A Little of This, A Little of That

Arg!! Blogger was doing so well!! My photos loaded correctly...until I got to the little quiltlet. sigh. You'll have to tip your laptop again, sorry Kristin! But the rest of the group are right-side up. They seem to have my quilt work tagged as "must be tipped." grrr.

So. Deep breath. Breathe in, breathe out. whew! Much better.

As I took the garbage out yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised by blooming roses. My poor rosebushes are terribly neglected, and they offer very few blooms over the course of the year. When I saw these, I immediately decided to bring them inside, so that I can truly enjoy them.

I get my love of roses from my dad. When we were kids, he had over 125 rose bushes in the backyard. I remember them well. Whenever I got in trouble, I was sent out to weed the rosebushes. I was out there at least once a week, usually more. But I digress.

Yesterday I received quite a surprise in the mail. My sister sent a note, and this card was included in the envelope.

Inside it says, "Happy Birthday Granddaddy! Love Suzie." Wow. I don't remember the card, I don't remember making it, I don't remember ever having even marginal success with watercolor. But apparently at some time in my youth I was inspired. I'm thinking it would be fun to transfer this image to fabric and thread-paint it, like I did to my daughter's orchid drawing. If I do that, don't worry, there will be pictures...even if it is a dismal failure.

As I worked on the birthday quiltlet that I showed in my last post, I started playing with the odds and ends in my "tropical UFO" box. I began putting pieces on the design wall and sewing up 4.5" squares to fill in the blanks. It made me smile, so the pieces are still up. Here's what I've got so far.

There were strips in the box, as well as blocks, so I thought it might be a good idea to make some of them into this journal cover...


There were squares in the box as well, so I put this together. It's not at all finished, it will be embellished. I just thought it would be fun to show all the things I did while "playing" yesterday.

Finally, as I was looking for potential embellishments for the above sideways quiltlet, I started rummaging through Mother's buttons. There are so many of them, and they were such a jumble, I thought it might behoove me to separate them by color. (I just happened to pick up these Hershey kiss tins for 50 cents apiece. I knew they'd come in handy.)


There aren't as many colored buttons as I thought there were, but they are definitely much easier to paw through now. I still have a large cannister of white, black, metal, and carded buttons, but those can wait. It was the colors that were calling me, so for now, I'm done.

With that, I'm off to play...and finish spackling the back bedroom in preparation for painting...