Homegrown Tomatoes

I was making salad for dinner last night from the last of the lettuce that Mr Creative had harvested last week and realized that we had only part of one tomato in the house so I went out to pick a few of the small cherry types we had growing.
These are wonderful little morsels of sweet tomato taste. I am not sure if Mr Creative remembered which one they were but I hope we can grow them next year.

My supper salad with our homegrown tomatoes and lettuce and a yellow pepper from the farmer's market last week. Yum-O

Happy Anniversary To Us

Mr Creative and I celebrated our 33rd Anniversary yesterday.
He, being the thoughtful guy he is had these beautiful flowers delivered. They are very cheery and happy aren't they.
No gifts for us this year maybe if we ever find an outside dining table we will get that. I told him we should buy a chainsaw to use in the yard. Not romantic but helpful! LOL

Bits and Pieces in the Scrapbook room

I guess I am in a cleaning mood or something.
Now that I have started getting the sewing/quilt room in order I have been thinking about all my goodies in the scrap/guest room and how jumbled they ended up when DD B and grson A stayed in it. I just sort of shoved stuff into some baskets and put them in our basement storage area "for now" Yea, that famous phrase.
So, when I went to Wallyworld yesterday I spied this really cute storage cart with lime green fabric bins and ahhh, haa! A way to coral those bits and pieces in the baskets LOL. So...more sorting and now I am down to one basket, the smaller one, and removed the top bin to put my boom box on that shelf with the next two bins being this and that and a drawer for ribbon.

I love ribbon and buttons so I have it more visible so that I can see what I have and use it! That's not all my ribbon but at least the ones I had in bags and tucked here and there are in one place now.

Update!

Can you believe it?
I spent this evening finishing up clearing the cutting station and even a couple of those ziploc bags of leftovers and tis is the result.
Not quite finished as you can see the pile of mostly patterns, print outs and a couple of teaching samples but this makes me sooooo happy!
The second picture shows the crumb quilt starts and smaller bits and pieces in the basket ready to go.
Makes me want to work on some of those wips (works in progress) waiting for me! But I think I deserve a break for the night! LOL

Un-Piling the Bits and Pieces

I am a piler-upper...
I remember going to a clean your house lecture and the one thing that made sense to me was NEVER put something down "for now" because if you do it starts to become a pile!
I want to clear off my cutting station but the part that isn't covered with the mat is a pile-ing spot. When I cut fabric then the bits and pieces or unused fat quarters and pieces of fabric end up piled on the cutting table. Sometimes things that have no place at the time end up there too.
I will stuff them in a zip-loc bag sometimes if they are for an on going project and once the project is done the leftovers tend to stay right in that bag.
After I returned from my weekly quilt friends meeting I was just annoyed at the bags and piles so I began sorting pressing and putting those bits and pieces into orderly shape. Little tiny pieces or leftover small pieces (and that is subjective LOL) went into a basket for a future project with my group. Bonnie Hunter has an incredible scrap quilts site where she not only shows many, many scrap quilts but shares directions and step by step tutorials all for free! What a WOMAN. I saw the Crumb Quilt project and thought it would be perfect for my evening quilting friends to do and donate for our yearly charity project. We have done everything from fall leaves, fabric challenge, twist and turn among many others. We are going to have a lot of fun creating our own version of the Crumb Quilt.

I also sorted a whole bag of leftover 2.5" strips and they went with the "worms" pile ( from the book Open a Can of Worms), I found a bunch of Nickles (5" squares) and then cut as many pairs as I could from various pieces of fabric in the piles and bags. They went to the Nickle stash for future projects. If the pieces were fat quarter sized then they are to be put into my fq boxes above the cutting table, not shown, by color and if they are larger then they go in the 1/2yd drawer or folded onto another shelf by color. Whew....

Now came the problem fabrics...too big to be in the Crumbs pile because I know they can be used in the future for small projects, and yet not a fat quarter! So....
I now have a new box labeled.....
Large Scraps LOL, Yup and for now if they fit then I will keep adding to the box but once it is full I am going to have to figure out something else or donate them to the Crumbs project.

I hate to show this but here is the messy pile in need of sorting! It is smaller now but still there. I will persevere!

Family Reunion and New Fabric

Mr Creative's family tries to get together every few years to see how everyone changes, tell family stories and of course eat like crazy! LOL
This time we headed to the tiny town of Marion...up near the much bigger town of Kamas...but just in case you don't know where that is it's not too far from Park City...hope that helps. Anyway our Nephew J and Wife A hosted the party and boy they did a terrific job. Serving us home smoked ribs, brisket, and baked chicken, with all kinds of yummy sides. Since I am a low carb eater I really appreciated that they only seasoned the ribs and added no sauces, letting everyone season their own. Amy made a really outstanding Pico de Gallo and NO one was hungry.
Of course they spent a part of the time talking family history and sharing a few pictures that Mr Creative's brother J
had printed from slides he had taken years ago. I am hoping he will be willing to share them so I can do some scrapbook pages for DH. I don't have many pictures to work from.
J and A had several activities ready to go for the many, many kids from an old fashioned hoops game to a parachute. Of course being the D family get together there had to be stilts. Mr Creative"S father had made stilts years and years ago and the family grew up with them. He remembers having one set of stilts that he had to climb the apple tree to mount...good thing they had short ones this time LOL

The only two adults who did the stilts were Mr Creative (in the navy coat) and our nephew D who is the same age as our oldest son D at 31. OK, Mr C said that he should have been given a bit of a handicap since he is 27 years older LOL!

This little gr niece S wanted me to take her picture in my sunglasses holding my stork scissors. She was fascinated by them.\

Now for the new fabric. Right before we left to head up to the party I found this in my mailbox! I love getting new fabric and I love ordering from the Fabric Shack online. They have a great clearance section and such reasonable shipping and fast delivery. I found when DD B was here that I had hardly any grey fabric so I found two, then I am always up for greens! LOL I got the two repros and one that I might add to my Debbie M BOM waiting for a border. The paisley fabric is going to be the background of the free BOM from Bunny Hill Designs of darling baskets. I am smitten with those baskets and one day I will make them. I am printing the patterns for later but I am planning to use the same background throughout the blocks but will scrappy up the baskets and other accents.

In Nana's Backyard

When grandson A visited us earlier in the month Nana had to take pictures of his adventures in the backyard. He usually had lots of fun out there with our "low tech" "low cost" toys.

He, like most kids, loved the sandbox we have out there. It is very small and just right for toddlers to dig and play with buckets, shovels and toys. His favorite thing was to excavate the sand to the grass! LOL

Mr Creative and DD B came home from a Walmart run with this red ball. He has been trained well by his Daddy B in the basics of soccer even at his young age! He enjoyed running back and forth in the yard, often with Belle in pursuit.

I got out the croquet set for him to have some different sized balls to play with and he mostly spent his time taking the balls out and putting them back in the case.

The day he was leaving to return to Texas he discovered my backyard gazing ball and surprise "That's ME, Nana". He ran back and forth finding himself in the glass.
Mr Creative and I loved spending out time with A. I was taking some pictures of Mr Creative and A when DD took the camera and snapped a few of all of us together. This one is so cute as we played around. DH was a good sport and kept on smiling LOL

A New Project...

Like I need another project to work on but, I HAVE to support my friends as they teach in our group so....
LOL
I guess that is going to be my justification for starting this quilt. I had purchased the fabrics a year ago from Connecting Threads for a class at the Utah Quilt Fest. Some lovely foundation pieced snowflake/stars but they turned out to be very very time consuming. So I set that stuff aside for maybe later?
Then when CN presented this idea to our group I thought YES! something to use those fabrics with. My original intent was to make a wall quilt for my bedroom and the new project will work nicely.
The pattern is from Carol Doak and is free...if you want to try it. It probably takes about 3 hours to make the whole block and it finishes at 12".

Everyone Sing to Big A...

Happy Birthday to you....Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday Dear A....

Happy Birthday to YOU!

My baby turned 20 on Sat and it seems that time just can't slow down no matter how hard I try to make it do so.
I got him some new ear buds just like mine that he was always borrowing only his are black mine are a lovely lime green. Mr Creative got him some shells for his gun so that they can go shooting soon. He couldn't find exactly what he wanted at a price he was willing for us to pay so he got some $$$ for when he finds it! LOL

We are so lucky to have our youngest son in our family. He is not the kind to be "all out there" but will surprise us with funny comments and some smart points. He loves to argue when he "knows " he is right but as he matures he is learning that it isn't always the most important thing ( or at least I THINK he is learning that)

Love Ya A!

It's Me and Kind of a Sad day

I know I have been absent from blog-land for quite a while now but between being busy with my family events, having my DD B and grson A visiting and just being a bit lazy, my blog just hasn't been updated for longer than I had planned.

Having A around the house has been such a wonderful thing. Since he lives so far away we don't get to experience the day to day happenings with a growing toddler. So much changes in a few weeks and it's not fun being a long distance Nana!

We had toy explosions in the living room, and family room. Little clothes and diapers, and books where ever you look. Someone to play with Belle and help her eat...more on that to come, and sand everywhere but the sand box!
As I walked around the house today doing some chores that were over due, I snapped a few pictures that showed me the differences.

Belle waiting by her medicine bottle for A to give her a daily pill.
The guestroom all clean an tidy once more
A forgotten sock that will be mailed off soon.
A car seat with only a plastic dinosaur in it.
No need to close the Papa-made gate since there was no one to keep in the backyard
and a covered up sandbox.

We sure miss you already A and B. Now it's only until Dec until we see you again.

Let's Visit A Quilt Show!

During our city celebration my quilt group has, for the 19th year, hung a community quilt show. It is judged, but we intend the judging to help the quilters improve their skills and celebrate what beauty they create! This year our show started out pretty darn small but with some phone calls to our members and friends we ended up with about 100 entries!
These are some of my favorites...many done by my friends.

My vote for favorite quilt was the one in the upper middle...Save the Scraps for the Dogs...made by a group member JA...who had the doggie head panels from many years ago and just by combing through her stash was able to use many many bits and pieces to finish a much larger quilt top. The close up shows a typical block. the bottom right is the quilt that received the People's Choice award...my DH's Administrative Asst. JS made the quilt! I am glad he persuaded her to bring some quilts down to the show.

Upper left is a Mandela quilt made with prints from a local HS art class and the tiny vests quilt was started in 1997 when vests were so popular among quilters and finally finished last year. LOL Another of my quilt friends made that one. And I just love the patriotic flags quilt.

A very clever quilter made the Rush Limbaugh quilt and is planning to send it to him. I sure hope he appreciates all the work she did. The purple sampler was made by another of my quilt friends ND and is made from our BOM 3 years ago. I have many of the same elements hanging on my design wall. It turned out beautiful didn't it? I love her color palate and embroidery work.
Upper right is a close up of the Best of Show...a beautifully done whole cloth satin quilt. Yes, it is machine done but it is exquisite and so well done that I agree with the judges choice.

This last bunch are some of our donation quilts. Our group is very much involved in creating baby quilts and other sizes too for various charity groups including Project Linus, our local Parent to Parent groups and others when we find the needs. Each year we try to donate about 75 quilts and afghans made by members.

So as you can see we had a successful quilt show and are ready to plan next year's! LOL

Debbie Mumm BOM top...

As you can see from the photo I have one of the two Debbie Mumm BOM's assembled to the borders stage!
HURRAH!
I am so loving the colors and the way it has gone together. However I have a dilemma...I chose to use mostly fatquarters and leftover backgrounds so I don't have any yardage to do the outside borders...sigh
I know I will put a narrow border of the sashing fabric on the outside before adding the main border...but not sure from there.

I am not one to spend tons of time on borders so whatever I do it will be pretty simple. I just hate to have to introduce a new fabric just for the border
Any suggestions???

From the Internal Memory

Somehow these photos were stuck in the built in memory of my camera, unknown to me. LOL

A top made by friend P of fabric given to her 5 years ago after her house fire. She said she started with the small stars but decided there were too many pieces to do a complete quilt so she made the larger ones and used the fun border type print to finish the top. She promises to have it finished by next July 4th.

Another quilt friend I shows her almost completed Make and Take project from June. Still needs to finish the quilting but she shared it with us.

DD B before the birth of grson A, who is now over a year old, and the quilt we designed together to celebrate BYU sports! LOL
I helped B but she did most of the work herself and as you can see she is very proud. I feel badly that these pics ended up hiding for so long LOL

MIdnight Magic

Yes, we are some of those crazy people who bought tickets for the very first showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince...OK, I bought the tickets and son A and grson N came with LOL. I guess I was one of the oldest people there at the theater and I know I was the oldest with a Harry Potter shirt on! LOL

I love that this particular theater allows you to reserve seating so that we could arrive about 1/2 hour before the show began and not have to sit in the horrible seats. We had prime seats close to the middle on the first row in the upper section of theater 1. I understand that the show was a sell out in all 8 theaters and DS A overheard that one of the theaters had been "double booked" so that 200 people were turned away! How Awful for them.

It was fun to see how many were dressed up in costumes and were a bit hyper...even grson N said that he was surprised that there were bigger Harry fans than me! LOL We didn't do a preshow party this time at the house but when DD B comes and we go to the IMAX theater as a family I will go all out with a party for that.

Now for my review....WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
SPOILERS IN THE REST OF THIS POST!
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW SOME OF THE PLOT POINTS OR DETAILS DON'T READ ANY FURTHER....

Over all the movie was great and I will be excited to see it again soon.
The Good:
The "kid" actors are getting better and better and really seem to know their characters better each film
The new characters were great especially Prof Slughorn. He had just the right touch of hero worship and kind of a humility if you can call it that, to capture the character nicely. The werewolf Greyback was wonderfully menacing but didn't have much more to do other than be in the background so you don't really understand who the heck he is anyway...unfortunately and Lavender was so funny and although prettier than I had in my mind really did the "girlfriend" roll for Ron perfectly...wish they had shown the scene where Ron gets the necklace for Christmas...it is a funny one in the book OH and the kid who plays a young Tom Riddle is very very creepy and did an excellent job in capturing the evil Dark Lord to be.
I loved the little touches that weren't in the book but added some funny or poignant moments like when Ginny and Harry share a pie at Christmas and how she is there in the background supporting him without being in the scene too much.
It was beautiful looking and the Scottish scenery was great
The Felix Felicis where Harry first discovers the HBP was perfect and then when he uses the potion on Ron...sort of...and the aftermath were well done.
This is the first movie with Michael Gambon playing Dumbledore that I really felt that he "got" the character correct. None of the yelling or strangeness from Goblet of Fire in this film thank goodness

The Not So Good
OK...I really didn't understand the point of the attack on The Burrow... It didn't move the story along other than showing times were dangerous but you kind of figured that from the opening scene...and it was really out of place
The Burrow is supposed to be protected from the Deatheaters and somehow Bellatrix and Greyback manage to attack it??? I was just puzzled and annoyed at the scene

The MOST disappointing part was the lack of a battle at Hogwarts after the death of ....OK I won't spoil it if you don't know who dies. I thought there would be an exciting wizzard battle involving the kids and deatheaters who manage to get into Hogwarts with Draco's help but NOTHING! This was where Bill gets his scars...nadda...and where some of the kids really have to grow up even more fighting off the deatheaters...such a NON happening.
Sigh...

So I am looking forward to seeing it again soon so that I can concentrate on details that I didn't notice this time LOL

Rain, rain, rain

These pictures are a few weeks old but I thought I would share them anyway.
Those of you who have visited us here in Utah know that in the summer we are known to have hot weather but "dry" heat. This past June turned out to be one rainy, rainy month. We just don't have many rainy days but this year's weather pattern was very different and it was rainy more often than not.
I love the rain (unless I have an outdoor event planned) and didn't mind having an unusual month.
These pics are on one of those really rainy days and a big storm passed over us...OK so not so interesting to most of you but, hey, I don't claim to post exciting stuff all the time! LOL