Wordless Wednesday

Aaaallllmost wordless, because I can't shut up.

AMAZING!

Maybe It's Me

I just found two new blogs that I absolutely love! If I remembered where I'd first seen them, I'd give someone credit. Anyway, it occurred to me that the two blogs couldn't be much more different than they are! Looking at pics from them, I wonder how they would appeal to the same person. Scroll down. Is it just me, or do you love them both, too?

Here's the first one I found. It's called Handmade Ryan Gosling. Truthfully, I was not sure WHO Ryan Gosling was (one of those young actors that seem to get younger every year, apparently). But now I get it. People submit pics of him with clever captions. I assume most of the people are women who sew or are at least crafters, judging by some of the captions:

Ryan Gosling not my idea of "hot".
(I prefer this

or this),but some of these captions ARE funny.
At least to me.

The other blog is all photographs taken by some genius woman named Brooke Shaden and the blog is simply titled Brooke Shaden. Her photos are eerie and beautiful and haunting...at least to me. Here's my favorite so far:

Is it just me, or do you love them both, too?

My Folk Art Pleasures

As promised yesterday, here are my Folk Art Pleasures quilt blocks thus far. I apologize in advance for the poor quality of photographs. For example, the stars on A3 are actually not solid black, but are very pretty dark blue prints. I also did not bother to press these blocks before I snapped the pics. I posted the original quilt at the bottom, so you can see what I've changed.

A2

A3

A4

B1

D1

D2

D4

The original by Lori
Hope you liked them and thanks for visiting!

Lori Smith Needs to STOP!

LOL, at least that's what my great friend Linda and I always say. Lori Smith (CLICK HERE) is a quilt designer/genius and she needs to be stopped, because her patterns are SO ADDICTIVE. That's a picture of her spectacular Pieces of Time quilt. We won't talk about the fact that I've completed all 31 blocks and it has STILL become a UFO, waiting quietly for me to jump in and tackle those borders. We also won't talk about the fact that I have her Heritage pattern, still untouched. But that's not really what this post is about.

So if you remember my Be Mindfuls, you may recall that I promised you a peek at a project that's near and dear to my heart. It all started with Lori again, and her wonderful Folk Art Pleasures pattern. I LOVE the pattern, but I also love Jeanne's idea (CLICK HERE to visit her Spiral blog) of redesigning some of the blocks to better fit my own life.

With apologies to Lori for muddling up her borders with letters and numbers, here is a pic of her Folk Art Pleasures (FAP) quilt.
Many of the blocks are perfect for me, just as they are. However, some will "fit" better if I change them. For example, see C4, the chicken one? I have no particular 'truck' with chickens. I never had one as a pet and I certainly don't eat them, so that's one block that I'm going to change. And there are definitely not enough (or ANY) cats in her blocks. And see B2? I'd like to be holding the hands of TWO little boys, rather than just one.

Thus far, I've only completed 7 of the 16 blocks: A2, A3, A4, B1, D1, D2 and D4. I'm working on A1, and that's my current Be Mindful project. I'll post pictures of my blocks tomorrow, even in their current, wrinkly/un-ironed state. But if you've made it this far in today's post, you deserve a reward. Here's a closeup of my version of A3 - it's FOSTER! Here he is in real life:
And here he is in a fabric tree. Check out his Mad Eye, LOL.
In real life, he doesn't go outside and he doesn't have red moons. But his eyes really do look like that when he looks at our dogs.

If you click on the Mad Eye pic, you can see some applique "warts". In particular, you can see the pencil line where his tail connects to his body. (I've since learned not to draw the bottom of that U-shape, because it's hard to turn it all under.) I guess I'm still Celebrating Imperfection. CLICK HERE to read the Warts and All post.

Check back tomorrow to see the rest of the blocks and thanks for stopping by!

Time Out for an AWWWW Moment

I think I've been extremely restrained thus far.
We spent a week visiting Zoey over Christmas
and I have not posted the first picture or
even a single Proud Nannie Moment.

However, THIS I just had to share.
OMG do you love her eyes, or WHAT?Click it to get even
more wonderful Zoey-ness.

And I need to snap some pics of that project
I mentioned the other day.

That will be an easier
photography subject for me.

At least the project won't be
zipping around like Zoey does!

Be Mindfuls

(No, this is not my studio
but I sure LOVE those letters!)

So this year, for the first time in as long as I can remember...I've made no resolutions for the new year. Kim of Kim's Big Quilting Adventure allows as how resolutions just set one up for failure. Thinking back to my past resolutions...she's right. They rarely last through the first month of the new year.
This year, I decided to make 'be mindfuls' instead of resolutions. I'm going to continue to be mindful to eat right and drink more water. I'm going to continue to be more mindful of my blessings than I am of my frustrations (well, at least in theory). And I'm going to be really mindful of DOING MORE OF WHAT I WANT TO DO.

I seem to spend hours each dayrushing around, doing stuff that I HAVE to do. By then, I'm usually too tired to do anything that I WANT to do...other than staring at the Jane Velez Mitchell show or the Nancy Grace show.Since I HAVE to do the things that I HAVE to do...I'm not real sure how to work in more time for fun stuff. But last night, I made an effort and dragged out a hand-sewing project that I haven't touched in forever. I really enjoyed working on it- this project is special to me and I'll post some pics of it.

What about you?
Any new year's resolutions??

Lessons Learned #3: DON'T WHINE

because it could always be worse.
Definitely don't say,
'WHAT ELSE CAN GO WRONG?!"
because you are sure to find out, LOL.

I try to remind myself of this daily.
It's easy to feel sorry for yourself,
and I certainly do have
my share of solo pity parties.
Then I see something like this:

Oh my GOSH. What an inspiration she is!

HAPPY NEW YEAR.
WE ARE ALL SO BLESSED!