Ack!!! Fail!

I am still struggling with posting photos.  If anyone out there has any insight,  please feel free to share.  When I try to upload a picture,  it takes forever and after a while, it usually says something about losing network connection.  I coughed up the five bucks for more storage to no avail, waaah!  So discouraging.  I did manage to get a few photos loaded while I watched the Ravens win today.  It's possible that the potent sangria that I mixed up earlier gave me some patience, heh heh. 

Here is a peek of the top I made when I declared war on my stash.  It's about twin size.  I have the backing picked out but no sandwich made yet.  I really hope to get it done soon so I can send it to Basics in New York.  The light side of the squares is a funny cat print that I have had for a while.  I used it on the back of a quilt for my daughter a long time ago.  I  think I'm having a new crush on half square triangles. 

This is what I have really wanted to show you for a couple weeks now.  Say hello to Skippy.  I checked this book out of the local library and it had this pattern in it.  So doggone cute.  The original pattern did not have the drops of water, that was my genius addition.  I just felt that all the open space needed something so I used the feather die from my Accuquilt Go and made a bunch of drips.  Lots of fun.

This was the pattern from the book.  I took it to Staples and had it enlarged, A LOT.  Then I made some freezer paper templates.  I did cut the fabric pieces with a seam allowance so I could turn the edges under and then I topstitched the pieces into place.  It worked very well. 

Here is Skippy before he started playing with the water. 

I have some fabrics picked out to make a couple more of these.  I will have a nice little stash of baby quilts soon.  It will be nice to know they are there and not have to put other projects on hold every time someone I know gets preggers.  There is already another pregnancy at work, oy!

      Yesterday I had a little road trip  with some of my Wild Thread friends.  We went to two awesome quilt shops in Pennsylvania.  OMG!  I hope I don't offend anyone when I tell you that we all agreed that we enjoyed 'fabric orgasms' yesterday.  Oh dear, I can't believe I wrote that but we had such a good time and came home with so much fantastic fabric.  Thanks to my eagle eyed  friend, Chris, I now have some of Aneela Hooey's Little Apples fabric.  One of the shops just had its building sold so they are having a liquidation sale, 25% off the already good prices.  Yee haw!  And the other store had

 33, 000 bolts.  So if you were thinking about doubting the big fabric O., think again.  I found out on the way home that I didn't even see the UPSTAIRS of the second store.  Probably a good thing.  It is so much fun to get together with the girls, boy does the conversation go all over.  Failing vision and stray whiskers on our chins were mentioned as well as some brainstorming for handmade holiday gifts.  I am putting together a list of ideas for gifts I can make for my friends.  If you have any ideas that have been hits with your friends, please let me know.  I know it's not even october, but guess what?  I was at Walmart today and they had  Christmas trees and lights out for sale already.  Sheesh!

I hope you had a good weekend and, seriously, if you have any suggestions for my uploading issues, please share.  Thank you!

Not quite.

How do you like my little setup?  I got this swing for mother's day and I am loving it.  I complained a little bit about missing it when it rained for days.  It's wide enough to stretch  out completely with a book, AND the back actually folds down flat if anyone is interested in an afternoon snooze.  Who could that be?

Anyway, yesterday I finally got my act together and ordered up some more Picasa storage to solve my blogging problem.  They said it might take up to 24 hours to go through and they weren't fooling.  I brought my computer and some books out to the swing.  Got Pandora radio playing, opened blogger and then........... it took 5 minutes, FIVE!, to get that picture to upload.  So forgive me for skipping the other pictures I was going to show you.  Maybe tomorrow.  Today, I give up on my plan for blogging.

Now I'm going to stretch out, put my head on a pillow or two (I made these from vintage tablecloths) and read my book until 1pm when the Ravens play the Titans.  If you didn't hear, the Ravens are on fire so far this year.  They gave the Steelers such a whuppin last week, I've been grinning for a week. Sorry Steeler's fans. (not really) 

Just a quickie post!

Here are some pics of the two quilts I cut out during the hurricane when I didn't have any power.  The pattern is from Boo Davis' book that I linked to in the last post.  I don't know why blogger let me upload these two photos but I'm not arguing.  Are these doggies cute or what?  I just rummaged around in my stash for the fabrics and wow.  Who knew I had so many browns?  I didn't. 

This design is a little addictive.  I really want to try different color combinations.  I couldn't resist making a red 'Clifford' doggie with a fun aqua background. 

I am still working on getting more storage space so I can get back in business with my posts.  My latest problem is that I can't seem to get back to the page that I can order the storage space from.  Yeesh!  It popped up before when I was trying to upload my photos so I keep trying which is very time consuming.  And then a couple photos went through!  Nutty!

Anyway,  thanks to all of you for being patient.  I have kept busy in the sewing room and really do have things to show.  This past weekend I declared war on my stash.  I have a lot of fabrics that just aren't doing it for me anymore and I want to buy newer and brighter fabrics.  To make room,  I decided to just USE SOME UP.  I pulled out a couple piles of fat quarters and ironed them and chopped them up.  I cut them into 10 inch squares and then made a bunch of half square triangles.  Charity quilts coming up people!  I will definitely send one to the Basics Quilt Gather.  Victoria and Pat Sloan are trying to get a few hundred quilts together  this fall.  How's your stash doing?  Need to make room for new stuff?  Bang out a quick and easy quilt and get a warm fuzzy at the same time by donating to a cause.

G'nite!

What's a gal to do?

Well!!! I am a bit bugged. I have been trying for days and days to publish a post with some super cute photos but I can't get the photos to upload.  First it works very slowly then says 'network connection is lost'.  Same thing for days and I have been perilously close to having a potty mouth over it.  Today I got a window message that said I have run out of storage space with Picasa.  More storage space is available for purchase and is cheap.  Has this happened to anyone?  Did you buy more storage?  Did that fix the problem?  How much storage does a blogger need?  I have gotten a ton of free enjoyment, entertainment and inspiration from the blogging world so I can't complain about a $5 charge for 20 GB. 
    What is a quilter to do without power?  For example when a hurricane blows through and leaves you without power for 3 days.  And don't even think about feeling sorry for us because 3 days is a record.  We have never gotten power back that fast.  And even better, this time we were able, for the first time, to power our water pump with our generator.  Woo hoo!  Homes with wells need to power their water pumps to get water.  I can live without electricity for way longer than I can cope without water.  We breezed through  Irene's aftermath.  And can I say that there is so much more time in the day without the distraction of the computer or TV.  I read 4 books for one thing.  And what went on in the sewing room?  Well, since I expected to be without power, I spent Saturday finishing two quilt backs.  So first off,  I got 2 quilts sandwiched and basted and ready for quilting.  Then I decided to cut up fabric for some new quilts.  I actually made a list of things to do that included 'cut out 3 quilts'.  I got two done and as soon as the power was back, I zipped them right together.  Lordy, they are cute!!      
     When I went to New York recently, my friend and I had a little time to kill and popped into a Borders bookstore that was having a liquidation sale.  I found several books that I was interested in.  Since we had a bunch of walking around to do and didn't want to have to carry the books around, we decided to come back later on our way to the bus when we were leaving and had our rolling suitcases.  Oops, we didn't make it back and of course I REALLY wanted one of the books, a great quilt book by Boo Davis,  Dare to be Square Quilting.  Well, I could not remember the author or the name of the book but I thought I might recognize the cover.  Mostly, I just remembered a specific quilt in the book that I HAD to make.  I headed to Amazon and searched under rew release quilting books.  Then I scrolled through page after page until, ta dah!  I found it. With no power, I picked fabrics and cut out all the pieces for  2 tops in that design I fell in love with.  As soon as I solve my photo upload issue, I'll share.  And I'll have more to show too because I got the book, Quilts, Baby by Linda Kopp at the library and I am making multiples of one of the designs in that book too.  My sewing room was tidy briefly but now there is fabric and freezer paper patterns everywhere.
      I also made some silly things with Mod Podge.  It's sad how much trash we generate at the hospital.  I started recycling something from work.  Completely dopey but vaguely useful and I had fun.  Bet you're really itching for those photos aren't you?
     If you have any insight on the photo storage issue, puh leeze share it with me.  Thank you!