The Good, The Bad, and the Pretty

The Good

After my little meltdown last week, my family has been working much harder at giving me a break. 

One day Amy (my DD) came over and took Stephen for an amazing 10 hours! Did you hear me?! I said 10 hours!!!

And she took him away--I didn't have to leave the house. Even better!

The first half of the day Jerry was home. We enjoyed a nice lunch out at our local Mexican restaurant. Just the two of us. That never happens! We both were laughing at how enjoyable it was to eat without salsa and chips spread all over us, the table, and who knows where else. And after dinner Jerry drove me to one of our LQS's. (We have a few.)

This time I chose to go to Tula Pink's shop. I spent some time drooling over Crabapple Hill and Vintage Spool patterns. I really really am tempted to make some of those Vintage Spool quilts. 

The second half of the day Jerry had to go to work so I spent the evening sewing. Amy and I were talking that morning about some quick, easy things that I could sew up that wouldn't take as long as quilts that I might be able to sell next summer at craft shows. We came up with some ideas for pillows and pillow cases.

The Bad

I was so excited to show Amy the pillow and pillowcases that I had made that evening in my free time.

But the minute she looked at them she completely burst my bubble.

Her words, "Mom, you gotta quit thinking old. Its the twenty somethings that like to just waste money and will buy anything. You have to think in colors they would like. I don't think anyone would put green, yellow and blue birds in their bedroom. Kitchen maybe but not bedroom."

The Pretty

Well, I don't care what my daughter says. I like them. 

Oops. Thinking old again. Oh well.

What do you think? And be honest. I am trying to make some pennies here!

(When I start selling these I will just sell the pillowcases with no pillow and then the smaller pillow to match.)

Oh and click to zoom. I really tried to match the bird and the leaves to the yellow fabric. 

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Mabry Mill

Block CI

10 pieces

I bet you never got PT rolls in the mail

My husband is completely jealous.

Each and every week you all just keep blessing me with surprises. 

When Marcia sent me her hearts for the charity quilt, she loaded the box with extra surprises.

Quilt note cards--I love to enclose these with each quilt that I make. They are so fun!

You can find all the designs Right Here.

Next....1) Pattern--I have been wanting to try this pattern. It especially interests me for quick easy charity quilts. I am anxious to try it with different colors...one in blues another in green, etc. I love color play!

2) Charm pack--Marcia is a long arm quilter and she makes up these so that you have a selection of what fabrics she carries for quilt backings. Of course the fabrics can be used for anything...not just backing.

I love having the rainbow. I might be ordering a couple more of these Marcia. At $4.00-- they are too fun for EPP.

3) Batting--for my Mabry Mill quilt. It is Hobbs 80/20 (I think) and I've been wanting to try that. I never have  tried Hobbs batting before. 

Before I show you the next gift she sent I need to show you my poor old pin cushions.

This one has been leaking sawdust everywhere for a good year now:

And this one got dropped and broke. It really looks like just a couple of magnets but it used to be a magnetic pin holder. I don't like using this because you are not supposed to have magnets around computers--computerized machines, etc.

Problem solved thanks to Marcia!

(If you remember, it made it's appearance last week on some Mabry Mill photos. It is being used!)

The bottom of the box was filled with so much fun, are you ready for this?

Oh, YES! Empty paper towel rolls. I was so excited!!

Why?  See HERE.

No one has sent me TP or PT rolls before. 

Too too cool!!

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Mabry Mill

Block CG

7 pieces

Block CH

9 pieces

And the two added together:

My other hobby--revisited

This post was first published right at a year ago but since we had so many of you that have never heard of geocaching I am republishing today. I have modified it a bit though to keep things new and fresh.)

Geocaching. 

I love it. 

(modification---I used to love it. It is fun but not like it use to be. Toddlers and bad knees--neither are geocaching friendly)

Most people anymore have heard of it. 

But, if you don't know what it is, here is a quick run down:

I use one of these:

To hunt for one of these:

Or one of these:

Inside I find things like this:

But, all I really care about is signing this:

(Modification: I actually only care about finding neat places for my family to hike and things to see.)

So that I can get add my numbers to this:

HBmamaG...that's me.

It stands for HillbillymamaGoose

Where are these caches?

You name it!

 There is one on the International Space Station, 

and one at the lowest point in the ocean. 

And everywhere in between. 

When you are walking along the path in your local park...

chances are...there is one there.

(Modification---when I started this years ago people took the time to put caches in really neat places. Now they are all over and in some really really stupid places too. It makes me angry.)

I have taken many a friend caching. 

Here is Seth and our beloved Dawg at Dawg's first cache. 

The cache is hidden under the rock.

Dawg was a great cache partner...he loved to play in the woods.

This is Joy.

One day I was geocaching in a state park. I was hidden from view-- high up on a hill. 

I saw a jeep back up to the park trail

and pop open the back end.

It scared me at first as the man was acting strange.

Turns out he was 'dumping' a dog.

But that's ok, as I was there to save her.

She ran right up the trail into my arms. 

The best cache treasure ever found!!

Geocaching is now pretty much on the backburner. 
It is something to do occasionally when I am dying to get out of the house.
For us it is a better winter hobby than summer. 
(modification--that would be why my leg is currently covered in poison ivy.)

Want to find out more?

Check it out yourself.

Geocaching.Com

You can even do a search for caches in your area.

Stephen's Sunday Outing

My mommy and me have this problem. My Nanny from Texas keeps writing and asking me to go on an Adventure. But there is only so much adventure one little boy can do when he is expected to work all day long. 

When I am not scrubbing floors, I am doing my school work.

Mommy says she is very impressed with how I hold my pencil.

Sure wish she would learn to take better photos:

Even though I work very hard during the week,

Mommy lets me take a break on Sundays.

Last Sunday we decided to go do some hiking in the woods, and maybe find another geocache or two.

Plus, my Bubba and Sissy and Coco were going to come along.

It is ALWAYS an adventure when Sissy comes.

Like this time. Momma told her we were gonna hike in the woods.

And look what she showed up wearing:

Does that stop my Sissy? No way, cuz she is cool!

She found the first cache even!

See it hidden there? 

Sis brought it out for all of us to look inside:

The next place we went was a school.

Leave it to mommy to make us go to school on the weekend!

Sissy said it looked like a Hillbilly school.

'Course you all know that I am a very good helper. 

I wanted to start right in fixing that roof!

One place that we went had these trolls. The cache was supposed to be under the bridge.

Ha Ha! The joke is on YOU!

The trolls stole the cache. Bubba and Sissy never found it either but they looked hard. 

See me giggling?

Bubba didn't think it was funny.

Sometimes when we go caching we run into wild animals and dangerous situations.

This cache had a snail right in the way and it made Mommy and Sissy get all silly and they wouldn't touch it. Bubba and I had to save the day.

Then, on these dangerous tracks Coco found a toad.

It was her turn to save the day.

When it was starting to get late, I helped my Sissy out by letting her carry me. 

I needed to make sure she wasn't too worn out to drive, you know.

'Course I could'a gone on forever.

Cept Momma said I had to go home and clean my dirty shoes.

I wonder if I work really hard again this week if mommy will let us have another adventure?

Upside down!

{ See if you can spot the upside down mistake in the post before I point it out to you. I never noticed the mistake until I was typing this blog post.}

I am so slow to blog some things. I keep everything on a big list, and I just work my way down the list. 

Someone asked to see photos of projects with the new Go Baby that I won, and then was gifted several dies. 

I haven't had time to make anything yet. (We won't go there again.)

I did cut a few 5" squares from scraps. I might even blog about it someday.

Or even better, I might have time to start a new project soon! Yay! 

I'll just be slow to blog about it when I do. :)

Speaking of projects, I have received several hearts in the mail for the charity quilt.

First came these two from Snoodles.

Bless her heart, they were full of sweat and tears. 

Paper piecing was not her thing but she plugged away, and she did it!

The purple is pretty, but I am loving that Mario. It made me laugh!

Next came some hearts from Marcia.

She really has a lot on her plate, each day seems to be harder right now, 

so I was so surprised when she sent me 6 blocks!

I absolutely love those big pink flowers. I need some of that fabric I think.

And that's not all! She actually sent a whole box of things that I will blog about next week,

but I do want to share that she sent this along with the heart blocks:

It is a whole roll of 2 1/2" strips for me to use for sashing and binding!

Neat, huh?

Next came a block all the way from Annette in Australia.

I think she knows that blue is my favorite color. 

We have sort of discussed that sort of in a way recently. 

(I like to be confusing at times but she will know exactly what I mean.)

I really have enjoyed getting these blocks. I need about 19 more for a nice size quilt and I was going to just  break into my stash and start making them, but then I stopped myself.

Why can't I just make them as I go along with scraps from other projects?

There is no hurry on this one. So that is what I am going to do. I am just going to make them here and there as I finish projects. That will be more fun and add to the variety that have already made their way here.

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Mabry Mill

BLOCK CE

11 pieces

Block CF 

6 pieces

Now we need to put these blocks together in this order:

Put CC, CD, and CE together first.

Then add CF to the bottom of these

This whole section can now be added to your CA-CB section.

Would you LOOK at that?? I just noticed as I was typing...my CF is UPSIDE DOWN!

When fixed the tree will match up better and there won't be just half a building in the middle of the field. 

(I am giggling at myself.)

Good grief. I will be doing some seam ripping this weekend. 

Ugh for always having to RUSH through things. 

Well, no more. Nope. Never. 

(Yeah, right.)

Ps...Stephen just might be here on Saturday. 

Experimenting with the Pilot FriXion Pens

 I have read several blogs talk about the Frixion pens, so you know me...

I had to go get some just to try out for you all!

They come in a pack of three, containing one each of red, blue and black.

I let Seth do the experimenting as I thought he would enjoy it.

First I had him write his name out... first, middle, and last each in a different color.

Then to really test it, I had him make a box of each color that was really shaded in using a lot of ink.

You know our habit is to do things late at night with bad lighting but it is on mustard color fabric with red, then blue, then black.

We have been reading that all one needs to do is use the iron and the marks will disappear.

Well, they did. Instantly. But, yet, did they really?

The fabric is still mustard but I used the flash to make that little square show up. See it? It's white.

On the entire piece, all the ink color was gone but all left white residue.

Now for the best part of the experiment. The box says that if it freezes...then the ink will show back up!

Now what if you used one of these markers to draw out your quilting lines,

and then you donated it to charity, and it ended up on some Eskimo in an igloo, and all your markings showed back up? It could happen! 

So Seth and I just threw that fabric in the freezer for five minutes.

Look at that. The color started showing back up. Especially blue. 

This just won't work at all. I can't have an Eskimo seeing my marking lines.

So we tried one final experiment. I threw it in the washing machine along with my other cold wash items.

Would you look at that? That fabric even turned mustard again!

And every bit of the residue was gone. We even froze it again to see. Gone!

Happy Eskimos. 

(Bad photographer with the shadows.)

Final opinion---I am using these from now on! They wrote so smoothly on the fabric, and they were THIN lined. That is a biggy with me. And as long as I wash, there will be no marks whether the middle of the Sahara or the tip of the North Pole. Good stuff!

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Linda (click to visit) is such a dear. She knew I had a bit of a tough day yesterday so she did a bunch of sewing on her Mabry Mill just to bring a smile to my face. She even past up what I had already posted! 

Here is her now progress with both rows now sewn together, and she has her ice pop type blocks done plus one!

Here are mine:

Block  CC

5 pieces

Block CD

13 pieces

Now, just to put this all in perspective for you all--

the above block finishes about 1 1/2" by 2 1/2"

and has 13 pieces in that teeny tiny space!

That is what makes FPP so much fun!