A fox in the henhouse...literally! And of course some wool!

A few years ago, while Deb and I were at a quilt show in PA, I saw this amazing wool penny rug pattern, so of course, I had to have it.  It had all of the wool, but I had to copy the patterns onto freezer paper, then iron it to the wool, cut the pieces out and then start appliqueing them on!  It took a while to get this all done.  I would work on it a little every fall and then put it away to get other projects started.  Finally, this year when Christmas was over, Kenny told me not to put it away again until it was all finished!  Great idea!  Anyway, I worked on it every night until it was done.  Now I am so excited to get to next year's Christmas and this will be in the box of decorations to put out and actually use!  

This Valentine's penny rug is another of the Grab-and-Go kits that I love so much.  No cutting, just sewing.  This was done in a few nights of sewing while watching television.

A funny story, with a not so happy ending (at least for one chicken).  One morning, Kenny called downstairs to me to tell me that one of my new banty hens was up on the garage roof looking at him while he was in the bathroom.  Since they never go that high, I thought he was kidding.  He wasn't!  I ran to get my camera and saw her sitting up as high as she could get.  Meanwhile, all of my chickens were running around sqwaking and carrying on.  I look over to the chicken coop and saw what looked like a dog...only it wasn't!  It was a red fox!  So that explained the running and hollering from all of my chickens.

 I ran out to shoo him(or her) away and tried to get all of my girls to come back to the henhouse so I could lock them back up.  A few hours later all but one had run back in.  The last one would not let me grab her.  Since I had to go back to school for our last performance of Oliver Twist (I'm the director), I left her out and hoped she would be waiting by the coop door when I got home (that's were they usually wait when it is time to go to bed), but she was nowhere to be found that afternoon.  Ken and I went out with flashlights that night and looked all over the woods, etc...no hen.  Nothing the next morning either.  Late that night we heard racoons fighting across the street (have you ever heard that?  OMG, it sounds like people being viciously attacked...scary) and wondered if they had her.  Either way, she was definitely a meal for some hawk, fox, or racoon that night.  Honestly, it was like Wild Kingdom around here that day and night.  So now, I have to get a new hen and a new rooster (he disappeared sometime in the fall when he was pretty young--more of a chicken mcnugget than a roaster actually).  I will be putting an order in next week.



Quilt retreat...plus!

This weekend was our annual Pieceful Quilting retreat in Southampton.  It was a great time and I had so much fun with my friends and the lovely ladies from the quilt shop.  Our teacher had just become a grandmother for the fourth time while we were there too!  How fun is that?  This is the quilt that we made over the weekend.  The theme of this retreat was "scrappy" which was right up my alley.

The fabrics that we were given to use in the quilt were pretty horrible by most people's standards!  Everyone was laughing when they saw their piles of fabric, but we knew that in the end we would produce something fun and nice.

I love mine!!  Eveyone used different settings and different colors for the borders.  I though I might as well stay on the bold side, so used this nice turquoise as my outer border.  Even Kenny likes it!

Over the winter (which is really not a winter at all here where I live...this year anyway!) I have been doing some hand sewing.  I made a few of these table toppers and penny rugs with precut kits of wool.  So much fun and easy.  Debbie picked a few more up for me while she was in Vermont.  Cannot wait to get started!

Aprons, aprons, aprons!

A few weeks ago, we made these adorable pillows in a class at Pieceful Quilting.  Our teacher, Colleen, came up with the design while she was shopping for a dress!  How smart is that?  It requires 2 inch strips and I had this jelly roll with Halloween fabrics, so I made it for Halloween.  My daughter loved it, so she will get to keep it now that Halloween is over.

 Just look at that great fabric!!  I love it.

I made quite a few aprons this fall.  This is a 50s pattern I got while in Washington state last summer.  A little more complicated than usual, but still pretty easy.  I made this for my friend Kathy who always does so much for my family and is very generous with her Vermont condo!!

The pocket is a flower!!  So very cute (and it was easy).

Same pattern, different fabric!  Don't you just love the jello?  I have this one hanging in my mud room with the other aprons.  I still want to make one more before I move onto another pattern style.  Maybe next week.

I made this at a class a few weeks ago.  It is a super easy pattern.  Evelyn picked out the fabric so I made it for her.  It just looks too cute on her.

 Don't you love the fabric?  I cannot believe Evelyn chose this instead of something more modern!  It made me so happy!

This is a cranberry cherry pie!! It was fun and easy to make.  I just had to make it look like a jack-o-lantern!!  It was gone in one night!

A Quilt for Michelle!

My friend Michelle from work was diagnosed with breast cancer last spring and is finishing up her treatment now.  She is expected to make a full recovery, which is such a blessing, but she has had a lot of trouble with the last few rounds of chemo.  I made her this quilt to keep her warm and cozy as she gets rest and healing before coming back to work this November. 

I had actually made this quilt as part of a mystery quilt series a few years back.  Even then I knew that I was making it for Michelle since it was called Mexico, and she is our Spanish teacher.  When she got sick, I decided it was time for me to quilt it and give it to her.

Last weekend Evelyn and Ali were baking together and they made these cake balls.  They were so delicious!  Ali put them on sticks after Evelyn poured melted chocolate on them.  They looked like a little bouquet when they were all done.  How cute and yummy!

You know how sometimes you have to be at the right place at the right time?  This happened to me last weekend.  I just happened to look up at the sky while I was cooking outside and there was this HUGE full rainbow over the eastern part of the sky.  Kenny was outside unloading the work truck and he got to see it too.  If you click on the picture, you will get an even better look and see the colors more vividly.  After I took these pictures, I had to run inside for a minute, and when I came out, it was gone.  To think that I could have missed such a sight! 

The sky over the back yard after the rainbow.  After the hurricane that blew through here last month, we have a few trees that have no leaves.  This is a walnut tree that looks funny because there are really only nuts hanging and not too many leaves.  The squirrels are having the time of their lives with these trees now.  They climb up, knock the nuts off and eat them all over the yard.

 Did I tell you that we already decorated the inside of the house for Halloween?  Yup..about two weekends ago.  I wanted to be able to enjoy it for a longer time, so we cleaned and then decorated on a Sunday evening a few weeks back. 

Millie really does smile in her sleep!



Millie smiles whenever she is sleeping lately.  Must be having good dreams!

I made this little quilt one night while I sat at the sit and sew at my favorite quilt shop!  When Kenny and I went to Vermont, we went to a quilt shop in Chester and I saw these little pictures on fabric.  Of course, since they were chickens, I had to have them.  Sorry about the picture being sideways, but for some reason, I could not align it correctly.  This was an easy little project.



Back to school!

My niece had a little baby girl this summer, so I made this cute girlie quilt for her! My mom and I went to some amazing quilt stores on Cape Cod this July, and I got tons of jumbo rick rack to use on my projects. The pink was perfect for this quilt.

I embroidered the baby's name on the center panel.

I am back to school already (after what seemed like a super short summer vacation) but it feels good to be working again and being with the little middle school kids. This year the kids are great and it looks like we will have a wonderful year.

Over the summer, I did do quite a bit of sewing, but no blogging. I have a quilt that I am making Kenny and it was my mission to get it done so that I could give it to the quilter who does my important quilts. While I do a lot of my own quilting, I only trust Debbie (Divine Quilting) to do the ones that I think will be real heirlooms that take me a long time to piece, embroider, etc.

Later today I will try to post a few of the other things I have done lately. See you soon!