by her blog and say I sent you! She is a sweetie!!

Packages in the Mail

You may remember that I was talking about this amazing fabric by Ariel awhile back. Isn't is adorable? It is a little expensive but she has it printed and so it is one of a kind and amazingly adorable. You should go and check her out.



Then, as you know, I was involved in a Halloween swap with Jane over at Jane's Fabrics. I fell in love with this witch made by one of the other swappers, Mary. I sent her an email asking if she would like to swap one on one with me and so here is my witch! She also sent along another 9 patch too. I guess this means I need to make another 9 patch to send to her along with an owl. thanks, Mary, she is so creepy!

Then Cheryl, over at Polka Dots and Rick Rack sent me a template and directions to make burp cloths for our Christmas craft show this December. I have managed to make up a few and cut out quite a lot. I will show you those another time. I need to take some pictures too.

I have also become a stunt sewer for LTW. She is much too busy to get her quilts finished so I offered to help. I am working on a quilt for her mom and I will be sure to take some photos tonight so I can tell you all about it tomorrow.

And I almost forgot, I have the Space baby quilt back and will need to bind and label. In addition that teeny, tiny cat wall hanging, I got that back from LTW too. Now I will need to see if PTM will work on the binding for me, hee hee.

I guess I should say that I have received all the Spooktacular Swap blocks in the mail too. I love how this will turn out. I am swapping with a few individual folks outside the regular swap too. I guess you will all want to see the blocks too huh? OK, I will take those pictures tonight too, *sigh*. thanks, Faith for tagging the aqua cat for me. I love her!!

Striking out words

I have had several folks ask how you cross out words, so here is my best attempt at explaining how to do it.

You need to be in the Edit Html mode (not compose) in Blogger.

You will need to put these things<> before and after the words you want to cross off. In the one before the words put an s in the ones after the words you will put /s

The / in the second set tells the program that you end the strike out there.

I kept trying to write it all together but it just keeps crossing it off without showing what you need to do.

I had to have someone tell me too so I could put it on my side bar with my finished quilts crossed off.

Hope this helps! Email me with ??

I'm Still Here

I know I have not posted all week. Why you ask? Because I have been gone 4 out of 5 nights this week while DH was away in Canada. Additionally, I had no camera. He says to me, "Mind if I take your camera , for a whole week?" Me, "Of course I can't live without it, don't mind". So I was cameraless all week, ACK!!!

LTW gave me back my Brazilian Baby quilt. Isn't the quilting cute? I just wanted something quick and cute as it needed to be bound and in the hands of my friend going to Brazil Friday. I got it back on Tuesday, Pauline (the magnificent, or from now on PTM) got the binding all done, by hand and back to me on Wednesday night. I did the label on Thursday night and brought it to my friend on Friday. She is now winging her way to Brazil to deliver it, along with the small wedding remembrance quilt I made for her mom. (I took these with DD1's camera, but it is not the same as having your own with you at all times now is it??)


I like how the back turned out too. I couldn't see putting a big label on the back so I just wrote in one of the coins. Clever, na?


I couldn't resist showing you Mosen, one of the house's quilt inspectors, sleeping on the job. LOL, what a slacker!

Anyhoo, I hope you all had a great week last week. Now that I have my camera back I should be able to post more this week. I was beginning to feel nude without it

Brazilian Baby Quilt

I have a friend that lives in Brazil and she is expecting a little girl in the near future. I wanted to make her a baby quilt but was putting it off. I just realized I have another Brazilian friend (she sits near me at work) and she is going to Brazil in 2 weeks. So I can send it with her if I can get it finished in time. This inspired me to get my act in gear and do something about it. I found the perfect pattern at the Moda Bake Shop. I used 2 charm packs from the line Allspice by Fig Tree. I bought the sashing fabric yesterday, also Allspice fabric, on the Shop Hop with Pauline. I am really happy with how it turned out. What do you think?



I have another one cut out for another friend that is having a baby but this one is a boy so the fabric choices are different. I also bought the sashing fabric for that one yesterday too. If I get it finished today I will post it later. The whole top took me about 4 hours (hard to be exact as I was watching football and trying to get this done).

Have a great Sunday!

Catching Up

I have not written much this week as I have been so busy. I forgot to share the funny and creative "Construction Man" quilt my friend Ruth Ann's son Craig did. Isn't it fab? It is not the lighting, the blues in the sashing do fade in and out. He is here visiting his mom and pop from going to university in Scotland. I will show you his other 3 quilts at another time.


Amy. from the CalicoCat, sent out some "kittens" of her own this last week. I was the lucky recepient of some of the beautiful fabrics. Thanks, Amy!~


Now, in case you were wondering what I did on the Friday that I *finally* had off I will share it with you all. Pauline and I decided to do our own personal Shop Hop. We went to 4 shops on our way to East Lansing to take Kelsey out to dinner. The first shop? Jennifer's in Pinckney. BOTH Pauline and I bought this kit for Forest Friends. Won't it be so cute? I was also looking for fabric to replace fabric for the Big Ten quilt for next year (It is difficult to find). So I found lots of different blacks and some MSU green...score!


Next up was Wendy's Simple Stitching. All fall fabric was 25% off. I bought a yard of the gremlins. The ghosts and cats were on clearance. Pauline and I will share the web fabric and the pumpkins too for a wall hanging that we both have a panel for.



Then I saw this panel. How could I resist? Pauline couldn't resist either. Actually, she has grand kids to make this for. I, on the other hand, have NO excuse!



Then we went to The Stitchery in Howell. I go this book in the clearance section for $2 and then I got this amazing purple fabric for the Big Ten quilt for Northwestern. I also got some background fabric for the baby quilt that I have been working on (sneak preview later).

Next stop...Country Stitches in East Lansing. All this was clearance fabric. Yeah me!!

DD1 and her beau, Jason, went to Mackinac this week and she brought me back this awesome sweat shirt.

I just thought I would share that we went out for dinner and we went to Champps in Lansing. FABULOUS! Look at the chicken nachos that we had as an appetizer! Now you can see everyone.
Pauine, Kelsey's BF Amy, Kesley's Boy Friend, Brad, Kelsey, Jason and Shelby. It was SO , MUCH FUN!!! Pauline left our house at 11am and we got home around 9pm!! What a great day!!

DP 9 Patch's for swap...check!

I hope everyone in the US had a good Labor Day holiday today. I was kind of a slug really. Yesterday I got half of my 9 patches finished and so I finished the other half today and then I cut them into quarters. Here is what 4 of the blocks look like together. I really need to get them on their way to Jane.



Remember, if you want to join in the swap goodness just go over to Jane's blog and sign up. You can click the image on my side bar and it will take you to her blog. C'mon, you know you want to! It didn't take very long at all to have them all finished and ready to go.

I think I am going to take this Friday off from work. I *tried* to take last Friday off but it didn't work. I had something I needed to have a person from work do part of on Thursday so I could take it to my boss to have to work on all weekend. Well, this person went golfing! Now that's OK, but it meant I had to go in on Friday. At which time I realized the boss would only be around until noon. So I prodded the other person to get his part to me and he finally did by around 11:30. So I put it into the document I needed to put it in and then I needed to print. Noooooo, the document (in the slowest program ever) would not allow me to view or print. I worked on it for 20 minutes. Finally, it was ready to print. So I printed it and raced to the boss's office. Nooooooo again. He was in a meeting. So I waited. And waited.....and waited. Finally I went back to the lab and called him. Oh, he would be out of his meeting around 1. Great, and I didn't bring a lunch. Ok deep breath. Go back at 1 an wait. Until 1:15, when they leave his office and he is going to walk the person out. FINE. Wait some more. He comes back with a woman looking for a department that is not even in our building, and he has volunteered me to get her to where she needs to go. FINE, sit down and when we are finished I will help you. 15 minutes later, I go to get Sunshine but need to go back to the lab to email some things to the boss. Get my stuff and take Sunshine to where she needs to go (3 buildings over from ours). Then walk to my car. Finally, I can go home, oh, it's only 2:30. So much for taking Friday off!! Hopefully this time will be better.

I want to go on a shop hop on the way up to see DD2 on Friday. I asked my friend Pauline, to go with me. So we will see how that goes.

Disappearing 9 Patch Swap

I guess you should all know by now that I am addicted to swaps. I love doing them. Maybe because I feel less like I am starting a new project, but I really am, kinda, and that feels great. Does that make any sense at all?? The fabulous Jane over at Jane's Fabric, is hosting another swap. This time it is a disappearing 9 patch in aqua and red. (We got to vote on the block and the colors). I think there is still room so if you want to join go on over and check it out. I think these are the fabrics I am going to use. I need to sew 25 of these and then cut them into quarters.

Well, I'm off to IKEA with DH (I'd rather be here) to shop for stuff for DS's room. Let me know what you think of the fabrics.

Big Ten Spartan Football

Does it get any better than this? Watching MSU trounce an opponent while designing? I didn't think so!! DD2 and all her friends were doing a little too much "pre-gaming" so I got a nice, loud phone call this am. I hope they have fun at the game. It is a beautiful day for it.

Me, I am watching the game and thought I would work on the rest of the owls for my "Storybook Owls" pattern. You are getting to see the raw designs. Meet Doc. He is a pretty smart owl.


Then let me introduce you to Wicked. She is the step mom of Snowy the snow white owl. That will be a mirror to her left and notice the Celtic style of crown built into her head.

So it is after the game and I finished 2 more. Meet Dopey and

This is Bashful.


I will probably work on the rest of them after the game and after a trip to Sam's club. DH is talking about making wings and smoking a chicken (YUM) so I want to encourage him =)

If you get a minute, let me know what you think of the newest additions to the flock.

Jelly Baskets give away

The Quilt Shoppe is having a give away of the pattern Jelly Baskets, by Fig Tree Quilts over at their blog. They are asking us to send people their way and for you to leave a comment on their blog. You get an extra chance for everyone that comments and another one if you become a follower.

That means if you are reading this I am inviting you to go and leave a comment on their blog for a chance to be entered in the drawing. They are choosing 3 winners so get going and tell them Mama Spark sent you.

A New, and Fabulous, Fabric Designer

Some of you know about her fabulous work and some of you may be like me and may not have found her yet. If you have not please let me introduce you to the fabulous designs of Ariel. She has a blog and she has and ETSY (Pocketfullofpinwheels) and her fabric is reminiscent of Heather Ross. Here is a sneak peek at some of her work. (used with her permission, of course!)



She is not a part of any label and has her fabric printed individually from her own art work. I just bought some of the Lily Red Riding Hood and Millie Miss Muffet but her Willard Gnome and Red Robots are equally wonderful. This is an up and coming fabric designer. Take a minute to go and visit her blog and her ETSY and grab some of her fabric while you can and be the first one to own original Ariel work! Just think some day you can say,"Oh. I bought her stuff when she was just beginning". Not everyone will be able to say that!

Seriously, go there right now and tell her I sent you!

And The Winner Is...

You have been waiting all morning for this announcement. I had Jason draw the winner. This is who he drew....



Number 77

Sew Cal Gal!!!

So please email me your address and I will get the fabric in the mail. Congratulations to you and thanks to everyone who left me a comment!!