I'M A WINNER TOO!!

Ok, OK, there is so much excitement over here at Mama Spark's life I can barely stand it! I just won a giveaway too over at Kim's Big Quilting Adventure!! It is a new to me, book!!! So you win and I win it's a win-win kinda day.

Speaking of which this is my 26th wedding anniversary today!! My DH won't be home until after midnight tonight so we will celebrate either tomorrow or this weekend. I don't know what we will do but something fun, I hope!

In addition, this is my 400th post!!!! Who knew I had so much to say in my life?? Hope I haven't bored you all up to this point! I want to do a give away to celebrate that too so I will think on it and see what I can come up with. I'll have to get back to you on this one.

Now I wanted to post about the flock that is growing at my house. Flock of owls I mean. I have them all fused down, all 12 of them, and I can't decide which one I like the best.

Here is my Happy flock:


Here is my Sleepy flock:


Here is my Grumpy flock:

I just need to stitch around them all and then send them to Jane for the swap (yep that's *all* I have to do). No problem, should be done in a couple of weeks days, since they are due SEPTEMBER 1st, no problem!

I made a table runner awhile back and decided to give it to my SIL that turned 50 and she immediately put it on her table! Looks good. It matches the anniversary quilt I made them. I know their colors! I have a small wall hanging done with those fabrics that could go there too but it has cats on it and they are dog people so i'll probably keep it.

I also worked on getting my Fresh Squeezed quilt done. My GF Pauline did all the hand stitching of the binding and gave it back to me recently. It has been so rainy here I couldn't take a proper photo to show it to you but here you go

The last thing is that I wanted to share some of my beautiful garden with you. Here is my fabulous Moon flower plant. The flowers open up at night. You can see them closed up during the day. This is the front of my house.

Yesterday I went to a baby shower for my niece that just had the most beautiful baby (I'll post about that tomorrow). I saw this beautiful Monarch on the way out of my front door. It was so beautiful! Have a wonderful day!!

TODAY IS THE DRAWING!!!

I couldn't wait to do the drawing until DH gets home because it will be after midnight and I just couldn't wait that long. Could you?? No, I didn't think so! So without further ado...

All the comments were placed into the recycling bin at work and DD1 reached in and



Pulled out the winner!! Who happened to be...


GARI!!! Congratulations!!!! I will contact you with the code that Anne sent me last night. If you use the code when you check out it will work. It is good for 2 weeks. (sorry about the Sponge bob thing, DD couldn't resist!)

Well, I was thinking about this long and hard and I decided that I needed to do a second drawing. My DD2 says that second place is the first loser but in this case it is another winner. I was so thrilled to receive the fabric from Anne and that is what I *really, really* wanted so...
I am giving up my code to the second winner. DD draw again! Here she goes....

And the winner is Pauline (her comments wouldn't, for some reason show up on the blog the first time she sent them so I took her email and used that for her comment) Congratulations, Pauline!!! I'll be sending you the code so check your email!!


Thanks everyone for taking the time to comment and for following my blog. Thanks, also to Anne for being so generous and donating the gifties.

Bunny Hill Give Away

Just a quick note to let you know that comments for the give away are now closed. I had 297 comments and will add in all the second and third chances today. My DH, when he gets home, will draw the winning ticket tomorrow night and I will post once I know who has won.

GOOD LUCK to everyone!! Thanks for visiting my blog and keep buying from Anne over at Bunny Hill. Thanks for being so generous too, Anne!!

Sleepys

I got all 4 sleepys fused. Just thought I'd share...



I love them all! My little flock is growing.

Gotta stop and get ready to go celebrate with the birthday girl!!

Meet Sleepy

I know I just posted but I am working on the owls and finally got a photo of the elusive Sleepy Owl. (and Yes, Diane I am considering making the "Dwarf Owls", what do you think??)

I give you...Sleepy Owl



I will have to use several different backgrounds as I only had one piece of this but I am planning on making them all dark.

Welcome Sleep Owl into the flock!

Big Ten Quilt 09

I got up early this am to press and trim the centers for the Big Ten quilt. I thought I would show you what I am talking about. My friend, Robin, designed the logos to fit into a 5.5" square. I get all the fun of tracing, fusing, cutting, fusing and appliquing and pressing and trimming! WHEW! This is how the "Big Ten" block came out. Now you may be asking "Why did she make a Big Ten block when 10 logs would make a fine quilt?" My answer? Look closely at the Beg Ten logo. See anything ? Look really, really hard at the "T". Yep, there is an "11" because there are actually 11 schools in the Big Ten! You can't make as wonderful a quilt with 11 blocks, hence the Bit Ten block.


This is the school they added. Penn State and this is their logo, the Nittny Lion. Let me tell you what a pain he is to stitch around. My most hated one to do! He came out fairly well though.

The Iowa Hawkeye is the second most hated and I put a quarter by him so you can see that the blocks are not really that big. I like how he came out too.


The kits are complete all I need is Ohio, Illinois and Northwestern to be embroidered and I am ready for the sew-a-thon to make 2 of these quilts at Robin's house in 2 weeks.

I really want to work on the owls but we will see how that goes since we are heading to see DD this afternoon.

I hope you all have a productive weekend too! I'm getting close to my 400th post, can you believe it? I am planning on some kind of giveaway to celebrate so stay tuned. Probably won't happen until after the Bunny Hill giveaway, but maybe I will have to see how busy I am!

Meet Happy

I had Quilt-Till-You-Wilt today at the church so I brought, what else? The owls. I managed to get all 4 happy owls cut out and I actually got 2 fused to the background. Unfortunately the color of the background didn't show up very well, it is kind of washed out but it is a spooktacular green!


There are 2 versions of Happy. I will be making 4 of him 2 each way. Which way do you like best??

I got all the stitching done around the centers of the Big Ten blocks except for Northwestern as LTW needs to embroider the cat and then I will put the "N" around it and do the stitching that way. The most difficult is always the Nittany Lion of Penn State. I really hate going around that one, but they are done! YEAH!!

At 7:47 tomorrow morning my sweet baby girl (DD2) turns 21!! I always thought it fitting that she was born at that time with her daddy being a pilot and all.

Hopefully I will be able to get all the rest of the owls fused tomorrow before we go to take said DD out for dinner to celebrate her big day!

Wild and Wacky Wednesday

Yesterday was a roller coaster of a day. It began well enough. I had a busy day at work and everything worked out well which is unusual when it is so packed. Then I went home, dun, dun dunnnnnn...

The beginning of the evening was GREAT! Look what came in the mail for me from Anne Sutton's personal stash!



She told me that after reading what I wrote (about looking for this fabric) that she has some in her secret stash and so would send me a yard. What a wonderful lady, THANK YOU SO MUCH, ANNE!!!

Then came the event that panicked me. I have been saving some money for something and a HUGE chunk of it was missing!!! I looked everywhere. I am not sure whether I misplaced it or if, during our graduation party, someone took it, or a friend of the kids took it. I am just SICK over it (it was THAT much money, over $1000). I am still holding out hope that I somehow misplaced it or put it in a "safe" place that I am just not remembering. Please pray for me to St. Anthony (patron saint of lost stuff) that he will help me to find it. That's all I am going to say about it for now or I will begin to panic again.

It was quilting night at CHV so I had to get my stuff together and get going. "Breathe, Pam, just breathe and go to quilting, you can do it." So I got my stuff together and went. It was probably the best thing I could have done. I didn't talk about the money and I just focused on my owls. I managed to get the fusible fused to the owl fabrics for 2 of the owls, one set of 4 owls cut out and one owl of another set cut out. I didn't think to take photos of the first one (Sleepy) but he is all cut out and ready to fuse to the backgrounds. I got one of Grumpy cut out and it is not fused down but it looks like this:



I am pleased with how he turned out. I liked the sleepy one too but as I said I forgot to take pics of him. I am planning to work on them tonight so will show you more tomorrow or so.

My DF Pauline is in the swap with me too and she is making crows. Last week at CHV I drew crows/ravens for her and here is a sneak peek at 2 of her blocks. She has a couple of other designs too that aren't done yet but these are awesome. she doesn't have a blog so I asked her if I could put them on mine. I think this one is my favorite. I like how the feet curl into the eye socket.


The second one is a variation on the first.
Can you believe this one? She paper pieced the bit on the bottom of the block. *Over achiever!!*



So there you have a sneak peek at our Spooktacular Swap blocks. I think they are coming out very well. Our other friend, Sharon, has spiders so I think we will be helping her with those soon.

As I said in a previous post, I have also been working on the Big Ten blocks for the center of each of the blocks. This is what my sewing table looks like at the moment, covered with Big Ten kits.



They are all fused and now I need to stitch around them all. There are 11 schools in the Big Ten so we added the "Big Ten" block too. We are making 2 quilts each time until the 5 of us each have a quilt for ourselves too. That means I have 22 blocks to stitch around. I will have 12 owls to do at the same time. The BT blocks need to be finished by Aug 29 and the owls need to be arriving at Jane's on Sept 1st!

Wait, can someone please add a few more days to August?

I'm Just Sayin'

I know this is a little thing but it keeps coming up and it really, really oh and did I say REALLY bugs me. My blog name is Mama Spark's World. I am NOT a PARK. I am the mama of Sparkle (DD#1) Please, please, please...there is an apostrophe in the name meaning the world of Mama Spark.

I AM NOT A PARK!!!

They call my DD1 Sparkle. Her friends call me Mama Spark. I know some of you already know this but since there are new people and so I thought I would go over it yet again.

I think the reason I dislike it SO much is because I am weight sensitive, when you call me a park I feel like you are saying, she is as big as a house. See? That doesn't feel very good to me.

If you consider yourself a friend or you want to be please:

It's Mama Spark

*climbing off the soap box now*

SIGH

Kelsey's Big Adventure to the Galapagos Islands

So here is my baby on her big adventure to the Galapagos Islands. She did a study abroad for school there. Nice huh?


There are tons of sea lions all over and she swam with this one and got some really neat photos. You can see them all over on my Flickr account if you want to go and take a look.


This is the only place in the whole world that has marine iguanas. They learned to feed on the algae underwater. Each of the islands has a different iguana. Only one kind on each of the islands.

I told her this one looks like he has corn stuck all over it! He is not an underwater feeder. I think it is just the black ones.

Doesn't he look like he could take over the world? Their black color makes them blend into the lava rocks.

Here is one underwater feeding. Notice the fish checking him out? Apparently they are everywhere and very territorial so the fish was trying to scare the iguana away!

Chocolate chip star fish (I think that's what she called it)

They swam around the sea turtles too.

And swam through these caverns. So cool!

Here is the BIG goofball underwater. Taking a photo of herself!

Then after the course was done she and her friend Roya took this "bus" (and I use the term loosely) to Banos for a few days. They actually flew into Quito Ecuador and took a boat to the GI. It is over 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador! Anyway, back to Banos. They stayed at a hostel run by an Australian family and said it was very nice.

Ond day they rode bikes about 10 miles to go to this waterfall. It rained the whole time! The waterfall is beautiful (and so is she). Then they needed to get back and everyone told them to just flag down a "bus" but when they tried, all the people just waved back at them and kept going! LOL. She was quite a novelty while she was there since there are no native blondes. One native told her that blonde equals power!

She had a wonderful time and learned a lot and made it back safely. What an experience! She will be turning 21 on Sunday, she just missed the 8/8/88 birthdate. Started out a little bit late and still is a little late!! Love ya, Kelsey!!

By Gosh I think She's Done It!

What is "IT" you ask? I *think* I have figured out a way to make a website and post (at this time only some) some of the "My Neighborhood" blocks!

I will put in a link here and you go and see if it works and let me know if you can see, and download the patterns from there, K?

You should see Jack in the header and the site is called,...wait for it...wait for it...

Mama Spark's World

I know right? SHOCKER!!!

Hmmm...I guess you *can* teach an old dog new tricks!

I will have to let Mary know that she no longer needs to do it for me as I can do it all by myself if this works.

Let me know what you see (and be kind, we geezers need encouragement ya know?)

XOXO

More Fabric to share

You all saw my creepy bunnies? Well they have some company in these creepy deer. How can you not love these guys?


Since I am showing some of the fabric I purchased lately and lest you think it is all creepy (to prepare for the Spooktacular Swap) I got my back ordered Christmas fabrics from the Sherri Barry collection. I love the retro colors!

When we went to the Sylvania quilt show there was a vendor that had this fabric and I thought it was so appropriate for my husband and daughter that hunt (he also fishes) The target "tatoo" on the deer was funny.

My friend, Judith brought a top to work that she had finished over the weekend. Using QuiltSmart she made this beautiful lone star using Kaffe Fassett fabric. I just thought I would share it with all of you too. She did a fabulous job. I would never have put those colors together but I love how it turned out. You can see the fabrics better in the close up. LTW just walked over to pick it up and take it to her house to do the quilting for her also. What service, I tell ya!

I'm still working on Big Ten blocks. I got all the school symbols fused to the color, and cut out now I need to fuse them to the background and do the stitching around them. *Then* I can work on my owls! What are you all working on this week??

WOWZA

I can't believe all the wonderful comments on the last post! All my comments go to my gmail and then to my phone and the phone has been chiming away! There are too many comments for me to respond to individually so thank you everyone for leaving nice comments and for following my blog too. I do hope you will be back after the drawing. Anne has posted about it in her blog now too so if you didn't make it over there to leave her a comment please take a minute to let her know how much we all appreciate her generosity too!

What have you all been working on over the weekend? I really wanted to work on my owls but got really side tracked by the World Champoinship swimming on Saturday. A friend of my daughter's swam in the 200 free (probably other things too but I didn't watch today, I recorded it for later so I could get something done!)She placed 2nd and broke the American record! Not too shabby I think. I don't know how their relays did but will look it up and let you know later. I have posted about Allison before when she swam in the Olympics. She is a really nice girl and we are all so proud of her!

I looked up Allison's 400 free and she placed 4th in that. Then she swam in the 2 X 200 relay and that took second place!!

So what did I work on all day today? Well it is that time again. Time for the annual Pathology quilt raffle and so time for the Big Ten quilt to re-surface. This time the blocks will be an Ohio Star. I had to cut out the "kits" for each of the blocks. We are making 2 quilts this year too. I suggested that since it would be awkward if one of the people making this quilt were to win in why not do 2 each year until we all have our own? So the first one is going to Yuki since she will be going back to Japan before we make the one for next year. As I was cutting I thought maybe it would be nice for the person receiving the quilt to also choose the block. (I'd like to say cut the kits and applique the centers but I suspect I would be over ruled) What do you think? If you were going to receive the quilt would you want to choose the block?
Since I don't have any pictures of this wonderful process, I will leave you with a photo that DD2 took in the Galapagos Islands of a Blue Footed Booby. They are only found in the GI and this one had a chick. I have TONS of GI photos on my flicker account if you are interested. It is a beautiful place and I will share more later.

BUNNY HILL GIVE AWAY!!!

The comments are now closed for this give away. I will be drawing tomorrow and will post the winner tomorrow probably when DH gets home since I want him to draw the winning person!


Most of you saw my post about my purchases from Bunny Hill and how much I LOVE them right? If not, you better go back and look at it. Well Anne Sutton (the designer from Bunny Hill) contacted me by email today. If that was not exciting enough in itself she read my blog (her assistant brought it to her attention, thank you Anne). She liked what I had to say and generously offered to donate a $50 gift certificate for me to use in a give away for one of you lucky winners to use on her website shop! Isn't that amazing? See I told you she is wonderful!! The best part? One of you will win a gift certificate and I get one too! WOO HOO!

Here is what I want you to do. Tell me which Bunny Hill patterns or fabric(s) you love and what you would buy with the gift certificate. Leave it in the comment section of this post. I need to have a way to contact you so please make sure you leave your email address. This will give you one chance to win.

If you want a second chance, blog about this giveaway on your blog linking back to this post. Let me know that you did that too.

Want a third chance to win? Follow my blog. If you already do, just remind me in your comment.

That's it, pretty cool huh? So you should be leaving something like this:

-My favorite Bunny Hill designs are the ones with the rabbits, especially Rabbits Prefer Embroidery.
-I posted about the give away on my blog
-I have loved you forever, Mamaspark and followed your blog from the first! (or just now = )

I will have my DH do the drawing on August 13th my 26th wedding anniversary! Good Luck!!

Got it?? GOOD! Now go forth and spread the word!! And if you think about it go to Anne's blog too and let her how much you all appreciate her generosity!

Deer Tails and Bunny Tales

Funny title huh? On my way home from work on the campus of the University of Michigan we saw 2 fawns. It is kind of difficult for you to see them and you can really just see one but they are there. My DD1 was with me and has a better photo but she forgot to send it to me. She took pics with her camera first and by the time she got to mine they were more into the forest.

DD1 sent me this photo and you can see both of the fawns. (Both butts as someone pointed out, and you know who you are...) Aren't they so adorable??

I think you will appreciate that as I was coming into work today I was thinking about what I would blog about. I asked DD if she had sent me the pics of the fawns, but no she had not. So I was left with my less than desirable photo. Too bad for me (for you too as they were adorable!) I was NOT happy that I had no good photos to blog today. It was a really busy day in the lab though so I am just getting around to posting now. BUT... In the mean time, I have some exciting news! There will be a really, really good give away in my next post. I am waiting for something before I post but should be posting later tonight so please stop back in. *Trust me* you will NOT be sorry that you did.

Intrigued? Stay tuned...