Monday, December 2, 2013

Life in the Slow Lane

Greetings and salutations from the Pug Pack. Hope you all had a splendid Thanksgiving. We went to Connecticut and spent the holiday with our friends Matt and Mary Kate and their dog George. My husband Mike has been best friends with Matt since they went to Brandywine High School together back in Wilmington, Delaware. Matt was the best man at our wedding in 2012. He is a great guy. Mary Kate and I share the same birthday and we both love pink.

The pugs enjoyed Thanksgiving in Connecticut and meeting their Cousin George.
From left to right: Elvis, LarryPug and Romeo enjoy a snooze on the sofa.
Mike was the executive chef for our dinner, ably assisted by Mary Kate and Matt. They made a wonderful turkey dinner, including home-made stuffing, sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts. Mary Kate also made a green bean casserole. I baked all day on Wednesday before we left, and made brownies, cranberry bread and maple cookies.

Dinner in progress.

My handsome husband in his Space Vixens apron.

George kept a lookout from the front window.
We had a nice relaxing day on Thursday and Friday just hanging out with the dogs and watching the Macy's Day Parade and a couple of movies. On Saturday, I passed up a day of sewing with Marion and Joannie and spent the day at home in my pajamas. I made the binding for Eleanor's quilt and did a little bit of cutting in The Studio. I also cleaned out the hall closet and I did some more decluttering in the basement. I collected some scarves and gloves for Sue to bring to her ladies at Rosie's Place and I put together nine bags of books to go to new homes!
Mary Lou likes romance novels and Marion likes mysteries.

Joannie got some more eclectic novels that I thought her book club might enjoy.
I've stopped pushing myself with deadlines for my various and sundry quilt projects and am just taking a break and working on what I feel like. The only thing I'm committed to is finishing Eleanor's quilt for Christmas. On Sunday I got it back from my friend Terri who is a wonderful machine quilter and I sewed the binding on one side. Only one side left to go! I also put together this ancient UFO from 2000. These are Birthday Blocks from my Brown Bagger group.
Hopefully it won't take me another 13 years to add the borders!
Initially I had color sorted the blocks and was just going to make a table runner with the ones that were predominantly blue and purple. My Brown Bagger friends convinced me to use all of them and the bright colors that I had initially cast aside really make the quilt pop! I really like it!

Kim P. finished two more circular play mats at our Sunday Brown Bagger meeting. They are made using a wedge ruler. If you click on the photos you can see all the different novelty prints that she used. They came out great!

Have a great day!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

4 comments:

  1. Hello puggies
    :)
    Sounds like a nice trip.

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  2. I love Kim P's play mats! Did this come from a pattern? Where do you get the Wedge ruler? Happy Thanksgiving (belatedly)!

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  3. Hi Nancy,

    I just checked, my star quilt was made of plaids. Neutral plaids for the stars, tone on tone prints for the backgrounds and plaid chains. It's on a bed in the guest room.

    Marcia, the play mat is a tutorial on Jaybird Quilts blog
    http://www.jaybirdquilts.com/2013/04/circle-quilt-tutorial.html

    The ruler used is a 10 degree wedge ruler. I wasn't able to find it at my local Joann's or quilt shop so I ordered it on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0018N3T56/ref=oh_details_o08_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    I cut 4 wedges from each of 9 fabrics and made 4 identical quadrants. You shouldn't have any problems following the instructions on the blog.

    Thanks for the compliment!

    Kim



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    Replies
    1. Kim, Thanks for the info! I've just ordered the 10 degree ruler. Now to find the time to do one (or two)! I've got a few little ones in the family that would probably love one of these. Maybe I'll get them done for NEXT year!

      Nancy -- Thank you SO much for writing this blog! I am so impressed with the work that you show of yours and all of your friends. I thought with Becca being out of the house I'd find extra time to quilt, but so far not really. There is just so much to do!

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