Butterflies

If you are a friend on Facebook, I'm sure you are sick of the butterflies by now. Today was our final day so I have to share.

My sister got the Munchkin a butterfly house for Christmas two years ago. We ordered the critters, they never came. So this year everything but butterflies were living in the house - worms, flys, moth, grub worm. You get the idea. So I finally put in an order with Insect Lore for caterpillars.

We got our caterpillars about 3 weeks ago. When they came, they were itty bitty teeny tiny. I thought for sure they were dead because they weren't moving at all. Well they started eating and eating and eating. It truly is like The Very Hungry Caterpillar book. These guys didn't eat through all the same things (pie, lollipop, sausage).

The excitement began when the first guy made his way to the top of the cup and started to form his cocoon. Slowly the other 4 guys moved up and did the same thing.





On Saturday, the first cocoon builder reappeared as a beautiful Painted Lady butterfly. The screaming that I heard had me convinced something had died and was just found. Oh NO, it was just the alert of a new household member. Today the 5th guy popped out.



This evening was our official release party. 3 of the 5 high tailed it right out of town. They didn't even pass go to collect a sniff our of tasty butterfly bush. They just floated away. The other two hung out long enough for us to get some pictures.









All and all, I would recommend this experience. It was fun family time because we all had to check on the caterpillars and cocoons. Since Hubs works from home there was always a report or two of what was going on or who had arrived for the day. Definitely work the $20 investment.

Design Wall Monday

While towels were stitching on the embroidery machine, I was able to do some sewing.

This is what's on my wall.  It will have another border of twisters on the outside.  I have the borders sewn, just need to cut and sew again.



Happy sewing!!!

Beach Towels

9 beach towels for a neighbor. She is taking a big family vacation with extended family and thought everyone needed a towel to remember the trip by.



Have a great week.

PIGS or UFOs

For me, both terms are the same or synonymous because all of my UFOs eventually end up in a grocery sack.   What kind of bags do you use?  Do you use grocery bags?  I'm a Ziploc kind of gal.  I like the big over sized bags that can be found at Target because everything fits so nicely in and then can be zipped.  When my office moved, I raided the supply closet after the move and helped myself to some of the plastic bags that we had to put our keyboards in.  (Who knows, I guess they thought our keyboards had cooties).  Those bags are very much like the big Ziploc bags.

Tonight I decided it was definitely time to inventory the shelf  that I keep two big totes.  Not only did I inventory but I photographed for posterity (and so I could remember what I have).   I came to the sad realization that I really have a problem and should NOT hit a fabric store any time in the next 3 years.  I have 28 PIGS living in the tote on that shelf.  Yes you did read 28, and I can say thankfully they are not all started.  I didn't write it down the number, but I think 7 are UFOs/PIGS.  The rest are all fabric and patterns, nicely zipped into a bag.

Let me share a few pictures with you (which some aren't very good but you get the idea):

UFO which has become PIG #3.  This is a Moda Bakeshop pattern that has gone to land of bags.  The blocks are all pieced, I just need to put the whole top together.

 This is my oldest PIG. It's from the very first Kansas City Quilt Shop Hop.  This year we had our 13th quilt shop hop.  I cut this little wall hanging out and then have done nothing with it.  I probably could whip it out on a Saturday if I put my mind to it (and hubs took the munchkin out of the house).

 This UFO/PIG is the first one I took a picture of.  It's going to be a rectangle quilt that I pulled of of MaryQuilts.com (Forest Bricks)  I guess something better came along and it ended up in the bag.

This beauty is the Braid quilt top that I started when I go my Accuquilt Go cutter.  I know why it's in a bag.  It is tedious and boring sewing.  I'm all about mindless sewing on long stretches of material.  This one is just boring sewing on little pieces of material.  I just need to suck it up and finish, be done and call it good.  Making note that I'm not a braid kind of gal.

My thought before I counted was that I could grab a project and make it my goal to finish one a month.  That sounded reasonable until I counted.  28 projects, one a month, well that will take me into October 2013.  Yeah that's really scary when I think about it like that.  

The picture below is of the second tote that sits on the same shelf.  This tote is full (overflowing) with fabric that I bought in hopes of making something but could never decide on a pattern.  Or maybe I had a pattern in mind but never stuck it in the bag so now I have no clue what I was thinking.

Maybe I should join one of the many blogs that is picking numbers and working on finishing up projects.  Or I could continue to live in the land of denial.  Sometimes that place is much happier and easier to handle.

I Spy Swap

I finally took the plunge and got into a swap.  I've had some mediocre experiences in the past so I was slightly leary of jumping in again.  This I Spy swap was hosted by Carla over at Lollyquiltz.  Carla belongs to my guild so it was nice to share my concerns with her and then have her help me rest easy.

Look at some of the cool fabric I scored.  I can't wait to do something fun with all of them.

Have a great day!

Pouches

I belong to the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild.  The service project we are doing is for St. Luke's Hospital. The beautiful little creations below are fetal demise pouches that will be used in the maternity ward.  I didn't really understand what I was doing or what they would be used for, but now I do.  I put a lot of love into those little pouches and hopefully the unknowing and unwilling recipient will understand that over time.

You can read more about our project here.

Summer

Summer is here in KC. I think we had about 6 days of spring and jumped right into the hot stuff. I refuse to complain about the heat given how darn cold it was this winter. I wish I could bottle the 90's and pull it out in small doses in January.

School's out. Hubs works from home so we had to head out last week.

First up the Zoo.  The munchkin loves the Lorikeets.  Thankfully we had a zookeeper explain that they make horrible pets, so that's helped us avoid the "I Wish I had a Lorikeet of my own."

 Mr. Peacock showed us how pretty his feathers are.  That was a treat.

All for now.  More fabric and quilt pictures to come.

Have a great night.