Hairbrained

I took Thursday and half day Friday off work so I could clean my poor neglected house. Thursday, I did really well, worked all day and got a lot accomplished. Friday…. Well, after making snow ice cream with cherries on top with my residents and walking home through a winter wonderland, I made the mistake of cleaning off my nightstand. "Why is cleaning off your nightstand a mistake?” you ask. It was a mistake because my charm pack of Nancy Drew fabric was there. It was such a lovely snowy day I ended up sewing instead of cleaning. (I know that none of you have *ever* done such a thing.) <wink>

I had some issues with my math ( you can't get 2.5 inch HSTs out of 2.5 inch squares unless you have super powers or magic and my wand is broken and I am out of fairy dust!) so I needed something brainless to work on to rest after fixing all my calculations.

In retrospect, I should have started cleaning house then  but instead I thought I would start a scrappy trip around the world- I have this wonderful bag of strips already cut. ( Thank you Fairy CaMom)  I sorted some of the strips and then realized they were NOT all the same size and some were  a wee bit diagonal. “Ok, no prob- I will make a wonky trip around the world” so I started stitching strips together. I cut the first set of strips and realized it wasn’t going to work as I had pictured but I could still do something with the strip sets.

I love the tropical colors in these strips

I must have dreamed about the strip sets because as soon as I woke up on Saturday I had an AHA! Moment. I could make some herringbone blocks. I sorta used the tutorial here at bijou lovely –except the pictures didn't come through at all on my phone AND I already had these lovely strips sewn together so I just started cutting my wonky strip sets into diagonals. 

  I was late for work at the store because I was having way too much fun. I had some yellow marble from Moda in my stash (again thanks Fairy CaMom) added some sashing.

I told my moms it was a wild hair –ing bone and then decided it was because I am hairbrained, so I have dubbed this my Hairbrained Herringbone Quilt.

Since I can’t show you Nancy Drew yet ( my day is the 14^th) I shall share this with you!

I still have quite a ways to go before it is done- I want it Cuddle size for a snowy day.



On another note- I also wanted to share my Dr Seuss What's Happening Board that I did for the nursing home each of the trufula trees, stripes and hands has the date and time for an activity happening in march. I love celebrating Dr Seuss with my residents. We have a group of kids coming to celebrate with us - we  will be making oobleck!

Thursday we are having a Quilt Show at the Nursing Home- I will share pictures next week!

OXOXOX

Happy Valentine’s Day! Once again Madam Samm and her cheerleading squad deserve lotsa Hugs and Kisses for putting together a fabulous hop for us! Jane has done a great job of keeping us organized!
        Before I share my block, I have a short story. My Sunshine Boy, Nehemiah was about 6 years old and just learning to read. It was close to Valentine’s Day and we were all at Nana’s (Nana also loves Valentine’s Day and always has great decorations,) Miah looks up at me and says “Aunt Bobbie, why do all the Valentine’s decorations say Ox Ox on them?”   I had no idea what he was talking about “Ox, Ox?” Then he pointed at Nana’s tablecloth which had hearts and hugs and kisses (XOXO) on it. He was looking at it upside down and sure enough, XOXO upside down is OXOX.

 As I was thinking on Hugs and Kisses for this hop, I knew I had to incorporate this story into my project. So here is my OXOX block- which I will turn into a pillow case for My Sunshine Boy.

 

I used the pattern from Debbie Mumm’s

Quick Country Quilting to make the Ox (ok ok he really is a cow)

and CaMom had sent me the longhorns fabric in

one of her moo-velous stash enhancing boxes.

I was going to make just one thing for this hop but- when we went shopping I asked EmmaBean to pick out some fabric for St Patty’s Day and she picked the ladybugs- I just had to make something for her and then Jayme over at finding sweetland reminded me of  Rachel's ( ps i quilt)  cute little friendship bag- I used some of my gazillion 2 inch squares and tweaked the pattern a bit – her strips were a different size and I wanted a two tone handle.  I made EmmaBean this cute little bag- it worked up in less than two hours (not counting the fabric choosing.)

I added a fussy cut laddy bug and some rickrack too

the back

inside

EmmaBean loves her new bag!

Then Amanda over at Jedi Craft Girl used her Jedi bloggy tricks and *forced* me to make this little guy- He took less than 10 minutes! I will be making more for sure!

I didn’t even have to add eyes-
 my fabric just happened to have O’s in
just the right places!  

Be sure to check out all the fun hugs and kisses over at

Thursday February 14th

Dachsies with Moxie

From This to That 

Sew at Home Mummy 

Everyone Deserves a Quilt 

A Geeky Crafty Life 

Charlottes Creations

The German Mom

Debby Kratovil Quilts

NorthHills Quilter

The whole schedule can be found over at Jane's

 

Wishing you a Valentine’s Day
                           with lots of OXOX!!

Abraham Lincoln's Birthday

Today in honor of Abraham Lincoln's Birthday the Residents and I built a log cabin- We were going to use Lincoln Logs but I couldnt get over to my sister's house to borrow them. So we used pretzel rods instead- our chinking is Peanut butter and our shingles, doors and windows are saltines. We had a lot of fun building our cabin- our engineering needs some tweaking but The cabin *is* standing (albeit a bit crooked.) After the building was finished we enjoyed the leftover "logs and Chinking"

We added a pond with a fisherman

and a stack of firewood

Today is not only Honest Abe's Birthday it is day 2 of the Hugs and Kisses Hop




















Check out what these ladies have made!


Tuesday February 12th

Just Let Me Quilt

Quilt Monster in my Closet

Nati's Little Things

Kwilty Pleasures

Cherry's Prairie Primitives

Pig Tales and Quilts

the tilted quilt

Sew Much 2 Luv

Sew Incredibly Crazy

Freemotion by the River

Marjorie's Busy Corner

Hugs and Kisses anyone?

It's Here It's Here

 the Hugs and Kisses bloghop is HERE!

 There is alot of Pink and red showing up all over blogland and the best of the best happens over at SEWWEQUILT! Be sure to check out all of the Valentiney goodness!

Monday February 11th

Jane's Fabrics and Quilts

Sowing Stitches

The Fuzzy Hat Quilter

Quilts and Dogs

Ninis Patchwork

Mrs. Pickles Garden

Patchouli Moon Studio

Life in the Scrapatch

Meadowbrook 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a sneak peek of what I have planned for Thursday!

I am rather excited about my projects- I found my mojo again!I had one project planned and it became 2  and then 2 became 3 and it's only monday..... who knows what else I will come up with before thursday. Sherman is getting a workout!

 

Have fun Huggin and hoppin

Ramblings

I realized the other day that I *still* hadn't stitched a stitch all year! I seem to have lost my mojo- It may be buried in my disaster area office- I was informed last week that I had til the first to move my office into one half the size. (I am an activity director at a nursing home- that means lots LOTS of stuff) EEEK!!!  AND being the end of the month I also had to get the new activity calendar done, write the newsletter and make new bulletin boards and... and... and...  I took it as a challenge and managed to get moved a day ahead of schedule and get the calendar up on time. The newsletter is done (not mailed but done) and I made an adorable bulletin board- I feel a bit like wonder woman! Of course my cats are wondering if I still live at home and my poor house...- lets not go there okay? :) My new office is in a better location and has lots of shelves, just not deep shelves. I think I will like it.
The bulletin board was so easy that it really shouldn't rank high in accomplishments but it is so stinkin' cute (IMHO) it looks like it should be way at the top! All I did was take the wrapping paper off the background and add some book page hearts n lace. That's it.

It was so easy I had time to make myself a wee book page heart garland for my  new office. I am going curtain fabric shopping tonight. I am also going to make my filing cabinet pretty with fabric. I will post pictures soon.

I did get some sewing done for the Hugs and Kisses Hop coming soon- my day is the 14th! AND I can't show you what I made but until then I can show you something I made for the same little girl that one of my hugs and kisses projects is for. This was Emma's Christmas gift-I used an old picture frame and made her a hair bow frame. It has will have hooks on the bottom for ponytail holders and headbands. The Letters and little dresses are chipboard from my scrapbooking stash- I LOVE K&Company chipboxes!

I am off to shop! Have a great day!