We Were in the Paper on Sunday!

  Here we are, the four travelers, in Rome at the Colieseum.  It surprised me that it finally got in, I thought it had been long forgotten.  I sent it to Greg over 2 months ago.  But here we are, and there is our story in very very brief words.  It was exciting once again to see our smiling faces in the paper!  Like famous celebrities.

glen

Photo a Day and Elephants

Something I am listening to.  Hmmmm.  I hear the dryer and the washer doing what women have done for centuries.  In pretty much the same way but with a motor.

I happen to be so lucky as to have a washer with a see through top!  That is one of the reasons I chose it, so I can see my clothes being washed!  Cool.  (I have to admit, before I had this washer, I used a pencil to hold the button down so I could watch the clothes being washed with the lid up.)  I have no idea why this fascinates me so, but it does.

My goal today is to have the Elephants bordered.  That should be doable.  Frank is working at home today.  So he says, we shall see. I never ge tmuch done when he is home.  I have no idea why.


I am still trying to decide if I want the light or the dark on the border.  I think I will go to the grocery and come home and decide by lunch time.

glen

Elephants on the March

The elephant top is together!  Yeah!

I need to decide on the color of the borders.  They will be worked tomorrow.  He likes one, I like the other.  His is brighter, mine is more in tone.  Both look good.  See the poor ellie with the cut off tail?  Poor baby.  He looks mad, huh?

Here is the one Frank likes best.












Here is the one I like best.




What do you think?

Photo A Day

Today's photo is Money.  This is the gold bars taken from a shipwreck off the coast of southern Florida called the Henrietta Marie.  It is in the Shipwreck Museum in Key West along with some incredible stuff that has been salvaged from the floor of the area seas.

Elephant layouts

Sounds like a basketball term.  The Elephants are gaining on the Tigers, the Elephants set a layup and they take the SCORE!

I think these elephants have scored big!  LOL.

I did a layout last night, finally got all the papers off the backs of the sashing squares.  I am not sure what to call them, jungle squares?  They sort of look like the jungle.  Are there jungles in India?  I guess so, because I think of tigers roaming the Indian jungles.  This is what they looked like.

I was so afraid this quilt was going to be too beige-y.  But the jungle squares have darkened the entire piece.  So I wanted to test the piece I had thought of for the border.

And it definitely needed a stop border!  Black was too harsh.  Both Frank and I immediately vetoed that.  So I tried several other pieces.  This one worked best but I am still not totally happy with it.  I will finish putting the entire top together and maybe take it to a fabric store and see what happens in that space.

The fabulous thing is that Jo-Ann's Fabrics is opening in another week!  Can't wait!

glen

Photo A Day

The photo for today is:

Something you ate.

Well, that is easy too! Here are the cabbages from this weekend and I ate one of them!  Along with some smoked pork chops from the weekend in the smoker.  And some broccoli and cauliflower from the last trip to the Farmer's Market!  LOL......Kinda looks like my elephants!  Or are they getting to me?

glen

design Wall 2-27-12

Coming up to the Leap Day.  I had a friend in grammar school who was born on Leap Day.  It was exotic and wonderful to be so different.  I just had Benjamin Franklin to be my birthday partner, and so close to Christmas was awful.  Sigh.

I have the Ellies on my design wall this week.  They are the UFO for February.  I have long put off finishing the Elephants of Sri Lanka, since 2007 to be exact.  I dabbled with them at a retreat about 2 years ago, but put them back into their bag after that.  They have been on the UFO list for a while, always feared.

Now they are out in the open.  But I had misplaced the issue of the magazine to see how they were laid out.  I had to spend one night digging through my mag stash to find it.  Last night I trimmed them down and tore the paper off the backs of the sashing blocks.  There were a few loose areas but I fixed that and we are ready to get a top done.  I finally have ideas for the quilting and I am no longer dreading that part.

The elephant blocks came from Sri Lanka through a dealer in New York.  She was brokering the sale of work village women were doing trying to start a business to generate income.  Their work is exquisite!

Tiny tiny stitches, perfect curves, all hand done.  And the blocks were dirt cheap.  I sent along a donation as well.  The quilt will be a masterpiece when I get it done, but it may be into March before it is totally quilted.  I want the elephants  to be very detailed.

These are the blocks that will go in between the elephants and pull them together.  Strong linear designs compliment the elephant's roundness.  I guess this is the jungle the elephants emerge from as they march along the quilt's path.

I told a friend a few years back, I love it when someone opens a quilt out at meeting show and tell and there is an audible gasp from the audience.  The quilt is spectacular.  I am hoping this will be mine.

glen

Ellies get trimmed

I trimmed the ellies tonight.  I sucked it up and just whacked them but good.  See the dog from my class with Judy Holley up in the left top corner?  He is sitting and watching me!  Waiting for me to make him some friends!


I went to see Stelly bowl in the International Bowling Tournament today.  We had never been to one before and I wanted to see Charlene and Stelly.  But the whole place was amazing!  The Bowling Tourney people bring the entire bowling alley right to your town and set it up in your civic center!  Just like that!  Here is a photo of the entire 56 or 58 lanes there.  Stelly bowled on #1 so we were at the far end of the center.  (It used to be called the Centroplex but now they call it something else.  The New Orleans evacuees from Katrina stayed there and tore up the place so they did a major remodel that finished last year.)  It will always be the Centroplex to me though.  Whatever you call it, it was just amazing to see the transformation.

I had a whole post here but the blog-s-sphere ate it so I am redoing it.

Here are Charlene and I cutting up.  And normal. (yeah, right)  See my new sexy blouse?  With the lace cut out sleeves!  Yes.





Here is Stelly bowling.  It was so wonderful to watch him do what he loves.  Wait, wait, wait......till he turns around..........(but he does have a cute butt!)

Here is the handsome guy!  He is so so sweet, I love him!


I should be heading to Lafayette tomorrow for a class with Sue Nickels.  But I got a call from the nursing home saying I could meet with the doctor before his rounds tomorrow.  I am sure it is about the darned feeding tube.  They keep asking me and I keep saying no.  So I will do so again.  Kenny should be here saying no too, but you know how that is.

Anyway, I shall be there.

And Tuesday I have a sew day with the Traveling Quilter Woman.  She is returned from her journey to the East to vast and exotic quilt stores.  I can't wait to see her treasures!

glen

Stash Report and Where No Dog Has Gone Before

Oh Oh Oh!  I am so excited.  A couple of weeks ago I was bemoaning the fact that purchasing fabric made my numbers look really bad, but I am so excited to bounce back into the Major Stash Usage Column.

I will say that keeping track of my usage has definitely made me look to the stash FIRST where I have found many lovelies for use in my projects.  While I have Major Use Statistics this week, the next week or so will see some Major Finishing Stats!  Yeah!

DiNozzo, always the intrepid explorer, has gone where no dog has gone before in our house.  He has taken over the bench that sits before our big windows out into the back yard.  I suspect he got up there to look out the windows because it was too cold to actually go out and chase the squirrels and birds he loves to terrorize.  And once up there, he found the bench pad was comfy........and he was sleepy.........and he IS a basset after all.......so he succumbed to it all.

(Note:  See the huge box of toys next to the bench.  The dogs will often root in ther for a specific toy to play with but never think about putting anything BACK into the box.)

Now he sleeps up there every morning and sometimes in the afternoon if Iam sewing and not sitting on the sofa.  Of course if I am on the sofa, he is right there next to me, hot little body and all.  He does generate lots of heat.  The Swissys kept their heat in with three layers of nice downy undercoat.

My stash numbers are as follows:

Used this week   -13.5
New this week       0
Used in Feb       -23.33
New in Feb         14.5
Used this year    -52.58
New this year      17.5

Total Reduction  -35.08

Feb Photo of the Day is "Green" From the Farmer's Market

Oh, man!  I got that covered.  With the most amazing green.  We went to the Farmer's Market and scored some of the hugest cabbages I have ever seen.

Here is the Photo A Day "green".  I bought two of the huge cabbages, two of the Russian Kale and one alfalfa sprout box.  That was a total of, ummmm, $11.  Not bad since I can cook those cabbages down into many many many many one cup servings.  And the kale will go into the Albondigas Soup I am planning on tonight.  And salads, too.

To put into some sort of perspective about the size of these cabbages, here is one stacked up against a large Milkbone.  When I looked around the kitchen to see something that would be uniform in size everywhere, I hit upon the Milkbone first off!  You can tell where my head always is!

 Here is the total haul.  And I know you are thinking that those are oranges.  But they are not.  They are Meyer Lemons.  Unbelievable lemons.  All of those were $5.  How can the citrus guys many any money on that?  Every two weeks I go and purchase a $5 bag of these lemons and then I go to Walmart even and see where the lemons are 54 cents each!  And tiny tiny tiny.

 Stuck in there amongst the lemons are some turnips I scored for $2.  They are good sized ones at that.  Some farmers had the tiny ones but I like these guys.  When I roast they they won't shrivel up and disappear.

To complete the purchases I got some vine ripened creoles.  Tomatoes at their best.  They had the large creoles that you cut a slice from the center and slap on a mayonnaise sandwich and go to town eating.  But these are the small ones.  I can't have too many this week, but Frank has decided he would eat the rest for me.  They were the most expensive thing at $3 for the 5 of them.   And they look so tiny beside the huge lemons.  (I swear they are lemons)

I need a nice recipe for lemon marmalade or lemon preserves.

glen:  so that makes my total, um........$21......not too shabby for freshly picked yesterday!

Whacking off an Elephant's Tail is Not Easy

I spent a goodly amount of time playing with a layout for the Ellies yesterday.  The picture layout in the book has the four red elephants in all four corners.  Well I have only two of the reds.  They have elephants marching a different way on each row and I thought to go a different way with each block.  But they appeared to be butting heads so I decided to march them like the mag layout.

I have two of each design but they are both right facing and left facing.  And I had four large ones.  That left me with a dilemma.  Somewhere, somehow one was going to be close to the wrong one.

So I decided on this layout.  The four large ellies are diagonal down left to right and the reds are far apart and the other two are not next to each other either.  And everyone is marching in the correct direction.  And they all seem to be happy.

My problem now is the pattern.  It says to cut the elephant blocks to 15 1/2 x 15 1/2.  But the paperpiece blocks are 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 and they only reach 14 1/2 when put together.  Major dilemma, because the four large elephant blocks get their tails whacked off.  I find that difficult to do.  I guess I will have to do it today, but it is cerebra-technically tough to do.



glen:  how do you like THAT college word?  Carrie, did you read my blog today?????  LOL, I know the answer to that!

Block for the lotto

Here are my houses.  They are so cool!  I am sure whoever wins them will love the LSU house!

In another project I need 3 inch finished half square triangles.  I have so far made 3 inch and 3 1/4 inch.  And I am using the papers!  LOL.


glen

Dogs and Bones (Like Sense and Sensibility or War and Peace)

Milkbones!

I recently had to purchase more dog bones for the dogs.  We do this quite often, but not not as often as when I had three or more, or the big dogs like the Swissys.  The bassets eat a lot but they consume less volume than the Swissys.  Although DiNozzo ate as much as Dutch ate and there was about 70 lbs difference in the two.

I still buy the huge boxes of bones, out of habit.  I had the big Swissys since 1989 when Pepsi came into our lives, and big dogs all my life with the Irish Setters and Labs.  While the Bassets are not "little" dogs, they are definitely short dogs.  DiNozzo sets out at 55 lbs now.  And if he were not a pogo stick bouncing off the walls and needing miles of walks daily, he would be heavier.  He is a big boned tall boy, but painfully thin even now after a year of living with me.  I should have that problem.

Cannot get this one
to orient straight up.

I put the huge box of bones into 4 airtight containers and their bone-shaped cookie jar.  They get a lunch bone, a 3 o'clock bone and a night bone before bed.  I have no idea how the 3 o'clock bone came about, but the lunch bone was to keep Dutch from throwing up that yellow bile midday.  It was effective.  Then came the 3 am upchuck, and thus the night bone.  But 3 o'clock?  No idea at all.  They were just lucky and talked me into it, I guess.

Something stuck on his nose!

The bassets reveled in the passing out of bones at all hours of the day.  They are food hounds anyway, and they thought this was most wonderful.  But, that said, the Swissys would definitely tell time.  Bonnie Doon would come in and say, Hey Mom.  Three o'clock.  If I didn't move, about 5 inutes later she would send Dutch in.  Hey mom.  Three Oh Five.  He would turn on the charm and sit up when I looked at him.  He was so cute, hovering there on his haunches, with his front legs tucked so nicely.  THen he would toss his cookies on the carpet.  I got up and gave them their bone.

Bassets don't care about time.  They just care about getting the bones.  So anyone who goes into the kitchen at any time of the day has the potential of giving them a bone.  Three o'clock will often pass me by when I am sewing on some project, and they don't care.  Next time I get up will be good enough.  As long as they get a bone, they are jiggy with it.

This is for Swooze and Charlene --

I wonder why I am not on the cover?

I found the stupid  lovely magazine after three hours of looking through magazines having a lovely time going though my magazines I keep for just this reason!

I knew it was the Quilter's World from June 2007 because the only thing left on the internet is the template for the sashing pieces. It was just a question of finding it in the various stacks and boxes of magazines.  Frank says I should have a huge huge giveaway, Carrie says I need to take them to the dump.  I say they are all treasures and I need them all.

see my lovely bedroom?  

I will be working on the elephants today.  Yes!  Finally.  And may finish them before the end of the month.  I do have that extra day, you know.

But first I have to piece the back for the mystery quilt.  I have the borders on and the back nearly complete.  Somehow I miscalculated and forgot to add the extra that goes on for the long arm.  So I need to add that and put the top and the bottom of the piece on.  I may have invented a new quilt pattern by the time this is over!  I need to load something on the quilting machine tonight and get one or two of these three things done this weekend.

And I will have a LOT LOT LOT of fabric usage this week with three backs getting pieced!  Yes!

oh, I forgot to put the clothes in the washer, let me run and do that before I get totally distracted and never get them in.........like yesterday.

glen

Photo A Day

Today's photo is Your Shoes.  I have a great one.

This is my shoes with DiNozzo.

Backings, getting closer to a couple of finishes

The best way to kill two birds with one stone is to use up fabric in backings and get both a finish and a reduction in your stash numbers.

I pieced together two backings for the quilts for Dan and Amber.  Similar but different, just like the tops.

Here is Amber's top and back



And here is Dan's back.  Not sure where his top picture went to.  It is just like Amber's but has one more row.  I used the leftover pieces from the front and made a pieced section for both backs.

This is definitely the only quilt I have made that looks better in person than in photos.  I wonder why that is?  It just does not photograph well..

This will make my numbers look really good if I can keep my fingers off the PURCHASE button on these great quilt fabric sales going on.

glen

Working on the Elephants of Sri Lanka

Yes, I am.  But I ran into a BIG problem.

I have these guys -









I have the ones that go sidewards

I have the ones that go up and down













And I have this.  But I can't remember how this really goes together.  This doesn't really seem to fit, does it?









I guess I need to look throught this to find the pattern.  It is in Quilter's World June 2007.  Yes, I have a stack or 42 of them to go through.........



glen