Problems

I have had keyboard problems, and have to post several things......tomorrow!

Day 17 - Eyes

I think of pirates, and pirates came to my mind's eye quickly on this day of eyes.

Bassets have long long ears that get into a lot of stuff.  They get into the water bowl when they drink and into the food bowl when they eat.  They drag along the wet grass and they get chewed by your friends when you are fighting playing hard.  They just plain get in the way.

We use snoods, or hoodies as I call them, to keep them out of food bowls.  Otherwise I would be cleaning ears two or three times a day.  For some reason, Chloe's ears don't get into her food.  It must be the way they are shaped and the way her bowl just keeps them out of the food.  But the boys! Oye!

When we first got DiNozzo I bought a snood from Howlin' Hounds, a basset rescue located in Lafayette, LA.  She makes a lot of doggy stuff and sells them to keep the money rolling in for the rescues she houses.  It had pirates! :-)



But when we got McGee the following year, DiNozzo had outgrown the pirates and they got passed down to McGee.  :-)

And one day..........he ate the pirates.  :-(

I made two more, but when grand dog Hugeaux, who is a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel with some LONG FLUFFY EARS comes he needs one more.

He is really scared of fireworks or when his daddy shoots the guns, so he comes and stays in the safety of his grandma's house.

And so, today, on the day of the eyes, I made Hugeaux one for his ears!

Now if he just had earmuffs for the fireworks tonight!

Day 9 from Caroline

She played with her breakfast this morning!

Day 16 - Stamping

I need a project bag for my knitting.  Perfect.  I will use Day 16 to stamp me one.

I gathered my supplies.  I had a bit of foam left from the last set of stamps I made with Ann Johnson.  (love that lady).  And I used my kitchen shears to make some thin strips that could be made into leaves.



I mixed a color with my Setacolor paints.  A small paintbrush from my watercolor days worked well in getting the paint on the stamp.

I rather liked the stamp, and will revisit the idea when I have more time.  Right now, I needed it to dry.



The sun was shining so it went out on a freshly trimmed leggy ligustrum
poodle bush.



I have an overabundance of scraps so i trimmed a handful down to 1 inch and made the backing for the project bag.  I used a scrap of flannel as the batting because I didn't want this to be stiff.



Hey, I did throw away the trimmings, it was hard but I did it.





I wanted a zipper so my stuff would not fall out, and I thought of that too late so I had to invent a new way of putting in a zipper.  Needless to say, I did not hide my inside seams.  But that is fine, it is for me, and I like it.

I REALLY love the red zipper with the yellow and green print!


I added a pocket to the inside, THEN thought about quilting the stamped side, phooey.  (But that is not really the word I said.)

Here is the inside, with the nice big pocket.


PS - remember the tiny book I made for Carrie's birthday.......well McGee ate it yesterday.  I found it today..........

Day 15 - Dollar

Today we look at what we can do with a dollar.  I thought about the value of a dollar and what it can buy, fabric wise, of course.

I took John Quincy to The Purple Cow to find me some bargains!

There is an area  of the shop where the stuff that doesn't sell goes to bargain basement prices.  99 cents!  Just under a dollar, yeah, buddy.

It says Women's Tops but I found an EX L Men's shirt of 100% cotton.  I check labels!

This wonderful piece is going home with me in exchange for my dollar coin.

Let's see how much fabric is in this piece.  Way more than you think!

Start with a nice sharp scissors and cut off both sleeves.  Long sleeves are even more fabric!

I use the rotary cutter to cut away all the seams and hems.  Sometimes I can get an extra two inches if the piece has a deep
hem across the bottom.



Save all the buttons!

There are many buttons in the
seams as well.

 These are what a deconstructed shirt looks like.  The seams are tossed to the garbage.  The usable portions equal about 3/4 of a yard.

All for a single dollar!

Day 14 - miniature

I had a time coming up with an idea but I think I killed it!  The weekend was so busy I got little but this done in the sewing room.  Carrie's birthday was Saturday and we had house guests and all the cleaning that came with it.  And on Sunday, a fabulous dinner with my friend who just had his knee replaced.

He came out walking with just a tiny gauze band-aid on his knee and it has only been 5 days since the surgery.  Amazing, totally amazing!




I decided my project would be a miniature book for Carrie for her birthday.  Since I had gotten her
nothing....yeah, right!





The tiny book is really cool!  I think I may do this again.
Even though it looks like a large book, it is actually only one inch!





And I wrote the entire birthday song on the pages inside!

Happy Birthday, my baby girl!

Day 12 - Camouflage

You thought I forgot about Day 12, didn't you!  LOL.  I was waiting for Thursday to come around for it to happen.

Day 12 is Camouflage. 

Ann and I had appointments at The Secret Garden, a lovely place set back in the wild area off Government Street.  Not the kind of area you would think of for this, but then the Red Shoes and Circa 1834 is off that area too, so maybe some would think of it.

I had this marvelous facial, that altered my "wisdom" lines and made them blend into the background!  If you have not ever had a facial with its neck and hand massage components, you are missing out on one of the joys of life.

And they can do so many things now with their smelly ointments and flavored steam vents to make you feel relaxed and wonderful for days!

Ask for Jan, she is the owner and a great friend of Carrie's.  You will love her, I know I do!

Day 13 - Tea

Oolong Tea has properties that cleanse the liver.  So I generally have a cup or glass a day.  I will pop a tea bag into my measuring cup full of 2 cups of water and let the tea bag sit for 3-5 minutes.  If you like bitter tea, you can let the tea bag sit and soak its goodness until you finish your drink.

I saved my bag from yesterday, knowing I would be playing with it today.  And it still was not dry!


Here are my tools:  tea bag, ice pick and light colored plate on a clean (even if it doesn't look it) tea towel!

I appreciate my ability to move tiny tea leaves around on a plate with my ice pick and ultimately my fingers.  Tea leaves stick to everything.

Here is where I started from.  A mighty pile of sticky tea leaves.  Even now, I had tea leaves everywhere!

Simple blocks first.  Half Square Triangle.  HST, the workhorse of the quilt world.  Wait, this might just be the Drunkard's Path.  It is hard to tell in tea leaves!

Yep, that was the Drunkard's Path, this is the HST workhorse.

A Nine Patch.  How many of these have I made?  Millions!  Well,  maybe not millions, but a lot.  They are great second blocks, leaving the first block to take the glory.  They are very versatile, filling in places where you have no idea what to do next!

Oh, the Rail Fence.  This block is also a staple basic.  If you turn them on point you get a really nice zig zag!

The Block in a Block.  Nice to use in a Signature Quilt, or if you  want a wonky look you can make the edges uneven.  Sort of like my block here!

Caroline's Day 6 - Fruit

Caroline is eagerly awaiting her book.  We decided it must be coming on that slow boat from China!  Although I have heard about the supertankers that can move so fast they get here in 3 days!  But then they have to dig through tons and tons and tons of merchandise to get to the book, which is probably at the very bottom of everything!

Day 10 and Day 11 Combined with little effort!

I had a bad day physically yesterday so I didn't get anything done on my 365.  I set out to catch up and found these two days combined very easily!

I can envision Sophie's feathers floating down an idyllic river, or Caroline collaging a beautiful blue lake reflecting the brilliant teal sky.

I went for utilitarian!

Day 10 was the water day.  I use distilled water in my iron because it has none of the minerals that can clog up those little holes in the sole plate.  I have needed to add it to the grocery list for, like, two weeks and I keep
forgetting.  I only remembered this time because they stacked a huge pile of bottled water near the exit door!  So 96 cents later, I owned water.

Since I am a total klutz, I have three Tonic Water bottles that hold the water in smaller units to
make it easier to pour into the iron.  They are quite attractive and may make a nice art quilt piece.  Hmm.  I will have to see about that.

Day 11 is working with your non-dominant hand.  I am right handed so I took the camera and manipulated it with my left hand.  Not so easy to do, mind you.

The first thing I did was hit the wrong button and turn the whole thing off!  I re-ignited it and see that I was a little off on the straight!

I then switched the gallon jug over to my left hand, and overpoured the smaller bottle by a bunch.  Do you know what a funnel does when there is no more room in the bottle?

It slowly pours out the water all over the countertop, the dishwasher and the floor.  Looks like musical notes on that towel. I wonder what song it might play!

But luckily, I had Bassets underfoot and they took care of the excess water.