Winner

In a family with busy weekends, this past weekend was really crazy hectic.  Between soccer games (played and watched), a musical, an Oscar Party, a tap dance performance and fundraiser, and the first meeting of the Milwaukee-Madison Modern Quilt Guild…whew!  I hardly had time to catch my breath.

I also didn’t have time to pick a winner, or at least I didn’t have time to blog about it.  So, I’m happy to announce that the winner of  my little it’s-my-birthday-and-I’m-glad-my-dog-is-back drawing is…

DUFF!  I’m happy to say that I scored some fresh Flea Market Fancy late last week, so I’m replacing the piece that was previously washed with a brand new one.  But because she asked, I’ll make sure she gets a little bonus dog hair with it.  Um, not really.

Thank you to everyone who shared their lost pet stories with me and wished me a happy birthday.  Kristen, if you’re reading this, you still have to tell me about the blue crabs!

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It’s my birthday and my dog ran away and I’m having a giveaway

Not a great start to the day…

I let the dog out for his morning potty break and he took off.  He has NEVER done that before.  By the time I got my boots on (curse you, Winter!) he was gone.  Primo and I scoured the neighbors’ yards, calling and whistling.  Then I jumped in the car and drove through the neighborhood.  I stopped several neighbors and even the trash collector dudes a few blocks away (should I be concerned that the garbage truck driver knew EXACTLY which house is mine???).  Still no dog.  It was getting close to the time the kids needed to leave for school, so I had to head home.  I was so dreading telling them I couldn’t find the dog.

And guess who was there to greet me?

I’m sure you can imagine how relieved I was to see the big old smelly beast.  Primo was still teary-eyed at the prospect of nearly losing his best friend.  That was hard. Apparently the dog was just strolling past the house from the opposite direction I drove when Primo saw him and called him in.

Can you see in the picture that he’s not wearing a collar?  Do you wonder why?  Because he’s a DOG and he had rolled in his own poop over the weekend and I hadn’t steeled myself up to clean the collar yet.  But now, of course, the collar is soaking and will soon be back on the beast’s neck.  You see, I am a good animal owner – he is up to date on his shots, he has a tag identifying his owners, he is registered with the county, he is micro-chipped and still has the tag of the animal rescue group he came from.  That said, it doesn’t do any good if he’s not wearing the collar and tags, right?  Right.

To celebrate the dog’s return, and my (42nd) birthday, ahem, I think I’ll do a giveaway.  It wasn’t planned and perhaps no one will even stop by and enter (oh please, please don’t let that happen) but if you do, please leave me a comment and let me know if your pet has ever escaped and how you got it back.  Even if you don’t have a pet or s/he has never escaped, leave a comment.  Maybe you’ll even come back sometime when I’m not doing a giveaway…?  I’d love to have you.

For the giveaway, I present two fat quarters from Flea Market Fancy.  One has been washed (the pink-ish one, because I do wash my fabric before I sew and I was/am planning on using it myself.)  The other pretty yellow one is fresh from the bolt.  I don’t even think it has dog hair on it yet.  I’m not even kidding.  Do you live with a dog?  You know what I mean.  Winner will be picked on Saturday.  Please make sure you leave an email address so I can contact you.

PS.  The trash guys were relieved too that the dog was safe.

The fabric’s in the mail

I really didn’t think I’d ever want to do this, but Fabric.com made me an offer I couldn’t refuse on the shopping cart full of fabrics I wasn’t going to buy.  So I purchased fabric online.  Oh boy.

I was thinking it would be nice to have a quilt with a mix of reds and aqua  accents and most of the fabrics were on sale.  I think my selections will go together really nicely.  I hope so.  I’ll post a picture of all the fabrics when they arrive.  I’m hoping they’ll be here by Friday because I really want to get busy with this over the weekend.

I also decided to take part in Rachel’s pinwheel sampler quilt-along.  I’m going to use the stash from Anna Maria Horner, Jersey Girls, etc.

Looking for a plan of attack

I’m trying to figure out which project to tackle first in this new year.  I have a few in mind.

My stash isn’t very big, but that’s OK.  I don’t usually like to buy fabric just to have it – I need a specific purpose.  That said, I don’t always have a pattern before I purchase which is probably just as bad.  I originally bought this for a new baby across the street, thinking I’d be able to come up with my own pattern.  I learned with the boys’ duvet covers that that isn’t always so easy.

This is a collection of Anna Maria Horner’s Chocolate Lollipop, Jersey Girls, and a tiny little bit of Flea Market Fancy.  I know FMF is really popular, discontinued, and hard to find now, but there was a quite a bit of this pattern at my LQS.  It’s the one at the bottom with the square-ish shapes.  Anyway, I was thinking I’d make something like this blanket for the new baby.  I found it on Anna Maria Horner‘s website (she graciously gave me permission to use it):

My star might be a bit wonky (if there is such a thing as “a bit” wonky), instead of a patchwork star.  But obviously, these colors work together and I absolutely love them.

I also picked up a few nice prints for new Christmas stockings for next year:

My LQS is having a sale on holiday prints and I got such a great deal on these I’m going back for more.  Ignore what I said above about having a need before making a purchase.  That doesn’t apply to Christmas fabric, right?

I’m really excited to start working on the first squares for the quilting bee I joined.  Our first assignment has been posted.  I love the design, and I’m pretty good at piecing, but I’m going to do a practice piece before I work on the fabrics sent by February’s designer, Margaret.

I also joined Cancer is Sew Done and am awaiting fabric for the sub-group that I joined.

I’m going to practice my free-motion quilting on simple placemats using this fabric.

I love the fresh orange look.  I thought this was Halloween fabric, but now I think it’s just summery.

I guess that’s a lot to work on.