Another Road Warrior is born.

Where does time go?  Oh I know we have all heard this over and over again.

But truly this year just seems to be flying by.

I can hardly believe it is September already.

And I can hardly believe that the Holiday weekend is basically over.  Well at least for us.

It can’t be that just 72 hrs ago we were wild with anticipation for Em’s flight to come in at 6:50pm from Little Rock.  Well by the way of Baltimore.

 

 

 

And then the storms blew thru. 

And we all know what happens next.

 

 

And we eventually picked her up at 10:30pm.

So much for hanging together the first night.  Paul has had to work this entire weekend and well Em was just exhausted from her marathon travel day.

So we squeezed a whole lot of together time into Saturday and Sunday.

But I was also able to squeeze in some studio time.

Kitting up blocks for my next two projects.

One that I will be able to share with you starting later this month and well the other will most likely remain between me and the design board until late spring next year.

 

 

With Project #1 I decided to put a dent in my overflowing Civil War tubs of stash.

Going totally scrappy in this quilt so for 36 blocks I needed a minimum of 216 different fabrics. I lost count after 250.   Now keep in mind these are very small amounts of each fabric.  Some might appear as only a 4.5” square in the quilt. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was so happy I had this jelly roll (but cut at 3.5” x 20”) of shirtings in the stash.   I bought this earlier this year while out in Tucson, AZ.   Perfect for this project!  

So I sliced and diced and cut some more and now I have the “fixins” for 36 blocks to sew while out at Quilt Expo later this week.   

YES! Traveling up to Madison.  So that means I will get to see Pauli this week.  Oh my both kids in one week.  I am truly a lucky mom.

Project #2 involves my using the 4000+ 4” blocks of fabric that I used to use in my Coloriffic Workshop.  I have decided to retire this workshop after 12 years and it will be gone from the line up with the unveiling of my brand new All-Spiffed-Up website in about 10 days.

So I have conjured up an plan and it involves many 6” blocks.   So I started with making a bunch of half square triangles…and some other mystery pieces.  And then put all the pieces together for a block with a pin.  More things work on the road.

But for now I just dropped Emily off at the airport. 

Tomorrow she begins her life traveling for Hendrix College in the capacity of an Admission Counselor.   With just 14 days home from tomorrow until Halloween she most definitely will be a road warrior.   I have shared with her all the bits of wisdom I have compiled myself over the years of traveling. 

She makes her father and I so proud.   She and her brother make us look like great parents. 

I can hardly wait for her batch of road stories at Thanksgiving.

P.S. Please note I was forced to purge my personal Facebook Page and ask all of you to move over and join the Pieced Hexies with Mickey Depre professional page.  This will allow all of us to talk and share all aspects of quilting (and life) under one “roof”.  

Who is this dog?

 

 

 

I just had the bejeezus scared out of me and witnessed a miracle at the same time. 

 

 

 

On our afternoon walk Molly and I encountered four bike riding kids.  They whizzed past us from behind and I heard them coming so we moved over to the side of the sidewalk and stood still. 

Not a peep from Molly (oh my!). 

 

 

We rounded the corner and we were face to face with a Doberman Pincher pup out for a stroll with his human too.  We walked right by...there was no time to "get out of the way" and nada from Molly.  She even looked back at the dog a good 15 feet past and said nothing. 

 

 

A few blocks later I decided to head back home by cutting thru an alley.   We were halfway down the alley when I hear a chain jingle behind me and turn to see a full grown Boxer heading toward Molly.  I screamed just as he literally leaped over her and turned getting down on his fore legs in a let's play stance.  And to my surprise Molly attempted to do this also.  But I was already dragging her in via the leash and scooping her up in my arms.  The Boxer's owner ran out into the alley and the dog immediately ran to her.  She apologized again and again and said her dog loved to play and she hoped we were ok.  We were.  

 

I walked a few houses with Molly in my arms.  Then put her down.  We walked home. 

She never even cried.

 

Who is this dog?!?

Things I never miss.

Yesterday I happened to enjoy two things I NEVER EVER miss.  So I thought I would share.

First.

MadMen. 

 

 

 

(NOTE I WILL NOT BE SPOILING ANYTHING>>>READ ON)

Absolutely never miss it. And by that I mean if I do miss an episode on Sunday night (rare) I watch it as quickly as possible on OnDemand before the next airs.  I never let myself fall away from Mad Men.  Even when some of the storylines frustrate me.  I hang in there.

I am thrilled that a long forgotten storyline was touched on in last night’s episode.   I was hoping it would be resurrected before the series end.  I would like closure. 

I am not one for seeing a movie twice let alone a TV episode.  I drives me crazy to “rewatch anything”.  But Mad Men will someday be an entire snowy weekend event where I plan to watch all episodes back to back to back.

The love of Mad Men is also shared by Emily.  In fact she is the reason I initially got hooked.  That first summer home from college she quickly caught me up on the series.  And then last summer she hooked me into Downton Abbey but that is another story. 

Thru the eyes of my daughter I see that this series opens up the discussion that many things in the world today are the same as it was 20 years ago when I was her age and even 40 years ago in the world of Man Men. 

Every generation likes to think the “times” are unique unto them.  But if we are honest.  It’s much the same just the wardrobe and music are different.  

Now onto my second never miss.

A new release book by Mary Kay Andrews.

 

 

The latest was released a mere 6 days ago and downloaded by 8am on release day to my Nook.  I held out for three days hoping to keep the book on my “to be read” shelf by June 18th when I hit the road again.   I failed.

496 pages later.

I finished it last night. 

A fun little chick read. 

 

 

Next up.

 

 

 

Revolutionary Summer by Joseph J. Ellis.

I like to mix it up like that.

 

What are some things you never miss?

 

 

 

 

Now two other things I am missing….Paul Jr. & Emily.

this may take awhile to get thru.

Brews for Drew

 

I held off writing this blog until the kids were settled and life had slowed down just a tad for us.  Now both Paul and I are turning out free time to raising awareness to the fundraiser for his brother Drew that will happen on September 8th.

You can read all about Drew and his medical situation on this PDF that I posted on facebook about a week ago.

Already blocks are arriving and we cannot thank everyone enough for making a block and sending it.  It is going to be an awesome Scrappy Chicago Bears Trips Quilt!

I plan to put together the quilt the first week of July so if you could have your block to me by July 1st that would be great.

Bonnie Hunter has graciously allowed me to link to her tutorial here for easy peasy instructions to make a Scrappy Trip Around the World Block.

Thank you all for your support,