Who took these pictures??

Every time I upload photos from my camera to my computer, I am surprised by some of the pictures!  Since we have a digital camera and taking pictures costs virtually nothing, we don't forbid the next door set of grands from taking pictures.  I think if they show an interest in picture composition, color, subject, whatever, they're learning something.  And they don't print a copy of just anything, because that's the part that costs money.

This winter, E took lots of pictures of the snow in the back yard that stayed just long enough after the warm spell to build a snowman.  She's taken pictures of lovely things like leaves and flowers in the yard. 

 And some decidedly goofy things, like the dog wearing glasses.  How did she get him to sit still for that?  Well, he IS a pretty laid-back dog!







There's A's favorite subject... her feet.  On the downstairs carpeting.

On the upstairs carpeting.   

                                                     Bare toes.

                                                       and with shoes on.

Just how far down the steps do things go when you kick them off the landing???

The next project...

I don't know if I've said this on my blog before but I'm a process person rather than a project person.  You know the difference -- the project person (my cousin Amy, my sister) likes to put the project together start to finish within some predefined period of time and be done, while the process person (me) likes to live a somewhat more relaxed style.  For example, if the project gets finished within the millenia I'm good.  Or if it doesn't get finished, I'm good there too.

Except when I'm doing the project FOR someone specific. 

I am making a quilt for my DD and DSIL... oh yes, I hope to have it done in 2012!!  When we were discussing the project at its inception, I offered to provide patterns so DD could choose a style.  She said "anything is fine".  She chose blue and brown for the colors, but was not fussy about shades or patterns or anything.

You would think that would be easy.

No. No, no, no.  Too many choices.  I mulled it over, studied pictures of all the blue quilts and brown quilts I could find.  Finally after dreaming about it for a week, I settled on friendship stars in the middle and a strippy block border.  I'm about half done with it as of this week.

We laid it out on the kitchen table, the largest free spot in my house.  After looking at it for a while, she decided she liked it better with sashing between the stars.

The center area is sewn together now, and the large strippy first border has been sewn into four big pieces, so all that remains is to put the skinny borders in place and sew on the outer borders.

This has been one of the more fun quilts I've done.  The friendship stars are easy, four hsts and five squares, requiring very little matching.  You only have to make sure your star points are all facing the same direction.  The block is fun to do and fast.

Of course I've been interrupted a zillion times by other projects, so it's going together slowly.  I am also making a class quilt for one of the four year old classes at A's preschool, and I had to open the stuffed animal hospital this week.  A dinosaur had a ripped tail and there was a hole in one of the Angry Birdies. 

I also *gasp!!* made myself a skirt!  Just a simple elastic waist skirt with a back slit and one seam, but it does qualify as a finish this week!  I'm hoping to wear it for Easter.

Hope you're having a good week.  Keep on sewing!

Help! My apple died...

Last week, after listening to tunes on my iPod all the way home from work, the device died suddenly and unexpectedly.  Between garage and kitchen it went black, displayed the Apple logo, and went dark and silent.

I went on the Internet and did a search for what it means when your device flashes you the apple.  Suggestions for resetting were tried.  And failed.  The next day I asked the IT guys at my office the next day what they would suggest.  They said without hesitation "go to the Genius Bar". 

Genius Bar??  OK, not being exactly up on all the latest gadgets, I wasn't familiar with the term.  Find and Apple store, they said.  There's a Genius Bar inside.  They'll fix it or they'll sell you a new one!

So last Friday I went to the only Apple store I could find, and sure enough, there was a Genius Bar sign on the back wall!  The store was crazy busy, but a nice young man made an appointment for me to visit the geniuses.  Turns out I only had to wait a little while, so not a big loss of time...

The Genius told me a doo-hickey was broken and he could get me a new one in about four days.  At a price that was about 25% of what I paid for the iPod when I bought it several years ago.  OK, sign me up!

I got an email the next day saying my part was in.  Hmmm, was it there all along, or was the UPS man extra fast this week?  Anyway, now my switched out part is humming along being synchronized, and I look forward to being able to listen to music or audio books again in the car or in my office, or while waiting in line for something else!

Thanks, Geniuses.