Errands and Such

Hi There!

Gilbert and I head out,
yesterday morning, to do our
"Saturday Morning Errands".

First, we went to bring our empty bottles, to get recycled.

Do you guys do that, or just leave them by the side of the road, for your municipality workers to pick them up?

Here, they're called "Redemption" Centres.

Don't know why, but being a Catholic girl, I've always found the name "Redemption" a bit odd, for a recycling centre... LOL



You wait for your turn and when you're next, you bring your bottles to the table and the workers sort them out. Then, they hand you a slip of paper, which you take to their little office and BINGO! They give you some money. Most times, it's under 5 bucks for us. This time, we made off with 5 bucks and some change!

*grin*



From the Redemption Centre, we went to Bertha's bank.

Right across from this spot, is our
"Moosehead Country Store".

A lovely little boutique, that sells Moosehead stuff.
(NOTE: Moosehead is our local brewery.)

Since we have one new quilt finished for our bed (Notre Première Quilt) and a few more on the go, we decided to donate our well used but still good quilts.

We called up the Salvation Army, in my city.... No, not where they sell stuff but where they have their shelter. Anyhow, they were VERY HAPPY to receive our two quilts.

If ever you have some old quilts that still have some life in them, please consider donating them to....

your local Salvation Army,
or to your local Animal Shelter.

I've been told that they, too, accept quilts and blankets.

From the Salvation Army, we went off to the Quilt Show (more pictures to follow), grabbed a bite to eat - it was 12 noon - and then, went to our local quilt shop to pick up a bottle of "505", spray adhesive for Gilbert and Bertha.

Came home and Gilbert worked on the
final touches of our VERY FIRST....

TAAA.... DAAAA.....


PANTOGRAM!!!!


I designed the basics of it and Gilbert finished it off.

We're calling it "Bruce the Moose".

And, of course, Gilbert had to try it out on a scrap piece of fabric!

*grin*

While he worked on "Bruce", I worked on my "Spider Quilt".

Here's a picture of my design wall, from last weekend.

I believe it's when I realized that I was missing a whole row - 6 complete blocks - of the blue fabric!

And since my friend Cyn has located and mailed out, yesterday, some more blue fabric, I decided to pick up where I had left off.

*grin*

Thanks a bunch, Cyn!!!!

Today's agenda?

Laundry.
Dishes
Help Gilbert "build" some lasagnas, to freeze.

And quilt - hopefully.

Have a Super Sunday!!!!

Rosa

Log Cabin Eye Candy!!!

Hi There!

Gilbert and I went to our local quilt show, this morning. As some of you might know, my favorite quilt blocks are the "Log Cabins".... there's SOOOOO many different ways you can place the blocks, right?

Well, in the past 2 or 3 years, I've come to see more and more Log Cabins, with appliqués in them!

And I LOVE appliqués, as well!

Here are a few, from the quilt show.
(apologies 'cause I didn't get your names or details...)

This was had adorable hearts in it, with silver, metallic fabric.



And it ALSO had the COOLEST heart quilting, as well!

This one had fat and thin BRIGHT stripes. The different sizes of stripes gives the illusion of curves.

And here's a picture of me, taking a picture of this quilt, taken with Giblert's iPhone. Click on either of the pictures and it looks like there's a bright light shining through the BRIGHT fabrics. Incredible, eh?!??!



Here's a close-up.

Look at the INCREDIBLE appliqués!!!

More to come....

In the meantime, you might want to visit my friend Riel's blog page. She has a lot of incredible pictures, too.

Have a great Saturday!

Rosa

Notre Première Quilt

Hi There!

I FINALLY finished binding this baby!

And Gilbert and I came up with a name for it, as well.

It's our first, very own, personal quilt
for OUR bed.

We've called it,
"Notre Première Quilt"
(meaning Our First Quilt)



And here's the label.

As you can see,
I hadn't finished sewing it on
the back of our quilt.

It's now on our bed and we should be sleeping under it, this evening.

One UFO down.... several more to go.

Oh....

BTW, my friend Cyn has helped me with my "Easy Spider Quilt"...

She's sending me some of that blue fabric that I was missing.

Thanks to all of you that wrote!

Heading off to our local quilt show, this weekend.

I'll probably be snapping pictures and blogging about it, later...

Rosa

Looking for #313-41

Hi There!

Here's our outdoor sign, for the month of May:

Remember that "Spider Web" quilt,
that I was working on?
Well, I'm missing about 1/2 a yard of the blue,
to finish it off.

Looking for....

313 - Crackle-texture - Main

By Northcott Studio

(it's actually #313-41)

If any of you have this fabric and could spare 1/2 a yard, perhaps we could barter?

Barter - see Wikipedia definition.

*trying to flash my most winning smile*

Thanking you, in advance...

Rosa

Welcome to Old Mother Hubbard's Cupboard.

Hi There!

Last month, when I went to our local "Hook-In", I had won one of their door prizes - a HUGE basket full of rug hooking goodies. Well, after a day of petting such goodies, I had to quickly find a home for them. My wool stash was fairly small and was still manageable, at the time.

I had to find a new home for ALL of my wool and other hooking items.

In a split second, I made the decision to empty my 2 top shelves - where I normally keep folded clothes - and moved my old and new rug hooking "stuff"!

Here's what it now looks like...

This is my bundle of "greens"...



And let me introduce to you,
my "greys"...

Here are my "oranges" and "caramels".

And here are my mauves and purples, whites, red dot paper and burlap and linen. Behind this bundle, I've hidden a plastic bag with my new and never touched (yet) Kool-Aide packages and other dyeing products.

Now, here you see my "blues" and my "reds", as well as a few skeins and balls of wool.

So, here's the scoop.

I'm working on a funny project of a sheep on ice skates. The first time I saw him, I just HAD to hook him! LOL

I've got his body almost half done, and I didn't have any "ice" colored wool, for the skater's pond. Our local wool shop didn't have any either.

Soooo, I took a split second decision yesterday to pick up my courage in my two hands and finally do some dyeing!

I broke out my packages of "Kool-Aide"!!!

My first one was the "orange" on the right side.

Then, I decided to try and reproduce "ice".... that's the "green" one, next to the orange.

I had gone on the net and some of these mix and match color programs and had it appear as if blue and green would look (somewhat) like "ice".

This didn't quite look like "ice".

Then, on a whim, I tried a small amount of "Crystal Blue" Kool-Aide and a trace amount of "Grape" flavor.

That's the one beside the "green".

EUREKA!

I had found my "ice" color!!!! I just needed to make it a bit darker.

What truly disappointed me was Kool-Aide's red colors.

Here, I used Strawberry, Cherry, Dark Cherry and Tropical Fruit Punch flavors.

Can you tell the difference, in the reds?



No? Well, neither can I!

I'm guessing that red is red is red, for Kool-Aide!

LOL

And one final picture....

Yesterday afternoon, Gilbert and I went to pick a movie at our local corner store and, while there, Gilbert snapped a picture of me.

Frummie - I TOLD you that I was using my new-to-me purse!

*VBG*

Hope you have a great Sunday!

Rosa
P.S. As I dunked my last piece of off-white wool into my Kool-Aide bath, it finally struck me and I said to myself, "Gee, Rosa. You know what? I don't think you saved any more of that white wool to finish off your sheep's body!"

Aaaaargh!!!!!!

Oh well! I guess I'll have to go and buy some more!

LOL

To be Gammilled...

Hi There!

Lately it feels like I'm working on "stuff" and nothing seems to move ahead and get FINISHED! Kinda frustrating....

Gilbert's getting more business, which means there's a mini back log and I'm REAL happy that he and Bertha, our Longarm Gammill are busy, but.....

The projects that ARE finished, well....
Are put aside for "later".

And as I can well understand this, nevertheless, I feel like pouting, sometimes.

*grin*

So, this afternoon, we took the time to measure my Birthday Siggie Quilt top and YEP!!! It fits PERFECTLY, on our Queen Size bed!!!!



And, late this evening, I FINALLY finished the quilt top for that (crappy) fabric quilt kit - remember I had mentioned it, in one of my previous blogs?

Well, if you didn't know better, you'd LOVE the colors in this quilt!

*sigh*

Anyhow, we need to get rid of some of our old quilts. They're getting pretty raggy. I will use this one as our "surface" quilt.... meaning, that's the one that the cats will sleep on. *s*

Tomorrow, I'll dig out some of my (non-shop quality) big pieces and piece together a backing for this baby.



Around 4 p.m. this afternoon and after much thought, Gilbert decided to change his computer set up, in Bertha's room.

To make a long story short, he needed to buy himself a set of computer speakers, 'cause he listens to music, when he's quilting.

So, we headed off to Future Shop and he picked himself up a Bose sound system.

He's VERY pleased with the quality and sound!!!

He now has, what we call here, "Charlie's Laptop".

One of my readers will understand what I mean when I write this. *grin*

The laptop is much more compact, for his tiny desk space, in Bertha's room.

That's all for now.

It's going on 11 p.m. and I'm EXHAUSTED!!!

Happy Easter!!!!

Rosa

What Have I Been Up To?!??

Hi There!

What have I been up to?

Well, let's see....

Saturday morning, Gilbert and I did our Saturday errands. Once we got back home, I went to work on my spider blocks.

And all day Sunday, I worked on these blocks.

I can now say that I have 3 rows finished and pieced together.

I've got 3 more rows to do, before we remove the paper, on the back and Gilbert starts quilting this lap/wall quilt.

Saturday evening, Gilbert and I watched a movie and I put a base case of ivory, on my Dear Jane wooden blocks.
(more to come, later)



I think I already mentioned, but we have a few stray cats, hanging around outside. Gilbert and I made the mistake of starting to feed them and now, our stray population seems to have grown, unfortunately.

Most of these cats DO look like strays, but recently we've had THIS one come to our back door.

Riel, a blogging friend, came by yesterday evening and exclaimed, "Oh, that's a gorgeous Himalayan cat!"

HUH?

Never heard of such a cat...

This evening, since I had the wind knocked out of my sails and I didn't want to work on my Spider Quilt, I decided to work on a (kinda) new project.

I had picked up this quilt kit 5 or 6 years ago.

10 bucks for a queen sized quilt top.

Its made with non-shop quality fabric but it was a good idea and good price, at the time.

Not sure what I'll do with it.

But, in one evening, I managed to sew 7 rows!

Half way there and I didn't even break out in a sweat!

LOL

Hope you're having a Magnificent Monday!

Rosa

A Chocolate Cupcake on Two Legs...

Hi There!

A couple weeks ago,
I went to visit "SudsMuffin"
in my city and, other than being
friends with the owners,
I have no affiliation with them.

I picked up another one of their excellent soaps, "Fundy Trail', for Gilbert since I thought it had an incredibly sexy, mossy, oceany smell to it. Gilbert has since used it and he loves it! And so do I!

*VBG*

But that's not why I'm blogging today...

I also picked up a container of their
"Foaming Sugar Scrub".

And, of course, I HAD to select "chocolate"!

LOL



When you first open up the container, it LOOKS and SMELLS like a whipped chocolate mousse!!!

Your first reaction is to look around for a piece of cake to frost!

LOL



When I first tried it, I used it straight up on my skin and it didn't really foam up, very much.

The next time, I put 1 to 2 teaspoons of it on my bath scrunchy and OH WOW!!!!

Nice, foamy, CHOCOLATTY, soap!!!!

I came out of the shower with ultra soft skin
and smelling like a Chocolate Cupcake!!!!

And NO, the smell is not too overpowering, either!

Gilbert had to practically stick his nose to my hand
to get a whiff of my chocolate scent...

But "I" knew I had clean, soft, chocolatty smelling skin!

There's grains of sugar in the scrub that you can actually FEEL.

Anyhow, whenever I use their Chocolate "Foaming Sugar Scrub",
I feel like a "Chocolate Cupcake on Two Legs".

Isn't that great, eh?

You smell like one of your favorite foods and it's CALORIE FREE !!!

What a GREAT way to start your day!

Have a Super Sunday!

Rosa
P.S. If you're interested, I believe that you can place an order at "SudsMuffin" and, for a nominal fee, they will gladly ship out their soaps and products.

Candle Sticks Progress.

Hi There!

This week, I finally finished
painting the 2 base coats
on my candle sticks.

Then, I "auditioned"
which paints I would use.

You know what it's like?

You need to pull a LOT of colors out,
before you can actually decide
on the EXACT one(s) you're looking for!

*grin*

Well, out of ALL these colors,
I finally decided to use
only one of them!

Isn't that always the way?!?

LOL

I now have them painted
and varnished.

I still have some work to do with them.

I also promised a few friends that I would make them a Dear Jane (tole painted) wooden block. Will share pics of these as I progress on these, as well.

*s*

Hope you have a Wonderful Weekend!

Rosa

Arachnology - The Study of Spiders

Hi There!

Gilbert and I went to visit my parents, today.

We left around 10 a.m. and got back home around 3 p.m.

Once home, Gilbert started tidying up Bertha's room and then "fooled around" with the (new) Bertha.

I'm not sure, but I think he's fallen in love with her.... all over again!

LOL

Anyhow, while he was doing "his" thing, I decided to continue work on my "Spider" blocks...



Yes, there IS one block missing but I figured at 8h30 p.m., it was time to call it a day.

I absolutely LOVE the look of these blocks but you know what? It might not appear that way, but they sure do take a LOT of work to put one together!

But, I've always loved scrapped quilts and this one is no different.

*grin*

Have a great week!!!

Rosa

Bertha Gets a "Lift"

Hi There!

After a week of intensive family meetings,
Gilbert and I decided to take the plunge
and give Bertha a "Face Lift"!

We contacted our nearest Gammill Dealer,
Cowles Quilting Machines Service Inc.

Brian showed up this morning,
at 10 a.m. and promptly
started work on Bertha.





A LOT of little bits and pieces
of "stuff" came out of Bertha!

Gilbert watched and helped Brian,
as much as possible.

Finally!

A LOT of new bits and pieces
went INTO Bertha!

Here, Brian is giving
Gilbert his official training,
on our new "Vision 26"!!!

After a thorough training and
some informative chit-chat,
Brian was on his way....
back to Vermont.

Have a safe trip back, Brian!


Rosa (& Gilbert)

My Cutey!

Hi there!

We have quite the day, today!
(more on that later)

But, by 11 a.m., I had managed to finish putting this cutey together... and well as pieced the back together.



Now, if Gilbert and Bertha could just spare an afternoon for me and my cutey, maybe I'd be able to bind this one. *grin*

Rosa

Is This a UFO?

Hi There!

Last year, I received some fabric and in the box, there was this green. Don't get me wrong.... I love ALL fabrics but when I spied this one, I thought, "Ooooooh.... now THAT'S a special color, isn't it?!?!?"

I really wasn't sure if I would EVER use that green, even!

Well I did and, in fact, it looks pretty darn good, in this quilt project!



So, let's go back in time.

In 2007, I had a "Secret Pal". She would send me lovely, monthly gifties. She had sent me this gorgeous flower panel, with blocks and other pieces to put together.

There were some fabrics missing, to finish this wall hanging and that's why I decided to audition this "special" green and VOILA!!!

That "special" green is .... well truly "special"!

I've still got a few more borders to add onto this one before I can yell from the rooftop that I have it finished. I'll certainly keep you posted on my progress. *s*

Soooooo, is this considered a UFO? It languished as a 1 piece panel, with instructions printed on the side.



Rosa