Twinsday

Some place called Twinsburg is having a twins celebration this weekend. Are you a twin,  do you have twins or do you have twins in your family? Got any funny "twincedents" to share?

I have a set of fraternal girls who are older than they'd like to be but still under 30. I was always amazed at the things people would say to us. When they were small, less than a year they only had peach fuzz for hair and people said, "Oh they look just alike, ".......now I let that slide since they were little and hairless, but obviously they never really LOOKED at them.......Elizabeth's face was as round as round could be and Sarah's face was long and slender.  Then their hair finally grew and here we go again, " Oh they look so alike how do you tell them apart?..............are you kidding me???.....one is a brunette and one is blonde!  

And then there were the people who knew we had twins but didn't know which kids they were........we have  4 kids all relatively the same age, Amanda was 3 years and 2 months when the girls were born and David was 11 1/2 months old when they were born ( no jokes, please, I've heard them all, half of them from my OB) accidents happen). ( For 2 weeks every year I have 3 the same age) Anyway as the kids grew people would look at the kids and just begin pairing them up in odd sets.......when Amanda was 6 she was short (still is) and dave was tall so they'd assume they were the  twins. Then later as Amanda "developed" it became obviously that she and Dave were not the same age.  So then the would choose David and Sarah, the tall blonde ones.  Dave hated that!!  When he was in 8th grade he told his English teacher who was brand new to the community that those girls in her 7th grade class were his cousins.............she was quite suprised when I wanted to talk to her about the girls at the parent/ teachers conference.   Now that they are older my blonde twin is no longer blonde.  Sarah's hair has turned brown over the years but with the hair dye it has been several shades of darker blondes, browns, auburns and reds???  So my twin stories don't center around them fooling us, just fooling others, in an odd sort of way.  
Here's a picture of them at Sarah's graduation from college l-r, Kylie (GD#3),  Elizabeth (D#2-four minutes older than Sarah), Sarah (D#3) and Amanda (D#1)

happy twins weekend girls!
come back for monday mystery project.....am working on something fun!

DAISY-DO #2 done

Here's my version of Jennifer Reynolds BOM of Jenny of Elefantz.  A BOM called DAISY-DO

, you need to go to her blog to check out her wonderful BOM!!  It is so cute, and who doesn't love buttons!  I went a totally different direction in color. mine is a black and brown tone on tone pint with various creams to lt browns to stitch with.  It took me less than three hours start to finish. 

 Block one is on one of my previous posts.

see last night's post for a picture of my BOW (block of the week) from one her friends, Dawn Hay at Sweet as Cinnamon, its cute too!

Frosty Flakes #1 done

This is my version of Dawn's Frosty Flakes, a new BOW

LOVED IT!!!!!

I got Dawn Hay's new Frosty Flakes BOW done, but unfortunately I did not have any beads handy so

I subbed buttons for beads,  I didn't get Jenny's 2nd Daisy Do block done.... will finish it tomorrow!  Sorry Jenny but yours isn't  due for a month, anyway........and yes Dawn it's my turn to be up late.  The design was  quick, about 4 hours start to finish, a lot of that time included finding the buttons and fabric. lol! 

Dawn Hay-Frosty Flakes BOW

Look what I will be working on as a BOW, It's from Dawn Hay from As Sweet As Cinnamon Blog.

isn't it just cute as can be...............will post my version here later.  Cyndi

BIG TOP request

For years I have had requests to make odd things for people, covered lampshades, applique an afghan hound on a sweat shirt and matching pants.........Here is another, one of daughter #3's friends asked me to make a quilt top (another friend quilting it) for her sister's wedding made from the bags that come with Crown Royal (some sort of expensive alcoholic beverage, I can't even tell you what kind, if it doesn't say pepsi or milk, I pass it by). My first thought was OMG aren't those made out of cheap fake "velvet".............and maybe at one time they were??  I stopped at the mini mart across the street to get gas, and while I was there, looked at what the bags were like. (This was an email request and I had not seen the bags she wants me to work with).  They are purple flannel with a gold thread, and not very big either.  I'd say a 4" maybe 4.5" square is about as big a square as you would get.  She already has lots of bags and a pattern already picked out...........HAS ANYONE MADE ONE OF THESE???  and would you want to offer me any advice before I start cutting??? are they ravelly? Just so you know I am not a prewasher..........but they are flannel....so do they have to be prewashed?? I did "google" images of crown royal quilts.............evidently this is not a new thing and people have been making them for several years.   The pattern she picked out is not the easiset, nor is it the hardest, but it is a challenging one.  Just wondered what any of you thought............should I run for the hills and quilt answering emails or is this just one of those "grin and bear it, it won't hurt that much, and don't tell anyone I made it" type favors?? I need to recoup aggravation (super fussy cutting) fees more so than sewing fees on this one!  And just to make things more fun..........I'm pretty sure she wants it king size (yikes!) and needs the top done by mid October. 
I will be busy canning tomatoes, pickles, peppers and salsa at daughters for the next few days. Let me know if you have any advice, silly things, or comments to share.   I always need a giggle or two!

 And if you need a giggle or two, go visit AMI SIMMS (click her name for link)

she has a "yo-yo sisterhood of the traveling underpants" thing going on  and world's worst quilt contest.......and in general is just a pretty, funny, quilty person.  enjoy!

It's a mystery monday

or.............what to do with group blocks or sampler blocks that are not uniform in size.................see the 2 page article I wrote about this dilemma  here.  I wrote it when I was trying to make my SIL's snowman quilt.

this is the quilt which caused the dilemma........

click here for pdf version  Note: there are 2 pages.

hope it helps you out of a mismatch block dilemma.  cyndi

more freebie baskets

have fun stitching...................more later

.......have several more that aren't in the original pattern..................will wait for another day.

Monday Mystery project

sock monkey mischief on mystery monday. 

This time a felt or fleece monkey applique.  Several Christmases ago I made shirts for each of my nieces and granddaughter, also made one for DD#3.  Mom and I also made flannel sock monkey jammie pants.  This is now GD#1's shirt. It used to be DD#3's shirt.  It shrunk so, she gave it to Makenna.  Shirt has probably been washed 30 - 40 times.  It's a little pilly, but she's 9 and doesn't really care.  Instructions follow for you to make one of your own. I just happened upon the goofy black & white buttons a couple of years ago when I was making the monkey shirts.  Will give you patterns for felt eyes if you can't find any buttons, but a lot of buttons will work.  see below.............  cut these out of fleece, the one on her shirt is felt. 

pdf for monkey applique here

HAVE fun, you can whip up a bunch of monkey's pretty quick.  Put them on shirts, jeans, totes, jackets,

whatever!!!

cyndi

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St E picnic preview

The St Elizabeth Community picninc starts is a couple of hours, here's a preview of the quilts the community ladies made this year to auction off and a few to raffle off.  The population in this town is about 274, there will 10x 20x that today enjoying good food, lots of conversation with people you may have not seen for a year or so, and my favorite a quilt auction.  here's a quick preview. 

Baby size to king, all probably machine pieced but all hand quilted.   All the ladies in the communities around here do this every year for their commuity picnics or church socials............so great to see all the support these small towns get from their citizens. 

WINNERS

First of all,  I'd like to thank all who particimpated, I love reading your comments.  I  drew numbers at random.org  this morning for the Monday Mystery giveaway from a few weeks ago.  I had 2 MODA layer cakes to giveaway.  The mystery was what fabric lines they were............................I had Harmony and It's Snowing  pictured below.   Harmony is a collection of paisleys and coordinating prints in dark colors it's on the right and the brighter blues, reds and greens of It's Snowing is on the left. Congratulations to:

the first number drawn,  #17 a comment from " Janet said...I forget things when I'm tired or when I'm having too much fun. Hope it was the latter for you. Happy belated 4th. "  Her blog is Caribou Crossing Chronicles............of quilts, the weather and other fun stuff.  JANET, email me your choice as to which layer cake you would like and your address of course and it's the the mail tomorrow.

And the other winner was "Mama Spark said... I have enjoyed reading your blog. The quilt mishap was too funny!"  Her blog is Mama Spark's World,    So she will get the layer cake that Janet does not choose, MAMA SPARK send me your snail mail and yours will be in the mail tomorrow too. 

Be sure to come back tomorrow for a Mystery Monday project.