And Speaking of Sticks 118/365

Here are some better pics of the new stick, which yes, sold!

Steampunk Ball tonight! Grandma is going with me as a space pirate yay!

Happiness Is A Satisfied Customer 117/365

Sold the Fire Stick to  a professor in Virginia. He wrote us a nice note and sent this picture. If only we could get everyone to do this for us!

Nothing to Say 116/365

Seriously...nothing to say. How sad is that? I'm going to bed.

Exciting Progress on New Steampunk Skirt! 115/365

Oh the joys of having the living room to lay out your Crazy Quilt Blocks and pattern pieces!

 Everything is cut out and ready to sew. I may go as far as doing a petticoat since I didn't do the jacket. I have an idea for a cute little fascinater hat too. Fun Fun!

Making A Custom Walking Stick 114/365

It's not as easy as you'd think..."Oh just throw some varnish and beads and a piece of leather on it." Yeah right, well we had to shop for crystals and non existent crow totems. Ugh!  Then it was motivating Mr Jack to help with the leather n stuff. He did actually do a most excellent job on finishing the stick. He set a blue stone in a knothole as a bonus. I will get a picture of me holding the stick before it is mailed out.

I just realized you can't see the black feathers, our nod to the crow. She wanted both dragonflies and crows. Dragonflies=easy. Crows=not so much.

Gowk's-Storm 113/365

I have a friend on Facebook called Scottish Word of the Day. I felt this was fitting.

Scottish Word of the Day!

From my "forgotten English" word of the day calendar .... "Gowk's-storm". Several days of tempestuous weather.....beginning in April at the time the gowk, or cuckoo visits the country. LOL...................Renea


Leslie said this:


Learned something new today.
"Gowk's-Storm".
Several days of tempestuous weather.
That would be the last three days as in snow, rain, sun, rain, hail, sun....


Need proof?

Of course with the snow and rain Jack didn't work, once again messing my day up and keeping me from laying out CQ Blocks on the living room floor to make my skirt. The Charlie jacket isn't going to happen :( maybe next time *sigh*

I'm Too Old For This Crap 112/365

#1 TEENAGERS

#2 PMS

#3 DEALING WITH TEENAGERS WHILE EXPERIENCING PMS

#4 DEALING WITH TEENAGERS WHILE EXPERIENCING PMS WHILE NOT BEING ABLE TO BUY FABRIC, YARN OR BEADS FOR RELIEF

A Behind the Scenes Look at the New Elephant Barn 111/365

Jack has been working up at the zoo for several months moving dirt so they can build the new elephant and rhino enclosure. There will be a new bird cage too. Weeeeeee! We went up last Sunday so he could check something and I took pics.

A little perspective on the size of the wall.

Choosing colors for the new wall.

The buildings.

Me in my Steampunk hat which Jack didn't say a word about me wearing out in public, bless his heart.

Burgundy and Gold CQ Blocks 110/365

And my microphone too.

Heather's Friendship Star Block of the Month Thingy 109/365

Here's the Block of the Month I did for Quilt Guild Wednesday. No, I did not win the drawing though I have done so twice in the past.

Steampunk Charms are NOT BEADS!!! 108/365

In order to jump on the Steampunk bandwagon and make some moneys off it I needed some Steampunk components. These are NOT BEADS! They are charms and that's a whole different monster.

The elephants are for a stick for the GC at the zoo who is overseeing the building of the new elephant barn. jack has been working up there for several months. Pictures of that coming soon (the construction not the stick...stick pics much later lol)

Slogging Along 107/365

I have been working at the whole stash busting thing I swear I have! Too bad I actually had to do the domestic thing yesterday. I swept, cleaned the fridge, did laundry, sorted out my closet (I made a few really CUTE outfits from stuff I had packed away...love it!), and vacuumed. I sewed a block for Block of the Month at Quilt Guild. And of course I knit a bit.

 I have these things close by me when I'm watching TV...

I was going to use the yarn for a shawl but I thought I should do socks since I threw several pairs away after fighting the holes yet again. And OMG isn't the beaded bag coming along nicely?!?

The plastic marker is at the middle row. It's going faster now. I haven't worked on the pink one at all because I am having too much fun with this one.

I was afraid I was going to run out of darker beads since I used some on the Steampunk Altoid Tin (which I donated to the Steampunk Ball benefit). However since I am on the back side and moving fast I know I'll be OK.

Like...Whoops Man (AWOL) 106/365

I have been gone but hopefully not forgotten. Stuff happens and it happened to me. The good news is I have two glorious weeks ahead of me to sew my next Steampunk outfit. Yay!

Mah New Glasses 105/365

I got some new glasses finally. I got my last pair early in 2006. Holy Crap Batman 5 years?!? No wonder I couldn't see straight anymore... Anyways these have those fancy transition lenses. I likes em a lot.

I am slowly working on a hand full of projects and still not buying fabric, yarn or beads.

Dogs n Stuff(ed Cats) 104/365

So I have decided that this year since I am not actively adding to my physical stash of fabric, beads and yarns, I would actively add to my stash of life experiences My friend from high school, Cheryl, called and asked if I wanted to drive up to Elizabeth,CO with her to help move some dog crates for a friend who has a bad back... well SURE!. We stopped at Panda Express for some body fuel and took a nice drive on HWY 83 north. We turned East past the Palmer Divide and can you say KANSAS!?! Colorado is not all mountains let me tell you.

At the house were we greeted by this:

I also got my picture taken with a stuffed bobcat...tell me I don't know how to live LOL!

After the hauling of the dog crates and tearful goodbyes (One girl was moving to California) we drove back south down HWY 83 looking at the beautiful mountains again. We stopped at Cottonwood Creek Recreation Center to watch Mike play a miserable inning of softball. It was freakin cold!!!!!!

I had five messages on my answering to deal with when I got home but I had fun. Now it's off to the bathtub for a nice long soak and off to bed to recover. I hope I don't dream about escalators again.

Hanging with Erin 103/365

I got to hang with Erin today. She owns a  business called The Asylum for Wayward Yarn. Yes, I added a little bit of her yummy yarn to my stash but it wasn't a purchase....it was a gift I couldn't refuse!

We had to go down to the school for a little bit...notice our name tags LOL!

Completed Flower Ball 102/365

Stashed used: Tacky Glue, 12 buttons and 5 sheets of paper wooooooooooooo!

Steampunk Outfit #3 in the Works 101/365

I started making the fabric for my next steampunk outfit. I need 2 1/2 yards of 44" fabric for the Charlie Jacket and a butt load of blocs for the skirt.

This is the Charlie Jacket. Leslie has the pattern.

Here's how I got started piecing the blocks. #1 gather fabrics, threads and foundation squares.

#2 Star piecing. I need to make the pieces smaller for the jackets. It'll be good, I promise.

Paper Flowers 100/365

I needed to do something different. Lucky for me I get recommendations from StumbleUpon every week. I found this tutorial through that.

You can find the tutorial  HERE

When I get 12 flowers made they get glued into a ball. How cool is that?

On a sorrier note, it's cold and windy again...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Steampunk Altoid Tin 99/365

Just when you thought I couldn't squeeze ONE MORE project out of that Steampunk skirt fabric.... This turned out way cool don't ya think?

The black paint all the way to the rim was a slight pain in A**. I probably won't be making that mistake again.

Purple Crazy Quilt Needle Case 98/365

I had the block for this embellished quite a while ago but I couldn't find my felt (naturally). In looking for something else the bag of felt came to light so I finished it. Yay me!

Good news. I not only sold those three bundles I posted about yesterday but I also sold two more. Yay me again!

Whittling Down the CQ Fabrics 97/365

I think I may have sold these little bundles. Wish me luck.

Every. Little. Bit. Helps.

Where's the Pit Bull? 96/365

I got an interesting email yesterday...


Hi, as an avid quilter and pit bull owner I was looking forward to info on your dog. Do you have a pit? How did you get the title if not? If you have a pit, www.pitbulls.org is a great site to interact with other pit owners. Thanks, Blessings, Gigi.


Here's my reply...

I got the name from the pit bull I owned about seven or eight years ago. Her name was Diane and she used to chase me in play like the wolf did with Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. I have been Dances with Pit Bulls ever since. I now live in a house with a no pet lease so I am dog-less. Now you know the rest of the story! Please check out the www.pitbulls.org site. It's a great place for info on these wonderful dogs and don't believe everything you hear about them in the news....

Slacker That I Am 95/365

I missed some photo ops today because I managed to leave my camera in the wrong purse. Time was I would NEVER do that! I went to knit group with videoknitter and Leslie at the Yarn Outlet then to Mill Outlet for shiny threads, metallic needles and to look at boning for a corset and then to see a gal from quilt guild who actually made my stash look like it could fit in a suitcase! I have fabric envy. Serious fabric envy.

But I have no pictures.

 My bad.

At least I can show you the progress on my knitted/beaded bags.Almost halfway done on the grey one and on the 4 bead row on the pink one. I bought a size 000 24" circular for the next one, which will probably be green. The small needle will probably encourage blindness but if that happens I have decided to be like Jose Feliciano and play guitar and listen to audio books all day.