Spring Sprung

I looked straight up over my head while I was sitting sipping tea on the back porch this morning. The willow tree is sure it is spring.

(The pipe on the upper right in the picture is a roof drain waiting for its rain chain to be hooked up.)

He's back

My friend from last year, Lucky Me, is back in the neighborhood again.

My walking program has slowed down somewhat, but perhaps he can inspire me to do better. (I am only walking every three days.)

Rainy Day Fantasy

I've been mulling over decorating ideas and light fixtures for my new office/sewing area. I found some wild ones in an LA Times remodeling article. My husband did not react positively. Click on the highlighted link and see all 14 photos. (Or try this link: http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-moroccan21feb21,0,7555164.story ) I love the whole thing.

A Roof Over My Head

Yesterday, Bernard looked down at me through a hole in the roof where a skylight goes.

The hot tar smell is dissipating today. We have a new roof.
The tar kettle boiled and bubbled for two days. Our old roof was tossed into a truck for disposal.
We went to our neighbor’s house to take a picture of the roofers at work. We could not see much from the ground. We could hear what was going on from inside the house.
Bob & Brenda Stone, and Bernard worked very hard Thursday and Friday. I was glad to bid them adieu Friday evening.
Next, we get back to Step 1 – working on the quilting/office space. New flooring, wall color, and lots of fun. Then, after the furniture is rearranged, I can get back to quilting!

I am a comma

I took this silly test, but I wonder why the comma is upside down. It looks like a single quote instead of a comma. Any ?s out there?

You Are a Comma

You are open minded and extremely optimistic. You enjoy almost all facets of life. You can find the good in almost anything. You keep yourself busy with tons of friends, activities, and interests. You find it hard to turn down an opportunity, even if you are pressed for time. Your friends find you fascinating, charming, and easy to talk to. (But with so many competing interests, you friends do feel like you hardly have time for them.) You excel in: Inspiring people You get along best with: The Question Mark

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Valentine Friendship

Happy Valentine’s Day to you. You can make this symbol of friendship quickly for a little gift on the 14th.

There is a free paper pieced pattern at: http://www.winnowing.com/heart.html
You can eliminate the four separate fingers and just make that section as one patch and then quilt the finger lines afterwards.

Long, long ago . . .

I used my sewing machine. This picture shows how long ago it was.

I’m waiting for the roofer to come next week. After the roof is on and all leaks are sealed the new floor can go into the unfinished room. After the floor, the walls can be painted, furniture moved, new storage cabinets and shelves installed, and THEN I can sew again!

My mother’s old Singer 101 is in the storage room and if I can move enough paint cans and boxes away I think I’ll try some free motion quilting. I just bought a new darning foot for the 101.
All I need now is a darling little girl at my side. The tin box is filled with some old sewing stuff.

Resizing Images

I found a really simple, nice program for resizing drawings. It is called Rapid Resizer.
I used it this morning to print out a large pattern (on multiple sheets) from our photo shoot. The Photo Shoot was on my blog January 22, 2008.
I drew heavy lines on the jpg photo on a separate layer in Paint Shop Pro. I copied the line layer and enlarged it to life-size and pasted it in my trial copy of Rapid Resizer.

Next, I gave the resizer the final height, 69 inches. I hit “print” and 33 sheets of paper came out of my Epson. I didn’t have a large enough area to lay out all of the sheets (humm, I could have used our bed).
I now have to trim the margins and tape the sheets of paper together. This is a great little program and I am going to buy it before my trial period is up.
Click on the panda picture to go to the site