Jean Monster done!

I did it !

I did it!

I got it done! Whew!
Here is the Monster Jean Quilt in all it's glory.........

And here is the tired model~ I guess it got heavy!

It may be a couple days before I have another finish (who am I kidding about a couple days??)

Okay, it may be a couple days before I have anything to report or take pictures of, I'm leaving tomorrow to take my dad to his heart appointment on Monday. Hopefully it will just be a routine cardiac cath, and he will rest up and give me a hard time on the way back to his place.

Beer Tour finish!

I did it! Monday night I finished my last three beers for the mini tour! And here is the t-shirt as promised!

See the picture Leigh? That's a Fosters there just for you! Just like the commercial says-
"Fosters, it's Australian for beer" (but read that with an Aussie accent)
all 25.4 ounces of it!!!!!!!!! slosh slosh slosh! My husband helped me drink this one, though I could have done it myself- I liked it better than the Shandy - beer with lemonade.



Meanwhile, I have been doing more than drink beer! I got all these brights cut out for my swap blocks......

I won't tell you how many of those strips are the WRONG length! I'm going to have a lot of my own blocks to go with all the swap ones! So, that's good right???

AND! I am finally doing the quilting on the jean monster! I'm not sure it really qualifies as quilting as there is no batting, but to go through the denim is hard enough for both me and my trusty Viking!


I couldn't fit this one on my sewing table, so I mentioned that I needed to move it down to the dining room table and when I got home I discovered that my sweetie husband had done it all for me! So I am sweating away working on it, yes, sweating- it's on the hot and humid side here in NE Wisconsin. But, as soon as I finish this monster I can go up to my sewing room which is semi air conditioned! Good incentive!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

Today is my birthday! I got all this great stuff in the mail, but I wanted to wait for my actual birthday to show it off.

I got two cool packages, one from my blog sister in Florida and one from my snot sister in Australia!

From Australia I got a cute card, chocolate koalas (MMMMMMMM), stickers, an Australian coin, a cute pattern and some fun origami type dealie things. (not sure what to call them, but they are cool)

From Florida I got a cute card, fabric, blocks (she talked me into joining a block swap) stickers to put on the back of my finished blocks, a pen for writing on my 365 quilt ( which I talked her into joining), and the neat tote bag- which says "green bag".

Thank you, thank you Susan and Leigh!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight my sweetie husband took me to dinner at Old Chicago, I had 3 more beers towards my summer beer tour! I'm only 3 away from earning a t-shirt!!!!!!!! Yippeeeee

When I get it, there will be pictures~

Camping on the island

We had a GREAT weekend camping on the island. We found this little island years and years ago and have spent three separate wonderful weekends there. Real camping- ;-)
this is our island from the front, you can just see the tent kind of in the middle, we had the rain fly off at this time so it shows up more than when it has the nice dark cover.
We do the whole respect the land thing- take only memories, leave only footprints. Actually this time we took a few beer cans someone else left too, and of course a lot of pictures.

Sadly this was to be the last camp we can do there. Saturday night some nosy old bloke putted VERY slowly around the island checking us out, and sure enough- Sunday afternoon as we were packing up a DNR guy came and told us we can't camp on state land, that it really should be posted as such. I guess we were lucky that it hadn't been posted before. Still it was wonderful and we have the pictures to show!


Here I am with the canoe almost loaded-







Pitching the tent~







Jim and I in our camouflage! Hard to see us isn't it? ;-)







Making coffee- a necessity!!!!!








Supper on the fire- look good?

It WAS!

Me and my Corona! Life Is Good!

We got in a lovely canoe ride on Sunday morning when the weather settled down a bit. We saw many many beautiful water lilies, loons, a momma deer and her sweet little twins, beavers, tons (literally) of Canadian geese- which, by the way, are very lovely to look at as long as you don't have to walk through all their goose poop! I took notes for quilt blocks I want to make. I am in the beginning stages of another camper quilt- yes ANOTHER project.


This is a very old abandoned "party barge" (as we call them here) that has been half sunk on the edge of this island (not our island) since before we started camping in the area, 13 years ago. We are always intrigued by it. Our second daughter wrote a short story once about the haunted pontoon boat. Could there be a quilt here????




Home again, and here we found our -blond dog-, gosh it sure is a DOGS LIFE isn't it?

We all enjoy our porch!!!

Update on washer tragedy~~~~

Yippeeeeee! I got a call from the washing machine repair guy and it was just that the level switch (technical term - thingie that says when the water is high enough) fell off inside the machine. He put it back on, ran it (gosh he could have thrown some clothes in there couldn't he?) and it's fine! plus it's only about $50.
Whew! Now I am off to finish packing for this weekends camping in the wilds trip. Watch for pictures!

Something is missing here..........

Have you ever had one of those nights? Sort of like one of those days, but worse because it starts after 10pm?

Last night was one of those nights for me, it all started actually on Monday when we got back from camping and I noticed (sharp aren't I??) that I had a ton of laundry to do. Yeah, I know, how surprising is that?

Well there was our camping laundry and then there was the regular laundry that no one left at home seemed inclined to work on. (yet another big surprise) Well, I was working very diligently on the laundry, when it happened...........

Now our machine tends to get out of balance so I tried to stay downstairs in case that happened (okay and then I could be on the computer and email my blog sister and surf the blog ring) but I never heard that funky sound it makes as it walks across the floor. So I continued with my important computer work, after a half hour or so I went in the kitchen and the darn thing was out from the wall but still in the fill cycle and flowing all over! I waded through a couple inches of water to get to it to try to shut it off and shut off the water, and then I could hear the water running downstairs through the floor (yeah-through the floor) so I went out to the tractor shed - in the dark- with a flashlight - barefoot of course- over the gravel driveway - to find the shop vac.

Solution! right? Suck up the water and dump it out. so I start it up and it starts sucking up the water and then it starts spitting the water back out! YIKES, what is wrong here???? I try again, same thing! arrrrrrrr I call a friend, yes a guy of course- and ask if he feels like going on a rescue mission, oh sure what's up so I tell him my washer overflowed and I'm standing in 3 inches of water in my kitchen and the shop vac is spitting the water back out.
I'm expecting a "I'll come save you" reaction.......
He laughs.
You read that right! He laughed at me!!!!!!!!!!!
I told him in no uncertain terms to stop that right away and get his heine over here and help me out!
So, within 10 minutes or so, (meanwhile I can still hear water running through the floor into the basement), he arrives, and explains that I should have taken the filter out of the shop vac first. Well, fine! Who knew there was a stupid filter in there? and why didn't it say that on the machine in plain English where any normal person would notice?
So, filter out, the shop vac sucks, but in a good way. Gosh, I had no idea there was that much dirt and lint under my machines- can you say eeeeeeeeew?
heavy sigh~
water is off the floor~
dirt has been tracked in with coming and going and now there is mud on the floor~
BUT- I am grateful we haven't actually ripped the floor out yet in our long renovation process so it's not like I ruined it (I hope)
Next we bailed out the washing machine~
hauled rugs and clothes outside to drip on the lawn~
then waited for Jim to come home.....
Meanwhile I thought it proper to offer refreshments and entertainment (other than me on my hands and knees sans kneepads, wiping the floor, so I got him a beer and we were playing gin rummy when a slightly-grumpy-from-work-husband walked in wanting to know what the hell was going on!
Can you say "bad night at work"?
Of course it didn't help that we had planned to open a bottle of wine and finally celebrate our anniversary when he got home.
So, that was my night last night.

Now, you have figured out what is missing in the picture--- the washing machine. My sweet husband hauled it off to the repair shop today AND cleaned the floor!

Everyone do that hand motion and say YEEEEEES! So all I had to do was haul laundry to the Laundromat, and bring it home to the dryer. An added plus is that it's a brand new Laundromat with a COFFEE SHOP IN IT!!! Wooooo Hooooo!

Guess who is going to come home to a happy wife, a cold bottle of wine and something nice?

;-)

I WON!!!!!!! I WON!!!!! I WON!!!!!!

Okay, I won, but I understand that paying for your win sort of cancels out the "I won!" factor.

But look at this cooooooool package I got! Yes the ice cream cups were included. Sweeeeeeeeeeeet! Now maybe I will get back to some serious sewing.

I've had such a bad case of quilter/sewing ADD lately. I don't even want to admit to how many projects I've started this summer, when I already have a list as long as my arm of things to do- to finish - to start....... sigh

But, there was a slight excuse this past week, and it wasn't' all the 4th of July holiday, we were getting ready to go camping, and we just got back today. So, now the cleaning up part comes. yuck. Still, the memories are great! We saw 5 Bald Eagles, one came down and snatched a fish right up out of the river, and one flew right past our campsite. HUGE wings! And the white of his feathers is soooooooo bright white it's just not to be believed.

Back to laundry and (hopefully) some sewing!

Busy Summer!

So far we are getting a lot done around the yard this summer, and once in a while I get to sneak off to my sewing room and do something there too. Sneak off? Geeeeze, sounds like a closet alcoholic doesn't it?

I'm showing an update on the flower bed~ Finally got the weeds out, the edging done and the flowers planted, now they just have to grow!

First is a reminder of what it looked like a few posts ago......

And as of today!

Quell difference! or however you spell that french stuff! (just read it with a french accent)

Next I have been doing some small quilty things that can be finished up in one sitting- a motorcycle print mug mat for my husband- no he does not take it on his cycle! ;-)

Next I was having some trouble with my water bottle "sweating" all over my desks, so I made it a little quilty bag thingie- both of these are lined with that silver fabric -can't think of what it's called, but it insulates them and they are working great! See the awesome vintage cooler it's sitting next to? I found it (well I bought it) at an antique mall. Silly isn't it? My parents had the same one and I'm sure they got rid of it years ago in favor of a lightweight and bigger one. ;-) I like to use this one on the porch to transport cold drinks in ice. I think it looks cool, but then what do I know? ;-)

Last is the start of (yet) another quilt. My cupcake blocks. I did a few smaller ones that I finished as birthday cards, or started to finish as birthday cards- and then I thought that they would be a cute quilt, (or wallhanging for birthday parties) so I dug around and found anything that looked remotely like frosting to me. Some are REALLY frosting looking and some sort of resemble that imaginary food in the movie "Hook". But, it's fun and they are portable as I'm hand appliqueing them.

If they end up as an actual quilt, I'm going to do a wallhanging and make a layer cake with funky candles anyway. I've always thought that would be nice to put in my wallhanging space in the dining room for parties.