Kids & granddogs

This is what's on my design wall at the moment. I got this new fabric in the shop last week. I really wanted to make the full size quilt from the manufacturer's free project, but I decided that the table runner would get the point across. Now that I have the blocks done though, I'm really thinking this fabric will make the cut into a full size quilt. I love the rich colors. And it just so happens that we have a green couch in a our living room and a couple of pictures on the wall that have this dark red color in them...what a coincidence =)

I switched a couple of fabrics around when I made this, but I'm not going to tell you which ones. It looks just a good this way (and I wasn't about to re-make it), so it's going to stay this way for now. Maybe if I do the full quilt I'll do the "right" way.

My birthday is tomorrow, and I've really been thinking about it a lot. Not that I feel old, certainly not that, but maybe just not young anymore. You know, as in "Wow, I'm definitely not a kid anymore." Also, people are starting to ask about when we're going to have kids - like my biological clock is starting to tick or something. Well, it maybe ticking, but I don't hear it yet. My life is full and happy and just right for now.

After all, we do have a dog, and she's sort of like a kid. Here she is with some of the friends she made when we went to visit my friend, Nicole, and her family.

Our Heidi is the one on the right with her eye half-closed in anticipation of a playful bite from Riley. The cute little stinker in the middle is my friend's son, and the two dogs on the left are Nicole's (yes, there are two dogs there if you look closely). We tease Nicole's mom by calling them her "granddogs." She acts annoyed, but we know she secretly loves it.


And this picture (of a picture) simultaneously makes me want to have five boys and to not have kids at all! These boys are my adorable little nephew and his friends from daycare. They're all too cute, but boy, do they look like trouble or what!

Mission accomplished

My purse is finished! And I love it! I realize it's a little Spring-y for September, but gee, I just don't care. And I think it's going to be just the right size. I haven't put all of my junk in it yet b/c I want to show if off for a little while before I go messing it up. As I may or may not have mentioned before, the fabrics are from the pink version of the Flea Market Fancy line by Denyse Schmidt for Free Spirit Fabrics (I'm working on getting this line on the shop website).

For the pockets, I borrowed a fat quarter from Heather Ross' Lightning Bugs line by Free Spirit. Polka dots - am I predictable or what? Here's a look at the inside of the bag. Four pockets total: one for keys, one for my phone, one for lip gloss, and one extra.

One of the last minute projects that got put together before the quilt show last weekend was this table runner. Pardon the shaky photography. This sucker is 56" long and it's very hard to get the whole thing in the picture! What you're not seeing is me barefoot, perched precariously on the edge of the daybed in the shop leaning over as far as I can to try to get a straight shot down at this thing. And here's a closeup of Prancer (or whoever he is).
I good friend of mine put this together for me, so I owe her one. I still need to quilt it and sew around the applique, but realistically I'll be lucky to get that done before Christmas! The pattern is by Mount Redoubt Designs, and we've got patterns and kits in the shop.

I'm visiting a quilt guild tonight. It's my first ever speaking engagement at a guild, and I'm a little nervous. However, I'm doing a "trunk show", so I should be able to talk about my own quilts without too much trouble. We'll see.