We were BOOed tonight. Last year, the family across the street began a neighborhood tradition of "BOO"ing. You secretly leave a pumpkin of Halloween goodies, along with a cute poem and a little ghost image at two friends' front doors. Then, these friends need to BOO two of their friends, and like the old shampoo commercial revealed, soon there are dozens and dozens of happily BOOed families. I found our BOO basket by the door when I went out to turn on the Halloween lights. Tomorrow, we will excitedly pull together our BOO baskets and then run them around ...

My politics in this election are fairly open--just check out my sidebar. So, I was excited when I saw that Denyse Schmidt and friends have made a wonderful "Yes We Can" quilt as a fundraiser for Barack Obama. If you'd like to support the campaign and possibly win the quilt, visit her personal fundraising site for Obama. Each donation of $10 gets you one chance at winning the quilt. Good luck!

Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it. I finished the work-y projects I mentioned in my last post in July . . . plus a few more. In August, I also took a vacation to one of my favorite places in the whole world. Here's my vacay self-portrait:



Here's a funny story about paying attention to details . . .

Our state natural history museum is having a quilt show: Quilting Natural Florida II. I was encouraged by several guild members to complete a quilt to enter. It seemed like a great opportunity to push myself out of my comfort zone, as ...

I finished the Hopkins's Aunt Agnes's Bloomers, which I'm calling Brownie's Bloomers because of the color palette.



I especially like the faded border. I found this fabric on a sale rack at one of my favorite quilt shops and bought the remainder of the bolt. It looks so worn and faded, while being brand new and workable. My ideal fabric!



I cleaned up my quilt room after finishing this project so I can use it as an office for the next few weeks to finish off work-y projects (degree program proposals, etc.). So, if I get ...

I just got the beautiful summer Four Seasons Quilt Swap quilt sent by Bea. You can see her lovely work at Capricorn Quilts. Bea lives in Germany, and she kindly included some genuine German gummi bears for my children (who have already gobbled them up!).

Here's the quilt--with bright, cheerful butterflies floating through the summer:



Now, here's the odd part. After taking this photo on the patio, I followed my dog to the back part of the yard. And, for the first time I can recall in the three years we've lived here, I saw a real ...

Last weekend, I was cutting a piecing a small wall quilt that I thought would make it into a December show. About half way through, I realized it was horrible looking. The background was dull and didn't pull the fabrics together at all. People who don't quilt sometimes think that smaller quilts are intrinsically easier to make. Well, only if they don't have a lot of pieces. This one had a ton, and I was completely depressed when I realized how unattractive it was. Wanting to make sure I wasn't way wide of the mark on ...

I just need to whip-stitch the binding, and my year of Four Season's Quilt Swapping is done. I am pleased with the results. I quilted this one like mad, with small white curlique quilting in the applique panel, wavy rays radiating from the sun, green leaves in the grass, and hot pink flowers in the side borders. I did make a judgment call not to blanket stitch the main stems on the flowers as it seemed too overpowering. I did one and actually took it out. Here's the nearly final product:



I got to finish the top and ...

My husband pointed out yesterday that we had "two perfectly good tins of raspberries" in the fridge and asked what I was going to do with them. I shrugged; then later in the day, for some reason, the word "clafouti" popped in my head. I quickly googled several clafouti recipes and whipped together some yummy, custardy goodness (so yummy that a bite immediately disappeared):



So this weekend, we've been eating Clafouti and hamburgers, which I began craving after watching Camp Rock. If you've seen any of the eight billion showings of CR since Friday night, you'll know ...

I spent most of last week in Austin, Texas, one of my absolute favorite cities. I was running around like mad the week before the trip, preparing for end of year school events for both liddle kiddles, packing, making arrangements, and trying to pre-catchup on work and the statewide meeting I'm leading this coming week. So, I didn't really pay attention when my thumb started to ache a bit the day before we left. By the time we got to the airport, it was thobbing with pain (which is great when you're jostling with two car seats ...

On the right side bar, you may notice a new button. It's for the new Quilting Bloggers site, created by Michele Foster. The site is an interactive database of (you guessed it!) quilting bloggers. What's neat is that they're organized by country and state--or province for you Canadians, so you can see the work and musings of quilters in your own backyard. Think about submitting your site.

It's graduation week. My son "graduates" from PreK and my daughter from K. Both have parties in need of cakes, so I'm on call to create sand castle cakes (from my miraculous bundt mold, what a great investment) and some triple layer, moussed, chocolate calorie killers. I made 10 cups of swiss meringue butter cream this weekend, so I'm halfway there :)

One of my son's teachers has been so perfect for him while he was in the PreK version of our private elementary school. She completely understands boys, loves pirates, and always had time for him--no ...

Thanks to this vlog tutorial, my rudimentary understanding of Photoshop, and a mini-tutorial from my husband, I created a new banner for my blog. Yay!!

In a previous post, I mentioned that one of my cats had pee'd on my completed Civil War blocks--an act of aggression I viewed as being rather uncivil, quite frankly. Well, I decided to start over on this project. I didn't necessarily take her action as a comment on my fabric choices; instead, I believed it to be her comment on being locked in my sewing room over night. However, I thought I could take a new direction with the do-over. At first, I thought I would do two sets of blocks, one from the CWD book in ...

This has really been a full-on Mother's Day weekend.

We started on Friday by seeing Baby Mama (okay funny, but not 30 Rock funny) and then coming home and finally watching our Netflixed Waitress (really funny and touching, and heartbreaking given Adrienne Shelly's murder and her own daughter's role in the movie). I immediately iTuned Baby Don't You Cry from Waitress--contrary to the title, it will make you cry.

Saturday--Starbucks and then ballet in the morning with my daughter--during which I shopped the Farmer's Market outside her dance studio: netting 2 red mandevillas, 2 purple ...

Look what arrived in the post, all the way from Wales:



My swap partner, Andrea, made this adorable 30s repro wall quilt for me as part of the 4 Seasons Swap. It's handquilted in a gorgeous salmony pink, including the cute spring blossoms in the counter-squares. Even the binding is scrappy. And, her label is also pieced. I'm so lucky to have been gifted with this thoughtful, clever, and beautiful quilt!

The phrase "I've been at sea" sometimes means that one has been lost or without a direction. Well, I've actually had too many directions lately--too many work world changes to chase down like a mom running after overactive toddlers careening from bright thing to brighter thing. So, I haven't had much blogging--or quilting time. But, I did find some family time to go literally to sea! We took a Disney cruise during the kids' spring break, and it was a wonderfully timed break for us all. Just looking at the lovely blue sky portrait of the ship ...

Because this is my birthday weekend, I've been able to do some sewing. Of course, most of it has been on a quilt for one of my daughter's aftercare teachers, who was injured in a car wreck--but it's still sewing! The teacher is very bumped and bruised but not permanently hurt. Though, my experience is that bumps and bruises hurt plenty all on their own. The teacher is a huge fan of a very specific college sports team, which you might be able to suss out from the picture of the quilt below:



I took the picture ...

I'm a charter subscriber to Domino. I'm not sure why; maybe because it first began publishing when we moved into our no-longer-new house a few years ago. Maybe because I simply love getting magazines--especially those that are really just catalogs in disguise. Anyway . . . every once in a while, Domino runs an editorial spread in which its decorator du jour (read, some intern) tries to turn an outfit into a room. (Clarification: The goal is to create a room that captures the essence of the outfit.) It's a wacky idea that somehow always works.

So, this weekend, I ...

Yes, this is an entire kitchen's worth of Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing.

Can you feel the calories?

Happy Valentine's Day!

One of my daughter's kindergarten teachers is pregnant, so she drafted me to make a quilt. I felt in the sewing mood, so I whipped out the top this weekend. My daughter actually helped me "sew" a bit and got a lesson in assembly line cutting and piecing that I'm sure will change her life :) I started from a pattern (Cobblestone something) in a baby quilt book I've had for a while. But, I changed the colors and added a more complex set of borders, including the checkerboard. I used a lot of my 1930s stash fabrics ...

Look at what fantastic surprise came in the mail last weekend:



It's a gorgeous Four Seasons Quilt Swap (FSQS) quilt from Ms. Jan. Like me, she lives in warmer climes and opted to focus on our shared winter fruit: the orange. (I've actually still got them hanging from the tree outside.) The quilt is so very lovely and is in colors that are way-me, so much so that I own at least three of these fabrics. The quilt now graces my dining room. Thank you!

As the arrival of the winter swap quilt suggests, it's the end ...