Let's Go to the Hop!

My coffee tastes extra delicious today in my Quiltmaker 100 Blocks Volume 5 mug!

Welcome to my day on the blog tour! I'm so excited to be included with so many great blocks and amazing quilters in this magazine!

My block is inspired by great California weather,cool breezes, sunshine, blue oceans, big puffy white clouds. We're pretty lucky here!

I'm pretty lucky myself, with my block in the magazine and a new line of fabric coming out! This little runner is "made" from the Pam Kitty Love! I can't wait to actually stitch it up this fall when my fabric arrives.

If you feel lucky too, leave a comment to win a copy of the Quiltmaker 100 Blocks Magazine! And be sure to hop on over to Quiltmaker's Quilty Pleasures Blog and see all the people on the list!  I will be picking a winner on Friday!

Aurifil Block of the Month

Woo hoo! it's time for the Aurifil Block of the month again! I love ThimbleAnna's design! It really tells a sweet May Day story, doesn't it?

Be sure and check out Anna's blog if you haven't already! She's really an inspiration! Now go get stitching! Be sure and add your block to the flickr group! 

Saying good-bye

This past weekend Bret cleaned up the back porch and I put the cushion on the swing and then sat down and said good-bye to an old friend.

I started reading Miss Zukas novels back when Frankie was in elementary school. Sitting out in front of her first grade classroom I met a mom who loved to read and we became fast friends. Kind of misfit moms really, not in the cool crowd. She worked at our local bookstore and she introduced me to a whole genre of books that I had only barely scratched the surface of, mysteries. In particular, she introduced me to Miss Zukas.

Miss Zukas was also a misfit, maybe that's why I loved her so much. Anyway, our local independent bookseller is long gone, and my days picking anyone up from school are over, but my love of books remains. And when I recently discovered that there was a new Miss Zukas available, I was thrilled. Then sad, because it's the very last one. And when I finished it last night, I was so happy to have read it and then so sad that it was over.

So anyway. It's May. Let the panic begin!

Monday Monday!

Good morning peeps! How are you? Hope you had a wonderful weekend! Bret is home from his long trip to Ireland and Germany and we're happy to have him back.

I got some sewing in, lots of projects about an hour away from being done. My attention span is the worst. Turns out I like sewing parts, but assembly is my area of weakness.

There's just one peek at things to come. More later! xo

Perfect PamKitty Pink

Ok, another morning on blogger, or what I hope will be morning. I keep scheduling stuff and it never goes off, although the test blog posts do. I thought it was just me, but I found some places where people are having the same problem. Phew, I can relax. I'll just go to old blogger to schedule and hope that it works out. It's so frustrating!

What's not frustrating? The perfect PamKitty Pink, Aurifil 2423. I'm sewing, and also working on getting stuff done for while I'm gone. After market I'm riding up to Minnesota with Roseann and will be spending a week with my cousin Linda and her husband Mark. I've written before how much I love hanging out there. Linda is the perfect hostess and they have a divine house on Rice Creek. New spots for my coffee cup. But also a couple of weeks of no blogging. Especially if I can't get stuff scheduled. Sorry, broken record. I can't seem to let that go.

Have a good day and a great weekend peeps!

(Oh dear, just slipped over to old blogger to schedule this and almost wept when I saw my old platform. That's pitiful, right?)

OMG even old blogger didn't schedule this right! What now?

My super favorite life changing thing.

Click here to "like" it too!

Amy's Turn

Good Morning! It's Blogger's Block of the Month day over at Amy's! She's got a pretty block with lots of options and I hope you'll head over and check it out!

I can't wait to get started picking out fabrics. I can't believe it's already the 25th of April. May is just around the corner. That's exciting and terrifying at the same time. Ok, seriously, head over to Amy's if you haven't already been. No kidding, IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO GET STARTED. I mean it.  Seriously. And remember to update the flickr group! There are a ton of great blocks there! Ok, see you later!

Again, I thought I had that scheduling thing fixed.  What the heck!

Mishaps

Ok, totally didn't learn my lesson. Ran a test, the blog post went off, so I figured it was all good. Had this post set up to go and just for fun I check, still sitting here. WHAT THE HECK?

So yesterday I thought I was pretty clever scheduling my post, but turns out, NOT SO. Darn you blogger. I guess that teaches me not to take it for granted right, always doing what I tell it to do when I tell it to do it!

There's a lesson there I suppose. But I'm not going to learn it, chances are I'll end up doing the same thing. Because there is only one option for scheduling. I looked and there's a place you can select old interface but I'm going to stick with this new one, eventually I'll have to use it. The old one was better to me though. Sorry blogger. I hate to hurt your feelings.

Anyway, that's about it here. Just working away!  Hope you guys are having an awesome week! xo

Good morning peeps! How are you? You can see we're in the sunny warm part of the year now, it was in the low 90s this weekend! I'm working away here in the new blogger editing format.  Kind of weird, but I'm sure like anything else, we'll get used to it, right?  That new preview function really throws you for a loop when you look at it.  Yikes.

Thanks all of you who left comments and sent emails about Pam Kitty Love. I'm very excited to start showing you more! Ok, time to get a jump on the day! Have a good one peoples!

edited.. well looks like I'm not as clever as I thought.. this should have posted first thing this morning! That's what I told it to do anyway!

Pam Kitty Love

Look what's new!

I can finally shout it from the rooftops, my new collection with LakeHouse will be showing at Quilt Market in Kansas City! It's a happy collection of prints that will coordinate with the current PKM collection, and we've broadened the palette to include some new colors! You can see black here, but there's also cornflower, coral and pewter! And don't get me started on my fantastic CHERRY RED!

I can't tell you how wonderful it is to work with Holly. She takes my tiny seed of an idea and turns it into something so lovely I can hardly believe my eyes.I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to work with her and I hope you all will love the collection as much as I do! Have a happy day everybody! xo

Jubilee

Not sure what I'm more excited about, my new Cath K. Jubilee Mug or my new iron. That mug is cute, and although small, I think a fine addition to my mug collection. I am always envious when I see vintage Queen related stuff in magazine and blogs, so I decided to treat myself. I totally deserve it right? And even if I don't, I HAVE IT!

My old Rowenta was leaking like crazy and I needed steam to work with fusible interfacing. Fusible and I aren't really friends so I need the best possible working arrangements. Not sure I love the color or the crazy weird shape but it works and steams like a dream. And if I don't love it, I'm sure it will start leaking in a year and I can get a new one right? Sadly that's the way things go. I've tried other irons but I love the nice sole plate on a Rowenta. I hate it when the iron drags on my patchwork and scrunches it up. Gosh I'm a whiner!

Ok peeps, hope you're having fun! xo

Therapy

Did you have a nice weekend? After some stormy days we had beautiful sunshine. The temps were perfect for opening the windows and letting some fresh air in. Good-bye stale air!

Took a minute to run through TJMaxx the other day. Didn't have what I was looking for but look at this cute mug! Looks kind of like Cath K right? It came with a red silicone top so I can take it in the car!

Back to work peeps! Hope you're having fun! xo

Focus

I am really loving these rainy mornings, even if it means dragging my coffee out to the soggy backyard. I can only imagine what new neighbors in the two story house behind us will think when they see me documenting coffee this way. In my pj's and slippers. And camera. I'll post a sign on the back wall, "AS A MATTER OF FACT, YES, I AM A BLOGGER".. that should be enough, right?

I love just playing around, for every 100 pictures I take, I delete 90, most aren't quite right. I am having so much fun though. And as much as I love flowering trees...

I think we all know what my real focus is.

Anyway, just saw on twitter someone mentioned its twenty some odd days till market. That lit a fire under me, and I'll really really REALLY get busy now. Have a great weekend my super sweet peeps. Keep me posted on the outside world ok? xo

Disarmmed

Why indeed it is that time of year that I'm trotting out loads of pictures of stuff in my yard.

It's quite a challenge though, the yard is a wreck. I admire people with beautiful lush yards with flowers, or even the kind of bland gardener maintained yards. Or at this point anything that doesn't require either a tight shot of a single focus or a ton of creative blurring.

I also admire people who continually have something interesting to say. I'm running a little low in this category as well. Let's change the subject. I use some very minimal html coding here and one thing I type daily is 'div align="justify" ' . And every time I want to type Justified. Do you watch Justified? It's one of my favorite TV shows and last nights season finale. HOLY CRAP.

So I'll just apologize now. I'll continue more interesting content at a later date!

Back at it!

How was the weekend my little Easter Peeps? I'm finally just coming around after a brief brush with a head cold. I thought I'd dodged it but no such luck.

Enough whining about that... glad to be feeling better and back to business. So what have you been up to? I haven't even looked at blogs and barely peeked at twitter. Tell me everything!

April Fool.

So turns out I am the April Fool! It's already April 4th and I haven't blogged the Auriful Block of the month Block. This month is featuring Gail Pan. Her block features the April showers we've been having here in California! Is it raining there?

All these blocks are so wonderful, I admit feeling at tad insecure about my own block! And June will be fast upon us!

Have you seen all the great blocks over at the Flickr Group? People are really getting busy with the embroidery! Do you need help with stitches? Be sure and check out We Love French Knots for inspiration and instruction! Stay tuned over at the Aurifil blog for the pdf for this month's block and a nice interview with Gail!

Alrighty then peeps. I'm so super busy with market stuff I can't even think straight! Is market still exciting to you? I know it's still exciting to me even after all these years of attending! Ok, back to work!

Secret Garden

I'm glad I'm not the only one with the sewing house fantasy, or who likes driving around looking at houses. It's just such a perfect way to pass the time. Sigh.

Do you have a little spot in your yard that you put random crap.. you know, dead potted plants, stuff that needs to be recycled, junk? We have a little spot like that on the side yard. It's where we put the fallen palm fronds that can't go in the organic recycling bin and old pots that need cleaning out. Kind of a holding spot really. Anyway yesterday I went out there to throw something away and can you believe what I found?

My bleeding heart was not only not dead but not dead in a pretty spectacular way, out among the trash bags and old pots.

It was a beautiful surprise waiting for the perfect time to be discovered. It made my day. Have a good day peeps!

Crush

What do you normally do on the weekend? Sometimes on the weekend we go out for a little ride around town. I get a coffee and we just drive, usually looking at houses. I like seeing what other people are doing with their yards or their paint colors, especially downtown, in the old section that has the cute little old houses. I love those houses so much, but could it be any more impractical? We joke around about buying a house down there to have as a sewing house, just fill it up with pretty things and fabric and my sewing machines and people could come sew with me. I'm sure I'd be a crummy housekeeper there, but I don't let it ruin my little sewing fantasy. Can't you just see it? Except I know I would put a bed there and pretty soon we'd all be moved into the sewing house because duh, you have to be close to sewing, and then wow, you live in a too small of house for you life. I really am a buzz kill when it comes to my own sewing dream.

ANYWAY I digress. One of the houses I have a crush on has a wonderful little courtyard between the garage and the house, and there is a pretty chandelier hanging over what looks like a potting bench. They have big canvas looking curtains to pull. The house itself really isn't anything over the top special, but the family has a nice way with things. I'm sure the woman is a little worried, I used to drive by a lot when they were working in the yard. And when they planted this little path of flowering crabapples I died.

It's so charming I can hardly keep myself from getting closer, but but I don't want her to think she has some crazy peeper. I mean it's creepy, I get it.

I had to stop with my new camera and take about a thousand photos on Saturday. It was very stormy but we had a nice break just to try out my different settings. The rain had beaten the blossoms, but still, to me that pink and white and dark whatever that color is, rose? CHERRY? It takes my breath away to look at them.

Ok, I can move it along. This last photo to me is about quilting. I know, it's a bit of a reach, but when I saw it the very first thing I thought of was yes, I can use yellow green with blue green together. It makes me happy.

So peeps, what's making you happy? You guys are super awesome. xo

Friday Morning!

Good morning sweeties! How are you? I've been busier than a bee here, but nothing keeps me from checking in on a Friday if I can help it!

With all the rain we've been having the weeds have gone wild in the backyard. I'm afraid by the next time I get my coffee photo you won't even catch a glimpse of that rabbit. Did you know that I don't rerun my coffee pictures? The coffee is always fresh here! I have hundreds of pictures of coffee, isn't that weird? I'm always trying to catch the illusive steam coming off my cup.

So come Sunday the joke might be on me, blogger is updating and I'm still using the old old platform from when I started. Keep your fingers crossed that PKM will be ok! If it's a mess it will take me a few days to sort it out, but never fear. I'll be back. Happy weekending peeps!!! xo

No birds were harmed in the making of this post.

Yesterday I had to catch up on some stuff around here. Seems like I've been waiting for a sunny day to come around for some good pictures of my Aurifil block of the month block before I sent it off to Pat.

My block has been ready for quite a while and the deadline is looming, so I just got on the ball, got some photos and sent it off. Everything else I did seemed boring... what about you?