Round Robin

Hola! Way back in February some of my quilting buddies and I started a Round Robin wallhanging. I've never participated in this type of round robin so I was very excited to be in this group. Below you will see a picture of the center blocks that each one of us started with. Mine is the one on the bottom left.

The way the round robin works is that each person makes their center block and then the block is passed to the next person on the list. That person has to create a border following a set of guidelines. (We happen to be using the guidelines set out in the "Quilter's Home" magazine)

The first round we had to create a 3" border using triangles. The next border was to set the whole thing on point and add an applique design. The third border was a 4" one with rectangles. I am just putting the finishing touches on the 3 border of the top right hand block. How I wish I could post a picture, but alas............we have one more pass before each quilt is revealed to its owner. That is one of the rules...........you can't see your own quilt and how it is turning out until the end, which will be in 2 more months. I am getting really excited to see my quilt and see what the others have added! I know that it will be fabulous, because I have some really talented friends!

This is a picture of a quilt that I finished quilting this week. The quilt had a really strong graphic look to it and the maker told me that it MIGHT be a gift for a man, so I decided to quilt it with randomly sized and placed circles.

Here is a close-up shot:

Our dear son Brian got married and moved out about a year and almost a half ago. I called him several months ago to ask him how that marriage was going and if he was thinking of coming home. (Okay, I KNEW the answer.....they are just as happy as can be) The REAL purpose of my call was to kind of let him know that we were turning his old room into a den complete with a couch, bookshelves and of course the computer desk!

About a week ago I wrote about how I am touching up the paint around all of the windows in my house since my husband replaced them. Well, here is a funny story to go with that. We bought a couch with a pull-out bed to go in the "new" den. It was going to be arriving in the afternoon, so I took the opportunity to do some really detailed touch-up painting around this window. When the couch arrives the delivery men kinda shrugged thier shoulders and told us that the couch was NOT going to fit up the stairs. To give them credit, they did try a couple of times, but basically we were on our own. My husband took the railings off the stairs, he took out the light and the smoke detector at the top of the stairs. He even went as far to take the door off the closet at the top of the stairs...............Dang couch still would not fit. He took the couch apart as much as he could........still to no avail.

The couch is in the den now and it looks really lovely, but do know how we got it in there? No, it was NOT up the stairs...........Mike took out the second story WINDOW ( you know, the one I had just puttied and painted) and I mean the WHOLE window frame and all. Then they stood on the back of a pick-up truck on TOP of one of those foldy-type ladders and LIFTED that couch up and thru the window! Now WHY didn't I get a picture of that? Here's the new couch: (and the window it came thru....reputtied and repainted! AGAIN!)

Mamma Mia

Last night I went to see Mamma Mia with people who are near and dear to me. It was a silly, happy, fun and upbeat movie. I enjoyed the performance by Meryl Streep and the film location was so beautiful and colorful. Made me want to go to an island in Greece!

When we came out of the theatre is was getting ready to blow up an Arizona monsoon storm. We drove thru pouring rain and big time lightening. Arizona storms are really centralized. As I neared home there was no wind and no rain and only lightning in the distance. However when I got out of my car to retrieve some articles in the back seat my dress started blowing and the car door slammed hard against my arm. I"m hoping that there was no one around or they could have witnessed a FULL MOON as my dress was whipped up to my shoulders! Luckily I made it into the house before the rain started pouring down. As I made my way into the house I started thinking about Full moons and lightning and rain.............When it rains when the sun is out there is a rainbow.............what comes with a full moon and rain?

So Many projects.........So little time!

My side yard continues to SLOWLY take shape. The exciting news this weekend is that my husband had added two new water faucets and several electrical outlets along the back fence. I believe that he will also be installing a system where I can do timed watering. I'm hoping that I will be able to have all of this garden in place when the temperature finally dip below 100 degrees! Now you know that if I had DARED to plant actual flowers or vines or ANYTHING it would have withered and died! However you can see that the WEEDS have absolutely NO PROBLEM growing!

You are now looking at the beginning of a wall mural that is being painted in my secret garden area in my side yard. I am hoping to paint a beautiful countryside in between those arches. After the country scene is painted I will be adding vines and flowers on these arches.
Yeah! I finished up the blue and brown baby quilt. My client wanted it to be quilted with circles since her daughter is decorating the nursery with a circle theme.

Below you will see a picture of my current living room wall and the couch that was bought to go in it. As you can see they don't look very good together.
Here is one of my test walls. This is the entry hallway. First I painted it with a very light green and after that completely dried I used a sea sponge dipped into a paint/glaze mixture and sponged the color on the wall. I really liked the results but it was very time-consuming!!!!!

The training of our Betsy-girl continues. She is especially attentive while someone is eating.

Betsy is SURE that Jenny will share................
Jenny is giving Betsy "THE LOOK"

The plans for the wedding continue. My latest project has been making personalized shot glasses for the bridal party. I don't know if you will be able to see it in this photo, but using glass etching cream I added Maid Of Honor, Best Man, Bridesmaid, Groomsman and a name to each of these glasses.

Guess that's it for today. Time to get busy again!