The cutest thing ever! Really!

Check this out! Teeny tiny cupcakes, ladybugs and stars on pins!!!

They are much cuter in person. I saw online someplace that someone had made some of these with shrinky dink stuff. When I started surfing to find the tutorial again, I couldn't find it. BUT!! I did find another tutorial about using other plastic to shrink, so I tried it and it worked! This tutorial (which I can't find either....) said that clear plastic with a recycling code '6' will shrink and that you can find it on deli type stuff. I found this on top of a rotisserie chicken from Walmart. Washed it, colored it with Sharpies, punched it out with craft punches (which was super hard, so had muscle bound son and husband do that part), stuck a pin through each one, stuck the pin into a potato, put the potato in the oven at 350 for about 30 sec (give or take.....) and presto! Wallah! Cutest pins ever!!! I hate pins. They're so much easier to use and less irritating if they are cute. It's hard to see the colors in the pic, but the silver did the best, I think. I might try paint pens next time. I gotta get some more craft punches...

And here are some monkey wrench blocks that followed me home from an estate sale this weekend. They are all hand pieced! There are some other ones, but I forgot to take pics of them. I'll try to remember to do that tomorrow.

And then there was 'this' beautiful thing that I found at the same sale. For $10!!! It has it's original warranty (lifetime!) that says it was purchased in 1962. And you know what? I don't think it's been sewn on more than a couple of times. It's clean as a whistle and runs buttery smooth. And it's the heaviest machine I've ever come across! Has all it's attachments. Does a zigzag. Even the bobbin tire is in good shape. I've been trying not to accumulate a bunch of machines, but I just couldn't resist this one. Big sister likes it cuz it's green. She's into green.

OH! The spider left. It rained the next day and I guess she didn't like the rain. Haven't seen her since. Which is a little scary.....

More scary spider pics!!

I know, it's a quilting blog. But this is just too cool! And spiders spin silk and weave webs and that's fiber/textile related, right?? The kids threw a wormy thing into the spider web and she ate it!! We looked it up and she is a she. Males are small (and there is NOTHING small about her!) and plain.

I'm pretty proud of this pic. I was about 2 feet away (which was way too close!) and the camera still got a pretty good focus. This is the beginning of the meal.


And this is quite a while later. Poor wormy thing!

She hung out on the porch all day. Tried to feed her a big cockroach this evening but she wasn't interested. I guess she's full! We'll see if she's still around in the morning. Her web got pretty messed up today, she's gonna need another one. We had all the neighbors over looking at her and showed everybody else we came across a video of her. We're pretty easily entertained.

A little sewing and a BIG early Halloween scare!

Here's a quickie quilt I made for our departing school secretary. She likes lady bugs so I dug through my stash and found about 6 different lady bug prints and whipped this up really quick.


The art teacher (who is so good to always help me out with surprise teacher quilts!) had all the kids sign it during art class. Now it's off to the longarm quilter.

*****WARNING******

The next several pics are REAL and SCARY! REAL SCARY!!! View at your own risk.

Our earliest bus rider raced out the door this morning to catch his bus and immediately yelled 'WHOA!' and raced back in the door. "Dad! You gotta come see this!" And here is what Dad saw:



This 'ginormous', as the bus rider put it, spider had put up a web across the steps on our front porch and the bus rider had run right through it! The funny thing is, one of our neighbors has constructed a rope web across their front lawn and we had just been talking about doing the same thing on our porch. Now we don't have to! This little monster (who is really NOT little at ALL!) has done it for us!



Here's a pic of him (her?) next to the Little Tikes chair and a pumpkin so you can get an idea of size. For a spider, he's HUGE!!! And he webbed up the whole darn porch. While I was taking pictures the sun was reflecting off all kinds of web strung all over the place. I must have looked really funny to the neighbors tiptoeing around the porch taking pictures of the concrete. I was scared to death to trip his web! There's no doubt he can outrun me. In fact, I'm not so sure that he can't eat me right up.

This is the best picture I could get of his back. We've seen his kind before. There was one on the neighbor's bush one day and I've seen others with webs stretched out over bushes. We've looked them up and they are simply 'garden' spiders. They make a zigzag in their webs, almost like a big zipper right in the middle. Cool, huh? I have NEVER seen one this big! I've never seen ANY spider this big! I bet his body is at least 3 inches long and those legs? I'm getting chills just thinking about how long those might be! I'm scared to kill him, cuz I think in a fight he'd win. If he's eating bugs I kinda want him to stay. It's really scaring looking at him, but I think it might be scarier if he leaves - then I won't know where he is!! What if he takes up residence under my bed??? My bedroom is just on the other side of the wall from the porch! Our mailbox is on the porch and I'm worried about the mailman. I'm thinking of putting up a sign - "Warning! Big spider!" - but I don't think he'd believe me! It is almost Halloween. I guess I'll just watch for him and head him off. The mailman can choose not to deliver your mail if you have a mean dog - wonder if he can cut me off cuz there's a monster spider on my porch? Maybe I should call the post office....

"B" is for book!

Still on the book kick.  They are just too much fun!  Here's the latest one.  But first, since blogger won't let me move the pics around.....

My lovely assistant being very helpful again!  I love it when she helps like this.

"B" is for book.  A book all about things that start with 'b'.  Here's a challenge for you - go see how many 'b' fabrics you have in your stash.  This book started to be a 'b' is for bunny book.  Then I decided to add bears.  Then bugs.  Oh!  And butterflies!  And it just grew.  I discovered a ridiculous number of 'b' things in my stash and even in my scrap tub.  It was astonishing!  The book is finished and I keep going back and writing more 'b' things that I find in it!  Like, the 'b'ow on the 'b'ear!

The boots got stitched on wrong side out.  Ever had one of those days?  I just didn't feel like ripping and re-stitching and you can see them just fine, so wrong side out they stayed.

The boy on the right has a ball, but it got lost in the seam allowance.  He was tough to cut out.  Do you love the 'b'lue 'b'amboo?  Can you believe that?  I pulled that out of the scrap tub as I was building these.  What a surprise!  The boots were like that, too.  Surprise!  Boots!!  But really, blue bamboo?  Who woulda thunk that would be in my scrap tub??  Not me.

This is a 'b'allerina with a 'b'ouquet and 'b'londe 'b'angs.  I mean really... did somebody plan this???

I like the bigger size.  It does allow for bigger pics, like the ballerina.  It's harder to build, though.  Pieces on the edges/corners tended to be really big.  That's OK if they are focus pieces, but just for fillers they kind of overwhelm, or at least I was afraid they would.  I guess I need to piece a bunch of crumbs together to use in spots like that.

I may take a book break for a bit.  I think I'm getting ready to do a memory/siggy quilt real quick.

More later!