Vacation (pic heavy)

Are you one, like me, that goes on vacation, only to really NEED a vacation when you get back? Whew, what a long week it has been. October is our annual HUGE Geocaching event in Florida that we go to every year. We drive both vehicles ( truck towing the camper, and then the Jeep)  6 hours to where all the fun and exhaustion takes place. Hopefully by next year, we will have a class A and we will only be driving one vehicle towing the Jeep. When we arrived at camp and started setting up the camper we noticed we had a hitchhiker among us

he was a decent size, we left him be and he did his own thing.

Then off to the woods we went, looking for some caches, I found a cool looking spiderweb

 looking straight down on to it

Then we ran across a field of deer moss

Then down some jeep trails and ran into a tree across the path, well we didn't run into it literally but it was in the way,

and dear hubby was determined to saw this tree out of the way, and he did,

and on our way we went only to encounter these trees a few miles down the trail, nope, not getting by these two today. Guess it is time to turn around and go back the other way, again. U-Turns are our specialty! Our caching name isn't "roundnround we go" just because.

Then one day while walking down some graded path ways that are like the bear highway around here,

  found some bear tracks, like usual. This one was a few days old, but my foot gives you an idea how big these paw prints are.

Some of the caches when we find them and open them up are just a little freaky, when you find this

a rat with red eyes, an eyeball, and a skull all staring at you when you open it up!

Then whenever there is something like this in the woods, guaranteed there is a cache hidden very near by.

Then there are always flowers around, didn't get too many pics this year, as we did a lot of volunteer help with the event, so we didn't have as much time to drive around and take pics like usual.

Then at one cache I caught out of the corner of my eye, this "zipper" so it make me look closer and check this guy out!

 Never seen one of these before, someone else told me they are known as Zipper spiders, I can see why they have that name, it was about 3.5 inches long from leg to leg, body was about an inch long. Very cool looking.

 Then on another day as we are driving we come across places that you can see quite a ways away, of nothing buy tree tops in a little valley.

Looking North....

 Looking South...

 Looking East....can you see my husband out there finding the cache?

Onto the next one

Here we are, there is suppose to b a lake here, but now it looks like a prairie, should be a cache by that big oak, lets just drive over there...........As we are driving to the tree I say, we are driving over top of the cache location, we get to the tree no cache. The name of this cache is called "Trust your GPS" well then we DID drive over it, lets walk back and see.........

 Well we follow the jeep tracks in the tall grass....and low and behold, the jeep tracks were touching the can, I think we may have even pushed the container. Never got that close to running one over before!

Some where in the forest we seen this little birds nest 

 There is a cache hidden among these palmetto forests...

 Wow hadn't seen one of these since I was a kid growing up in Michigan! Glad I was wearing shoes! It was about 18 inches across!

 One late night when we got back to camp, I made some fresh peach cobbler, mmmmmmm it was good! While it was cooking, I was sewing a quilt top together. First time I ever took a machine with me, told my husband from now on one is going. Just need to make sure I always have some quick to grab projects, that don't have a ton of pieces.

 Then there was the pigmy rattler that someone almost stepped on, this was a pretty good size one for being a pigmy it was about 16 inches long and a good 1/2-3/4 inch wide

 Then at the end of the trail, it takes us to a lake that still had water in it. Looked so peaceful, better than this photo shows for sure.

 While crossing the river, you could see for miles and miles

 This purple can was a letterbox cache......you stamp the book in this one with your personal stamp, and there is one inside for you to stamp your book too! I haven't done many of these, usually don't have my book and stamp with me for some reason, I had it on this day though. :D

Ok now let me go get the quilt top off of the trailer and take a pic, because I know you want to see it. It is done, now to figure out if I want to add borders, and what kind. Be back in a few......Ok here is the top I put together here and there on this trip........Finally done.

My rendition of a Jacob's Ladder. I used two different blue fabrics on each block, besides the chain one, carefully placing them together to form this. I didn't really know what it was going to look like till it was done. I like how it turned out. It is covering the loveseat so it is a good lap quilt size. Well that was a short trip through my vacation. Didn't take any pics of all the people that were there. Maybe I will remember next year. But I did bring back LOTS of bug bites as usual, some almost the size of dimes and a 1/4 inch tall, must be allergic or something. I will spare you the gross looking photos of those, all 90 or some of them, I look like I have the chicken pox almost. Well now I am heading to the sewing room, all the while anticipating Bonnie's huge announcement tomorrow..........the fabric requirements for the 2012 mystery!!! Yippeee, Hooray, Wooo Hooooo! Are YOU ready??? How many are joining in the fun???? See ya around and happy stitches!

Sunday of catching up.............11/13/2011

Now that I am back from vacation and slowly getting back into things, I figured I would start by clearing up some of the mess that was laying around, and find out where Myra's mystery went. Yes I have been following, I am behind though and no I haven't blogged about it. Originally I picked out  LOTS of rainbow batiks, Myra listed her colors as a neutral, a print and 3 colors from the print.................hmmmmm, don't know if my rainbow will work. Step one was to make 3 blocks of my desire, I wasn't sure what I wanted to make. (I know now, but haven't made them) Then when step 2 came out, I changed my color selection to something I think would work better. Made all my 4 patches.

This is only some of them.

Then I did step 3, got all those HST with a square in it done too. 
Then life got in the way..............
Let's see then step 4 came out the Thursday before I went on vacation, I don't sew Thursday, Friday or Saturday for the most part. Then I went on vacation, came back and completely missed step 5. Then all of a sudden there was the final step............WHOOOAA, I had better get busy. It just so happens that one of the other QAL that I have been following came out with a block last week, that I am going to use for step one on this QAL too.  Myra has been wondering if I am indeed even following along, (It is a great easy quilt to make if you need one in a hurry.) I am making it a mystery to her what the final looks like, hehehe.. I am not the only one doing this either. So today, my Super Sewing Sunday has been catching up with steps 4, 5, and 6. To get this one done. Spent a lot of time making flying geese, I love to make mine the "no-waste" way.

 My quilt will be more scrappy controlled, instead of really controlled with only 5 fabrics. But so far it is looking pretty good. I am now seeing where I could have went more scrappy, next time. Yes, I think I will make this one again too. That is all the sneak peek you get today Myra, should have it done tomorrow though. :D

I need to really get some of these other projects OFF my table and FINISHED. Psycho cat Ely Mae, keeps dragging stuff off the tables and ironing board and leaving them all over the house, and I mean all over. 3 stories worth of all over! I find something else several times a day, scraps, pieces of blocks, whole blocks, chain pieced sets of blocks waiting to be ironed, fat quarters, even yardage. Maybe she is giving me a hint to spend more time up there. Maybe. This is what I picked up around the house in the past two days!

All of that, and see those white and blue pieces, not all at the same time either.
Jacob's Ladder blocks are all done, rows pinned together waiting to be chain pieced into a lovely top. Had them all pinned to the design board but that crazy cat kept pulling the pins out or pulling the blocks off with the pins still in them and either just leaving them all over the floor or dragging them all over the house. Didn't want anyone or any of the animals to get a pin stuck in their foot so I took them all off the board and safety pinned them together. Isn't the whole point of a design board so you don't have to pin???? Not in this house. LOL

Saturday I went shopping for my Secret Santa Swap person. I hope she is excited at getting what I am going to send to her, as I was shopping for it, and what I am going to make for her too. I have 3 weeks to put it all together and get it in the mail. SOOOOO exciting!!! Pics in a week or so for this one.

Oh yeah, you know it wouldn't be a complete blog post without pics of some of my helpers, here they were today...........

Super Sewing Sunday 11/06/2011

Wow it is November already...............where has this year gone????? I might as well start digging out the tree and all the ornaments, because by the time I get that chore done, it will be time to put it up anyway. Can't believe how fast time is flying. But like they say, time flies when your having fun. I am having lots of fun sewing all these different quilts. I am enjoying this much cooler weather, I love this time of the year.

 My Jacob's Ladder is more than halfway done, sorry folks no pictures of it again today. Still haven't found the camera since being back from vacation. Then again there is still stuff packed, and on the trailer too. Should have this top done by next weekend. Already have the backing fabric picked out, as there really isn't any scraps leftover from the top on this one.

I did drop another quilt top off at my local long arm quilter on Thursday. It was a surprise project I was working on. Which reminds me, I need to find the other one I have pinned, needing to be quilted. I have 50 things at once going on right now, and some times my head just starts to spin.

I have bagged up two big bags of fabrics I am not going use, along with about 30 spools of thread, and then I have a HUGE box of crafting supplies too. I am giving them to a lady in my guild who is going to take them to New Orleans and give them to her friend to pass out at their guild. Most of those people still have nothing from when Hurricane Katrina went through there, and at least this way they can make something for either themselves or someone else at no cost to them, and it gets it to a good home where it can be used, and out of my way. Oh I felt great packing all that stuff up today. I am sure I have lots more, just need to keep digging through everything. I am glad I found a good home for it all.

Bonnie Hunter's new mystery quilt "Orca Bay" is going to start on the 18th, she gave out a clue and approximate amounts of fabric on the 1st. You need 4 strong contrasting colors. She is doing Red, Blue, Black, with white as a neutral. I am doing ( I think) Turquoise, Purple, Navy Blue and yellow as a neutral. But I did see a cool picture today ( I didn't save it :(  ) and it was done in Green, Yellow, White with a little black.  Or check out that Peacock above......reddish, pinkyish, purpleish with orangeish, brownish and then a little green and a little turquoise too.

Don't forget as well that Madame Samm is starting another wonderful project tomorrow a Block Party everyday for the entire month of November she is going to have blocks, and blocks, and more blocks, and tutorials all month long. Don't miss it!!! If you don't know who Madame Samm is, you are missing a whole bunch of good information.

I have been assigned my partner for the Secret Santa Swap, I have made a long list of things I want to gather and put in her gift box. Oh she is going to be sooooo excited! I wonder who got me, and what I might get in my box, oh this is as bad as seeing a box under the Christmas tree for weeks before the holiday arrives!!!! I will have to wait around a month till I get my box. Need to stay busy as to not think about it too much. But then I have to think about it some so I can collect all the goodies I need to send out too. :D

It has been dark here since 5pm today, and it feels like it is in the middle of the night already, but I am going to go and try to get a little more of this and that done before calling it a night.

What have you been up to lately?

I am back.........

Did you all miss me for the past two weeks?? I missed everyone else, that is for sure. Where have I been. Well I have been in the Ocala National Forest for a whole week. We met up with over 500 other Geocachers, and spent great time in the woods with friends having a blast. Did a  lot of Jeepin, playing in the mud. Got covered in bugs, don't know if they were chiggers, or seed ticks,  but they were itsy bitsy teeny tiny, and I had THOUSANDS of them all over me, and I mean THOUSANDS of them, just me, no one else. After about 40 feet of duck tape, and more than a half can of bug spray, and me drippy wet, stinky, and sticky, we moved on. Got back to camp a few hours later, and everything I was wearing went into a trash bag, tied shut, and put all the way across camp into the back of the truck. I woke up with one bite the next morning, and by the end of the week, I only had 80. Considering how many of those nasty little critters I had on me, 80 was pretty good. Oh and they itched like there was no tomorrow, like you could scratch yourself to the bone, and they would still itch. Didn't get much sleep for an entire week. could be why I enjoyed my nap this afternoon so much.

Or maybe it was the freshly laundered sheets too!  I LOVE the smell of fresh laundry!!!!

But I am back, and we are back to our routines again. Unfortunately, that also means back to work too. Finally made it to my sewing room today, I hadn't been up there for 2 weeks now. All my blue and white 4 patches, and HST's were still pinned on the board, and numbered too. Thank god I numbered them, otherwise I would have forgotten what in the world I was doing with all those.

Let's see I have 192 pieces that make up 96 HST's in 24 different colored blues, I have 576 main colored 2 inch squares sewn into 144 4-patches, I also have 384 2 inch squares sewn in 96 4-patches of the other colors of blue. All to make a total of 48 blocks...........have 15 blocks done so far today. Should hopefully finish the rest either tomorrow or the next day. Taking a traditional pattern and putting a twist on it. Hopefully it looks as good as what is in my head. Sorry no pics today, gotta find my camera.

Also Bonnie Hunter will be making fabric selection announcements on Tuesday for this years mystery..........are you ready?????

Super Sewing Sunday 10/16/2011

Hello everyone! First off.....the other day while eating dinner. I happen to look to the left into the kitchen and this is what I saw.......

Doesn't Riley look pitiful?????

The past few days I have been reading everyone's blogs of everyone having one of those days! Yeppers.....it has creep to the Florida panhandle too.........But I expected it, and it only annoyed me a little bit. Ok sometimes, when the machine was eating my corners, I wanted to push the pedal to the floor and hold it there till the machine broke a needle or something..........but I knew that wouldn't solve anything, so I didn't. I breathed in deep, took a few seconds to ask "Why me?" and started again. Patience pays off.

Remember that quilt I cut out last weekend. Well I have most of it sewn into pieces ready to put the puzzle together now. This is what the ironing board looked like. HST's and 4 patches, lots of em too. Doesn't look like much in this photo, but you start ironing all those............they are like rabbits I tell ya!

Got the 4 patches pinned to the board so I don't screw it up putting it together........all the colors are numbered too.

This is all the HST's left to sew together............about 10 sets of 8.

Did you see those white strips in that photo........I kept thinking to myself, how in the world did I screw up the math that bad. Oh well. I also kept thinking that WOW those 4 patches went quickly. Wellllllll just realized, I only sewed 2 of each color and I need 4, was wondering why I had such a long tail leftover. I was going to use them in the border someplace. I will have to subcut my blue and white strips to make more 4 patches. When I took this pic, I thought ah ha, that is what those white strips are for, but NO.....I already have the white sewn to the blue. So I guess I just couldn't do math last Sunday. I will still have some left over to make a checkerboard of somesort...........we will see.

p.s. Yes those feet belong to Jethro!

I won't be getting any more sewing done for the next 2 weeks so you won't hear from me next weekend. But I will shout out to you all the following weekend, or maybe in the middle of next week sometime. Till then may your ripper sit in peace and you sew like you stole the machine!

Oh yeah, this past weekend was my 25th year class reunion, I didn't get to go this time around. It has been one of those years. But my question is...........Am I really that old already? Where did all the time go?!

Do you look around?

When your reading your favorite blogs, do you just read what they wrote, maybe or maybe not reply and move on to another blog? or do you look around their blog to see what they have on there usually down the sides. Usually there are lots of buttons too. Did you know that most of those buttons are clickable? Did you notice I added a lot of new buttons on the right hand side of my blog.......a lot more Quilt A Longs???? All the other buttons have been moved to the very bottom of my blog, and they are all still clickable as far as I know.

Right now I have 9, yes that is NINE QAL's listed on my side bar. Now mind you, I put them there if they sound good.......sometimes I never get to them, or don't have the time for them. But they are there if you want to click and go to them. I also move them around sometimes too. But right now I have....

Christmas is coming so I have a...................

Then there is a free BOM ............

and then

I love stars so there is this one...........

Myra has hers going full swing, there is time you can catch up..........(ps I haven't started yet) changing my mind on fabrics.

This one I am almost done with, so this button will be going to the bottom soon........

 I have always wanted to make one of these so why not............

and then the last one for now is the..........

So while you are browsing your friends blogs, stop for a moment, even if you follow over 400 blogs like I do, and look around a bit. You might find something you were looking for. You might find another great blog and end up meeting your next best friend that way. Or you could get yourself way over your head buried in projects too. But you will have fun any way it comes out. If you find anymore cool quilt alongs, that I don't have listed, drop me a line. I am a sucker for quilt alongs!!!!! It is the best way to get rid of your scraps and stash too, let someone else tell you what to do with them :D

I didn't make any of the buttons in this post clickable, but they are on the right and they will go to the beginning page of that said quilt along. Some of them are almost over, others haven't started yet.  Have fun!! You only have 81 days left till Christmas, get sewing!!!