Mad Science Quilt

 I finally have my Mad Science quilt back from my long arm quilter friend in California.  She custom quilted it and did an absolutely fabulous job!  I won't be gifting it for awhile but thought I would share.  My boss does not read this blog or go on Facebook so I am safe as long as no one blabs!

I worked for the Kunkel Lab for 35/36 years while at the University of Michigan.

Mary's pattern had a different center but this worked for my purposes.

Love these flasks!

Microscopes were used daily

We made antibodies in our rabbits and used the antibodies for other tests and staining.

Mouse

My favorite block in the whole quilt!

I made this mouse dark like the C57BL6 mice we used.

DNA.  Note the nucleotide colors, LOL

Also the "DNA" wallpaper

I had to extract DNA to genotype the mice we used in our lab.

New Zeeland White rabbit

Jingle Ball

I hand embroidered an outline around the rabbits so they would show up better.

I worked, for many years, with New Zeeland White bunnies.

All of my bunnies were antibody donors.

They were all named, and they were all long term animals.

I loved my bunnies and used to provide them with treats and enrichment.

One of their favorite toys were the orange "Jingle balls".

They had circular holes and had metal washers inside.  

They used to pick them up and toss them and chew on them.

This was not part of Mary's original pattern but it really meant something to me.

In the 36 years I have worked in my lab my boss has progressed up the ladder.

He became busy with grant writing and other administrative duties.

He spent less and less time in the lab but

 the one thing he never stopped was the immunization of the rabbits.  

He was very allergic to them but insisted on doing the immunizations himself.

He would proudly state that it was the only lab duty he still had left!

I also hand embroidered the label, but for privacy reasons I am not comfortable showing that.

I am not certain when I will gift this.  I am back working part time for him, mostly remotely, until his retirement in a few more years.

I would love to know what you all think!

~XOP~

Vote For Finn

 I entered Finny in a contest to become America's Favorite Pet!

We would LOVE it if you would go to their website and vote for him.  You are allowed to vote once a day. This is the photo on the website.  You can click on this link and vote for Finn!  We would really appreciate it if you can vote, Vote, VOTE!  We would also love it if you would share on your social media pages too.

THANK YOU MY FRIENDS!

~XOP~

Let's go Do Something

 Yesterday hubby wanted to go out somewhere and do "something".  

I suggested we go for a bike ride since it was already afternoon.  We went out for a 5 mile ride.  Then I worked in the garden.

I suggested we go to a little town about an hour away for today.  So this am we packed up some drinks and our hats, masks and hand sanitizer and headed for Mason.  We really enjoy going there and it is not too far away.  There are 2 quilt shops there.  One is inside Kean's General Store and it's one of my favorites.  They always seem to have fabrics I can only find online.  They did not disappoint today either.  I was able to score some Little Red by Meags and Me, some Beauty and the Beast by Jill Howath and some Scardy Cat by Jedi Craftgirl.  I also got the cutest Dear Stella Christmas fabric!

Just in case anyone is interested I took a photo of the Tula they had for sale at Kean's.

I'm sure you can call them and order if you see something you think you may need.

Keans was having a drawing and I got 30% off my next purchase.

Well, I saw this cute platter that I wanted for the camper, so we went and had lunch first.

Then we went back and I picked this beauty up!

.

Lunch was at the local food truck outside the Bad Beer Brewery.

I got a great pic of hubby eating his pork sandwich!

While walking around the downtown we saw some great painted rocks.

Which one is your favorite?

I, of course love the cat!  

I thought of my friend Paula when I took this photo.

It's funny, but when I first saw the rocks I thought, there should be a peacock one...and there was!

This was my favorite and also the largest.  Boulder sized!

I always enjoy seeing their court building.

It reminds me of one of the last outings we took my dad on and I took his photo here just like this.

Well, this got a bit long, so I will continue the rest of the trip tomorrow.

We went to Pinckney and stopped at Jennifer's Quilt shop.

I'm thinking you may want to see what I found there too!

~XOP~

Scrap Snap Blocks

I have decided to work on a Scrap Snap quilt.  It's a quilt along hosted by Quilts for the making over on Instagram.  I was going to make a version that has rainbow blocks and low volume blocks but may change my mind and do one of each.  I'm just not sure about that yet.  Here is one set of the LV blocks and one set of the yellow blocks.

I just love making the blocks!  It has been fun going through my scraps! I must confess I had a really difficult time coming up with enough yellow scraps so dipped into my yellow fabrics.  

I got my science quilt back from my quilting friend in California recently.  I decided to bind it in a yellow with white polka dots.

I will show the whole quilt once I get it all bound.  The quilting was amazing!  I am so happy that I have friends that can do such awesome custom work.

I was also working on the quilt for the grand baby.  It's the Big Sky kit and Finny was "helping".

I am slowly making my way through the sewing.  I did sew one block incorrectly and cut it !  YIKES!  THAT was not good as I didn't have a piece big enough to make another block.  I decided to just piece one to make it large enough so I made it work.  Most of the other fabrics that came in this kit would have had enough to re-cut but not the one I actually needed, of course.

I also appliqued the eyes to the wrong background, d'oh!!!  Luckily there was enough to re-do the eyes and the mistake background fabric. (it was just a plain white fabric).  I'm not fond of kits for just this reason.  Unless they include "extra" if you make a mistake you can be in trouble.  Or if you put off making it and need more it is often times no longer easily available.

How do you guys feel about using a kit?  

I spent most of today setting up an government savings account for my older sister (that I am guardian for).  It took so long to do that to to communicate with her financial person.  I tried to take time to read the over 23 pages of  rules but it kept timing out on me so I finally just signed the paper to set up the account.  I was able to tell my sister's financial person some things she didn't know about these accounts though because I read all the information and took screen shots of things I was concerned about.  It's all finally set up and ready to go.  PHEW!  

We went out for a bike ride and went 5 miles!  Once we got home I worked out in the yard for a bit and now am running the sprinkler so my poor plants could get a drink.  We have had so little rain this summer.

I haven't even made it to the sewing room today!  I likely will just work on binding tonight so that quilt can be finished.  Tomorrow we are going to to a cute local town to wander around, for something fun to do.  (There are 2 quilt shops there too).

What are you up to today?

~XOP~

Socially Distant Baby Showers

 Last weekend we were in NC for our daughter and SIL's baby showers. Their friends were having one on Saturday and we were hosting one for our family and friends. Two of her friends hosted first.  They came over and set up some very cute and delish food.  We set up pop up tents outside with tables and they scheduled when friends could stop by so there were only a few folks there at the same time.  Then after the drive by folks came by the Zoom shower began.  

Here you see the pregnant mama and her 2 friends that hosted the party.

Many gifts were dropped off.

These were the tents and tables we set out.  

My daughter and SIL are on the left and

 the minister that married them and his pregnant wife is on the right

Nick's mom made those adorable hats!

 Then on Sunday we hosted the family shower.

  On Friday I opened all the Amazon boxes and combined the gifts and wrapped them all in brown paper and tied them up with Tulle ribbon.  

My sweet sister in law bought this mobile for the baby and sent all the decorations and the food.

She also sent this tiara for Kelsey to wear during the shower too.

To be replaced with a flower crown later.

Grammy-Mama-to-be-Gigi

Gige, mama and daddy to be, and Papa

I gave her some sheets for the crib, and a chenille blanket for the first shower.

We also bought the mattress and the baby monitor.

We tried to help with a few of the more expensive necessities.

The colors are not true in this photo.  It was navy and green.  I used the Tula true colors for the back.

The big gift I made was the milestone mat.  I'm not sure it was exactly what she wanted size wise.  It turned out a little on the large size.  I used left over blocks from their wedding quilt for the center.  I paper pieced the letters and numbers.  I used a aqua minky for the back.

It was a whirlwind of a weekend. 

~XOP~